You are forgetting that Space Jesus Michael will be on the committee. That changes everything. LOL.
Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 4x04 - "All Is Possible"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
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You are forgetting that Space Jesus Michael will be on the committee. That changes everything. LOL.
That never gets old.................wait. Yes it does.
I hadn’t heard anything about a Starfleet Academy spinoff. I wonder if they are stretching things too thin, though I like the cadets in this episode enough to watch more of them. It’s nice to see the Tellarite and a male Orion in prominent roles.
I assume T’Rina has or had a husband somewhere, unless Vulcans changed their mating practices.
I assume T’Rina has or had a husband somewhere, unless Vulcans changed their mating practices.
"Doctor" Kovich? I'm just getting started on the episode, but whaaaat?
I used to hear talks of Starfleet Academy series, but it fell on the backburner it seems to a degree where it ended up more of a speculation than the real thing.
Now it seems that this series jumped to the forefront... meanwhile, Section 31 series with Yeouh has gone on the backburner (of sorts).
It was unexpected to see this episode have Wiseman leave Discovery... interesting. But it also showcases original Disco crew moving on which I think is a good thing.
I just hope they don't mess up the Starfleet Academy series.
As for T'Rina having a husband (or used to having one)... not strictly necessary. We know from VOY that Pon Farr can be managed without a biological mate. Holographic mating companion and/or ritual combat with a hologram of your choice... plus, there's also deep meditation which seeks to stabilize the chemical imbalance.
One has to wonder why Vulcans indulged in this kind of practice for so long without any higher tech solutions... until you remmebr that they can be very traditional folk who had (at least in the 24th century) a very outdated view of sex... all extremely private to the point where they don't wish to discuss options with a physician either.
Still, since Romulans eventually rejoined Vulcans, T'Rina did mention to Saru in S3 the Vulcans were forced to rethink a few things about their own society... and if you take into account what we learned about dealing with Pon Farr itself from VOY... its possible that Vulcan outlook on Pon Farr may have changed as well... so, Vulcans might no longer be bound by those old traditions and can take care of the Pon Farr themselves (aka, not obligated to take a mate).
Lots of stuff you can be a doctor of besides just an MD, though given his function conducting intake evaluations/interrogations he might be a psychiatrist, in which case he would be an MD. Why is that so surprising, though?
I figure they might be transitioning him towards a prominent role in the Starfleet Academy show, perhaps as an eminent professor or something like a civilian dean in conjunction with the Starfleet officer commandant.
You made some good points there. I would assume that any future Federation would also still have a Federation Council which conceivably would ensure that all the member worlds are being treated fairly, therefore the need for a committee would seem redundant, or perhaps the committee idea here is a rudimentary Federation Council.
Oh, there are ways to make it work if they decide to do more with Saru and T’Rina. I don’t object at all to the pairing or anything that gives Vulcans more air time, though I think it would make sense to make her a widow, maybe with a child or two to make things interesting for Saru. I’m also not completely sure that Vulcan females have the same biological Pon farr urge as males. It wasn’t the case in the original series. It would make biological sense for it to be complementary. Perhaps female sexual response/Pon farr are triggered in response to their mate’s pheromones or, as with T’Pol, by a microbe. Vulcans and humans and Vulcans and Klingons are shown as biologically compatible and can produce offspring. How about a Vulcan and Saru?
They've been so vague about the guy, the first time Culber calls him a doctor is a bit surprising.
Tho the way he seemed last season, maybe a comparison to Doctor Mengele might not have been too far off.
And yeah, Tilly and Kovich could easily be main characters on a possible Academy show. Maybe Grey decides to join SF as well and he could get a lot more screentime over there.
I really enjoyed this week again, and I'm not shy to give it a 10.
Tilly having to look after the cadets was a lot of fun, with some genuinely tense moments on the planet. I quite liked the cadets and hope we see them again. I just hope this doesn't mean that Tilly has left the show, and is moving to the proposed Starfleet Academy series.
The best outcome for me would be Tilly still being on DIS as a teacher at the Academy, and eventually getting her own show. Similar to what happened with Georgiou and her show.
The political story featuring Ni'Var was fascinating, and Saru and T'Rina are a great couple. I look forward to that being expanded upon.
I loved the other little side story of Culber trying to help Book in his trying to deal with his loss. The whole cast has had some good use in these easy episodes of the season, and mixing up the characters helps to keep things interesting.
The little snowglobe that said 'All Is Possible' that Tilly left as a gift was heartbreaking.
Tilly having to look after the cadets was a lot of fun, with some genuinely tense moments on the planet. I quite liked the cadets and hope we see them again. I just hope this doesn't mean that Tilly has left the show, and is moving to the proposed Starfleet Academy series.
The best outcome for me would be Tilly still being on DIS as a teacher at the Academy, and eventually getting her own show. Similar to what happened with Georgiou and her show.
The political story featuring Ni'Var was fascinating, and Saru and T'Rina are a great couple. I look forward to that being expanded upon.
I loved the other little side story of Culber trying to help Book in his trying to deal with his loss. The whole cast has had some good use in these easy episodes of the season, and mixing up the characters helps to keep things interesting.
The little snowglobe that said 'All Is Possible' that Tilly left as a gift was heartbreaking.
Oh wow, I somehow didn't even pick up on the "Doctor" part! Interesting!
I thought this was the best episode of the season so far, and I gave it an 8.
I wasn't really a fan initially of the Tilly subplot, but as it went and built up to Tilly leaving, I started to really like it a whole lot more. Her final goodbye was actually pretty touching, and I really liked her talk with Burnham at the end.
I think T'Rina is becoming one of my favorite characters in this new Kurtzman era. I really like everything about her and what is happening on Ni'var and just the universe building and political building that is happening here. It's reminding me a little of the whole Maquis thing that was built up in TNG and went though DS9 leading to Voyager.
I wasn't really a fan initially of the Tilly subplot, but as it went and built up to Tilly leaving, I started to really like it a whole lot more. Her final goodbye was actually pretty touching, and I really liked her talk with Burnham at the end.
I think T'Rina is becoming one of my favorite characters in this new Kurtzman era. I really like everything about her and what is happening on Ni'var and just the universe building and political building that is happening here. It's reminding me a little of the whole Maquis thing that was built up in TNG and went though DS9 leading to Voyager.
The onscreen Vulcans we've seen have a very bad track record at getting the traditional Vulcan mating practices right. T'Pol ditched Koss for Trip. Spock beat up Kirk and never had a Pon Farr mentioned again until Search for Spock (I'll just pretend he took shore leave time to Orion every 7 years). So I can totally believe T'Rina had her boyfriend killed via Kal-if-fee then waited a century or so for ancient Kelpiens from the 23rd century to show up.
After a promising episode last week, we're largely back to Trek by numbers.
The "A plot" involving Michael and Saru on Ni'Var was way disappointing to me...other than seeing President T'Rina and Saru lowkey canoodle. I had two major issues with this plot. First, the Vulcans seemed to act out of character to me. Yes, I know that Vulcans always just use logic as a mask to cover up their emotions, but here it was presented so as starkly just "we don't trust them because feelings" without even a decent in-script rationalization to back it up. The worse aspect of this to me though was that the interesting parts of the internal conflict on Ni'Var - what the issue with the Federation really was - weren't actually explained. Instead we saw Michael somehow accepted as a neutral party (despite literally working for Starfleet) and (it appears) she mediates the conflict entirely off camera, with the last scene establishing Ni'Var has joined! Exploring what exactly the anti-Federation faction wanted - and how to solve it - was what I would consider "the good part" and it's absence was a huge downgrade for me. Maybe it will be shown in later episodes and I will reappraise this however. I also think the conflict itself comes across as a bit forced, given the Federation allowed member worlds to voluntarily leave in the past (though admittedly that was the old Federation) and the characterization of Michael as a "natural diplomat" cuts against everything we know of her up until this point.
Turning to the "B plot" with Tilly, Adira and the cadets, this is something we've seen many times before - both the shuttlecraft crash and dealing with a squabbling bunch of newbies - and unfortunately, it's been done way better elsewhere. Since it's not a new/interesting scenario, the key to these plots working is interesting character dynamics, which I felt was lacking. Seeing Tilly forced to be in a command situation with people way less experienced was interesting, though given the conclusion of the arc, I do wish they pushed her weariness/frustration with her Starfleet position a bit more. I did like they remembered Adira was joined here, and referenced it in the dialogue, though I felt they played them a bit too young given those centuries of experience they has under her belt with the symbiont. I would have enjoyed if there was even more conflict between Adira and Tilly over the course of this episode TBH, as it would have allowed for Adira to have a big fail, and then character growth ongoing across the season as a result, but after some squabbling, they mostly accepted being treated like a cadet (and didn't act too differently from the cadets, unfortunately). The biggest flaw though is the cadets themselves were largely boring non-entities. I'm not sure if the issue was the writing or the caliber of actor they got for the role, but they didn't do it for me at all. The human girl (Val Sasha) had no story purpose - she was more or less cute wallpaper, as her initial statement about not having much experience with aliens didn't go anywhere. The Orion boy (Harral) had a bit more substance, but we didn't really get to understand his character until the reveal at the end of the episode - he just acted as a punching bag for the Tellarite (Taahz Gorev) - who was the only one of the three who made any impression whatsoever. Interestingly, he's also the actor with the largest resume on IMDB, which makes me wonder if part of it is he put in the best performance. I say if they are going ahead with the Starfleet Academy series please keep him on, but ditch or recast the other two.
Turning to what appears to be Tilly's exit from the show - think it's for the best. Tilly was a character created for a very particular role in the beginning of Season 1 (to show how bottom of the totem pole Michael was starting out again after being released from prison) and the successive writing teams have had continual issues trying to find some way to make her relevant to the series. They turned her from an assistant in the spore drive to someone who knew it better than anyone other than Stamets, had her impersonate her bloodthirsty MU alter, get sucked into the mycelial network, end up on the bridge, end up XO only to have it blow up in her face...the list goes on and on. All of this would have IMHO been fine in a series structured like an older Trek show, with 26 episodes per season and at best semi-serialization. But the limited air time available meant that limited screen time which could be used to further the seasonal arc or the plots of the weeks had to be inclusive of Tilly...no matter how weird it ended up. The show will probably be a bit more streamlined with her departure.
I will say I uncritically loved the scenes with Book and Culber - they were by far the best part of this episode. It's interesting they decided to make Culber canonically at least part Latino (like his actor) despite the Anglo-Scottish last name. But I loved these scenes were about pure character, had no exposition, and just stood on their own.
The "A plot" involving Michael and Saru on Ni'Var was way disappointing to me...other than seeing President T'Rina and Saru lowkey canoodle. I had two major issues with this plot. First, the Vulcans seemed to act out of character to me. Yes, I know that Vulcans always just use logic as a mask to cover up their emotions, but here it was presented so as starkly just "we don't trust them because feelings" without even a decent in-script rationalization to back it up. The worse aspect of this to me though was that the interesting parts of the internal conflict on Ni'Var - what the issue with the Federation really was - weren't actually explained. Instead we saw Michael somehow accepted as a neutral party (despite literally working for Starfleet) and (it appears) she mediates the conflict entirely off camera, with the last scene establishing Ni'Var has joined! Exploring what exactly the anti-Federation faction wanted - and how to solve it - was what I would consider "the good part" and it's absence was a huge downgrade for me. Maybe it will be shown in later episodes and I will reappraise this however. I also think the conflict itself comes across as a bit forced, given the Federation allowed member worlds to voluntarily leave in the past (though admittedly that was the old Federation) and the characterization of Michael as a "natural diplomat" cuts against everything we know of her up until this point.
Turning to the "B plot" with Tilly, Adira and the cadets, this is something we've seen many times before - both the shuttlecraft crash and dealing with a squabbling bunch of newbies - and unfortunately, it's been done way better elsewhere. Since it's not a new/interesting scenario, the key to these plots working is interesting character dynamics, which I felt was lacking. Seeing Tilly forced to be in a command situation with people way less experienced was interesting, though given the conclusion of the arc, I do wish they pushed her weariness/frustration with her Starfleet position a bit more. I did like they remembered Adira was joined here, and referenced it in the dialogue, though I felt they played them a bit too young given those centuries of experience they has under her belt with the symbiont. I would have enjoyed if there was even more conflict between Adira and Tilly over the course of this episode TBH, as it would have allowed for Adira to have a big fail, and then character growth ongoing across the season as a result, but after some squabbling, they mostly accepted being treated like a cadet (and didn't act too differently from the cadets, unfortunately). The biggest flaw though is the cadets themselves were largely boring non-entities. I'm not sure if the issue was the writing or the caliber of actor they got for the role, but they didn't do it for me at all. The human girl (Val Sasha) had no story purpose - she was more or less cute wallpaper, as her initial statement about not having much experience with aliens didn't go anywhere. The Orion boy (Harral) had a bit more substance, but we didn't really get to understand his character until the reveal at the end of the episode - he just acted as a punching bag for the Tellarite (Taahz Gorev) - who was the only one of the three who made any impression whatsoever. Interestingly, he's also the actor with the largest resume on IMDB, which makes me wonder if part of it is he put in the best performance. I say if they are going ahead with the Starfleet Academy series please keep him on, but ditch or recast the other two.
Turning to what appears to be Tilly's exit from the show - think it's for the best. Tilly was a character created for a very particular role in the beginning of Season 1 (to show how bottom of the totem pole Michael was starting out again after being released from prison) and the successive writing teams have had continual issues trying to find some way to make her relevant to the series. They turned her from an assistant in the spore drive to someone who knew it better than anyone other than Stamets, had her impersonate her bloodthirsty MU alter, get sucked into the mycelial network, end up on the bridge, end up XO only to have it blow up in her face...the list goes on and on. All of this would have IMHO been fine in a series structured like an older Trek show, with 26 episodes per season and at best semi-serialization. But the limited air time available meant that limited screen time which could be used to further the seasonal arc or the plots of the weeks had to be inclusive of Tilly...no matter how weird it ended up. The show will probably be a bit more streamlined with her departure.
I will say I uncritically loved the scenes with Book and Culber - they were by far the best part of this episode. It's interesting they decided to make Culber canonically at least part Latino (like his actor) despite the Anglo-Scottish last name. But I loved these scenes were about pure character, had no exposition, and just stood on their own.
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The 32nd century is so primitive, even more so than the 23rd. Again despite knowledge of the Kelvin timeline and presumably Augment blood, Borg nanoprobes, etc. we have no remedies for redshirts on hand. They don't even have space suits for the environment in the snow planet (even TOS and its old 1960s production had space suits in the Tholian Web for example), or even life support belts from TAS.
And what was up with Vulcan joining the Fed on the promise of a third party arbitrator that---was never identified? Who's going to be the 3rd party? The Organians? The Borg? Q? And how is Starfleet even remotely considered a temporary 3rd party when they're literally the military branch of the Federation?
Is Tilly getting her own show? Or is Mary Wiseman outright leaving?
Edit: Seems like she is leaving for an interview. From said interview "[Husband] Noah has a lot of stuff cooking vis-a-vis D&D [Dungeons and Dragons] with exciting announcements to come."
Mary should just join the D&D movies that Chris Pine is currently in, along with Joe Manganiello (how did mega D&D fan Joe even get left out to being with?)
And what was up with Vulcan joining the Fed on the promise of a third party arbitrator that---was never identified? Who's going to be the 3rd party? The Organians? The Borg? Q? And how is Starfleet even remotely considered a temporary 3rd party when they're literally the military branch of the Federation?
Is Tilly getting her own show? Or is Mary Wiseman outright leaving?
Edit: Seems like she is leaving for an interview. From said interview "[Husband] Noah has a lot of stuff cooking vis-a-vis D&D [Dungeons and Dragons] with exciting announcements to come."
Mary should just join the D&D movies that Chris Pine is currently in, along with Joe Manganiello (how did mega D&D fan Joe even get left out to being with?)
My least favourite of the season so far, but that by no means makes it bad. It’s still hugely enjoyable to me and I think splitting the cast up into pretty disparate stories each week is making the word feel larger. Plus more Kovich. What’s not to love?
One thing’s for sure, if they’re really gonna spin Tilly off into a Starfleet Academy series, they’re gonna need to redesign that location. Was not a huge fan of that open space they all seemed to meet in.
One thing’s for sure, if they’re really gonna spin Tilly off into a Starfleet Academy series, they’re gonna need to redesign that location. Was not a huge fan of that open space they all seemed to meet in.
Oh, one more comment...I feel like the AR wall didn't really work on this episode. I'm wondering if anyone else noticed it?
My issue was mainly with some of the close-up shots of actors while they were speaking. I noticed this particularly with Tilly & co on the planet. They blurred the background to give the camera "focus" on the character, but it resulted in it seeming like there was just a flat screen behind them projecting a snowscape rather than actually being in an environment.
My issue was mainly with some of the close-up shots of actors while they were speaking. I noticed this particularly with Tilly & co on the planet. They blurred the background to give the camera "focus" on the character, but it resulted in it seeming like there was just a flat screen behind them projecting a snowscape rather than actually being in an environment.
Wow, guess it really was a holosimulation with the safety controls disabled resulting in fatalities. Dr. Kovich is cold.
Maybe they can finally get Earth back in the Federation, and voila, ready-made SF Academy.
I wonder if Earth will figure into S4 at all actually.
So now that Earth's been gone from the Federation for a century, maybe they've resorted to using money again?
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