Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 3x11 - "Su'Kal"

I don't know. Why do you think there's necessarily treason involved?

 

This whole story isn’t very original. A powerful being who has to overcome his fears before he destroys everything. That’s basically the majority of Doctor Who stories.
I really wish that Tim Roth lookalike was the big bad than this lady. He was way more imposing than her.

 

Yeah, what I'm saying is hopefully whatever miraculous resolution they pull off (inevitable when you go for such game-ending ship take over), it had some homework involved and doesn't come out completely out of thin air.

Like, setting up special jump coordinates in anticipation of a potential takeover (didn't see next week's preview so I have no idea where they end up), or preparing some other kind of surprise for any intruders.

Zora deus ex seems more likely, however. It's the one that wouldn't completely piss me off.

 

These season long arcs are tedious and unengaging.

Even by Discovery standards ... that was underwhelming.

 

Guhhh.... a holodeck story? Really?

I’m really torn on this one. There were some excellent moments but a whole lot of meh. Loved Tilly. Really enjoyed the “nub” on the Captain’s chair bit. Don’t really like that Saru is having emotional issues with the captaincy. Hugh was great. The story of Su’Kal was interesting and the actor did a great job. I do think he real Su’Kal is the monster though. That part has not really been resolved. Liked that Adira decided to risk their life to go in to save Saru and Hugh. I’m already over the Emerald Chain. I really hope we don’t have another Badmiral on our hands. 6/10.

 

Btw, I don't think the sphere data would have let Tilly destroy the ship, which makes me think that maybe it's the sphere data that will come to their rescue.

 

Yeah, it funny that they all changed species and Saru became human.

"My feet are flat on the ground" or something like that.

 

"Spock's Brain" ... Dr. McCoy's controlling device.

 

I swear if the cat turns out to be the big bad of the season.......

 

"My heels are touching the ground..."

 

Well, Book and Grudge we're prisoners of the Orions for some time and he has apparently been a thorn in Osyraa's side for quite awhile.

She's so 'butch' that It's quite possible that not only did she have a device implanted in his neck, she also had something implanted into his Pussy, to keep track of them both.

 

To me the biggest problem is the previous portrayal of the emerald chain. It has been portrayed as a rag tag piracy group. It would do better to portray them as a secessionist movement that won.

Why:
I would argue that the emerald chain controls more planets (with multiquadrant reach), has technological and military superiority/parity with starfleet (as seen with Book using Emerald chain technology that starfleet had no counterpart to) and what we see of the federation is the last remnant that the chain has determined as being no threat. The personification of the chain and having it's leader be a starship captain betrays the threat.

Next is the problem with the bridge crew:
We are to believe that tilly spent 10-20 minutes waiting for the bad guys to show up once she knew they were coming and noone quoted regs or instructions to suggest... I don't know... jumping to the starbase, having the starbase work on the shields and reporting the mystery ship.

 

Are you suggesting that appointing an ensign to the role of First Officer might not have been the most sensible idea?

 

Wow ... how so unlike the rest of Star Trek, this episode's dire circumstances were...

/s

 

Let me start with what I liked:
-Production values & costuming are still great, best of any Trek series. I liked the century old Starfleet uniforms-wish the combadge design had been different though.
-Seeing the holographic versions of the DISCO Away team. Though I wouldn't have minded if they had made Burnham into a familiar Trek alien we had yet to see in the future, instead of a Trill. I imagine Doug Jones was glad to not have to have to spend less time putting on makeup.
-I like how Michael pretended to be a hologram, that was a neat bit of quick thinking on her part.
-The last five minutes or so were quite involving, and the action and suspense were very welcome.

Now what I didn't care for:

I feel that DISCO Season 3 has lost momentum. Perhaps the first two seasons often were in overdrive, at the expense of character development and story, but Season 3 so far has went almost completely in the opposite direction, I say almost because the character development-on an ensemble level-still leaves much to be desired when it comes to Bryce, Pollard, Rhys, Nilsson, Owosekun, and to a lesser extent Detmer who did get a PTSD storyline. I feel like they pushed the mystery of The Burn and the Emerald Chain too far into the background.

For good or ill, DISCO has adhered to the standard contemporary arc storytelling, with some big, overarching mystery or problem to solve, along with some big bad to face, and they've had both, but neither at the forefront. To some extent, they subverted this in Season 1 as well with the fake out over T'Kuvma in the pilot, then killing off Kol mid-season, shifting to Lorca, and then sort of Mirror Georgiou for at the end, whereas Season 2 conformed more to the format, with the Red Angel mystery leading into the big fight with Section 31.

Now, in Season 3, they have a mystery, of "The Burn" that's in the background, that supposedly drives the crew, especially Burnham, to solve, but it wasn't matched enough IMO by the action (or actions of characters on screen), and while there's been quite a few mentions of the Emerald Chain throughout the season, not enough has been done with them to establish them as the big bad, if they are even the real big bad (and that is yet to be seen).

To be fair, Trek hasn't always had their major bad guys always in the forefront, but IMO, from TNG on, they've featured them enough for the audience to understand how dangerous they are, especially the Borg on TNG and the Dominion on DS9. We've even gotten that with the Cardassians, on both TNG and DS9. The Borg were overused on VOY, but the introduction of Species 8472 quickly established how dangerous those aliens were, and that stuck, despite how that storyline might have been resolved. I think the Emerald Chain has been too much in the background and I wish we had gotten an episode or two about them, and learned a little more about their inner workings.

If this episode has solved the origin of "The Burn" as Burnham surmises, then it will be underwhelming. For some, the subversion might be welcome, but I would feel underwhelmed that so much dialogue and screen time was spent on solving this mystery to know that it was caused this way. I'm holding out hope there's something more to this than a lonely child's tantrums, lashing out, or fears. I can get wanting to be different than the other seasons, with the fate of the Federation at stake in the first season and then all organic life in the second, but now it feels like the writers have lowered the stakes too much. I don't think every season has to be about or lead up to some galaxy changing moment, but in absence of that, give me more character development and world building. If the child is really the cause of The Burn, they could've solved that mystery several episodes ago and spent more time exploring this future (getting back to some good ol' Trek exploration) while also fleshing out the Emerald Chain. And along the way giving old fans more tidbits about what happened to other species from the 22nd-24th centuries.

Tilly in command was okay. I've liked the character more since her promotion. I'm iffy on her almost casual back-and-forth with the Emerald Chain leader, but it does set Tilly apart from other captains.

 

I'm going to withhold judgment for now. Right now, were I to grade this episode, I would give it anywhere from a 4 to a 7. The only thing keeping it from a lower grade is the wonderful character moments. The way things are looking this episode on is looking to be anywhere from really dumb to incredibly mediocre. I hope I'm wrong and things turn around because to this point I have really liked this season and thought it was the best yet, but things do not look good for the final episodes. I'm still hoping that this season is saved, but it is a dim hope.

As far as the Emerald Chain goes, it appears similar to what I would imagine a Prime Universe equivalent to the Mirror Universe's Alliance would look like just with the Orions and Andorians instead of the Klingons and Cardassians.

 

So in my mind, there is a leak in the Federation feeding information to Osayra about Discovery, or the Admiral this whole time was the big bad. Or there is a spy on Discovery. There is no way Osayra would have known where they were.

 

Wow, the episode generates some mixed reactions, but I for one loved it! I really like that the Burn doesn't seem like it was some evil plot by some villain, but instead, caused by some tragic mutant on a planet. I didn't really like Osayra or the Emerald Chain in The Sanctuary, but I liked them a lot more now, and I was really engaged during the final minutes with the ship's takeover. What I'm hoping for is that this will be wrapped up in the next episode, and that the final episode of the season - Outside - will be an out-of-the-box episode involving time travel with loads of Easter Eggs...