Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 3x01 - "That Hope Is You, Part 1"

[RAMA]

"Authority" is an interesting concept. We have an administration in power in the US right now that isn't a bad example of the tenuous nature of authority. Ostensibly a just and good nation that loves to compliment itself, but certainly an imperfect one that has gotten much worse lately. I only bring this up to suggest how much of this "authority" and special Federal Agents (Hired thugs) would we respect as just?

Fast Forward to the future, where you're a fish out of water, and playing along to get by till you're threatened. They're clearly in power, but knowing their origin and habits, why would you respect it?

RAMA

 

[Tuskin38]

On behalf of...

Himself. He took advantage of her trusting him, and stole her stuff.

Wow. Not sure what I can say then. If you don't think these shots constitute a trap, we have very different views on it.

It wasn't a trap, it was a security measure that Burnham triggered after Book lied about what was in that area.

The area they held her in appeared to be some sort of security cell, It has benches.

 

[RAMA]

Not going to slog through all 45 pages, but I feel comfortable with my 6. Did not hate it, did not love it. And the more I think about it, I tend to like it a tad less.

Liked: The scenery and landscapes. The fact that Book is an animal lover. The fact we have diverse alien species represented.

Meh. The comedy. The shootout scenes are approaching Star Wars level bad shooting by the bad guys. Burnham being remakarably uninquisitive with the Star Fleet guy (gotta preserve that for big reveals later!).

Boo. The plot armor. Surviving hitting a ship. Didn't they go to great lengths to avoid that happening in the last episode because it would kill her?

Did we get an answer on Book's Aragorn Ranger powers or glowing forehead? Will have to rewath that part.

Did anyone else get a slight BSG vibe from the scene with the Star Fleet guy sitting at the desk every day? Loke going to meet the Cylons who never show up? Until Six shows up, of course.

The bad shooting is generally a Hollywood trope, if everybody drops dead immediately there would be no action...duh right?

However, there is this...this is also fairly common..untrained people are often really bad shots, take for example these guys 10 feet away from each other and no one gets hit.

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[Uhura's Song]

One more question, apologize if this has been asked and answered, how was Burnham able to destroy the Red Angel suit?

I mean, it had sphere data in it, right? Or am I misremembering from last season? Or was she just destroying it because it enabled time travel?

 

[Muji]

Himself. He took advantage of her trusting him, and stole her stuff.

It wasn't a trap, it was a security measure that Burnham triggered after Book lied about what was in that area.

The area they held her in appeared to be some sort of security cell, It has benches.

Yes. We very strongly disagree.

 

[Tuskin38]

Yes. We very strongly disagree.

I can't see any other way to interpret it. The dialogue in the scenes support my view.

 

[TimeTravellingWhale]

One more question, apologize if this has been asked and answered, how was Burnham able to destroy the Red Angel suit?

I mean, it had sphere data in it, right? Or am I misremembering from last season? Or was she just destroying it because it enabled time travel?

She initiated a self destruct sequence, but we dont know if it succeeded

 

[Uhura's Song]

The bad shooting is generally a Hollywood trope, if everybody drops dead immediately there would be no action...duh right?

However, there is this...this is also fairly common..untrained people are often really bad shots, take for example these guys 10 feet away from each other and no one gets hit.

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For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

Yeah, I am not saying it is unique to this episode, it bugs me in other shows & movies as well. Star Wars being the champ. Even when the characters are in danger, they are not in danger.

I mean, I just think it would be better if they dialed it back a little. Surrounded by 5-10 guards and nobody can get a clean shot? It is just ridiculous.

 

[Bollie74]

There was marked improvement with that in Picard.

Agreed, I wish she had been written like that from the beginning.

 

[Jadeb]

They're not criminals though, they're the heroes.

And if this was anyone's first time watching the series they would have seen them as the heroes of the episode. I don't see how they could see it any other way. Black characters or not.

For a long time, police and journalists were always portrayed as heroes as well. Now it’s a little more complicated. Point being, perhaps we should not accept everything at face value.

Do you think Book and Burnham’s theft and killing were heroic?

 

[Muji]

I can't see any other way to interpret it. The dialogue in the scenes support my view.

Other than once again disagreeing, spending ages going into the laws of the planet, the authority of whoever owns and operates the station, then I don't really see what more I can offer to the discussion. I certainly haven't changed my mind about the rebuttal of the original criticism.

 

[MisterD]

For a long time, police and journalists were always portrayed as heroes as well. Now it’s a little more complicated. Point being, perhaps we should not accept everything at face value.

Do you think Book and Burnham’s theft and killing were heroic?

Honestly, I don't even necessarily get the vibe that Burnham and Book were about to get shot by the securitys. And the fact that the opinions on the whole scene have a wide range is pretty interesting.

 

[RAMA]

One more question, apologize if this has been asked and answered, how was Burnham able to destroy the Red Angel suit?

I mean, it had sphere data in it, right? Or am I misremembering from last season? Or was she just destroying it because it enabled time travel?

The Discovery itself has the sphere data which is why it had to go into the future. Burnham promised Spock she would send the suit to give the 7th and last red signal, which she did, then I assumed it would destroy itself so no one could use the time technology. We saw the 7th and last signal in the season 2 finale when Spock was on the Enterprise so we have to assume it worked.

My impression was they were not discussing actual knowledge of the existence of Control back in the 23rd century if they stayed, they assumed it was destroyed in the dialogue, but it seemed that Burnham's mother ran the numbers, and any possible existence of Control matched with the presence of the sphere data created a mathematical probability that Control would destroy the universe.

 

[Nerys Myk]

The fact that Book has magic powers wouldn’t have made me think twice, had it not been for the other choices made in the episode. It’s the sum of its parts.

Tuvok and Chakotay ( as the Native American variation of the trope) are much more Magic Negros than Book is.

TBH, I think the issue isn’t just the ep’s sensitivity to its Black characters but the show’s taste for violence and ugliness in general.

So I guess "Magic Negro" is off the table?
So that leaves:
Michael and Book fighting.
The killing of the guards and the guys wanting to eat the space worm.
Michael taking the dilithium.
Still not seeing how this is insensitive. Again, it sounds like placing Black characters in box be not letting them do things that white characters have been doing for Centuries in media.
Star Trek has always been violent. It was as violent as TV would allow in the decades it was made. Standards have changed and Star Trek has changed with it. It not going to use 80/90s standards. Though as "violence" goes, being blasted apart by the "hand cannons" doesn't seem that far removed from the glow and gone phaser hits from earlier Trek. Even the worm gulped and swallowed the bad guys rather that tearing them apart like Ripper in Season one.
Not sure what "ugliness" refers to.

Did we get an answer on Book's Aragorn Ranger powers or glowing forehead? Will have to rewath that part.

It's something his people do, IIRC. But it's only been one episode. No reason to solve every mystery in one sweep.

 

[Bollie74]

I still don't know why it being an alternate timeline matters.

Agreed, wasn't it always going to be an alternate timeline given the tampering Momma Burnham did + removing Discovery and the sphere data from the current timeline? The real timeline has Control getting the sphere data and wiping biological life out...

 

[Isaac Lawrence]

One more question, apologize if this has been asked and answered, how was Burnham able to destroy the Red Angel suit?

I mean, it had sphere data in it, right? Or am I misremembering from last season? Or was she just destroying it because it enabled time travel?

No, Discovery has the Sphere data. They wanted to upload it into her mother's suit, but remember, Control was stealing the data so they had to stop.

And I believe she sent her suit back when she did because that was the only time that the wormhole was going to be open, and she had to send the seventh and final signal back to Spock so as to not affect everything; butterfly effect and whatnot.

Or so I believe...

Yeah, what Rama said...

For a long time, police and journalists were always portrayed as heroes as well. Now it’s a little more complicated. Point being, perhaps we should not accept everything at face value.

Do you think Book and Burnham’s theft and killing were heroic?

In terms of the story, yeah. And heroic as in "these are the good guys." And the green guys and the blue guys are the bad guys.

Could they have written a story with no killing? Sure, absolutely.

In terms of what you previously said, about common and unfortunate stereotypes. If they had Burnham and Book speaking in broken-English or something crazy like that, then oh, hell yeah... It would have been like, what in the world are these writers doing?!

As for what we got... I don't see any fault anywhere. I really don't. And for Book and his abilities... I really don't see anything objectionable about that either.

Discovery I feel has done a pitch perfect job with it's black characters. I have not seen a single instance where I was like oh god why did they do that. Burnham's emotions and the like, people can find fault with that and that's fine. That's totally unrelated. But just as a depiction of a black character on a science fiction show, I'm not seeing any missteps.

EDIT: I guess I need to watch "Code of Honor" to find fault. But that's Next Generation and not Discovery. But yeah, I have never seen that episode only heard about it. I'll watch it over the next day or two.

 

[SJGardner]

Regardless of where they drew their authority, the dilithium was not hers to take.

She was kind of locked into a single course of action after, in a drug-addled state, I might add, she saw the guards raise their guns at her again after she led them to Book, and Cosmo started to beg them to let him kill her. So she made the split-second conclusion that if she didn't get out of this place as soon as possible, she would probably never get a chance to reach Discovery any time soon even if she survived, and escaping together with Book seemed like the only way to achieve that. And Book's ship needed dilithium after she had broken his recrystallizer. What else should she have done? Stand there doing nothing and hope that the guards who seemed nothing more than the hired thugs of some warlord at this point would not shoot her and would not only let her go but even allow her to use the comms free of charge just because she asks nicely?

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Someone, please catch me up.

Are these the facts?

1. A group of people want Star Trek to stop making race or identity an issue.
2. Star Trek produces an episode without referencing the race or identities of the characters or actors.
3. The first group of people suddenly notice issues related to race or identity/.

 

[Jadeb]

So I guess "Magic Negro" is off the table?
So that leaves:
Michael and Book fighting.
The killing of the guards and the guys wanting to eat the space worm.
Michael taking the dilithium.
Still not seeing how this is insensitive. Again, it sounds like placing Black characters in box be not letting them do things that white characters have been doing for Centuries in media.

You’re missing a few:

Let’s see. We introduce a new Black male character and he and our Black female lead immediately get into a physical confrontation. Despite this, she becomes his companion. He screws her over, then they steal some stuff and get in a gunfight. They kill a bunch of people trying to escape. Now we need to make the present better by going back to the ways of the distant past.

Remember when Nichelle refused to say the line, “Guess who’s coming to dinner?” Wonder what she’d make of this script.

 

[Nerys Myk]

For a long time, police and journalists were always portrayed as heroes as well.

Nah, ever hear of the Sheriff of Nottingham or Charles Foster Kane? Folks who abuse their authority and are put in their place by outlaws is a very old trope.