Finally caught up on the thread!
I just said the same thing in another thread!
Also, it's interesting to note that this is basically the same way nuKirk got to nuSpock in ST'09. To deny that he is capable of love.
KIRK: What is it like not to feel anger or heartbreak or the need to stop at nothing to avenge the death of the woman who gave birth to you?
SPOCK: Back away from me...
KIRK: You feel nothing! It must not even compute for you! You never loved her!
Yes, I felt it was the kid equivalent of that moment in ST09, but worse. It's one thing to lose your logic and beat up some smug guy you don't really like, but if you're a little kid and your own big sister uses a racial slur against you? Even if you understand it later, you'd still resent it. I don't care how logical you were.
Perhaps it's because I'm in the same demographic as the actress playing Spock's big sister that I see it that way. I mean, I tried to think of having an elder brother who was from the majority racial/ethnic group trying to protect me by using a particular word that I despise and have never used (some say that rappers and others have "reclaimed" it -- I never bought it, but it's an internal matter).
I don't think I could ever forgive the person who'd used the slur, although I'd accept an apology and perhaps could be cool and cordial toward them. I would never consider them family again.
I've read some saying that they called their siblings worse, and -- no, not really. And actually, no, people aren't fine, even if they say they are and it's no big deal. Maybe those who are minimizing what it means to be called a racial slur are not thinking it through. And that's not because you're terrible people, it's just that as humans, we tend to relate to things that affect us more.
There is a reason why Leonard Nimoy received that famous letter from a biracial viewer in the 1960s. From his reply, you can tell he got it. I'd hope fans would, too.
that was a huge missed opportunity on two fronts: the talosians didn’t exactly feel like an organic or even worthwhile inclusion in the story, and burnham’s name calling wasn’t as revolutionary or emotional as the writers wanted it to be. i almost wish the old theory that burnham and spock were romantically involved proved to be correct, at least that would’ve had some weight to it.
the most substance the episode had was the scenes involving pike and vina, but those were brief.
i don’t usually get too bothered by direction, but this week’s distorted lenses, dutch angles, and lighting flares really took me out of the episode. what happened to the crisp, clear direction of earlier in the season?
I'm glad that DSC had more sense than to Game of Thrones their plot. It would have done a disservice to both characters. I really enjoyed the sibling dynamics here. In a lot of modern fiction, we get romance, bromance, or friendship, and the occasional parent-child storyline, but there aren't always siblings around. I am enjoying this more than I thought I would.
Yep. Lots of folks wishing really really hard for Burnham to erase herself from the timeline.
Of course. That's par the course for women leads, and especially for Black women leads of genre shows. We saw the same thing with Sleepy Hollow a few years back.
I will say that I initially
really disliked the decision to tie Burnham into the Sarek-Grayson family. I thought it was so
silly and unnecessary. After all, it's been 25 years since Sisko and he certainly wasn't tied to existing characters. He had his own family of origin, nuclear-ish family, and chosen family. Ben was well developed without leaning on existing canon. As a lifelong fan of SFF who's also Black, seeing Ben Sisko, Jake, Jen and Cassidy -- and let's not forget his Dad in New Orleans -- was
everything when I was younger.
So I confess that I was annoyed by the whole "Michael Burnham is Spock's foster sister" business at first, and was only partially convinced last season. There's also the sticky issue of transracial adoption, which I'm agnostic about, and only partially applies in this case because the family's half-alien, but we
still haven't seen Burnham's birth parents. That's sort of a trope among Black SF and genre fans. (We joke about it. A lot.)
Season 2 has convinced me. It works. I've thought everything they've done with the storyline has been incredible. The only thing better would have been to fold in Sybok, which is a hugely missed opportunity. You'd then have an eldest brother who's an unconventional thinking "black sheep" type, but 100% Vulcan, who's a stepson to Amanda. Foster/adopted middle sister Michael, all human, with huge survivor guilt issues. Then there's Spock, half-human and half-Vulcan, the youngest in the family.
For some fans, that'd be too soapy. But I
like family stories. Some of us would be pleased. And they haven't overdone it; it's not in every episode. It works and I hope they don't drop it totally after this season.
I'd call the episode the show's best moment so far. I do like the series more than most of the others but that's because I tend to think of them by how well I liked the crews/actors. Disc and Enterprise are my favorites far above the others except for TOS which I couldn't honestly say whether that's just nostalgia or not.
You're a 22nd and 23rd century fan, like me! DS9 is my favorite among the series, but I definitely like TOS and the prequels. TNG and VOY are great, too, but I don't binge them in the same way.
It finally happened.
Jammer gave a
four-star review to an episode of
Discovery. His equivalent of a 10. There were a few close-but-no-cigars before, but "If Memory Serves" is the one that finally broke through.
See? It's not just us.
