Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 1x05 - "Choose Your Pain"

Discussion in 'Star Trek: Discovery' started by Commander Richard, Oct 15, 2017.

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Rate the episode...

  1. 10 - Absolutely fantastic!

    18.1%
  2. 9

    28.9%
  3. 8

    21.7%
  4. 7

    13.3%
  5. 6

    3.9%
  6. 5

    6.3%
  7. 4

    3.0%
  8. 3

    2.4%
  9. 2

    0.3%
  10. 1 - I sling mudd at it!

    2.1%
  1. Quinton O'Connor

    Quinton O'Connor Commodore Commodore

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    I was gonna save this for when I get to my full review tomorrow, but as soon as Saru asked the computer to pull up a list of Starfleet's most distinguished captains, I said to my roommates (and this was the only time I interrupted the episode) "incoming Archer reference."
     
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2017
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  2. Smoked Salmon

    Smoked Salmon Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Seems so. But surely with a character like Tyler they could just adjust the accent, even if Lorca stays southern (he doesn't sound that southern tbh)?
     
  3. Charles Phipps

    Charles Phipps Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Oh, I totally agree and it seems like such an unnecessary adjustment on a show like Trek. People love Isaacs' natural voice and would certainly not object with Tyler. I doubt the character of Lorca is going to somehow have an important plot about being born in Georgia.
     
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  4. wayoung

    wayoung Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    TV audiences today are the opposite of short attention span viewers. The biggest, most acclaimed shows of the last decade are highly serialized, extremely intricate, detail oriented programming - often with long, slow burns punctuated with sudden action.

    The "today's short attention span audience won't watch it" claim is no more valid than the "the audience is too dumb to get it" claim.
     
  5. Charles Phipps

    Charles Phipps Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Or "the show about a starship captain getting sexy love slaves by aliens is too cerebral"
     
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  6. cultcross

    cultcross Postponed for the snooker Moderator

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    Well now my screen's clean from all the fanwank, I shall begin.

    What a fantastic episode. Klingons that weren't irritating as fuck (all it took was speaking English, who knew? Oh right, everybody). Lorca being awesome. The actual character they called Mudd (I'll get to the fact that it's him). Obvious spy is obvious. But the real meat of the episode happened on Discovery herself, and what a great story that was. Discovery is lacking in optimism and the spirit of Star Trek you say? Well not any more. Some wonderful character moments with Stamets, Tilly and Saru, and the scene where they revive the tardigrade was lovely (we'll ignore the question of where it got its water back from in the vacuum of space). I'm assuming there will be hell to pay next week for getting rid of the only tardigrade. When we're through the looking glass ;)

    The effects continue to be brilliant, the shots of Discovery were beautiful, and the Klingon disruptor effect was a great update on the vaporise setting - and just as with canon of old, it only vaporises extras, not recurring cast.

    The downside (there always will be one):
    The fanwank was strong with this one. The list of captains bit made me want to vomit. Seems the only criteria for being a 'great' Captain is being on TV. And with the odd exception, commanding the Enterprise. And there is no way in hell Georgiou was a great Captain. Sorry.

    Mudd. Great character, enjoyed every minute of his time on screen, funny lines, great mystery to the character, and loved the bit about getting caught in Starfleet's crossfire. But why did it have to be Mudd?! There's nothing there which requires that character to be Harcourt Fenton Mudd. It's small universe nonsense and makes me cringe.

    Oh, and obvious spy is obvious.

    Overall, very good indeed. This one gets my first 9 of the series.
     
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  7. wayoung

    wayoung Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I HATE small universe syndrome. Nothing kills my suspension of disbelief faster.
     
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  8. Smoked Salmon

    Smoked Salmon Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    He says in the age of five Michael Bay Transformers movies and a failing box office for a masterful Blade Runner movie.
     
  9. Charles Phipps

    Charles Phipps Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    To be fair, said characters were mostly established as great captains in-universe.

    I think people keep forgetting there's 16 or so Constitution-class vessels.

    Starfleet isn't exactly huge.
     
  10. cultcross

    cultcross Postponed for the snooker Moderator

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    There's a difference between short attention span and plain boring.
    Shows like Breaking Bad blow the 'audience attention span' argument out of the water when it comes to TV. Lots of shows now have slowly developing plotlines over time, and are very successful with it.
     
  11. cultcross

    cultcross Postponed for the snooker Moderator

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    Isn't just that (although that was ridiculous that we had followed or seen every last one on the list and most of them were Enterprise captains). It's Mudd, it's Sarek. And the annoying part is, there's no reason for it. Why did it have to be Sarek that adopted Michael? Any Vulcan at all would have had the same story. Why Mudd? Any prisoner would have done.
     
  12. Smoked Salmon

    Smoked Salmon Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Are you saying the new Blade Runner is "boring"?
     
  13. cultcross

    cultcross Postponed for the snooker Moderator

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    Not just the new one.
     
  14. Smoked Salmon

    Smoked Salmon Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    If you think both Blade Runners are "boring" then, with respect, you have little credibility lecturing me on attention spans.
     
  15. cultcross

    cultcross Postponed for the snooker Moderator

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    Got nothing to do with attention spans, it had to do with the content of those hours. "Not enough explosions" is not the only reason to dislike something. A lacklustre box office would suggest others agreed, as other limited explosion slow paced sci-fi has done fine. Besides, there's a big difference between TV audience expectations and movie audience expectations. Lots of build-the-story TV shows simply wouldn't work as movies.
     
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  16. Charles Phipps

    Charles Phipps Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Ehhhhh, while I agree with you on both points, I'm not actually that down on it because ENTERPRISE avoided TOS references like the plague because Ron Moore said Braga HATED the original series and wanted nothing to do it with on his show. So I see Discovery's TOS fanboyness as justified.

    It also is a nice way of stating, "Yes, we know what we're doing and what time period this is."
     
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  17. wayoung

    wayoung Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    ... since when are the Michael Bay Transformers movies considered one of the biggest, most acclaimed TV shows of the last decade?

    Also, the last one failed hard at the box office. Made half the previous films. You need a new go-to "Audiences are dumb and have short attention spans and are thus destroying all decent storytelling" film franchise.
     
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  18. cultcross

    cultcross Postponed for the snooker Moderator

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    Part of me does enjoy the nerdiness of the references, and I'm aware that it's there with the best intentions. I have just always found the 'endless connections' thing a bit trying on suspension of disbelief when we are asked to imagine a whole universe beyond the bits we see. Not one captain who hasn't featured in a TV show so far is considered 'great'? That rather reduces the scope of that universe. Just make up some names, three or four is all I ask!
     
  19. Smoked Salmon

    Smoked Salmon Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Worse is including a Captain (our dear recently departed Phillipa) who is hardly "great". She lead a two man away team with an officer who had just mutinied and started a war! Not what I'd call great!
     
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  20. Agony_Boothb

    Agony_Boothb Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    The episodes just keep getting better and better. I liked that this felt like more of an ensemble piece and shifted the focus away from Burnham for an episode. I like what was done with Lorca, I got the sense that he's carrying around a lot of guilt over what he did to his crew. Hopefully we'll get a bit more on what exactly happened on the Buran. Saru was a great Captain, i really liked seeing him in command. It was cool to see his prey instincts being used so effectively in combat. Also the scene between Saru and Burnham involving the telescope made my night. I liked that Saru didn't hide behind passive-aggressiveness and just laid his feelings out to burnham. Hopefully now Burnham and Saru will be able to move forward and repair their friendship. Stamets and Culber were great. Fingers crossed, the showrunners don't decide to follow the 'kill your gays' trope. I'm guessing there's going to be some weird alternate reality shenanigans/consequences as a result

    9/10 tardigrades from me.