The least disliked episode 2021 - DISCO Season Two

Our addictive biyearly game of rapid elimination returns - now able to include Disco's third season as well as the debut years of Picard and Lower Decks. It's generally a lot of fun, providing a chance to mentally revisit those episodes you may not have thought about in a while. With that in mind, why not play again?

So, here's the game. The basic idea is your standard elimination game. I'll provide a list of the episodes for each season and you need to eliminate your least favorite or the one you deem the 'worst.' Please provide an EXPLANATION for why you are eliminating your choice and be sure to copy and paste the list with your choice removed. Finally, leave at least 2 eliminations by other posters before you eliminate another episode.

No tactical voting! You cannot remove an episode just because you feel they would threaten your preferred episode's chance to win. Pretty simple. Enjoy!

Hall of Champions
2019 - Project Daedalus
2021 -

Season Two

Brother
New Eden
Point of Light
An Obol for Charon
Saints of Imperfection
The Sound of Thunder
Light and Shadows
If Memory Serves
Project Daedalus
The Red Angel
Perpetual Infinity
Through the Valley of Shadows
Such Sweet Sorrow I
Such Sweet Sorrow II

 

"The Red Angel" is just terrible. Every season of streaming Trek has that moment where the early promise collapses and it becomes clear we're in for a disappointing gibberish ending once again, and this is that grim point-of-no-return for Disco season 2. It's nothing but clumsy, heavy-handed plot moves, you can hear the agonized gear grinding the whole time.

It also has the worst line in the franchise. ("Don't be so binary. In my universe, he was pansexual, and we had DEFCON-level fun together. And you too, Papi.")

Brother
New Eden
Point of Light
An Obol for Charon
Saints of Imperfection
The Sound of Thunder
Light and Shadows
If Memory Serves
Project Daedalus
Perpetual Infinity
Through the Valley of Shadows
Such Sweet Sorrow I
Such Sweet Sorrow II

 

Parting is not "Such Sweet Sorrow, Part II"... because I am parting ways with this episode.

The battle was just a mess... so hard to even keep track of what was going on visually. Too much clutter. And the solution was to classify the ship and everyone aboard her. Really? Really? THAT is the best you can do?

The real solution would have heen to never have the series start 10 years before Kirk as captain. (Though it led to STRANGE NEW WORLDS, which I am hugely excited about.)


Brother
New Eden
Point of Light
An Obol for Charon
Saints of Imperfection
The Sound of Thunder
Light and Shadows
If Memory Serves
Project Daedalus
Perpetual Infinity
Through the Valley of Shadows
Such Sweet Sorrow I

 

Project Daedalus, I did not care for Ariam, she was a nothing character and they only really build her up in this episode to kill her off, it was honestly a bit annoying.



Brother
New Eden
Point of Light
An Obol for Charon
Saints of Imperfection
The Sound of Thunder
Light and Shadows
If Memory Serves
Perpetual Infinity
Through the Valley of Shadows
Such Sweet Sorrow I

 

Point of Life is a fairly dull episode. Tyler was a pointless carry-over from season one, and the pace of the scenes with the Klingons continued to be tepid.

Brother
New Eden
An Obol for Charon
Saints of Imperfection
The Sound of Thunder
Light and Shadows
If Memory Serves
Perpetual Infinity
Through the Valley of Shadows
Such Sweet Sorrow I

 

Perpetual Infinity - it was around this time that the season's plot was really losing me.

Brother
New Eden
An Obol for Charon
Saints of Imperfection
The Sound of Thunder
Light and Shadows
If Memory Serves
Through the Valley of Shadows
Such Sweet Sorrow I

 

"Lights And Shadows" is an extremely sloppy episode -- the first serious tremor presaging the total narrative collapse 3 episodes down the line in "The Red Angel."

I wonder if SNW 1. actually is episodic, and 2. is good, if that might inspire Disco to step in that direction as well. Serialization generally, great, serialization on Trek, could be awesome -- our only problem is that all of the writers we actually have are unbelievably terrible at specifically serialized storytelling. PLAY TO YOUR STRENGTHS, PEOPLE!

Brother
New Eden
An Obol for Charon
Saints of Imperfection
The Sound of Thunder
If Memory Serves
Through the Valley of Shadows
Such Sweet Sorrow I

 

Parting with "Such Sweet Sorrow". The first part was better than the finale, but I'm still not doing cartwheels.


Brother
New Eden
An Obol for Charon
Saints of Imperfection
The Sound of Thunder
If Memory Serves
Through the Valley of Shadows

 

It's saying something that the remainder are mostly from the beginning of the season. I'm going to continue with this and eliminate Through The Valley of Shadows. The stuff with Pike was fine, if a little bit too far into high fantasy for my taste. But the B-plot with Burnham and Spock onboard the Section 31 ship was terribad. SMG didn't put in a great performance that week, being outshone by Peck as Spock. Then Control goes all "Bond Villain" with the possessed mook, which kinda showcases the writers once again have no idea how to deal with ahuman AI. As for the remainder, Stamets and Culber get some good character moments, and Latif proves yet again he doesn't have the acting chops for the role he was cast in.

Brother
New Eden
An Obol for Charon
Saints of Imperfection
The Sound of Thunder
If Memory Serves

 

So true! I think ep 2 though 6 of this season are the strongest run of consecutive episodes Discovery has had. Too bad the showrunners responsible for them had to also be abusive!

But I do think the "Brother" kick-off is pretty terrible. So many things about this episode are just off. The Linus snot bit. Killing a Starfleet officer for comic relief. That huge long incoherent idiotic sequence of navigating through the debris field. Not a total loss (the intros of Pike, Reno, and Nhan are super successful), but a disappointing premiere.

New Eden
An Obol for Charon
Saints of Imperfection
The Sound of Thunder
If Memory Serves

 

These are all good episodes now. I'll take New Eden away, which is a totally fine episode until the Red Angel arc is concluded badly. It's a shame.

An Obol for Charon
Saints of Imperfection
The Sound of Thunder
If Memory Serves

 

Saints of Imperfection had a little too much going on.

An Obol for Charon
The Sound of Thunder
If Memory Serves

 

The Sound of Thunder for having the Ba'ul live in an obvious transporter room redress and because the other two are just more interesting.

An Obol for Charon
If Memory Serves

 

Eliminating An Obol for Charon. It's a good episode, but the scene near the end where Saru and Michael suddenly have a close and warm friendship is head scratching. Textbook unearned emotional moment.


If Memory Serves

 

That would have been my winner as well. "If Memory Serves" is my personal Disco high point.

Another weird thing about "An Obol For Charon" -- the beautiful heartwarming ending in which they save the Sphere's data directly leads to all the horror later in the season. If the Sphere had died forgotten and alone, that would have stopped Control right there!

That's another thing I really wish Streaming Trek could get a handle on -- stop drawing direct causal links between our characters noble compassion and the mass death events that every season must (apparently) be about. It really undermines the central point of the thing!

 

Missed this one.

 

"New Eden" is peak DSC. One of the only episodes in the series to date that I've given a 10.

 

The arc definitely came apart around the last third of the season, which is a total shame as the first two-thirds were pretty awesome. Mostly.

The success of S2 is why we're getting Strange New Worlds, after all.

 

S2 is still the show’s high point for me, but I don’t think any of the seasons has really worked as a complete, satisfying story. They’ve all collapsed at the end. So I’m eager to give SNW’s more episodic approach a go.

 

Season 3 didn't so much come apart as it fizzled out. It followed a logical path from start to finish, it was just...pretty underwhelming in the end.