Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 1x06 - "Lethe"

[bookworm8571]

What Tuvok said...



At one point after communication with Earth was restored, Tuvok dug finding out that he was a grampy now.

I forgot about Tuvok. Sarek isn’t actually a normal Vulcan. He married two human wives after his original fiancé/wife/bondmate, the mother of Sybok, either died or divorced him. Sybok’s mother was either a Vulcan princess or priestess, depending on the material, but from a high status family, as was Sarek. She seems to have taken his son away from him or he was in some way prevented from being involved in the boy’s early childhood.

So after that disastrous proper marriage, he rebelled by marrying Amanda and told everyone he was experimenting by trying to integrate human and Vulcan cultures. He was proving something, maybe to his own parents or to his ex wife or to his ex wife’s family. But then, after rebelling, he set out to make his half human son the most perfectly Vulcan-y Vulcan that ever was and to turn his human foster daughter into a Vulcan and he disparaged their human traits. In The Original Series, he insisted Amanda act in what seems to be the traditional way for Vulcan wives, obeying him in public. Why exactly did Amanda put up with this guy? And yet she loved him and Sarek was desperate enough to save young Michael that he gave up a piece of his soul to do it. His children are genuinely part of him. A study in contradictions.

 

[Refuge]

Michael is not working as a convincing character.

 

[OpenMaw]

I want to comment on the music. I did notice it this episode, and I have noticed it in a few in the past. When Tilly and Burnham are doing their jog though the ship. Starts with the pan through to the interior of one of the connecting points, and you get this great lo-fi bit of music that phases into this orchestral flourish. Loved that.

The show just keeps getting stronger as it goes along. Everyone is becoming more and more likeable. Lorca is my favorite, my MVP at this point.

The only thing that sagged this for me was the Vulcan stuff. Some of it was a bit dull, until we reached the pay off. I did like the way this tied into Sarek's later attitude(s) towards Spock.

I do like Tyler, he's doing everything a spy should, and I get the feeling he's going to do some major damage when the time comes. All of these threads are going to come to a very satisfying head.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Michael is not dynamic or flashy.

She's (almost) Vulcan.

Michael wins by been a complex mystery.

If Soval had a kid, Johnny Archer would have played with that kid.



We met T'Pol's mother, but I can't remember if her Father was dead or disinterested.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Michael is not working as a convincing character.

I buy her extremely well, perhaps because I work in academia. I have met children raised by geniuses to be geniuses who are socially incapable of existing outside being an overachiever.

When they fail....wow, it is like they're in a maze.

 

[Charles Phipps]

I really liked the episode. It's Burnham's best episode to date and I see it as a important episode were I think we will start to see her acting more human. The stuff with Sarek having to choose Spock over her I think adds alot to the real version and it's something I see as something that also happened in the prime universe. I had a feeling Lorca and the Admiral had romantic feelings. It's kind of cliche and I kind of wish you could just have a guy and woman be friends but in the end what they did do was worth of it because of the great scene were you see just how emotionally damaged he is when he almost chokes and pulls a phaser on her and then starts to almost beg her to let it slide.

I remind people this IS the prime universe. However, I do think this is the first episode where her being Spocks' heretofore unknown sister actually starts to jell as story material.

 

[cultcross]

It's almost like they thought this stuff through beforehand!

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

We met T'Pol's mother, but I can't remember if her Father was dead or disinterested.

There were two potential storylines for T'Pol's father on ENT. One had him be an undercover Romulan agent who faked his own death. OTOH, Gary Graham suggested that Soval was T'Pol's father.

IIRC, only the first one was ever seriously considered.

 

[starri]

It's only notable when Patrick Stewart is the Captain.

It's too late. We've seen everything.

The only thing that depresses me about the whole Orville thing is that it proves we've learned nothing from the great DS9/B5 War of 1994-1998. I was hoping after the Armistice, reflection had led us to realize that it was okay for someone to prefer one over the other, or like both, without it either invalidating our preference, or making the other person's opinion wrong.

 

[OpenMaw]

It's too late. We've seen everything.

The only thing that depresses me about the whole Orville thing is that it proves we've learned nothing from the great DS9/B5 War of 1994-1998. I was hoping after the Armistice, reflection had led us to realize that it was okay for someone to prefer one over the other, or like both, without it either invalidating our preference, or making the other person's opinion wrong.

Listen, if someone disagrees with me they are clearly wrong.

 

[Refuge]

It isn't so much reacting to Michael's character traits/journey but her presence as a *lead*. She has the thread of being the lead. The build up and the dialogue from the others to prop her. However at the end of the episode she is not the one I'm thinking about or wondering what they are going to do next.

 

[Charles Phipps]

It isn't so much reacting to Michael's character traits/journey but her presence as a *lead*. She has the thread of being the lead. The build up and the dialogue from the others to prop her. However at the end of the episode she is not the one I'm thinking about or wondering what they are going to do next.

I with all seriousness state the show would probably be 20% better if it started with Tilly fresh from the academy and assigned to a creepy black ops star ship with a mysterious mutineer, a conscripted engineer (who needs a monitoring device on his leg), and the cowardly super-paranoid Saru. Then she slowly wins them over with the power of FUN and IDEALISM.

It also needed a YA novel series to go with it.

 

[Charles Phipps]

It's too late. We've seen everything.

The only thing that depresses me about the whole Orville thing is that it proves we've learned nothing from the great DS9/B5 War of 1994-1998. I was hoping after the Armistice, reflection had led us to realize that it was okay for someone to prefer one over the other, or like both, without it either invalidating our preference, or making the other person's opinion wrong.

It's kind of amazing how the landscape has changed fandom wise because I remind people, Trekkies were the original angry nerds.

 

[MadeIndescribable]

Really enjoying Lorca's character arc so far, it brings up some great issues surrounding PTSD (another tick in the "Star Trek" box for anyone who's counting), and also that of TV in general.

As a fan I think they're using Lorca's symptoms/condition/etc it to great effect and loved the way they introduced a "shady" character but only acknowledged his reasons later on (although to be fair, we never saw Lorca before to get an accurate comparison, he could also have been nuts beforehand anyway), but at what point does the awareness/entertainment value ratio start to be exploitative of such a serious condition?

 

[Refuge]

I with all seriousness state the show would probably be 20% better if it started with Tilly fresh from the academy and assigned to a creepy black ops star ship with a mysterious mutineer, a conscripted engineer (who needs a monitoring device on his leg), and the cowardly super-paranoid Saru. Then she slowly wins them over with the power of FUN and IDEALISM.

It also needed a YA novel series to go with it.

So take away the competition of a charismatic though damaged and ethically challenged character like Lorca and then Michael and Tilly can be interesting by default? That being said, fun and idealism isn't a bad concept at all!

Tilly continues to annoy me though. I would like to trip her up on her next lap around the deck.

 

[Reyman]

The whole Vulcan angle isn't working for me in this version of Trek. Burnham being raised by Andorians and the Captain being Andorian would fit much better.

 

[MadeIndescribable]

The whole Vulcan angle isn't working for me in this version of Trek. Burnham being raised by Andorians and the Captain being Andorian would fit much better.

I'd love to see Andorians again, but they'd be a lot more accepting of a Human ward, and therefore Michael wouldn't have the internal conflict and be less interesting (IMO).

As someone else mentioned before, I also love how Lethe's revelations give a great back story as to Sarek being so dissaspointed in Spock joining Starfleet.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Besides, it's the Supergirl effect.

The reason why she's Vulcan raised is so she can be Spock's sister.

 

[Reyman]

I'd love to see Andorians again, but they'd be a lot more accepting of a Human ward, and therefore Michael wouldn't have the internal conflict and be less interesting (IMO).

As someone else mentioned before, I also love how Lethe's revelations give a great back story as to Sarek being so dissaspointed in Spock joining Starfleet.

My main issue with the characters story is that the Human/Vulcan dynamic has been played out. A human raised by Andorians would be something new and it just makes sense when you think about the path the character has taken. Mutiny, making Saru nervous, having a fan in Lorca.

Also I wanna know would the Andorians still call her pink skin...

 

[Timo]

...So, what are those marks on Lorca's back? Some sort of odd proof that he, rather than Tyler, is Voq? But Lorca was a prick from the get-go, not merely after his brief captivity. Of all the characters, he's the least changed within these four hero ship episodes.

I'm especially loving the way they introduce "controversial" things that they then effortlessly shrug off within the very next episode or even the very next line: all those "hints" at Tyler's Klingon nature that in fact are utterly innocuous, all the moral outrage that is called the first thing an outsider has a chance to comment on it, all the "this was a generic X plot" stuff being used for something else altogether in the next storyline. And all this being done as smoothly as in "Lethe" doesn't hurt.

Timo Saloniemi