I know, I should be glad that we Europeans are getting the new episodes faster than ever before, but it would be so much more fun if we'd be able to watch them simultaneously and join in on the discussion rather than have to sift through pages and pages of comments. Oh well …
Really liked “Context is for Kings” and gave it a rating of 9 out of 10. It really feels like the actual story of
Discovery has finally begun. It reveals a great deal of new plot threads while still retaining a lot of mystery. It's a lot to digest and it goes by rather quickly. I think I'll have to rewatch the episode to really parse it all.
Lorca is an interesting character. But it's hard to tell what exactly he's up to and if his methods are questionable or not. From what he says here it really looks like it will be a story of “Do the ends justify the means?” and if it's wise to stick to Federation principles if you have to win a war. Looking forward if that's what the first season is about thematically.
Personally I'm kind of sick of the “That's not
Star Trek!” complaints, when most Trekkies could never agree on what exactly
Star Trek actually is. For me it's just another facet in the varied
Star Trek tapestry. It brings new elements and retains some of the old staples. So what, it's somewhat darker and somewhat more serious. I don't see that as bad in and of itself.
What about those crewmen who just faded out as they walked?

That was just a visual shorthand for “time that has passed”. They didn't literally fade away, it was just an effect for us viewers.
thank god the new director ditched the dutch angles and lens flares.
Yes, I noticed that as well. Really appreciate the somewhat more conservative camera work. Although they are still going a bit overboard (in every sense of the word actually) with the long CGI panning shots going from inside the ship to the outside (or vice versa).
Also, I wonder if these creatures in the lab (and the "kitty") are byproducts of manipulating the universe like this.
That's not how I understood it. My reading of it was that the alien creature was brought aboard from elsewhere in the universe when they were experimenting with the “new way to fly”.
like i posted above, a producer said in After Trek last week that third episode is the pilot, the first 2 were expositions.
IIRC, didn't they say it's “like” a second pilot, not that it's literally the actual pilot?
Coppershirt.
I liked the bridge set better in its Shenzhou configuration than its Discovery configuration. Wish they'd swapped the designs.
Maybe I'm getting you wrong, but the bridge sets of the
Shenzhou and the
Discovery are actually two distinct sets, not two configurations of the same set.
It occurs to me that the Discovery's introduction in this episode, by rescuing a troubled ship via tractor beam as the camera pans up for a dramatic reveal, is an almost exact repeat of the moment in BotBS where the Europa did the same for the Shenzhou. I wonder if the Discovery's reveal was originally going to be in BotBS but got pushed to this episode after the rewrites/reshoots.
Interesting idea. I could see how that could have been the case.
I literally LOLed when the Klingon warrior shushed Tilly.
Yeah, that was wonderful!
After watching this episode, I feel they have messed up with the first two episodes. In film making they say start late and end early, and if they had used this episode as the pilot, they would have done that. The first two episodes really added nothing except unnecessary backstory that could have been revealed later in a much more dramatic way without dragging down the series from the start.
Many people seem to feel that way, it appears. But I think it's actually a little more interesting to tell the story somewhat more straight forward. Constant flashbacks to reveal important story points have become kind of an overused cliché. And I'm sure many fans would be up in arms over how
Discovery is mimicking that trope from other shows.
It's really a no win scenario for the writers. They just can't do right for everyone.
One thing I'm disappointed with in this episode, and this is not the fault of the episode itself, is that it seems to confirm that the leaked plot outline that was wildly rejected as fake by CBS seems to have been accurate after all, especially with Frakes slip up last week.

I don't see how the episode confirmed any of that.
I think the "Burnham is a pariah" period is officially over. Everyone has warmed up to her by the end.
That's not what I got from the episode and I would be disappointed if that's how they are going to handle the issue from now on.
After watching 3 episodes so far, i must say Sonequa Martin-Green being casted as Michael Burnham was a good move. I had my doubts because i was not a fan of her in TWD but she is perfect for this role. I hope she continues to grow on me.
I agree, she's fantastic! She just owns the role and she's going flawlessly from stone-cold aggressive to teary-eyed emotional. It strikes me as a very convincing performance of a real human being.
I’m really liking Cadet Tilly. She seems to have some form of anxiety, so I can actually relate to her.
Yes, Tilly is awesome. She really does remind me of Barcley who I often felt was the most human character on
The Next Generation.
It's a shame they don't put up the preview for the next episode on Netflix. Is it up on YouTube yet?
BTW, did anyone notice that in the scene where they approach the
USS Glenn they call the shuttle the “Disco 1”?
