This episode was hands down
fantastic. I only gave it a 9 because DSC has been butter on a roll this season and am fully expecting to be at least once more completely blown away.
So much good in this, a strong A/B story with a GOOD amount of comedy from our C story (which, overall is the weakest of the three, but still entertaining). The character pieces and intimate moments completely sell this episode though. Honestly, we would have seen each of these stories as their own A stories back in the day with their own half-hearted B stories, but this...this was strong, strong, strong. Pacing was a little hectic at first, but I think that overall the episode handled the three stories very fairly, with a strong enough connecting theme through the first two that really steals the show from Tilly and Stamets.
I loved it. This is a great example of what I liked (and disliked) about ENT, where we would see the DNA of very familiar episodes mixed together into something new and maybe half as good most of the time. I love seeing Star Trek in Star Trek, but if you're going to do something that we've seen before, it should be done in a way that sells it as a different, new piece. For me, this was the best 'remix' episode I could have asked for, a successful evolution of the thinking that went behind ENT writing, with such a wonderfully Star Trek alien with a wonderfully Star Trek purpose. Attempting to write its own epitaph to whomever might be able to listen... powerful sci-fi concept, and so lovely and sad.
Not gonna lie, Doug Jones had me. I knew in my lemon heart that he couldn't possibly die, that we would have known, that someone on this board would have found some random ass statement from him that would hint him leaving and this would have been it. But I wasn't ready to believe that because I was preparing for the ultimate heart break it would have caused if I didn't mentally prepare myself while he was on his death bed of grass. The writing was
really strong in this episode, and connecting the themes of family, brothers, sisters, life and death, and the underlying theme of
forgiveness certainly brought a tear-to-me-eye. I loved how it all fit together
so perfectly, and yeah, it could be called hamfisted drama, but its Star Trek! Fist those hams till the cows come home if this is how they're going to do it. I knew I was in for something heart breaking when all the bridge crew stood up, which was SO MUCH MORE MEANINGFUL now that we know their goddamn names and they have lines and the crew actually seem to be something akin to friends.
AND A MEETING! THEY HAD A MEETING!
Why was Michael at the head of the conference table? She isn’t the leading rank there.
Also, is it English or Federation standard? They’ve said both.
Saru probably deferred to her since he was literally dying, but also, she is heading the signal research and that appears to be what the meeting was about? I forget, I was too excited they were actually having a meeting. The meeting had already started, so Saru might have began it off-camera before he gave the floor to Michael as we see in many conference room scenes.
As for Federation Standard and English, my guess would be that Federation Standard is the official name for the language throughout the Federation, what aliens refer to it (as in the alien word for Federation + the alien word for Standard) but English is the English-speaking, Earth-specific name for it. Like how China is the English word for China, not the Chinese word. Or how the official language of China is Mandarin, but there are a billion different Chinese languages, but we often just say, 'He speaks Chinese.'
And it was very, very nice to see the 'old' Stamets back in action. Just as I suspected, he and Jett Reno paired together is amazing and I want a whole spinoff about them on a SCE ship together just fixing things and arguing. Just literally the two of them. Plus, the majority of the technobabble was
actual science but delivered in the Star Trek complicated to analogy way. I love that it's almost become a running joke within the writing to make that analogy so obvious, I half expect the character to wink at the screen when they say it.
"Like a balloon! ...and something bad happens!"
- Fry
I can't wait to watch it again tonight!
Fond Memories elicited:
-
Tin Man
- V'ger
-
Galaxy's Child
-
Disaster
-
Imaginary Friend (Maybe this wasn't exactly a
fond memory)
-
TWOK (albeit a much more sinister version of the radiation scene, but also the emotional gut-punch of Kirk/Spock/Michael/Saru)
-
TVH (Specifically the transmission and 'DRILLING HOLES IN HIS HEAD WON'T SOLVE ANYTHING!' except it did!)
