Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 3x06 - "Scavengers"

[The Habs Fan]

Every time I see someone complaining about Burnham being emotional (and there’s a good amount of it), I can’t help but wonder if there is some kind of sexism at play. How dare human characters show emotion. Sisko cried a good amount, where’s the criticism for him? But I bet if Janeway showed emotion she would have gotten the same criticism that Burnham is receiving from certain people.

 

[1987SpaceGuy]

liked the Stament/Culber talk as well as Stamets reaching out to, after Adira helped him out.

Glad to have Booker back, he does have onscreen chemistry with Burnham indeed. Hope Burnham goes independent for good with Book. Would open interesting longer term story possibilities and character development possibilities both, positive and conflicts.
Linus beaming into hilarious places & situations LMAO.
Self sealing stem bolts LOL LOL LOL
Decent set up episode

 

[bookworm8571]

I liked this episode and I hope that Burnham does end up leaving Star Fleet and joining Book. I’m not all that interested in Star Fleet except as a framework for telling stories about who the characters are and what makes them tick. Burnham didn’t think twice about risking everything to go after Book, even knowing the consequences, and it was entertaining watching them free a bunch of slaves. I like Book’s cat and I think less of Tilly for not being a cat person.

 

[fireproof78]

Every time I see someone complaining about Burnham being emotional (and there’s a good amount of it), I can’t help but wonder if there is some kind of sexism at play. How dare human characters show emotion. Sisko cried a good amount, where’s the criticism for him? But I bet if Janeway showed emotion she would have gotten the same criticism that Burnham is receiving from certain people.

I cannot figure it out. Maybe it's me and I'm unusual but I cry. That's part of my growing up, that's part of my experience and I find it a normal thing. So the pushback is very offputting.

 

[Forsythe]

Which is why I stopped after two. Why care if they are going to die and are generally horrible people?

Burnham at least I have an interest and an investment in to see where her journey takes her.

I just wanted to say, you may have done yourself a disservice. Season 1 of GOT is absolutely a building season, rewarding your patience and then it takes off onto a wonderful ride for several seasons....and then it just can't stick the landing.

On second thought, you did the right thing....!

 

[Forsythe]

I have no issue with crying. I do it more often than I care to admit.
If I have a criticism, it seems that some of these emotional beats are not earned. Certainly, being reunited is cause for tears. I get that. But it seems every episode tries very hard to wedge in what I think are forced emotional beats.
For the record, I love Discovery, it's cast, and have been a supporter so far. However, I think it's a fair criticism to say that some moments don't seem to merit the emotional climax they try to portray.
It has nothing to do with sexism or any ism on my part.
I bawl at 'Family' for example. I bawled when the Discovery crew were reunited with Burnham.
For me, it's all about dynamics in the drama.

 

[Jadeb]

Both times we've seen Burnham as First Officer in this series, she's messed up. She's not right for the position. Even less so in the 32nd Century. Saru fits right into this Starfleet. Burnham? Not so much. At the end of the day, she's not a Team Player. This episode shows "The Vulcan Hello" wasn't an aberration.

Didn’t the first ep establish that she was a good first officer and ready to move up to captain? I thought her behavior then was meant to be aberrant and triggered by the very particular set of circumstances (Klingon PTSD, etc.). But now they write her like she’s completely insubordinate by nature, and I can’t see how she made it past ensign, much less to first officer. Mariner is better leadership material.

 

[Lord Garth]

Didn’t the first ep establish that she was a good first officer and ready to move up to captain? I thought her behavior then was meant to be aberrant and triggered by the very particular set of circumstances (Klingon PTSD, etc.). But now they write her like she’s completely insubordinate by nature, and I can’t see how she made it past ensign, much less to first officer. Mariner is better leadership material.

There are a couple of things.

Georgiou -- meaning Captain Georgiou -- thought Burnham was better officer material than was immediately obvious to her. She wanted Burnham to be a Captain one day. I think Burnham wasn't a First Officer for that long at the time of "The Vulcan Hello" but, even if it had already been a while, it looks like she served on the Shenzhou while the Federation was at peace. Burnham wasn't triggered until she came face-to-face with the Klingons. Might she have been a good First Officer during Peace Time? Maybe. But when circumstances changed, she cracked. She tried to do what she wanted to do anyway, Captain Georgiou be damned.

The other thing is, she'd been away from Discovery -- and Starfleet -- for a year when Discovery reached the 32nd Century. After being away for a year, it changed her. She's more at home with Book. She's more at home doing her own thing. Being back onboard Discovery, not being able to do her own thing, is an adjustment for her. And now Discovery is serving in a 32nd Century Starfleet that doesn't reward "saving the day" as easily as the 23rd Century did. Vance is having none of it. He told Saru that he'll leave what to do with Burnham up to him, but there's no doubt in my mind he expected Saru to discipline her. I thought Saru was going to demote Burnham to Lieutenant -- just to show to Vance how serious he is about Discovery being part of the Fleet -- but he just went with not having her be First Officer anymore.

I think being away from Starfleet has caused Burnham to not be so dedicated to Starfleet Life anymore.

.
.
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Anyway, how many times have I said I don't think Burnham is a Mary Sue because of how badly she messed up in "The Vulcan Hello" and Mary Sues don't do that? I like the character but when she screws up, she screws up.

It's great that she has a lead on what caused The Burn. And it's urgent to her to find out what caused it. But to Vance, it was 120 years ago. It's like if in our time someone was obsessed with something that happened in 1900. Most people aren't going to find what caused it that pressing anymore. They'll be focused more on the "here and now".

 

[ThreeEdgedSword]

I'm still trying to figure out what arbitrary reason the writers decided to throw Orions and Andorians together. All I can come up with is they have similar skin colors. Like, hey, Twi'leks are green and blue.

I can imagine that hose two species would thrive in a power vacuum after the fall of the Federation, so some of them teaming up to for a criminal syndicate doesn't feel too contrived to me. I dont like the android-like plasticky Orion make-up, though.

Speaking of well--known races, did they mention the "Bjoran Exchange"?

If there were a connection, my guess is there would be some kind of higher-order being that "lives" inside and across space-time (remind us of someone? Bajoran Prophets or maybe the Pah-Wraiths?). The anomaly Discovery bumped into in the time vortex was this being. As it was said early on, all the active dilithium exploding a hundred-some-odd years before Burnham's and Disco's arrival may have been the reaction of this thing from its unexpected collision with Discovery in its natural environment during transit, earlier in the linear timeline as they were moving on their way forward. The temporal being(s) perhaps broad-beam broadcasted this song into the collective subconscious of all intelligent life (their version of "HEY!! I'm WALKING here!!! ") that we will find out is the lullaby that Sisko's Prophet-mom used to sing to him when he was very young.

And I completely pulled all of that out of my ass!

I thought maybe a "Burn By Accident" by some higher being (hopefully not the Prophets) that maybe tried to communicate with this song. (ETA: Oh, wouldn't it be convenient if we had a new character who can communicate even with plants and animals? Maybe he can help!)

Speaking of which, does anyone else think the melody idea is a tribute to this old SciFi movie, I forgot the title... Close Encounter?

 

[Jadeb]

I think being away from Starfleet has caused Burnham to not be so dedicated to Starfleet Life anymore.

I’m not sure the character we’ve seen on screen ever was, at least in terms of respecting the chain of command. Not in season one, not in season two, not now. They’ve taken a gimmick designed to set up the premise of the show and made it her central character trait.

 

[eschaton]

I don't have any issue with Michael being a screw-up in this episode. I have issue with how the narrative of the show sometimes shows her as a screw up for whom the chips fall in the right place at the 11th hour just because she's "the hero." Either let her be competent and show growth or let her be really, really wrong, but pick a lane.

As I said upthread, my impression of the season as a whole will be much, much better if the Burn is shown to be something of a damp squib (like say Starfleet was doing some sort of blue-sky research and brought this upon itself) than if it turns out to be some malevolent species behind the whole thing. Mainly because it will show that Michael's "hunch" was wrong - the Federation didn't really need to know what caused the Burn to rebuild itself.

 

[ThreeEdgedSword]

Every time I see someone complaining about Burnham being emotional (and there’s a good amount of it), I can’t help but wonder if there is some kind of sexism at play. How dare human characters show emotion. Sisko cried a good amount, where’s the criticism for him? But I bet if Janeway showed emotion she would have gotten the same criticism that Burnham is receiving from certain people.

I'm sure there is a lot of sexism (and racism) in certain circles who don't like the character. But that doesn't mean everyone who dislikes her is sexist or racist. Certain people seem to imply that whenever she is criticized.

For the record, I don't hate her. And I'm all for them showing emotions. But good god, she's really crying almost every episode.

That's mostly a problem of the writing or direction. I mean, I doubt it's the actor's choice.
And Sisko certainly did show emotions, sometimes cry (both I loved), but not the whole damn time. Neither did Janeway, whom I liked very much (prob my second favorite Captain), despite the very uneven writing for her. And she certainl did show a lot of emotions, sometimes even cry. But she didn't emote all over the place, all the time.

I do have a problem with some of her other deliveries, particularly that intense kind of whisper she does whenever she gets... well, intense. (Of course that could be the director's suggestion, too?) Anyway, it's getting on my nerves.

As for the episode... I've now resigned myself to the fact that after 4 good episodes, I might have to suffer through 4 mediocre ones... oh well. The A plot was just lame, seen-a-thousand-times-before stuff. Too bad because I had missed Book. And Grudge of course.

I think Vance's reaction to Michael's stunt was very fair, and Saru's sanction was just, if quite mild. And yes, her comment that he did the right thing came across as if she was giving him permission/ validating him, rather than, say, being contrite or regretful or just sad. But then I aleady had he impression she sort of "gave" the captainy to him, back when they decided he should take it.

The scenes on the ship were ok, I liked the little Stamets/ Adira plot. I'll be the odd one out who doesn't love that Linus is the comic relief and not much more.

No idea who is going to be 1st officer. Young Ivanova (the officer Vance posted on the Disc) would be interesting and could make for some potential conflicts. As for Nilsson, she's such a non-enity to me, if before this season you'd shown me a photo of the actor, I wouldn't have recognized her. Detmer, not so soon with/ after her PTSD thing. (I don't think it goes away that fast.) Tilly... a bit early in her career. Owo maybe... Can't even remember the ames of the other bridge chaacters. Don't think it'll be Stamets or Culber.

Burnham will surely go solo (or, rather, duo with Booker) for a while, but she definitely won't leave the show. I doubt she'll leave SF for good. She'll solve the mystery of the Burn, everyone will applaud her for being right, and that's it. Welcome back and the Federation will be saved.

 

[Lord Garth]

I don't have any issue with Michael being a screw-up in this episode. I have issue with how the narrative of the show sometimes shows her as a screw up for whom the chips fall in the right place at the 11th hour just because she's "the hero." Either let her be competent and show growth or let her be really, really wrong, but pick a lane.

There's no right or wrong here. There are different points of view. Vance's and Burnham's. And I happen to see both.

From the point of view of Starfleet, she screwed up. She didn't follow proper channels and acted entirely on impulse. That would've been rewarded in the 23rd Century, but it's the 32nd Century in Discovery now. Vance probably has the same image of 23rd Century officers in his mind that Janeway did. Saru is trying to prove he's not a Space Cowboy but Burnham just showed she's a Space Cowgirl.

From Burnham's point of view, she didn't save the Universe just to have the Federation fall apart. She wants to find out what caused The Burn. Book, who she loves, has something that can give her a lead. So now someone she loves has info that she's obsessed with. She's determined. And if she can figure out what caused The Burn, she can stop it from happening again. She can even possibly bring to justice whoever caused it if it's a person who's still alive.

There is no competent or incompetent. It's just a case of Burnham and Saru/Vance disagreeing about how to handle things and them being in a chain of command that they've sworn to follow.

Maybe Starfleet isn't the answer for Burnham? Just putting that out there.

Anyway, "Only Nixon can go to China." I'm Nixon and I'm going to China.

 

[valkyrie013]

Rate a 6-7
Was okay, loved the refit disco,

kind of a rehash of The Running Man.. But without Arnold... And worse off for it.

The orions as villains are kind of a joke.. And not a good one.
And MORE GRUDGE!!

 

[plynch]

I cannot figure it out. Maybe it's me and I'm unusual but I cry. That's part of my growing up, that's part of my experience and I find it a normal thing. So the pushback is very offputting.

I'm a man, I cry, often at how nice things are when you look at them that way. I cry at music. I cried just last night sitting the living room with my wife thinking about not being able to play Christmas carols for the extended family at the 110-year-old homestead on Christmas Eve. .I've quoted emotional trek scenes I like in this series and in other Treks. JUST mentioned Picard totally losing it, and how that worked for me, upthread.

But this show, EVery time you turn around she's tearing up. Johnny one-note. That sincere/doe look. Gets. So. Old. Writers, I get it: This is IMPORTANT and SAD. Oh, wait, now THIS IS. And . . . now THIS IS. BE MOVED NOW.

Honestly, that moment with Saru would have been more affecting had she taken her lump, even said "You're right" calmly. Then slowly taken off the badge (which we knew was coming, right?). And walked out.

But no. The waterworks. Again. Boohoo. It just loses its effect (and affect) after the 47th time.

 

[Tuskin38]

Oh hey a Bajoran in this episode. Our first clear shot of one since uh... DS9? Insurrection?

There was a bajoran in Picard, but it wasn’t very obvious

 

[eschaton]

There's no right or wrong here. There are different points of view. Vance's and Burnham's. And I happen to see both.

From the point of view of Starfleet, she screwed up. She didn't follow proper channels and acted entirely on impulse. That would've been rewarded in the 23rd Century, but it's the 32nd Century in Discovery now. Vance probably has the same image of 23rd Century officers in his mind that Janeway did. Saru is trying to prove he's not a Space Cowboy but Burnham just showed she's a Space Cowgirl.

From Burnham's point of view, she didn't save the Universe just to have the Federation fall apart. She wants to find out what caused The Burn. Book, who she loves, has something that can give her a lead. So now someone she loves has info that she's obsessed with. She's determined. And if she can figure out what caused The Burn, she can stop it from happening again. She can even possibly bring to justice whoever caused it if it's a person who's still alive.

There is no competent or incompetent. It's just a case of Burnham and Saru/Vance disagreeing about how to handle things and them being in a chain of command that they've sworn to follow.

Maybe Starfleet isn't the answer for Burnham? Just putting that out there.

Anyway, "Only Nixon can go to China." I'm Nixon and I'm going to China.

My point isn't so much about right/wrong, as it is about judgement.

Michael has been shown - repeatedly - to have poor judgement. She shoots from the hip and makes impulsive decisions based upon her feelings. This has massive repercussions for her - in particular when it comes to her own professional development. However, when the chips are down, in the 11th hour, she rolls sixes. Rinse, repeat.

I mean, look at Season 1. Michael made a ton of bad decisions all through the season, from attempting "mutiny" on the Shenzhou to killing T'Kuvma, to trusting Ash and Lorca, to bringing back Georgiou from the MU. But in the end she made a crazy-ass gamble based upon gut instinct (that she could trust Georgiou not to kill her, and trust L'Rell to be an installed dictator) and somehow it worked out!?!

I'm not saying that is how things are going to go this time around, but I am saying I will be very, very disappointed if that's indeed the direction they are going.

 

[Jadeb]

That would've been rewarded in the 23rd Century, but it's the 32nd Century in Discovery now.

I’ve seen this suggested a few times now and I don’t get it. There were plenty of times Kirk shut down senior crew members just for continuing to disagree after he made up his mind. They were far from Discovery-style insubordination, but when Kirk ended it, it ended right then.

If anything, the 23rd century, pre-Discovery, was less democratic than the 24th, I’d say.

 

[Tim Thomason]

Oh hey a Bajoran in this episode. Our first clear shot of one since uh... DS9? Insurrection?

There was a bajoran in Picard, but it wasn’t very obvious

Lower Decks. One of the main characters (Shaxs) was a Bajoran. Our first good look at a Bajoran in six weeks!

 

[ThreeEdgedSword]

Oh hey a Bajoran in this episode. Our first clear shot of one since uh... DS9? Insurrection?

There was a bajoran in Picard, but it wasn’t very obvious

I didn't see either of them! On Picard, was it n Freecloud?