Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 3x02 - "Far From Home"

I wasn't aware MU Georgiou ever actually served in Starfleet...

They actually mentioned the V'draysh? Well there goes my theory that "Calypso" was going to be non-canon...will be interesting to see how they follow up on this.

 

Perhaps people who wanna mock the Federation say V'draysh like today's people saying 'murrica to mock America XD

 

Several times after introducing the concept of a pidgin, Zara refers to Saru as a V'draysh.

 

I enjoyed it more than last week's episode, but it still wasn't great...merely average.

What I enjoyed -

By far the best aspect of this episode is seeing the shipboard interactions between the Discovery crew. We get to "check in" with everyone who is still remaining on a ship, right down to characters like Bryce which were barely bridge furniture even in Season 2. Indeed, I feel like the episode peaked kinda early because the opening scenes of the crash and recovery were so strong, because we got to see a Starfleet crew working together to solve problems collectively. I wish we had a whole episode of that TBH.

Because so many characters were re-introduced - from Nhan to Linus to Detmer) - we really didn't get the chance to have a cohesive B plot this week. But Stamets got a nice mini-story regarding not being able to accept his medical limitations during his recovery.

What I hated -

Georgiou is just awful and nearly ruined the episode. Her hamminess as a character is just completely tonally off here compared to...everything else which is going on. Her early scenes were reminiscent of someone farting audibly in a large conference room - just embarrassing. This isn't of course because they're badly acted, but they just do not belong in this episode as scripted/portrayed, and result in a massive inability to suspend disbelief on my part. The worst part by far though was her explanation of why she came to the future. She didn't want to stay behind because they'd make her head of Section 31, and she hated bureaucracy??? She was the friggin Empress, she would do anything to get more power. Presumably this is a cover story because she doesn't want to admit it was due to her (weird) feelings for Michael, but it rang so hollow.

Star Trek has always been far from scientifically rigorous, but I never thought we'd see an exploded planet with a large chunk taken out of it...which somehow has not transformed into a molten ball and still has a breathable atmosphere. At least Tilly recognized how weird it was - presumably some future tech is involved. Again though, it kinda took me out of just "enjoying the show" early on and put me into nitpick mode.

Mixed feelings -

The bog standard western plot (complete with saloon doors and a bad guy wearing spurs) was...bog standard. It was a strange choice tonally considering this is supposed to be The Future and presumably the writers want us to think it's an alien place. But it did the job more or less.

Not sure how I feel about the "parasitic ice" thing. Trek has had worse science in the past, and I'd like a bit more technobabble to explain what the hell was going on, but I can live with it I suppose.

Finally, the baddie explicitly mentioned "V'Draysh" twice, which is presumably the word for Federation in the pidgin language he mentioned. This is the term that Craft used in Calypso, which means they are going to tie that Short Trek into continuity. My heart dropped a bit at that, because I've really not wanted that sweet standalone story ever really explained (and it has logistical issues which would require an episode of setup). On the other hand, if the uptime Federation is the V'Draysh, that at least means that Craft was really a "bad guy" - which I am happy about, because the idea that we had to make the Federation evil just because Craft was a good person was box of hammers stupid.

 

In regards to the Federation/V'draysh, i think we're going to see they are two organisations split by ideology but not necessarily in conflict. Its implied by the orion in THIY that the Federation exists as its own entity considering he asks burnham how she is connected to them without mentioning the V'draysh

I think that while the Federation became home to true believers, the V'draysh became home to those who felt authoritarianism with good intentions was necessary to keep the galaxy stable. Naturally this brought them into conflict with societies like Craft's who didn't really need or want the V'draysh controlling them.

I think the V'draysh wont be out and out evil villains, but people whose fear led them down the wrong path and who need to be welcomed home

 

The Federation could be humans and Trill, the V'draysh could be Vulcans and Romulans

 

The way I read it was that V'Draysh was the word for Federation in whatever language that red-eyed alien was speaking. The Orion spoke "standard" and thus didn't use the term.

I really hope your scenario is not the case. My headcanon is Craft is basically a Maquis analogue - a human who ended up on the wrong side of the border. Sort of a "nobody's right, nobody's wrong" scenario.

Again, it's just super simplistic, childish storytelling to make an entire friggin state "bad" just because a nice guy happened to be fighting for the opposite side in a single short. Nice guys can fight for the "wrong side." It happens all the time. And storytelling of this sort goes back to The Iliad.

 

I enjoyed it. While it could be described as filler (and fairly so.), I enjoyed that it was slightly more episodic. One of Discovery's flaws, to me, is the constant 'the universe hangs in the balance' scenario. (Not the first iteration to have that particular issue. Obviously, sometimes the stakes need to be high. ) A reliance on certain tropes (the baddies delaying a kill, the viewscreen dramatically pausing, so the reveal is more impactful, etc...) is something I could do without.
What I did enjoy is that most of the characters who are decidedly not Michael had a chance to be the focus. That's not a rip on her character, I just like the cast and think they are worth exploring as well.
Jett "I don't know, I'm on drugs" Reno for the win.

 

Nearly 9am, and it hasn't dropped on the Amazon Prime All Access channel.

 

Gave it a 6, personally didn't really do it for me overall, but I really enjoyed the drama of fixing the ship and seeing everyone crawl and scramble around to get it up and running. The western plot dragged hardddd. I have no problem with the fact that it was an old west style planet because we've seen that before so no reason it can't happen here. But I am beyond sick to death of the Three Amigos "Save the old west villagers from the evil cowboys" trope. It's been done in countless movies for a century, and even Star Trek has several episodes across the franchise that are this exact thing (Ent has at least two!). So I was baffled to see that we're still doing this in 2020. And the saloon set felt very cheap and far too bottle-episode-like this early on. The crew reactions to Michael at the end felt very wholesome and genuine, gave me some nice feels. And I loved the ship crash+take-off. Looked excellent and was really cool to see the ship landed in a new setting. All in all, it was a fine enough episode, but like I said I really only got enjoyment from the ship setting.

 

I got up early to watch it before work.

 

Just dropped. on Amazon prime.

 

V'Draysh seems to be slang for the Federation used in disdain.

Wonder how this plays into Calypso?

If I'm not mistaken we've had living crystals and living water/liquid before on Star Trek. Living ice isn't something that phased me at all.

 

I was a little annoyed that Prime dropped the episode so late. My subscription is up for renewal on 11/1 so I'm going to switch to the real CBSAA prior to that. This has happened more than a few times. I thought after Picard (and it might have happened once there) and Lower Decks (always on time with those), this wasn't going to be an issue anymore. Guess I was wrong.

I liked the episode. The camaraderie of the crew was great. And it was nice to catch up with all of them again. I'm a little worried about Detmer though. Hope she gets through whatever's going on. (And even though I did think for about 30 seconds it was Control, I don't think that's the case. It defeats the entire purpose of going to the future. And how would it even happen?) I do hope it gives her a bit of a story arc. Surprised to see Nhan now a series regular. I was really hoping for Reno to have that honor before Nhan. Oh well. The stuff with Culber, Stamets and Reno was all golden. I also liked the western feel of this. If this season has done something very well in its first two episodes, its making it feel like we're on the frontier again. Perhaps a little too literally, but oh well.

I am a little over Phillipa. I hope that Admiral Georgiou might have some interesting stuff to do as opposed to the very formulaic thing of pushing her wanton need for violence to the edge only to back down. Its getting pretty predictable. I also thought, while the frontier feeling was nice, it was a little long. The episode could have probably been about 5-10 minutes shorter.

Some have called this episode filler and while I can see why someone might think that, I disagree. It dealt with character. And it dealt with the idea that there are people out there who want the Federation's return, even moreso than was seen in the season premiere. I was sorry Kal was killed. I felt that optimism he had was lost. I just hope its not a sign of things to come.

7/10.

 

You can watch it on CBS with a Prime subscription, yes?

 

Technobabble, mainly from the Berman era, always tended to pull me out of episodes because all the faux science explanations just served to remind me how much what's being said didn't actually matter. By just referring to it as "parasitic ice", it tells me exactly what it is and the episode moves forward without needing to have an android and a blind man wasting airtime explaining in full detail of "parasitic ice".

 

Star Trek: The Wrath of Zareh

Zareh: I never forget a face, Miss... Tilly. Isn't it? I never thought to see your face again.

Book: Tilly, who is this man?

Tilly: A criminal, Book, ...a product of post-Burn corruption.

Zareh: You didn't expect to find me alive. Allow me to reintroduce you to Coridan Colony's only remaining indigenous lifeform. Parasitic ice. You see it enters through the ears ...and wraps itself around the cerebral cortex. This has the effect of rendering the victim extremely susceptible to suggestion. Later, ...it grows, ...follows madness. ...And death.

Tilly: Zareh, listen to me! Saru was only doing his duty!

Book: No! No!

(Zareh grabs both Book's and Tilly's heads and shove them into the snow)

Tilly/Book: (screams of pain. When they are pulled out, they have blank looks on their faces)

Zareh: That's better! Now tell me ...why you are here? ...And tell me where I may find Saru.

 

Unfortunately not. At least, I wasn't able to do that when I was briefly signed subscribed to CBS via Prime.

 

It does not appear so.

 

Jett Reno! what a character

Loved the Saru Tilly talk during the walk.

the floating rocks reminded be of Mass Effect Andromeda's opening...

Onwards to Ep 3, want to discover more about this time period