Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 5x06 - "Whistlespeak"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
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A 7 from me. Trek has done many episodes like this before, but it was nice to have a throwback to a classic Berman era esque ep. This could have been a TNG or ENT or VOY episode. Complete with ship bound B storyline. The ep played into some tropes but no one can say this week's didn't feel like Star Trek. What I don't like is that Saru has been sidelined for the last several episodes
That was painful if that's what 32nd century video games have regressed to. Why didn't they just get a freeware open source open license game to use for Book to play? They could've used Vega Strike: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega_StrikeAt the end, was Book playing.....Asteroids???
People don't play asteroids any more? Still one of my favorite games.
Fun episode. The lush visuals and the relatively self-contained story made it a good choice to have a screening for.
The fear of a sacrifice was dead-on Indiana Jones.
About ****ing time we got to see Kovich again!
Burnham's officially a Star Trek Captain now! She's broken the Prime Directive! Every Captain has to do it at least once. "But ____ didn't!" Be quiet, nitpicky heckler way out there in the background.
Kovich helped Adira put on their big-person pants and step up to the plate!
Tilly talking up Starfleet Academy more and her time there. I now more than half-expect that Tilly will assign some cadets to Discovery in an episode of SFA. Especially if they didn't strike the sets. I'll be more surprised if it doesn't happen than the other way around.
Going around the forest is something I want to do IRL. Seeing how long I can go without drinking water, not so much.
All I've got.
The fear of a sacrifice was dead-on Indiana Jones.
About ****ing time we got to see Kovich again!
Burnham's officially a Star Trek Captain now! She's broken the Prime Directive! Every Captain has to do it at least once. "But ____ didn't!" Be quiet, nitpicky heckler way out there in the background.
Kovich helped Adira put on their big-person pants and step up to the plate!
Tilly talking up Starfleet Academy more and her time there. I now more than half-expect that Tilly will assign some cadets to Discovery in an episode of SFA. Especially if they didn't strike the sets. I'll be more surprised if it doesn't happen than the other way around.
Going around the forest is something I want to do IRL. Seeing how long I can go without drinking water, not so much.
All I've got.
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Wasn't really a fan of this episode. It felt like a late season Voyager episode, and the stuff on the planet was kind of dull. I had wish we had seen the Denobulans again, especially what the 32 Century Denobulans would be like. I also wish Adira had more confidence. They are a Trill after all. Someone needs to give them a talking to like Garak talked to Ezri. I still think the best arc this season has been Culber's and I feel like that promise of Season 2 being a mix of Religion and science is coming to fruition here. I'm also liking the pair of Culber and Book this season.
5
5
This is a studio that’s cancelling shows because they’re getting too expensive as the streaming bubble bursts. Holding screenings like this is more money they have to spend, so it’s gonna raise some eyebrows regardless. This isn’t just a cigar, Dr. Freud.
After watching TRR, it looks like Kurtzman was basically there to calm the waters after all the cancellations and turmoil.
Yeah, it's true. I could see this as an episode of Voyager Season 7. I could even imagine a David Bell musical score in the background, since he usually got the "adventure" episodes.
Burnham would be Janeway. Self-explanatory.
Rayner would be Chakotay. Also self-explanatory.
Tilly would be Neelix, trying to help out the teenager on the planet.
Adira would be Icheb, and have his first bridge assignment for some story reason.
Culber would be The Doctor, wondering if there's something wrong with him.
Stamets would be Paris, assuring The Doctor there's nothing wrong with him. They just wouldn't kiss.
Kovich would be Garak... wrong series!
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I think the Adira-Raynor interactions were really well done (and I'm not normally a huge fan of Adira). It really feels like they're showing us he could be a gruff but very effective instructor at the academy. I certainly hope he moves over to that show the more I see of the character.
And yeah, even a holo-image of that Denobulan would have been a nice touch.
Raynor has been my second favorite character this season after Culber. Really like how he's settled in on Discovery and (Right now) he's not a bad guy.
I do miss Saru though. 2 episodes in a row with no Saru feels like an episode too many.
Agreed. But maybe a science team can be sent back to fix the other towers without even tipping anyone off. Discovery is kind of "on the clock".
At the end, was Book playing.....Asteroids???
I gave this one an 8. Better than it looked like it was going to be and definitely an old-school ST type episode.
Fair enough, but Burnham did fix the fourth (?) one pretty quickly, and I was wondering if the same couldn't be done with 32nd century technology for the others.
As I've been catching up, I was thinking that Burnham as captain reminds me of Gordon Ramsay on Hell's Kitchen, when the contestants shout "yes chef", as Discovery's crew gets to work at her command. While Burnham has a lot more faith in her crew, than it seems Ramsay often does with his contestants, I wish we would see that depicted more in terms of spreading the wealth when it comes to missions. I think that Culber, with his existential plight, might have worked better in this episode going to the planet with Tilly, and reversing the roles here where Tilly figures out the engineering problem while Culber has a discussion with the young woman about faith. I do like Culber talking with Book, but I thought it might have been better to use Culber on the planet instead.
I know it's too late now, but if Discovery was getting a sixth season, I would like to see the writers have Burnham delegate more, while she oversees things. It's one thing to believe in how good your crew is, as well as to say it, but another, to let them do their thing so the audience also sees it and believes it. They could even explain the change as something Burnham has to learn. Because of her upbringing, and her controversial past in Starfleet, she still could have issues really trusting, really letting people in, and believing they can succeed without her, and has to learn even more to not just go it alone. That gives her another character arc/journey, and a chance for further evolution.
I also would like to see Rayner get off the ship more, and for them to use his 32nd century knowledge more. He's not the only person that can learn a thing or two. It's not as bad though as how ENT put Mayweather, the person with perhaps the most knowledge of space of any of the human crew, on the sidelines for a good deal of its run, but it's giving me echoes of that. Granted, I get that they are introducing him to the crew and to the audience, and taking time for that, and that's good, but thinking if they got a sixth season, it would've been nice to see him get out there again more (if they don't put him more in the action in the last few episodes left).
Another thing just came to mind is Tilly.
I get why she's aboard, from a real world, as well as in-world reason, but at the same time, maybe her students want to leave Starfleet Academy because she isn't there to teach them.
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This entire season is about explaining something on the margins.
Slightly above avg? I'll forget for a moment that the Red Directive will wipe out the PD violation, because it was so blatant, and turning all the machines on would have been moreso.
They weren't lying when they said this was a TOS episode...It was about 90% there, with the main difference being they weren't judging the culture quite as much, aside from trying to dissuade them from sacrificing people to their gods.
Spiritual matters are fair game for Trek, considering one's creation may indeed lead to this, so I don't fault them for covering it, I just don't find it compelling for myself.
On episode 6, I'd have liked to see more about the Progenitors, or L'ak and Moll, or the Breen. I gather this will be episode 7.
As usual this episode looks great. I was expecting a more elaborate interior effect for the weather machine.
In general not a great or bad episode. It's on the fringes of my 7 rating for me.
They weren't lying when they said this was a TOS episode...It was about 90% there, with the main difference being they weren't judging the culture quite as much, aside from trying to dissuade them from sacrificing people to their gods.
Spiritual matters are fair game for Trek, considering one's creation may indeed lead to this, so I don't fault them for covering it, I just don't find it compelling for myself.
On episode 6, I'd have liked to see more about the Progenitors, or L'ak and Moll, or the Breen. I gather this will be episode 7.
As usual this episode looks great. I was expecting a more elaborate interior effect for the weather machine.
In general not a great or bad episode. It's on the fringes of my 7 rating for me.
Need to find time to watch this ep, argh!
Kovich had a 21st Century legal pad, Kirk collected antiques, Paris liked 20th Century movies/music, I don't see why Book can't play a game of Asteroids.
That was some beautiful character work and it was nice to see her after he’s mentioned her multiple times , even if she was a hologram
Adira is actually human, they just happen to also be host to a Trill symbiont.
Like I said, they could've gotten an open source modern looking game from today (to ensure Paramount doesn't get into legal trouble, tons of such games on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_video_games#Open_engine_and_free_data ) and it will still be considered antique by the 32nd century anyway (since it'd be a real 21st century game)
I guess what infuriates me is that we're told that we shouldn't get attached to TOS interior design, it's outdated, and Trek needs to be modernized etc. Then they go and have a 32nd century character play a game with literal Apple II level wireframe graphics.
You can literally find a better looking version of Asteroids at https://asteroids3d.sourceforge.net/ (admittedly I'm not sure if this particular version of Asteroids is under a freeware license so Paramount would be safer going with the options in the wiki link I mentioned earlier, like Vega Strike)
For me this was a decided improvement over last week's episode. The one big disappointment for me was that we didn't get to see an image of the 24th century Denobulan scientist nor any Denobulans at all. But the writing on the weather control tower access panel was the canon Denobulan alphabet? I'm trying to remember if we ever saw the Denobulan alphabet in ENT.
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