They're all evil Spoonheads.![]()
Personally, I always liked the idea that Cardassia would one day reform itself, establish a democracy, shake off its fascist history, and join the Federation. I like to imagine that the Cardassians' belief in the need for collective action and collective solidarity, channeled away from fascism and towards democracy, would be something that the Federation would benefit from.
Curious if Earth is back in. Would be interesting if they're not. They go off and make their own Federation. With blackjack. And hookers.
Well, we know that Trill rejoined at the end of S3 and that Ni'Var is taking to the Feds again. Nothing has yet established United Earth as having rejoined though. Personally I would like to see the reunion of the Federation with its founding member worlds as its own arc.
I liked it. Burnham is so much better when she isn’t overacting and crying
SMG has not once over-acted in this entire show. Hell, I'm old enough to remember when everyone was bitching that she was too wooden when the show began! Her character's arc is one of someone who goes from repression to healing from trauma to leadership. Crying is part of that -- and there is nothing wrong with crying. I agree that the writers had her cry exactly one too many times almost three years ago in Season Two. This was only a mistake insofar as featuring too many scenes of her crying makes the others feel less dramatically powerful; at no point was the character's crying an inappropriate response or an indication of over-acting or over-emotionalism. I can't even remember any scenes of her crying in S3.
I didn’t like the Saru B story line. So boring. I know they want to keep him relevant but it felt out of place in this episode. Hopefully they have a vision to connect him to the main story.
I liked his scenes on Kaminar -- I like getting a sense of what's going on in the domestic affairs of other planets, and I really liked seeing that the revolution Saru set off in S2 has led to the Kelpians and the Ba'ul living in peace and equality.
I think they're probably going to set up Saru as the captain of the new sporedrive ship President Rillak was talking about.
Finally, the president is an intriguing character and very well acted. My guess is she’s just another obstacle for Burnham to run over but she had some valid points on Burnhams flaws which opens the door for character development for her.
If she has some valid points, maybe that means she's not an obstacle? Vance turned out not to be an obstacle last season, after all.
He also keeps accidentally outing the misogynoir that actually motivates his "critiques":
Wow, what kind of Kirk would do something like that? It's almost like that uppity chick thinks she has some kind of right to be a protagonist who does daring, heroic things.
And then there's this:
Because the problem is that the story has allowed her to be a protagonist who has accomplished extraordinary things, is the point here. It's "insidious" that she's a protagonist at all. She's unreasonably "entitled" no matter what she does or how much it matters.
And just in case the point wasn't clear enough, White Dudes are not being paid sufficient deference by the writing.
If certain podcasts are distancing themselves from him, I expect it's likely because he keeps saying the quiet part out loud.
That is an excellent point I didn't think about. I thought his getting upset at the "pudgy white dude" dying was gross and weirdly self-pitying, but I didn't synthesis his comments the way you did. Thank you for pointing that out.
Very disappointing, especially considering that it's in contradiction to his stated politics -- his twitter is full of condemnations of overt institutional racism, IIRC. But there again, he's hardly be the first white liberal to be much more anti-racist in theory than in practice.
It's also consistent with the horrific misogyny of saying that a female writer ought to be forced to walk naked through the streets with people screaming and throwing things at her just because he didn't like their script for an episode of TV, though.
Interesting side-note: RMB accused "Unification III" of being anti-semitic because he thought it was some coded attack on the right of the State of Israel to exist -- like the Romulans coming back to Vulcan/Ni'Var was the equivalent of Palestinians getting the right to return or something. But that parallel really doesn't line up with the real-world history of Israel and Palestine, so I don't see where he got that from. Also, "Unification III" was a follow-up to TNG's "Unification I & II," whose writer Michael Piller had explicitly compared Vulcan/Romulan reunification to the reunification of West and East Germany after the end of the Cold War.
I felt like they came across as contrasting but equally-valid takes on events.
On the one hand, I fully understand why Michael, after everything she's been through, is not 100% interested in critiques of her performance from a politician whose interstellar credentials consist of cargo-running for her dad.
OTOH, the President isn't a stock Incompetent Functionary or a poor man's Kai Wynn. She comes across as a distinct character with equally valid points to make and who is genuinely competent within her own sphere.
Not an easy scene to do. I think they found a really interesting take on it.
I agree. And I also see flaws in both of them -- as I said, it was incredibly inappropriate of the President to question Michael's orders in front of the crew and undermine her authority in a crisis. But, her points about Michael's motivations were valid, and Michael's reaction to the President in their conversation was overly-defensive. I think they both have something to learn from each other.