Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 3x02 - "Far From Home"

I vastly prefer the first and second seasons of Enterprise. As for Discovery, the second season was better than the first.

 

This raises a question though. We know that everyone who stayed on the Discovery did so by choice - because they had some connection to Michael. Why would Gene do so? He really wanted to leave all his friends/family behind in order to get insulted/ignored by officers and scoop up brain matter off the floor?

 

I found this episode pretty muddled in terms of its themes with the whole "bar fight" aspect. I mean going through the seesaw:

• Saru stands as a force for "the Starfleet way" and insists on going in nonviolently
• Georgiou serves as his foil, wanting to go in guns blazing
• Although Saru is correct in his intuitions regarding the actual miners, the Zara and his gang show the limitations of "the Starfleet way"
• Georgiou shows up, kicks ass and takes names, directly undercutting the theme of nonviolence
• She slaughters all of the mooks/extras, leaving only Zara alive, at which point Saru intervenes to stop his execution (named characters lives are more valuable than mooks after all).
• He then leaves it up to the locals, and they decide not to kill him outright, just leave him to die in the cold overnight.
• This is presented as a victory for "the Starfleet way"

It sort of gives me flashbacks to Season 1, when it was considered to be a great thing that Michael came up with the idea of letting L'Rell have the hydro-bomb, effectively holding her entire planet hostage and installing a dictator over the Klingon Empire. Beats genocide I suppose but it's still really weird thematically. Also they did a similar thing last week, with empty themes about the nobility of Starfleet juxtaposed with slaughtering security mooks.

I don't expect Starfleet to turn the other cheek every single time of course. It's never done that. But I believe in show, not tell when it comes to narrative. This episode may have told us the "Starfleet way" is morally preferable, but it showed us that Georgiou's ass-kicking gets the job done.

 

Goes back to Teddy's thing of Talk softly but carry a big stick quote. You have your ideals of wanting to to talk your way out of problems, to do the right thing, even at the wrong times. But Saru in the bar should have known that at some point, talking is pointless, and moves into "Agressive Negotiations" phase.
Saru was basically getting kicked in the nuts, and saying please sir some more just not to piss off the bad guy, even to the point of letting Tilly go freeze. I appreciate that Saru was showing the locals "the federation way" of peace, but the locals also want to see strength to stand up to bullies when needed.
Prefer Kirks way, I'll talk to you, but If I see Talk isn't going to work, I'll phaser you till it does work philosphy.

 

I completely agree. Pretty standard ep for the most part but again very enjoyable and watchable.

 

In the maquis there were many humans and that did not mean that the earth was no longer part of the federation, there are a thousand years in the future thousands of planets must be inhabited by different alien races from different parts of the federation.

 

For all we know Zara could be a recurring villain (like say Blofeld in James Bond). Each time you think he's out, they pull him back in! There's also Lex Luthor on Superman. What do you think?

 

I really liked the scenes in the village, and the characterisation of Saru, Tilly & Georgiou there, although it was a bit pat and quickly resolved (and so black and white in terms of the villains ), but I must admit I started skipping the crash and engineering/jeffrey tube scenes and similar on the ship - I would have loved a conversation between the characters, but it generally felt like a lot of scenes overblown - and slow! - tension with the ice, with the tech issues, etc. (which really recalled the S2 finale which I felt was so much of a similar feel). Again slow tension of everyone's scared faces at the end of the episode waiting for the call. The need for such - false - tension feels unnecessary. Also I really don't buy 'i stayed for Airiam' or other pieces of characterisation, or many other moments, in part because everyone beyond the central characters is so underdeveloped

Lovely looking, but a mixed bag, as always

 

I think that they did First they talk about doing a thermal roll to let the shields take some of the brunt. Then Saru orders the graviton beam to be readied and to use the deflector shields in burst to cushiion their landing. They fire what is presumably the graviton beam. One of them says the shields are off-line. But they survive. Then the bridge crew erupts in applause and congrats Detmer.

So plenty of nonsense mumbo-jumbo, and if it makes you feel better, feel free to fanwank that the crew is saying, "Holy shit, we were lucky to pull that one out of our ass!"

In the beginning of the episode, Saru asks for status reports. The crew gives them. There is apparent damage to some of the internal systems. Reno literally says because of that damage, "We can't fly." Now you can either take it as a given that early on they were able to assess that there was no structural or other problem that would prevent the ship from launching, or that they decided to fix the known problem that would prevent the ship from flying and then do an assessment later to see if there were other problems.

At the end of the episode before the attempted liftoff, the crew updates Saru on stuff again. No one mentions anything suggesting structural damage. Saru talks about how starships weren't designed to lift off like they are about to do but they have no choice. So again, you can either take it as a given that Discovery didn't sustain any structural damage that prevented it from being able to fly, or that in the time that they had with all able-bodied crew and the robtots constantly working, they were able to fix whatever structural damage there was.

Two years(?) of experiences are not necessarily going to change entirely the character one spent decades creating. This seems like a Catch-22 to me. If she had acted braver and bolder, it would seem inconsistent with her established character.

I think part of the point is that Stamets is often a control freak to the point of being an unreasonable person. From injecting himself with Tardigrade DNA to wanting to jump back to duty when he couldn't even spell the sentence his husband gave him, he aggressively wants to do what he thinks is necessary for the good of the ship, even if that thing is dangerous and illogical.

Even having been told that Saru ordered everyone to work in pairs and knowing that he just barely got on his feet, Stamets says he can do the job on his own. Jett expressly talks about Nilson, another crewmember who could do the task, and Stamets says no and insists on doing it himself. Hopefully with the benefit of hindsight, Stamets sees that his stubbornness was a bad idea. Or not. Neither people in real life nor characters always digest the lessons that experience should teach them.

There are a lot of crew to follow. By nature of the format, it could be something that takes a couple episodes to pay off or it could be that they've dropped it. Too soon to say what to make of it.

First, it is rare that we have seen a Starfleet officer in similar circumstances to Burnham's (fresh off learning that her deceased mother was alive and losing her again, seeing that her brother had been insane and accused of murder, facing an existential threat to humanity, thrust into an unfamiliar time and space, not knowing what happened to the rest of her ship,)

Second, I don't see anything she said or did as falling apart. Honestly, it seems to me that it is remarkable that she is as together as she is. Again, sort of a Catch-22: if she was more together, she would be labeled as a Mary Sue (more than she already is).

Third, in TOS alone, here's a partial list of Starfleet personnel who fell apart under various circumstances:

Galileo Seven: Basically everyone but Spock and Scotty freaked out at being marooned, at a death among the crew and facing the giant aliens of the week.

Star Trek 2009: Kirk when he is marooned on the planet that Spock Prime happens to be on is about as "falling apart" as Burnham is.

Omega Glory: Captain Tracy has gone full Col. Kurtz by the time we meet him

Patterns of Force: John Gill thought the best way to help the people of the planet was to institute Nazism.

The Ultimate Computer: Daystrom, despite his brilliance, has a mental breakdown.

Whom Gods Would Destroy: Garth, a highly decorated officer, is literally insane.

Maybe you should re-evaluate your assumptions about what a Starfleet officer is or might be.

I think you are exaggerating a lot here.

First, I don't think the looks of the crew are necessarily that of being mind-boggled.that Michael was there for a year. There are probably a lot of things they are processing, including nearly being stuck on Hoth-light, the fear that they were dealing with hostile aliens and were mostly defenseless, and their relief at it actually not just being a friendly face but Michael herself.

Second, I don't know if the mechanics of time travel have been so established for the crew of the Discovery. We the audience know that time travel is arbitrary that going through it could mean that despite using the same method of travel, two objects can end up in completely different times/spaces. But we the audience know this because we have a number of in-universe examples of it. Where/when have the crew of the Discovery (excluding Michael) been given this knowledge?

 

A solid 8 from me. I didn’t find it quite as engaging as the first episode, but still found plenty to enjoy. I think the weaker aspect was the bar holdup, I found the villain a little bland and uninteresting as Trek villains go.

BUT, you know what? I’m loving the tone and feel of this season. This is the freshest Trek has felt in decades, and the new setting provides so much scope for storytelling. Everything seems new again.

The ship scenes were the best for me. First of all, I can’t stress how glad I am that Stamets and Culber are a thing again. I wasn’t a fan of the aggressive traumatised s2 Culber, but everything is forgiven. The chemistry between actors is incredible and the relationship just feels so natural and genuine in a way so so few Trek romances can claim. Loved the sparring— “you’re going to survive and get through this so I can kill you.” Speaking of sparring, Reno was awesome, too,the character adds a real acerbic spice to the cast.

I enjoyed Georgeau too. Though she’s a highly controversial character, i think most are missing the point that she’s a wild card—a chaotic neutral character whose unpredictability adds an extra element to the story. Michelle Yeoh is just killing it and devilishly charismatic.

Oh, Saru was fantastic, displaying just how much he has grown as a character, and what a brilliant captain he is...having learnt how to do it (Pike) and how not to do it (Lorca). His relationship with Tilly is rather sweet, and Tilly herself is an absolute gem. “I don’t have an authoritative name.” “What?” “What?”

I have to say, the final reunion with Michael gave me the feels.

 

I saw a theory on reddit that the Burnham we saw at the end of this episode isn't the real Burnham. The crew will probably find her locked up in Book's brig or something much later in the season, and this is a changeling that Book is using to use the crew to further his evil plot.

 

Did anyone else notice this? At the end when they're struggling to get out of the ice, Rhys asks Saru what he wants them to do, and we get everyone's reaction shot, watch the left of the screen just as the camera passes over Georgiou, and you'll see somebody's hand "conducting" off to Georgiou's right.

I really enjoyed this episode, and I'm looking forward to next week's reunion and exploring more of this future. Saying that, Saru should have taken Georgiou along from the outset. As he himself pointed out, they were strangers who may not be welcome. Tilly makes a great first impression, but Georgiou gets sh1t done.

 

Hard to say. The Coridan colonists were almost going to shoot Saru and Tilly on sight. Tilly's observation about their lack of dilithium and her general innocence averted that. They might not have gotten that far with Mirror Georgiou.

 

Yeah....I don't know.

The episode started quite good I think. Was happy to see the crew doing stuff and Saru being a captain. That all was nice. The effects are pretty good for a tv-show. Not that this is important, but it helps. The best part for me was the interaction between Saru and Tilly walking around on the planet. That was kinda sweet. All the stuff that happened on the ship felt a little bit forced and at the end I felt like I really never knew what exactly was happening. I mean Stamets actions in the jeffrey tube did not feel that important until they did. If that makes any sense. But overall these aspects of the episode were all ok or even good.

But then Georgiou shows up at the bar and it all kind of falls apart. Jadeb explained it perfectly so here is the quote:

I don't know why space Hitler is allowed to run around free on the ship in the first place. And when she pointed the gun directly in Sarus face he should have hoofed the crap out of her. They could have told Michael that she heroically died and got a honorable funeral. Not very starfleet....but hey from this shows standards still not that immoral.

Even the action sequence in the bar was kind of bad. I don't know what exactley they are doing wrong. But since season one these hand to hand combat scenes feel slow and are just too long.

 

I haven't seen good hand to hand combat since The Matrix XD

 

You should watch the Raid 1&2. It's great.

 

Over the top but great. Daredevil also has some epic hand to hand combat scenarios.

 

And for Trek fans I believe Joe Taslim who played villain Manas/Anderson Le in Star Trek Beyond (Krall's second in command) is in the first Raid film.