Some additional notes, late as usual, before we venture into Discovery's equivalent of the upside-down tomorrow:
- As #1 beams in, the transporter operator says "teleporter incoming". Not often we hear "teleport" in Trek in any capacity, IIRC they wanted to distance themselves from the more common nomenclature.
- As fun as it is to posit that the Enterprise doesn't have holocomm technology later on because Pike ordered them ripped out, he basically says it's because of this that his ship isn't working properly - but #1 says that no other ship has been affected this way, and THEY all have the tech. It also doesn't at all explain why no one puts them back IN later on, especially when the ship hits spacedock after Kirk's 5YM. It also doesn't really cover why no other Constitution class ship that Kirk and company visit has it either, in use while they're aboard. As in-joke nods go, IMO it's a little weak.
- So Pike's still-not-firmly-placed-but-until-told-otherwise-I'm-assuming-it's-above-and-behind-the-bridge ready room is being used not just for himself, but for more general bridge crew conferences. I guess this functionally replaces the conference room seen in the last couple episodes of the previous season, itself a repurposed version of the room on the starbase seen even earlier on.
- Commander Nhan's stealthy reappearance comes with a "welcome BACK aboard" from Burnham, suggesting she left at the end of her previous adventure aboard and came back here. This sorta answers my question about what they'd do with a starship full of Starfleet's best and brightest while the Enterprise was laid up.
- Nhan bothers to change her uniform here (and is visible in a future episode from the season trailer). As such, she properly introduces the skirt variant of the Discovery-era uniform! Unlike the two-piece she wore before, this one seems to be a one-piece tunic with attached skirt and a gold zipper that does seem to go all the way down, PLUS zippered pockets so the uniform would actually be a little practical. She seems to still wear the shiny full-length leggings and boots from before, though.
- We likewise confirm that Burnham's lab is located directly off the bridge, and is in fact Lorca's old ready room.
- Have we seen the PADD that Number One gives to Pike before on this ship? They generally don't have much in the way of tablet devices on Discovery, least of all on the bridge. This one is clearly TOS-evoked.
- Linus is canonically confirmed as Saurian. Which makes Saurian an official race designation for this species after having been seen on screen for forty years now. I'm guessing their brandy really clears their sinuses.
- We've talked about this before, but as Rhys is calling out temperatures in this episode he consistently says "DEGREES Kelvin", whereas in practice the Kelvin is its own measurement. He should have called them simply Kelvins. Luckily Burnham calls out a temperature correctly later on.
- Maybe we should stop pointing it out, but even in the face of a deadly hot alien library, Discovery stubbornly insists on leaving her back door open.
- I can't be sure, but Georgiou's telescope seems to have migrated to Saru's quarters. It wasn't apparent in Burnham's (still?!) shared billet last week, but that's SOMEONE'S refractor in the corner, now on its own 20th century tripod.
- We have a LOT of Commander-ranked people on Discovery - possibly a record for regular crew? Today we had Saru, Burnham, Stamets, Airiam (L. Cdr), Nhan, and Reno. Culber was a L. Cdr as well and worked for a CMO, and Reno answers to someone too, so presumably this adds two more for a potential total of eight regular crew on board right now at the rank of Lieutenant or full commander. Offhandedly, TOS had three (Spock, Scott, McCoy) and by the sixth movie had five (adding Sulu, Chekov, and Uhura, and promoting Spock), TNG had four or five (Riker, Data, LaForge, Crusher/Pulaski, and Worf eventually), DS9 had one-ish after Sisko made Captain (Dax, Eddington), Voyager had two (Chakotay and Tuvok, although she also came with an L.Cdr CMO), and Enterprise two (Trip, later T'Pol). Not counting Bajoran / Vulcan equivalents or one-off characters, Discovery certainly comes off as top-heavy in the brass department compared to her predecessors. We also previously had Commander Landry and no fewer than three other Commander-ranked personnel have been mentioned on the PA, according to Memory Alpha!
Mark
