Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 2x14 - "Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2"

[Rahul]

I like technobabble too, but only when it’s used in a “realistic” way. Future scientists and engineers will speak about futuristic science and engineering, but there’s a difference between that and story McGuffins used to excuse lazy writing.

Indeed. One example where I personally thought technobabble was really well executed in this very episode was the (hurried) assemble of the red angel suit: That was a lot of tech-tech words. But it also was extremely obvious what they were doing, that they were experts at what they were doing, that there was a bigg ticking clock and everybody was stressed out, and they still succeeded in a very complex and complicated bit of engineering. I thought that was a genuine great piece of intense drama!

On another note - not really a slight against the episode, more an observation about myself - I kinda tuned out from the battles at time. Maybe I'm just becoming an old fart. But I had the same feeling in the last half hour of multiple superhero movies, and most of the recent Star Wars movies. It was incredible for a television show how this was probably around 50 minutes of constant action (almost like the obligatory "battle-episode" each season of GoT) - but for me it kinda' blended all together after a while.

Especially since I was watching on a smaller screen, I couldn't see the hundreds of drones half the times, and the capital ships of both sides were just hanging around stationary, with lots of boom-boom going on in the space between them. I honestly feel the opening "Battle at the Binary Stars" was a better made Star Trek battle, with the big ships moving around and manoevering. But hell - I'm a guy that prefers 1:1 battles or battles with <10 ships on Star Trek. So that's not an objective claim, just a personal preference.

On the plus side, I loved how much it felt like a real harrowing battle on board the ships. Yes, they may overdid it with sparks, but it felt like a real battlefield (something not even seen during the fuckin' klingon war) - with chaos all around, sickbay getting completely crammed, and wounded and death overall. That felt real, and intense, and gave it stakes.

As I said - I really enjoyed the episode on it's own! I'm just disappointed about the "classify and forget everything"-part, and not really sold on the future course of the show.

 

[Nyotarules]

Her actual, legal name is "Number One"?

Yep its the future you can call yourself whatever you like..

I probably need to watch again, but I didn't get the Cornwell/Pike dialogue. It sounded like she knew all about his future. And it made no character sense that Pike wouldn't insist on being the one to die there. But he has a date with the beep beep chair, so he couldn't.

Sisko would have done a 'I pick my own destiny line' and not ended up in a beep beep chair

The V'draysh in "Calypso" is supposedly the Federation according to Michael Chabon

The Federation become the bad guys when Earth (Terra) does a Terraxit or Earth becomes the bad guy when xenophobic Terra Prime candidate Marie Le Pen-Farage-Trump becomes President of Earth

I would have thought McCoy would be the person farthest from Spock.

If they meant McCoy then he was a border line Vulcanphobe, some friend.

Great episode, despite some plot holes.

Don't understand how Yeoh can lead a Section31 series in the 23rd century, when Discovery just went a 1000 years into the future permanently with her onboard though...

I bet she beamed off the ship at the last minute to get dinner on the Kelpian vessel.

 

[Tuskin38]

No, they covered that when Number One came onto the Discovery to talk to Pike. It was the $#@! Holographic Comms system that Pike had 100% removed.

No, Pike only assumed it was the comm system, none of the dialogue actually said it was actual cause.

Edit:

I mis-remembered the line.

You know, he warned me. The damn holographic comm system. Tell Louvier to rip out the entire system.

 

[Noname Given]

No, Pike only assumed it was the comm system, none of the dialogue actually said it was actual cause.

But..but..it's PIKE - he certainly knows his own shipo; and even his French Chief Engineer agreed with Pike, and the French rarely agree on anything (Hey much like Star trek fans...)

 

[Kor]

Right, so, I'm re-watching and even Cornwell calls Number One "Number One". I'm still looking out to hear "Una".

Supposedly it's when Pike calls her back to the bridge from where the torpedo is lodged into the ship, so he can go join Cornwell.

Kor

 

[Tuskin38]

Supposedly it's when Pike calls her back to the bridge from where the torpedo is lodged into the ship, so he can go join Cornwell.

Kor

Around 40 minutes in I believe.

Michelle Paradise already confirmed she's called Una anyways.

 

[Lord Garth]

Supposedly it's when Pike calls her back to the bridge from where the torpedo is lodged into the ship, so he can go join Cornwell.

Okay, that's good to know. I'm still not there yet. Michael just went back to send the first signal.

 

[Tuskin38]

D7s <3

The nacelles are angled inwards just like on the TOS and Movie models.

 

[Succubint]

There was more than one reinforced blast door where the torpedo was, it was in the dialogue that there were multiple blast doors initiated. The one that Kat had to close manually from her side was the one that was broken and couldn't come down remotely. That's why they had to go down there in the first place. There was a big gaping hole and weakened structure where the torpedo had breached the hull. That was the path of least resistance. As long as there was a gap in the blast door walls, the explosion could go further into the hull and possibly hit more critical systems, which was the concern. With the all blast doors down, the blast would still hurt the ship, but hopefully the brunt of it would be forced outward.

I can't find the post now, but I saw someone post about this on reddit that the physics are sound and it's how demolitions are done underwater or something. Something to do with shaped charges. As I recall there was also talk of a blast shield at some point. Will have to do a re-watch.

 

[Lord Garth]

I love when Georgiou high-kicks Terminator Leland.

 

[Lord Garth]

Around 40 minutes in I believe

To pin it down further: Pike calls Number One "Una" right around the 41:10-mark.

Michelle Paradise already confirmed she's called Una anyways.

True. But I have my own style. Which is: "Look, this is where they said it on screen. You can see for yourself!"

 

[Alan Roi]

Indeed. One example where I personally thought technobabble was really well executed in this very episode was the (hurried) assemble of the red angel suit: That was a lot of tech-tech words. But it also was extremely obvious what they were doing, that they were experts at what they were doing, that there was a bigg ticking clock and everybody was stressed out, and they still succeeded in a very complex and complicated bit of engineering. I thought that was a genuine great piece of intense drama!

On another note - not really a slight against the episode, more an observation about myself - I kinda tuned out from the battles at time. Maybe I'm just becoming an old fart. But I had the same feeling in the last half hour of multiple superhero movies, and most of the recent Star Wars movies. It was incredible for a television show how this was probably around 50 minutes of constant action (almost like the obligatory "battle-episode" each season of GoT) - but for me it kinda' blended all together after a while.

Especially since I was watching on a smaller screen, I couldn't see the hundreds of drones half the times, and the capital ships of both sides were just hanging around stationary, with lots of boom-boom going on in the space between them. I honestly feel the opening "Battle at the Binary Stars" was a better made Star Trek battle, with the big ships moving around and manoevering. But hell - I'm a guy that prefers 1:1 battles or battles with <10 ships on Star Trek. So that's not an objective claim, just a personal preference.

On the plus side, I loved how much it felt like a real harrowing battle on board the ships. Yes, they may overdid it with sparks, but it felt like a real battlefield (something not even seen during the fuckin' klingon war) - with chaos all around, sickbay getting completely crammed, and wounded and death overall. That felt real, and intense, and gave it stakes.

As I said - I really enjoyed the episode on it's own! I'm just disappointed about the "classify and forget everything"-part, and not really sold on the future course of the show.

I find most of Tilly's technobabble is pretty on point.

 

[Noname Given]

All the little niggles too, (the stuff that doesn't break the episode but make you go 'Huh?') like the indestructible blast door (the explosion takes out a massive chunk of the saucer but doesn't even singe the door?) or Discovery still going hell-bent for leather into the rift after hearing that Control is already (reasonably easily) neutralized.

I originally thought "Yeah, that's a bit much, BUT then I eremember teh scene of the destruction of the U.S.S. Yamato from TNG S2 - "Contagion" (probably on of the best TNG S2 episodes); but here's the clip:

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At 32 seconds in, notice how the surface layer of the Saucer section of the Yamato dissolves - but a lot of the underlying structure stays somewhat intact as it drifts off. It's the result of anti-matter in the general area; and I would posit that's what the Photon Torpedo did - release a large amount of anti-matter and that's why the 1701 Saucer section looked like it did.

But my point? If you have a Bulkhead (and possibly force field enhanced locally too) designed to protect areas of the ship from stuff like the release of anti-matter; as long as you ARE behind it, it's not a big deal...

[Anyway, that's MY rationalization, and I'm sticking to it...]

 

[Alan Roi]

But..but..it's PIKE - he certainly knows his own shipo; and even his French Chief Engineer agreed with Pike, and the French rarely agree on anything (Hey much like Star trek fans...)

Come on, its a well known fact there's a right way, there's a wrong way, and then there's the French way.

 

[Alan Roi]

Sisko would have done a 'I pick my own destiny line' and not ended up in a beep beep chair
.

He picked ehe destiny the prophets mapped out for him?

 

[Nyotarules]

He picked ehe destiny the prophets mapped out for him?

Not always, he got married and had another child

 

[ITDUDE]

^^^
See DS9 S6 - "Sacrifice Of Angels"

There were like 5 of them there. It was pew pew between mostly all capital ships there. Fighters were few and far between

 

[Alan Roi]

Not always, he got married and had another child

Which he was compelled to abandon.

Nothing preventing Pike from doing the same. That is unless he was standing to close to that blast door.

 

[Noname Given]

There were like 5 of them there

If you listen to the dialogue of Sisko on the Defiant bridge, he's relaying orders to various fighter (and Starship) "Wings" as to what Cardassian and Dominion ships to engage, etc.

 

[kitik]

I quite enjoyed the episode. Tons of fun, lots of great moments, lots of great special effects.

Too bad there was so much that was just utter nonsense, but it wasn't bad enough to detract from the episode as a whole. Way more to like than to dislike, and it certainly sets up some intriguing questions for the future.

But the suicide ultra blast door (with a window!!!), the completely unexplained capabilities of the 20 year old suit to stop the Ba'ul ship, the bizarre Culber/Stamets reuniting, Georgiou somehow hid the sphere data, etc etc etc copying the numerous other issues people have pointed out in this thread, that's disappointing. That said, this whole season was based on the idea that 7 mysterious signals appeared, and then we had to wait for them to appear to figure out where they appeared. What? Brain-drippingly stupid from the very beginning.

But like I said, lots to like. My favorite probably being the end of Ash Tyler on this show. I know he's going to continue on with the Section 31 show, but hopefully they'll find something far more interesting for him to do there, because he just did not work on DSC. Not as a romantic interest for Michael, not as a spy serving with people who didn't trust him, just not at all. But I'm willing to give them another chance.

Number One's name was funny. Tilly was well-used in this one. Spock and Michael were as great as always. The rotating hallway was cool. And while it made no sense for a show called Discovery to focus entirely on the Enterprise at the very end, if we never get a Pike/Spock show, I'm very grateful for the little sendoff we got for them. (Yes, I also appreciate that the writers didn't feel the need to have a crazy cliffhanger at the very end, and left the future of season 3 a complete blank slate for them to discover next season. Smart move.)

The one thing that bothered me the most in the episode was the Stamets/Culber part. I love both of them, and they make a fantastic pair, but I feel like I totally missed something super important. Culber went from I'm-going-to-the-Enterprise to you're-my-everything in the blink of an eye. Or so it seemed to me. What did I miss? Someone help me out here. I'm going to read through this thread now to see what in the world my leaky brain accidentally erased, because I'm sure someone else explained it. (But if someone else wants to answer my question, I'll gladly come back and check the end of the thread before making it through every single page.)