Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 5x08 - "Labyrinths"

[Cr0sis21]

Maybe you heard wrong. Jones seems to have confirmed it.

I know what Doug Jones said. But do you think that makes sense?
They apparently shoot all of Tig Notaro's scenes for the season over the course of less than a week to accommodate her health issues.
So how many weeks does Doug Jones need for a direct-to-streaming kids movie press tour?
And apparently he had enough time to come back, get in makeup, and lie still for a few seconds for "Face The Strange"?
It doesn't make much sense.
And like I said, regardless of the reason, the average fan won't know and won't care.

 

[eschaton]

Because it's a mix. We've literally had the Gorn threat since Season 1, and in Season 2, episode 1, Admiral April was fully aware of a cruiser.

Strange New Worlds is hewing closer to a show like J*A*G or NCIS than full serialized like Daredevil or Rings of Power.

I agree with this. Again, I think it's very similar to DS9 overall, save for the super-serialized sections of the show, like the beginning of Season 6 and the end of Episode 7. The plots are mostly self-contained, but the decisions and character growth of the main cast grow organically from when we first meet them.

There are exceptions, though. The past of M'Benga as a traumatized veteran of the Klingon War in Season 2 came from nowhere and was pretty transparently just a way to find something new to say about him now that his arc regarding his daughter had been exhausted. But, on the whole, I've been impressed how they're continually building upon what's been established with La'an, Una, Pike, Spock, and many others.

 

[fireproof78]

I agree with this. Again, I think it's very similar to DS9 overall, save for the super-serialized sections of the show, like the beginning of Season 6 and the end of Episode 7. The plots are mostly self-contained, but the decisions and character growth of the main cast grow organically from when we first meet them.

There are exceptions, though. The past of M'Benga as a traumatized veteran of the Klingon War in Season 2 came from nowhere and was pretty transparently just a way to find something new to say about him now that his arc regarding his daughter had been exhausted. But, on the whole, I've been impressed how they're continually building upon what's been established with La'an, Una, Pike, Spock, and many others.

Never had an issue with M'Benga. He clearly plays things very tight, for obvious reasons, and struggles with his own demons.

Glad to see more of him. But, overall Strange New Worlds is a completely different animal from Discovery and on purpose.

 

[Cr0sis21]

Never had an issue with M'Benga. He clearly plays things very tight, for obvious reasons, and struggles with his own demons.

Glad to see more of him. But, overall Strange New Worlds is a completely different animal from Discovery and on purpose.

Yes, I'm happier with traumatized M'Benga than the one hiding his daughter. And as much as I liked the episode itself, I was disappointed with how they resolved the sick daughter issue. It f felt very anticlimactic

 

[eschaton]

Never had an issue with M'Benga. He clearly plays things very tight, for obvious reasons, and struggles with his own demons.

Glad to see more of him. But, overall Strange New Worlds is a completely different animal from Discovery and on purpose.

Again, it's just frustrating because I think it would be easy to actually root an entire episode around, say, Tilly, Stamets, or Saru. Something like Whistlespeak didn't work for me because even though Tilly got her (apparently) only chance to shine this season, the crisis of the week didn't inform us anything about her character or relate to her backstory. It could have just as easily been anyone else and worked fine.

 

[fireproof78]

Again, it's just frustrating because I think it would be easy to actually root an entire episode around, say, Tilly, Stamets, or Saru. Something like Whistlespeak didn't work for me because even though Tilly got her (apparently) only chance to shine this season, the crisis of the week didn't inform us anything about her character or relate to her backstory. It could have just as easily been anyone else and worked fine.

Ok, I guess...mmmm...to put it very bluntly: I care because the characters care. So, I care about Burnham and am invested in her and her outcome, and that includes her relationship with Tilly. So, maybe I didn't learn much about Tilly. So what? I was invested in her trying to succeed because the mission is important.

I don't know. It seems like there's this fixation on "we need to learn about characters" in every aspect. Maybe I'm missing something but to me sometimes the characters are going through "the motions" because that's part of the human life. Maybe a bit boring, but that's my view.

 

[Lord Garth]

IMHO, only two episodes across all of Discovery didn't have Michael as the "main character," as it were. Those being Terra Firma parts 1/2, where Georgiou is clearly the POV.

I wish Discovery had experimented with this format more. I don't think it would have taken away from SMG's status as lead actor if we got an entire episode from the perspective of Stamets or something.

For starters, you might want to include "Far From Home" on your list. Unless seeing Burnham on screen for one second automatically makes her the main focus.

You're also overlooking episodes where there were A-plots and B-plots, as well as episodes that had two plots of equal focus.

You mentioned Stamets, so let's start there. "... But to Connect" had Stamets as much of the main focus in his storyline as Burnham was the focus in hers.

 

[Cr0sis21]

For starters, you might want to include "Far From Home" on your list. Unless seeing Burnham on screen for one second automatically makes her the main focus.

You're also overlooking episodes where there were A-plots and B-plots, as well as episodes that had two plots of equal focus.

You mentioned Stamets, so let's start there. "... But to Connect" had Stamets as much of the main focus in his storyline as Burnham was the focus in hers.

I said earlier in the thread that the usage of the crew has dropped precipitously as the series progressed.
In these past two seasons, Stamets has been continuously pushed aside. Tilly was written off. Saru became little more than set decoration when he wasn't paired with T'Rina, then was written off as well.
Discovery used to be more of an ensemble. Still not as much as Berman-era Trek, but at least on par with TOS. Now it isn't even that.
Part of the problem is, the characters we do connect with as an audience keep disappearing.

 

[Nyotarules]

When they did this on Babylon 5, Jack the Ripper beat D'Lenn with a taser.

I thought the point of the point of the Academy Psyche Test, is that they only let perfect people with zero psychological issues be 19 year old Star Fleet Ensigns?

Have you met Lt Stiles and Dr McCoy?

 

[Nerys Myk]

I know what Doug Jones said. But do you think that makes sense?
They apparently shoot all of Tig Notaro's scenes for the season over the course of less than a week to accommodate her health issues.
So how many weeks does Doug Jones need for a direct-to-streaming kids movie press tour?
And apparently he had enough time to come back, get in makeup, and lie still for a few seconds for "Face The Strange"?
It doesn't make much sense.
And like I said, regardless of the reason, the average fan won't know and won't care.

No idea. Apparently long enough for Doug to set out a few episodes. Trek seems to accommodate it's actors. Like when they gave Mount a reduced schedule to accommodate the birth of his child. The conspiracy theories flew then too.

 

[Lord Garth]

I said earlier in the thread that the usage of the crew has dropped precipitously as the series progressed.
In these past two seasons, Stamets has been continuously pushed aside. Tilly was written off. Saru became little more than set decoration when he wasn't paired with T'Rina, then was written off as well.
Discovery used to be more of an ensemble. Still not as much as Berman-era Trek, but at least on par with TOS. Now it isn't even that.
Part of the problem is, the characters we do connect with as an audience keep disappearing.

At the very least, It's something to keep track of, next rewatch.

 

[DarKush]

Again, it's just frustrating because I think it would be easy to actually root an entire episode around, say, Tilly, Stamets, or Saru. Something like Whistlespeak didn't work for me because even though Tilly got her (apparently) only chance to shine this season, the crisis of the week didn't inform us anything about her character or relate to her backstory. It could have just as easily been anyone else and worked fine.

I disagree with you about Tilly in "Whistlespeak". To me, they've been planting the seeds for her spin off and in "Whistlespeak", from what I recall, she overcame her doubts about teaching at the Academy. That's what I got out of that episode, for her. I'm not saying it was some big episode stopping moment, and I don't disagree that you could've easily picked another character and put them in that storyline as well. However, they did talk up her doubts and it appeared she had resolved that doubt by the end of the episode. I could be wrong about that, because it was a boring episode to me that I didn't pay much attention to, but that's the impression I got.

 

[nightwind1]

It’s like they refuse to give any other characters anything interesting throughout. Everything has to be about Burnham.

That's what the series was intended to be from the start.

 

[Photoman15]

I can believe that. It's not normal to take most of a season off to do promotional stuff.

There was a strike that they had no idea how long it would last. Jones agreed to promote the movie but then the strike ended. It was bad timing.

 

[Uhura's Song]

There were some good things here, but as usual with DISCO, some really dumb plot stuff.

Why didn't they just jump from the oasis back outside the badlands? And then back in?

The badlands totally blocks sensors but yetvthey can transport Burnham & Book back at the end.

Moll takes over the Breen in 1 day.

 

[Uhura's Song]

Again, it's just frustrating because I think it would be easy to actually root an entire episode around, say, Tilly, Stamets, or Saru. Something like Whistlespeak didn't work for me because even though Tilly got her (apparently) only chance to shine this season, the crisis of the week didn't inform us anything about her character or relate to her backstory. It could have just as easily been anyone else and worked fine.

Plus, they stupidly send Burnham to do the engineering stuff (which Tilly is better at) and let Tilly run the race with no water instead of Burnham, who is in much better shape & grew up on Vulcan to boot.

It is not like DISCO is the only Trek to have huge plotholes. But they consistently do stupid stuff. Sometimes I can get past it. Sometimes it reaches a saturation point and I just can't.

 

[Nerys Myk]

.

Moll takes over the Breen in 1 day.

KHALEESI!

 

[Dar70]

Probably posted, but this is the actual library if anyone wanted to visit it: https://fisher.library.utoronto.ca/

I have no idea if it's open the public anymore though, because UofT is a stupid organization.\

Also the Breen are just not doing it for me. This season would have been better by just not having any antagonists at all except for the dumb scientists leaving around these death trap clues.

Very cool about the library...here's a nice write up about it.

https://www.utoronto.ca/news/learn-...y-becomes-eternal-archive-star-trek-discovery

I have to say the production crew did a really good job of preserving the aesthetics of the actual library and adding elements to make it look so vast.

 

[cooleddie74]

Shin Hati and the Breen sounds like a New Wave band from Amsterdam.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Shin Hati and the Breen sounds like a New Wave band from Amsterdam.

Loved their first album.