Cliffhanger? Right at the end of the year before I proceed to drink myself into a stupor? Shame on you, Disco writers, shame! I didn't quite like it as much as last week, mostly because I'm quite tired of "Die Hard on an X" plots.
I am very angry at Michael right now, and I was glad that they didn't wait until next week with the entire fallout, and Paul got to address what she did. Let's hope something more follows as the others should be quite disappointed in her as well. She has once again started a crusade no one asked her to go on, and shouldered the responsibility of saving the Federation her way all by herself, no matter who she hurts along the way. It's sad to see her fall back into this mindset after she seemingly learned her lesson at Ni'Var. She wasn't the only one driven by ingrained fear and instinct; Book threw everything away and surrendered his ace in the hole to Osyraa in a desperate attempt to save his friend Ryn, and she, like a true, if quite stereotypical villain, showed him how powerless he is by killing the Andorian anyway and ordering Aurellio to extract the information from Book via truth serum.
Vance, however, keeps being a pleasant surprise to the point I'm painfully aware that his name is always followed by those two words whenever I'm talking about him. He seemed far too eager to accept Osyraa's terms that sounded too good to be true, but even during that, he showed he's no fool by talking about replicators using shit in an apparent allusion to how full of shit he thinks Osyraa is. And then, he saved the nuclear option for last, daring her to be held accountable for her actions, which she then naturally refused. I agreed with him, because if you look under the surface, it wasn't about reaching a détente, cold war-style. He knew fully well that an union like the one Osyraa proposed would render the Federation economically dependent on the Chain, which he couldn't in good faith allow. Osyraa standing trial would've been the legal assurance that the Chain wouldn't act as a hegemon, something they wouldn't give up easily, and he sought confirmation for that. Incidentally, I've found his scenes with Osyraa actually more enjoyable than the A-plot on the ship, which was, like I indicated above, done a thousand times before. Still, I liked the glimpses into the Sphere Data developing its sentience.
It was good to see Zareh being a thorn in the crew's sides again, but he didn't add much to the plot to be honest. Of course, the "Tilly is incompetent" crowd would probably hail his insults to her about the ship being too easy to capture. Seriously, I don't even understand why Osyraa was surprised at how easy it was... has she seen Star Trek? Federation ships are captured by motley crews all the time. Ken Mitchell, on the other hand, was a delight to see again, and they worked his disability into the setting quite skillfully.
I am very angry at Michael right now, and I was glad that they didn't wait until next week with the entire fallout, and Paul got to address what she did. Let's hope something more follows as the others should be quite disappointed in her as well. She has once again started a crusade no one asked her to go on, and shouldered the responsibility of saving the Federation her way all by herself, no matter who she hurts along the way. It's sad to see her fall back into this mindset after she seemingly learned her lesson at Ni'Var. She wasn't the only one driven by ingrained fear and instinct; Book threw everything away and surrendered his ace in the hole to Osyraa in a desperate attempt to save his friend Ryn, and she, like a true, if quite stereotypical villain, showed him how powerless he is by killing the Andorian anyway and ordering Aurellio to extract the information from Book via truth serum.
Vance, however, keeps being a pleasant surprise to the point I'm painfully aware that his name is always followed by those two words whenever I'm talking about him. He seemed far too eager to accept Osyraa's terms that sounded too good to be true, but even during that, he showed he's no fool by talking about replicators using shit in an apparent allusion to how full of shit he thinks Osyraa is. And then, he saved the nuclear option for last, daring her to be held accountable for her actions, which she then naturally refused. I agreed with him, because if you look under the surface, it wasn't about reaching a détente, cold war-style. He knew fully well that an union like the one Osyraa proposed would render the Federation economically dependent on the Chain, which he couldn't in good faith allow. Osyraa standing trial would've been the legal assurance that the Chain wouldn't act as a hegemon, something they wouldn't give up easily, and he sought confirmation for that. Incidentally, I've found his scenes with Osyraa actually more enjoyable than the A-plot on the ship, which was, like I indicated above, done a thousand times before. Still, I liked the glimpses into the Sphere Data developing its sentience.
It was good to see Zareh being a thorn in the crew's sides again, but he didn't add much to the plot to be honest. Of course, the "Tilly is incompetent" crowd would probably hail his insults to her about the ship being too easy to capture. Seriously, I don't even understand why Osyraa was surprised at how easy it was... has she seen Star Trek? Federation ships are captured by motley crews all the time. Ken Mitchell, on the other hand, was a delight to see again, and they worked his disability into the setting quite skillfully.
