Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 2x07 - "Light and Shadows"

[137th Gebirg]

Really liked this episode and this season in general has greatly improved over S1 but that whole damn turbo lift contraption really irritates the shit out of me.

 

[thribs]

I have to admit, I have not had a problem with Burnham being the focus. However, in this episode, when Leland was revealed to be allegedly responsible for the death of Burnham parents, I thought, "Now come on! That's pushing it a bit too far!"

It is like that latest Bond movie where the villain says he was behind the plots of the other three movies. Seems rather contrived.

 

[oberth]

And, no, the spouse of an ambassador would have no power to use the spouse's power on their behalf. Not in any rational form of government at least.

sorry, but that's nonsense. all it needs for those 'spousal' powers to be on the book is one federation member where this is the norm for two thousand years (may be with a veto for the spouse actually holding office). one member we might not have seen yet or one that we've known for years but which hasn't been discussed in depth (like the bolians)

... use your imagination

 

[oberth]

I'm watching it at home for the second time (first time was on my laptop during my work lunch break). The scene with Leland/Section 31 if they are trying to harm Spock, my new theory, its Sarek with his influence that gets the department shut down for the attempted assault on his son and for the murder of Burnham's parents and the other colonists.
However MU Pippa around, nothing is shut down for long....

you are addicted, mam i refrain from watching it on anything but my 96"er

 

[Nerys Myk]

I have to admit, I have not had a problem with Burnham being the focus. However, in this episode, when Leland was revealed to be allegedly responsible for the death of Burnham parents, I thought, "Now come on! That's pushing it a bit too far!"

As I said it's not all that different than Kirk ( or Spock or McCoy) constantly running into old girlfriends, mentors and heroes.

 

[oberth]

Its not about hating continuity its about rolling one eyes at the fans who will clutch the pearls with horror if a D7 looks like a D500 (or whatever it is). As you just said the Star Trek universe is HUGE so why not use it.

exactly, and it certainly doesn't exclude a nice fanwank here and there

 

[Succubint]

James Frain in the Ready Room.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=2251770201510735

 

[cultcross]

IMO, That chicken flew the coop when "FIRST CONTACT" and "ENTERPRISE" started fiddling with the time stream.

Oh, before that. Trek has been creating alternate timelines for years. TOS did it a few times on a relatively minor scale, and then STIV did it in style. If you create a map of all the branching timelines in Trek (and someone has done just that) it looks like a lightening strike of different branches. Voyager was a particular offender; its finale changes the entire galaxy's course of events for the period of several decades, just to get Voyager home early. And the episode Timeless does the same thing, to prevent its destruction. Billions of people's lives changed as a result. The TCW is comparatively minor.

Pike was adding “time” to words before it was cool. Time Warp for example

I assumed that was an oblique reference to exactly that

Yeah. That is pushing it a bit. I hope it's indirectly. Like he's indirectly responsible for the Klingon Attack -- for whatever chess piece maneuvering reasons he or his superiors at the time were trying to accomplish -- and Burnham's parents just happened to be in the crossfire. So he's responsible but it's not like he singled her family out.

Yeah, I interpreted that as "he was responsible for the Klingon attack" rather than "he orchestrated their assassination specifically". I very much hope that's the case, as the latter would require some quite absurd precognition abilities and some things that Burnham has done (such as start the Klingon war) have been very negative from S31s point of view.

 

[SJGardner]

I loved it. I was having more and more questions after each scene, and it constantly kept me on the edge. I kept guessing what Spock's numbers might mean and initially believed they might mean Stardate 8419.47, a possible time for his death which he might have been shown, but it didn't make any sense after Burnham discovered they were mirrored. I thought he might have seen his death because of the mention of the Mutara Sector, so that red herring worked perfectly for me. At the end, I was surprised by the revelation that they were the coordinates for Talos IV, even if we already knew the show was going to revisit the place. The Talosian makeup (prosthetics combined with CGI? The veins definitely looked like it) looked really neat in the teaser for next week, by the way.

The family-centered scenes left me very angry at Sarek, especially with how deep in denial he is about how much he's hurt his children emotionally, treating them as his projects that can be trotted out before the public whenever needed. It was really hard for me to watch, with all the dysfunction in their family laid bare for all of us to see, and it has brought up a lot of painful childhood memories. I have the feeling Amanda has needed to have this discussion with Sarek for a very long time. What we saw and learned was consistent with what we were shown about Sarek in Season 1, and I think it's by itself a very good reason for Spock's reluctance about discussing his family. I certainly can't blame him for eventually coming to treat Kirk and McCoy as his true brothers. After all, several authors now believe the original version of the proverb about blood and water went 'The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.'

Random observations:

• Tilly was absolutely adorable as she tried to keep her f-bombs and her emotional outbursts in check. Saru's reactions reminded me a bit of Starship Down, specifically the clashes between Worf's formal, professional, command staff attitude and the casual, jovial, informal atmosphere of O'Brien and his enlisted engineers. Saru does have a point though, as Tilly is on the command track, so learning to control her emotions would serve her really well in the command chair. Hearing 'what the frick' brought a smile to my face instantly; I'm always delighted to see Tilly trying to follow suggestions about her behavior in her own awkward, personal way. But seriously, Saru shaking his head in disappointment at 'everything sounds cooler when you put time in front of it' was really uncalled for. I think Pike didn't have a problem with the comment at all.
• The effects of the temporal distortion in the teaser reminded me of We'll Always Have Paris, especially the scene with Picard & Co. seeing themselves in the turbolift.
• Vulcan looked absolutely gorgeous. If I'm not mistaken, this was the first time we saw it rain there. The red leaves were also a neat touch, especially if the color was caused by anthocyanins, which serve to make plants more resistant to UV radiation - which would make sense on a desert planet that's presumably quite close to its star.
  
• As soon as the probe sprouted tentacles, it evoked that visceral, instinctive fear of the Borg in me, which increased tenfold when it started to download the shuttle's database. Please don't be the Borg, please don't be the Borg. It probably won't be them but I'll still cross my fingers just in case.
• But seriously, what happened to the probe and what did it do to Airiam?

 

[Bgt]

I would love this season if at the end of it only Saru, Stamets, Georgiou, Pike and even Tilly survive.

The story is intriguing, however the show seems to take itself way too seriously and at the same time in a very cliche kind of way. If you want a space opera with lots of drama you need to be able to support it. And imho they cannot. They are not brave enough or competent, they keep borrowing moments and places from the history of Star Trek ("oh!! fans would love a Talos visit! gimmick time" etc etc).
I guess for many of you this works just fine. What can I say...

Best moment of the episode:
Michael: did you kill your mother?
Georgiou: It is a blur

 

[oberth]

I loved it. I was having more and more questions after each scene, and it constantly kept me on the edge. I kept guessing what Spock's numbers might mean and initially believed they might mean Stardate 8419.47, a possible time for his death which he might have been shown, but it didn't make any sense after Burnham discovered they were mirrored. I thought he might have seen his death because of the mention of the Mutara Sector, so that red herring worked perfectly for me. At the end, I was surprised by the revelation that they were the coordinates for Talos IV, even if we already knew the show was going to revisit the place. The Talosian makeup (prosthetics combined with CGI? The veins definitely looked like it) looked really neat in the teaser for next week, by the way.

The family-centered scenes left me very angry at Sarek, especially with how deep in denial he is about how much he's hurt his children emotionally, treating them as his projects that can be trotted out before the public whenever needed. It was really hard for me to watch, with all the dysfunction in their family laid bare for all of us to see, and it has brought up a lot of painful childhood memories. I have the feeling Amanda has needed to have this discussion with Sarek for a very long time. What we saw and learned was consistent with what we were shown about Sarek in Season 1, and I think it's by itself a very good reason for Spock's reluctance about discussing his family. I certainly can't blame him for eventually coming to treat Kirk and McCoy as his true brothers. After all, several authors now believe the original version of the proverb about blood and water went 'The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.'

Random observations:

• Tilly was absolutely adorable as she tried to keep her f-bombs and her emotional outbursts in check. Saru's reactions reminded me a bit of Starship Down, specifically the clashes between Worf's formal, professional, command staff attitude and the casual, jovial, informal atmosphere of O'Brien and his enlisted engineers. Saru does have a point though, as Tilly is on the command track, so learning to control her emotions would serve her really well in the command chair. Hearing 'what the frick' brought a smile to my face instantly; I'm always delighted to see Tilly trying to follow suggestions about her behavior in her own awkward, personal way. But seriously, Saru shaking his head in disappointment at 'everything sounds cooler when you put time in front of it' was really uncalled for. I think Pike didn't have a problem with the comment at all.
• The effects of the temporal distortion in the teaser reminded me of We'll Always Have Paris, especially the scene with Picard & Co. seeing themselves in the turbolift.
• Vulcan looked absolutely gorgeous. If I'm not mistaken, this was the first time we saw it rain there. The red leaves were also a neat touch, especially if the color was caused by anthocyanins, which serve to make plants more resistant to UV radiation - which would make sense on a desert planet that's presumably quite close to its star.
  
• As soon as the probe sprouted tentacles, it evoked that visceral, instinctive fear of the Borg in me, which increased tenfold when it started to download the shuttle's database. Please don't be the Borg, please don't be the Borg. It probably won't be them but I'll still cross my fingers just in case.
• But seriously, what happened to the probe and what did it do to Airiam?

i think the probe was blown up. as to airiam: that remains to be seen

 

[SJGardner]

i think the probe was blown up. as to airiam: that remains to be seen

Yeah, I should've written that clearer... I was wondering about what happened to it during that 500 years it was supposed to spend in the distortion. Other than the Borg, its modifications and general situation reminded me a little bit of Nomad and V'Ger as well; not specifically of course, more like the underlying concept of them.

 

[Elephant999]

Judging by her enigmatic cyborg expression at the end, I don’t think it is a good thing.

 

[Dales]

I have to admit, I have not had a problem with Burnham being the focus. However, in this episode, when Leland was revealed to be allegedly responsible for the death of Burnham parents, I thought, "Now come on! That's pushing it a bit too far!"

yes, that felt so random. michael seems to have a connection to everyone who is anyone.

 

[Phil123]

So many shows now have this tiny universe problem.

Also, I loved prime Phillipa, but moustache twirling mirror one is really starting to ruin it for me.

 

[Elephant999]

Yes, she’s turning very one dimensional.

And the conversation about Burnham’s parents was ridiculous. Why mention it at all?

 

[cultcross]

The effects of the temporal distortion in the teaser reminded me of We'll Always Have Paris, especially the scene with Picard & Co. seeing themselves in the turbolift.

Thank you! My brain has been searching for that reference for twenty four hours.

 

[cooleddie74]

The control panel aboard the shuttlecraft does have switches with tiny black printed words underneath them. That ties in with many of the switches and buttons on the TOS shuttlecraft being labeled with small black descriptions so that's one more reason to like the internal layout and design of the Discovery's shuttlecraft. They're closer to the TOS shuttles in their overall controls and cockpit design than the TOS Movie shuttles.

 

[cultcross]

I do like the shuttle design, very neat. Reminds me a bit of the raptors from BSG in their use of space

 

[JoeZhang]

As I said it's not all that different than Kirk ( or Spock or McCoy) constantly running into old girlfriends, mentors and heroes.

What luck that it's the Enterprise-D that finds Scotty!

Of all the Starships!