Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 2x09 - "Project Daedalus"

There were a lot of winks at the fans in this one. Detmer poking fun at how they never go on away missions and all of the ridiculously named evasive patterns both made me smile.

 

Even Coto had to start off Enterprise Season 4 with a Temporal Cold War episode. This is an arc-heavy episode (it barely has a beginning-middle-end), so it is very reliant on the season's plan developed by former writers.

We get glimpses of what Paradise is capable of (and it's a great episode), but she definitely has a hand tied behind her back.

 

one logic hole: Nhan needs that breather thing to survive. But she has a space suit. Shouldnt the space suit have the gas composition she needed to live? Why not just close her helmet again once Airiam tore it off her breather.

 

I like this portrayal of Spock, but Quinto's Spock is fantastic. Hope he gets another shot at it on the big screen.

 

Quinto in some ways had an easier job as he could make a Spock-like character who isn't exactly Spock.
Peck didn't have any choice but to play the same character, albeit at a different time and under differnet circumstances. I'll admit Quinto's Spock was never my favorite after Nimoy. I think Habercorn did better than Quinto, for that matter, but Peck just nails it.

 

Well, she will go on to be the only ship in range or the quadrant on more than one occasion. That's pretty special.

 

Halbercorn may not look much like Nimoy but he embodies Nimoy better than any other actor who's played Spock with the exceptions of the original and now Peck.

 

Let me quote you out of context.

So it's definitely way too late to wonder if the Talosians might somehow still in some way be able to restore...

Unfortunately, you're completely right and I love that they do this.

 

Some other notes:
- Pike is told that he needs to keep his shields off, because of the mines. Then he immediately orders a yellow alert. W-what? Doesn't a yellow alert just mean shields up? I don't know what it means in the context of shields remaining off.
- The stress test on Patar and the lie detector on Spock bothered me. They're both Vulcans, their whole thing is to not respond emotionally. I expected at least an acknowledgement of this ("Even a Vulcan shows minute signs of emotional response").

 

Perhaps Yellow Alert without raising shields is just a reminder to the crew that a threat may be imminent but there's not yet a need to panic or assume emergency stations? I don't think they're one and the same. Didn't Kirk or Picard call a Yellow Alert on more than one occasion and not order shields raised until afterwards?

 

This proves it: DSC's Control can't be the same one from the novel. In the novel, Control uses amoral methods at times, but its singular goal is to preserve the Federation, not annihilate all sentient life.

The "Terminator"-style stories are hackneyed as f**k, and I really hope the DSC folks pull a fast one on us and avoid that tired trope.

All I see when I look at Quinto's Spock is his earlier character, Sylar.

That's all I'm ever going to see.

 

That's why each episode needs to be a little longer to let each arc breathe, I think. If you're only going to have 14 or 15 episodes per season, they need to be an hour long each.

I'm thinking about the 40 minute episode we had a few weeks ago. In that extra 20 minutes, we could've easily experienced some of the crew scenes that we'd then later see in Airiam's "memories."

I did love that Michelle Paradise chose to show the crew in off duty time. It was a glimpse into the lives of characters we've seen in every Disco ep thus far, but don't know much about. Perhaps we'll get episodes for Detmer, Owo, Rhys and the rest of the bridge without them having to die at the end.

 

The Dominion War probably left more than a few old rules and even laws in the trashbin. Given the catastrophic threat posed by the Dominion and its allies the Federation and Starfleet probably bent parts of their rulebook to the point of breaking.

What passes for inappropriate or illegal in the era of slower starships, no replicators and the Klingons being blood enemies might not necessarily by the time the Founders come through the Bajoran Wormhole.

 

Kirk called Yellow Alert in TWOK and only the defence fields were energized not the shields. That didn't work out so well.

 

One other niggling flaw to me - Saru figuring out the video was holograms.

First, they fucked it up by saying he was seeing in ultraviolet rather than infrared. If he was looking at heat signatures that should have been what he said.

Secondly, why would display systems set up for human (or Vulcan, etc) vision even contain information about colors outside the visual spectrum?

Finally, if they did contain such information, why would Control overlook it?

 

Burnham isn't the Red Angel.

Spoiler

I'm 100% sure the Red Angel will turn out to be Ariam. It may not be the Ariam of 'our' timeline; but I'm sure it will turn out to be Ariam in some form. Perhaps in the timeline where Control 'wins' it recovers and revives Ariam for some purpose and Ariam goes 'rogue' against it, and is the one trying to fix everything.

^^^
because the Control AI isn't omnipotent. It's using the tools it has as best it can, and knows enough about how Starfleet Command thinks (they have been feeding it their interpretation of info personally) - so it came up with a method based on the tools it has in a way it doesn't believe Starfleet Command will analyze.

Hell, Saru only thought of it once it was discovered the Vulcan Admiral that had been threatening them had actually been dead for two weeks prior.

 

You have no idea what Im thinking! Says the Lorcas "X" to Captain Pike.
Yapping Silly Tilly once again proves she doesn't belong in command.
Develope Ariam so we finaly have an interest in her, just in time to kill her off.
Pike says "Shit storm"
Get off my ass so we can get back to work Says Lorcas "X" to Captain Pike.
Nam suspects Ariam of something.
Spock enjoys expressing his emotions as the chess pieces go flying and Burnham wimpers. (Best part of the show)
Nam watches Ariam from afar.
3 of 9 is flying blind. While everyone takes turn with random coarse battle manuvers.
A.I. Admiral Vulcan extremist is more of a femsplainer than Admiral Lorcas "X".
Stammets out logics Spock into helping him fix the electrical problem. As Spock gives love advice to Stammets.
Standing by to beam them out says Pike to the away team.
Commander Nam has no friends as she is left gasping for air. Nobody even tries to beam her out. Hell no one else even tries to beam in and help take on Ariam.
Nam passes out with no way of breathing.
Ariam is locked up.
Pike asks Burnham if she is alright, with no mention of Nam. (She was his security officer from the Enterprise)
Tilly hacks Ariam with loving memories of adoring Tilly.
ARIAM SAYS to Michael open the air lock,
Pike SAYS to Michael open the air lock
Spock SAYS to Michael open the air lock
Pike SAYS to Michael open the air lock thats an order.
As everbody grieves at the death of Ariam. We see Nam is amazingly alive with her breathing aparatus on her face as she comes to the realization that nobody gives a shit about her.
On to next week.

 

That Sucked...

I gave it a 9.

 

Also: the sensors say the ship is upside down ... whatever that means in space.

 

Probably for the same storytelling reasons why, say, Skynet overlooked the people most closely associated with John Connor and his future wife until the second or even third time it tried to kill him. Even an advanced AI has to overlook something and leave a gaping plot hole for the protagonists to take advantage of or else the story will end too quickly and if the AI is the villain of the story then the good guys will lose.

It's another "Kate Brewster's Dad" situation. Had Skynet eliminated General Brewster in 1984 then it could have neutralized the entire human resistance before it ever had a chance to form. Without General Brewster there'd be no concern over John Connor growing up to become the hero who saves mankind from extinction.