Early into the episode: "We can't call for help. We can't call Michael."
End of the episode: Michael swoops in to help/save the day. Otherwise RIP Discovery and the crew.
This show can be a parody of itself at times. That line immediately took me out of the moment and then when Burnham showed up at the end doing whatever acting that was on the viewscreen... Why, show, why!
I chalk it up to a lack of self awareness, but given some other stuff this episode that was pretty aware, maybe it's just trolling or their
expert way of foreshadowing. But it didn't feel like them foreshadowing to me.
That aside, I really liked a good many parts of this one. The stuff with Detmer was really good. I can't wait to see where they go with that. I also loved the awareness of the writers about how annoying/helpless Tilly comes off to some of the crew. Reasonably or unreasonably. Georgiou's reaction, but especially Nhan's really highlighted that. And highlighted that Tilly's behavior early in the episode and throughout is a feature not a bug. I liked that. I liked Saru's reasoning for her going on the away mission and the way that was handled during the standoff. My favorite scene of the season so far.
RIP guy who believed in the Federation/Starfleet. I loved his character, and really liked the design of those aliens there. Gave me Buffy vibes for some reason.
The way things built up and everything with Saru this episode worked for me. The stuff with Stamets though was typical Discovery. Not much positives to say there other than the cameo of the actress who popped in to offer to help. Loved that bit and Stamets/Culber's little kiss, but everything else there was pretty underwhelming.
I found the end of S2 and the leaps in logic that had to go on to get them to where they are right now to be truly terrible, so every mention of stuff back to that season just kept bringing up those feelings. But I was glad to see they kept it to a minimum. Somewhat. I did like Nhan's personal rational for staying even it's well, whatever. Georgiou had a great response to it. The more I talk about the small moments in the episode, the more I like it. But I do see why some people had some issues like with Reno and her not caring about someone's name, or the ship surviving breaking through rocks/flying in the atmosphere/being able to take off, etc. But that's so common for Discovery that I guess I'm numb to that kinda stuff in this show and was actively trying to not let it get to me. For the most part it didn't.
I was not a fan of the overall storyline of season 1 or season 2. And I was especially not a fan of the execution of those stories and the leaps in logic to get from point a to b to f to x
to p to w. But I'm holding out hope that this will be the first good season of new live trek. I felt Picard suffered from the same problems as Discovery. After the s3 premiere of Discovery, I binge watched Lower Decks and was so glad I did. It's amazing. My favorite of the new shows by a longshot. Mariner <3 Ransom <3
As for this episode, I ended up giving it a 6. Somewhat regretting that. I guess I'm weary of rating it too highly given past experience with the show. I feel like Charlie Brown, where the showrunners are Lucy and are telling me they're not going to pull the football away this time. We'll see. I've not enjoyed how they've tried to wrap up these season-long mysteries in either of the three seasons they've tackled them in in Discovery or Picard. I've always believed that they don't need to be doing these galaxy/world/universe/multiverse ending storylines. But they always do and they always leave me with so many common sense questions that the writers either didn't think to ask, didn't care to ask, or did and went forward anyway not caring to make it make sense under the littlest of scrutiny. It feels like they're going to jump back into that this season as well, but maybe to a lesser degree. Hoping it's to a lesser degree at least.
With talking about the things I enjoyed, if I could change my rating I'd go from the 6 to a 7, I think. I really liked what they were going for down on the planet this episode. But I'm still cautious. I've liked these first two episodes. The last one had a lot more problems with it, especially how they treated Burnham and Book's murder hobo scenes, so yeah, with me thinking that one was a 6, this is a 7 for me. If I had waited even like twenty minutes before submitting a rating, or if anyone other than Burnham had tractored them/saved them after that early line sticking with me.
