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Spoilers Season 3 episode 4 'Forget me not' promo and sneak peek

The original writer idea of "we don't need to show the department heads" was pretty inane to begin with.

Agreed -- I get the original idea that they didn't want to FOCUS on the command staff and the department heads but it was a fallacy to think that it made sense not at least to establish who these characters were, especially on a ship with a relatively small crew! Notably, they did not make this mistake when developing Lower Decks which, in practice, is far closer to what they were originally touting for Discovery. The senior staff on the Cerritos may not be the focus of the story but they are all a key part of the background.

Even two doctors is relatively high medical staffing for a crew of less than 200. To date, we have seen at least nine medical department characters but that can be explained relatively easily by the experimental nature of the original mission and a perceived increased risk to the crew. It's also arguable that at least some of those may have either become casualties themselves or may have transferred off the ship at some point during the first two seasons.

Bringing in the random medical Commander for the Harry Mudd / gormagander scenes just confused things even further. We do know that, at least to begin with, Culber was clearly not the CMO. In the absence of any other evidence, it's not unreasonable to suggest that this guy could have been him, at least at that point in time. Equally, precedence in terms of relative substantive rank may not be directly relevant to appointed roles in the medical department if Culber and Pollard were there for different purposes, such as one in a specialist role with specific duties and the other as a general duties medical officer within the main medical department. It's both clutching at straws and a bit hand-wavey as an explanation (sorry, terrible mixed metaphor!) but it's another one of those irritating things that has been left hanging somewhat unnecessarily by the inconsistencies in the writing and development of Discovery.

Just a thought: are there any senior (LCDR or CDR) engineering or medical badges on Tilley's wall of remembrance that might hint at senior officers in those departments lost along the way...?

One throw-away line from Culber in a log entry or other dialog noting that he's now the most senior medical officer on the ship (and maybe something about the weight of responsibility he now feels) would at least clear up the current situation, even if it can't address the inconsistencies of the previous seasons -- unless of course they do actually fully intend that the Commander played by Jason Deline is, in fact, still there in the background and that he is the CMO...
 
Just a thought: are there any senior (LCDR or CDR) engineering or medical badges on Tilly's wall of remembrance that might hint at senior officers in those departments lost along the way...?

I've been squinting at that wall for the very purpose, but the annoying little pits aren't in sufficient focus. Or then I just need more coffee and carrots.

EDIT: No joy there. We see five Cadet badges total, and out of the three regular badges in the initial close-up, one is a full Lt with two bumps, one is bump- or pitless, and the one to the right and in focus has the Lt(jg) bump-plus-pit and is accompanied by a dog tag for an apparent Murray, R (and never mind the badges themselves were originally supposed to be the dog tags). Beyond this, it's just plain impossible to confirm three-bump badges or whatnot. We really need to go backstage there.

One throw-away line from Culber in a log entry or other dialog noting that he's now the most senior medical officer on the ship (and maybe something about the weight of responsibility he now feels) would at least clear up the current situation, even if it can't address the inconsistencies of the previous seasons -- unless of course they do actually fully intend that the Commander played by Jason Deline is, in fact, still there in the background and that he is the CMO...

During S1, it was excusable for the CMO to be unavailable. Currently, it really shouldn't happen, when more than two medical officer characters already would weigh down the stories way too much.

Then again, they do have half a dozen engineers as a plot drag anchor, none of them the Chief yet. Then again again, we'll soon learn that "dysfunction is the team", so perhaps this will be embraced rather than resolved?

Timo Saloniemi
 
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The original writer idea of "we don't need to show the department heads" was pretty inane to begin with.
I understand the desire to avoid making the main cast and the starship's roster the same thing, but the execution of the idea left much to be desired, particularly the manner in which they just stubbornly refused to show the CMO and the chief engineer at all. Despite having engineering being a major set piece for the show and having a medical officer who fills all the narrative functions of the CMO anyway. Really, the way Lower Decks handled it was better, we know who all the senior officers on the Cerritos are, but they aren't all in the main cast.

And then there's the whole thing that all the bridge officers have just become central to the show anyway despite wanting to break away from that tradition too. In the first season the bridge officers were the only ones who got medals in the finale, in the second season the bridge officers all started attending the officers briefings, and just last week the bridge officers are the only ones who get to visit Earth at the end of the episode.
 
Preview pictures
http://blog.trekcore.com/2020/11/star-trek-discovery-304-photos-forget-me-not/

Sounds like (no pun intended) we're goin to hear the Trill language this episode, and the Barzan language in a later episode.

https://twitter.com/Nfarmerlinguist/status/1323080640401534977

Edit: Oh huh this guy created the Belter language for The Exapnse.

Papa Saru having the kids over for dinner along with georgiou as that weird narcissistic aunt who loves getting drunk and causing a post-dinner argument that ends in people not speaking for 6 months.
 
Mmmmmm Lt. Sweatmer

Also im getting a little confused about the size of the crew now. Has almost everyone stayed on because the end of season 2 made it feel like it was just the main cast staying on the ship
 
Also im getting a little confused about the size of the crew now. Has almost everyone stayed on because the end of season 2 made it feel like it was just the main cast staying on the ship

The last time they did a crew count (this season), it was 88.

In season 2, the total crew complement was in the 130's.

So some of them must have stayed behind on the Enterprise rather than make the jump into the future.
 
Actually, there was no crew count in S2. There was a single datapoint in one episode of S1, the 134-plus in "Choose Your Pain", and then there was a head count in the 200 ballpark for Airiam's funeral but without official dialogue for further confirmation or a more specific figure.

Tilly's wall art consists of some twenty dead, so the ship went to the S2 boss fight with 100-110 folks. Apparently, then, some 90-100 decided not to volunteer for the future trip, or got offboard at some earlier stage after the funeral, for other reasons. Or then 200 did, if 100 of them couldn't make it to the funeral.

Which is reasonable, I guess. The ship was jam-packed with weird and asocial scientists originally, plus folks Lorca apparently hand-picked for their fierce loyalty to a leader who pays well in favors. Prime material for the Foreign Legion, so 50% volunteering rate isn't all that unlikely. But 100% would not be realistic.

Timo Saloniemi
 
Y’all are telling me that Pollard isn’t the CMO?! I assumed she was. I really like her wry, laconic manner, it is very like a number of the doctors I’ve known. Similarly, I assumed Reno was now the chief engineer? Don’t department heads get invited to staff meetings any more? :shrug:
 
I watched Equilibrium, Dax, and The Host in anticipation for this episode. Did I forget any important Trill episodes?
Rejoined and Facets.

Y’all are telling me that Pollard isn’t the CMO?! I assumed she was. I really like her wry, laconic manner, it is very like a number of the doctors I’ve known. Similarly, I assumed Reno was now the chief engineer? Don’t department heads get invited to staff meetings any more? :shrug:

We've never had anyone confirmed as CMO or Chief Engineer. There was a graphic in season one that listed Stamets as Chief engineer but behind the scenes says that was a mistake - after all, he wears science colors.

The problem as others have alluded to us that we have scenes like the one in the trailer where the senior staff have breakfast together or have important meetings, and there is never a CMO or Chief engineer there. If I were the CMO of Discovery, ranked Commander or higher, I'd be fairly pissed off that Ensign Green as Grass gets to go but I don't. Leads me to assume that both these department heads left the ship prior to this or were killed, leaving Culber and Reno in charge by virtue of rank. They haven't actually said this though.
 
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