Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 3x03 - "People of Earth"

I say this as a fan of diversity: I don't see how this is an issue of "finally starting" to diversify its characters. Admittedly, this is the first person of apparent African origin that I can think of in post-TNG trek off the top of my head. (TOS had Uhura and Dr. M'benga). Searching the Internet, it looks like Geordi was born in the African Federation, but I didn't remember that ever playing a role in an episode.

Also, would it have mattered if instead of being Captain Ndoye she was an African-American named Captain Johnson or what have you? (Of course, Captain Ndoye could have been born in America, France or wherever.) Yes, more diversity is better than less, but what's in a name, as some dude or another said.

 

United Earth Oceans Defense Force.

 

There's a part of me that thinks that line was purposely aimed, but it could very well be that there wasn't much difference in starship construction materials during that period. Different designs and capabilities, yes, but the original Enterprise and the Enterprise-whatever may be built out of the same basic materials.

 

Really too messy for me, a 6 this time.

A few observations...

The whole plot with the raiders being actually human was telegraphed since the beginning but doesn’t make much sense to me. Since FTL travel is now very difficult it would make sense to keep in touch with colonies in the solar system, yet they totally abandon titan, never check in with them and even shoot on their ships for reasons? And why were the raiders raiding dilithium for years, exactly?

The Trill symbiont being the admiral and joined with adira was really clever, didn’t see that coming.

The EDF seems extremely sloppy...among other things, they correctly identify discovery as being from the 23rh (up to 25th) century and have no problem believing their silly story of being a generational ship, they don’t even question the 900 years old uniforms.

So now discovery carries hundreds of dilithium crystals? The enterprise used to have only 6, being a rare to acquire commodity...

Why did they have Michael be separated for only a single year and then act as if she’s spent several years with Book in the 31th century?

Where is Sahil?! Why do that fantastic scene in the first episode and then forget him completely here? He’s the one who has been waiting all his life for the federation, he should have come along.

 

I'd forgotten they mine it on Remus. I suppose it would make for a very nice export if they have a lot of it.

You could be right and it uses dilithium somehow or another all the same. But since dilithium is used to regulate antimatter reactions, and the Romulans don't use antimatter, it is not a big logical leap to conclude they don't use dilithium. But, it's star trek, and these details are often inconsistent when it serves the plot best. So... yeah. Like I said, it was kind of a nitpick, it just made me sit up and go, "Whhaaa?"

 

another good episode i love how georgiou made herself an admiral and Saru is already an amazing captain.

so far the 32nd century setting is awesome and i definitely want more so here's hoping ''star trek section 31'' is set in that period

 

As soon as that was said, I assumed it implied an obvious change to the way starships were built after the 25th century. Like how we can differentiate when ships were built by rivets vs welds, or stick-built vs lifted blocks.

 

Is no one going to discuss Captain Pike's broken table? That piece of fractured furniture really took me out of the Ready Room scenes.

 

One more thought I was having during this ep: anyone else think Georgiou has ALREADY figured out how to contact S31 in this century? I just have that funny feeling...

 

People keep worrying that this Adria is carrying Dax. While I do think we will see Dax or hear of the symbiont in some form, let’s remember that the Admiral’s name is Senna Tal. That would likely suggest that Tal was the symbiont at hand here.

 

Tal is my favorite Romulan.

 

6.

Dreary opening and the ending was tough to swallow. Earth didn’t know what was going on in their own backyard? The in-between was pretty solid.

 

Wasn't Dax's host supposed to be Gray?

 

Senna is a laxative. So it must really be Senna Lax!

 

Fun to see The Swede from Hell on Wheels here, but he felt wasted.

 

Too many people are thinking it's Dax. That's how I know it's not.

 

A fine episode. Nothing egregiously bad about it, but nothing really fantastic like the first two episodes for me. Felt a lot like New Eden from last season, which I wasn't a huge fan of either. Whenever Discover tries to do episodes that feel like "classic Trek", it seems to fall a little flat for me. I had the same issues with Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum from the first season. I think the show's much stronger when it's doing its own thing.

Still, there were some really nice moments in here. Adira especially was a pleasant surprise. A distinct lack of Culber and Reno really pulls this down for me though.

 

Hey! Don't look at me. I thought Harold Saxon was the Meddling Monk. I learned my lesson about these things.

Dax should be a senile, gibbering symbiant by now. All those lives...

 

But FTL travel isn't very difficuilt...

Or did you miss the Discovery going from Jupiter to Earth in 10 seconds on it's fusion reactors with it's warp drive offline and all it's dilithium crystals removed? (Hint, that was about 300 times the speed of light.)

 

Dax would be quite old by this time. It may not be alive