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

[Gingerbread Demon]

Excepting the rather overwrought emotional start this was a great episode. There was a lot to like. I liked Adira right off and knew she'd stay on with the crew..... This was a neat episode and I can't find anything to bitch and moan about.

8/10 because there's no 7.5 and I don't do halves

 

[Beckerjr]

Yea they layered the melodrama on pretty thick in the first segment. I like the direction overall but they could stand to tone it down a bit. Feels like the writers doing an a little bit of an over correction from the complaints of the first two seasons.

 

[NCC-73515]

Stamets and Tilly were wondering why Adira immediately knew 900 year old systems so well, so even if it's not Dax in that belly, the symbiont is probably that old.

The older I get, the less I care about ship registry numbers matching up, or canon/timeline issues, or what the uniforms look like or what the ships look like. Short of straight-up, blatant in-universe contradictions, I just want to feel like the thing overall is authentic, that it tells a good story. All those other details are cool if you have the time and energy to think about it, but in the end it's all just window dressing.

Ah, so those who care are simply still young? That's nice to know

 

[Hythlodeus]

It's a decent episode, that I enjoyed watching but... I don't have anything to say, really. acting was good, story was good, directing and editing was good. nothing exceptional, nothing really bad...it just was...there

 

[Hythlodeus]

The older I get, the less I care about ship registry numbers matching up, or canon/timeline issues, or what the uniforms look like or what the ships look like. Short of straight-up, blatant in-universe contradictions, I just want to feel like the thing overall is authentic, that it tells a good story. All those other details are cool if you have the time and energy to think about it, but in the end it's all just window dressing.

I didn't care about shit like that, when I was young, I don't care now that I'm old...In between I didn't care either. Age has nothing to do with it

 

[Agony_Boothb]

Another great episode gave it an 8. As much as i liked burnham before, i feel like she has let her hair down both literally and figuratively and i'm loving it.

I think the ineffectiveness of Discovery's shields and weapons is going to come back to bite them hard. But i have a feeling its going to result in starfleet swooping in to save them.

Honorable mention to the DOT-7's, i love those industrious, hard working little guys.

 

[Bay17]

I have one gripe

The actor who used to be Ariam is now clearly fairly senior on the bridge, as she sat in the chair while Saru was out

But they missed an obvious opportunity to give her some character identity. I may be wrong but I think she had no dialogue?

Alm they had to do as Saru comes back on the bridge is have him say “(Name) report” and then she gives a brief status report.

Gives her a voice, an identity, some authority.

Same applies to all the bridge crew. GIVE THEM A MOMENT TO BE IDENTIFIED.

Basic script writing going astray at times.

Otherwise, solid episode. Saru is great as captain. As many have noted, it feels like Star Trek

 

[Bay17]

Also Georgiou bugs me no end. She was ok in this episode and somewhat useful to the plot, but she’s so badly overplayed as a twirl-the-moustache villain.

She’s just like Dr Smith in Lost in Space, a one note trouble maker that you’d just get rid off once and for all.

And I really hope the reference to the remains of Control’s body in Ep 2 doesn’t mean he’s somehow going to be resurrected. PLEASE let’s have new plots rather than rise-from-the-dead big bad villains

 

[cultcross]

Detmer's reaction to being told to move into the line of fire strongly supports the "PTSD" interpretation of her weirdness last episode. The constant peril is taking its toll

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

There are fan theories that it came from Relativity which was NCV-474439-G.

The registry on the data rod says NCC-4774xx. So it can't be from the Relativity.

And I really hope the reference to the remains of Control’s body in Ep 2 doesn’t mean he’s somehow going to be resurrected.

It probably won't. That scene was basically just there to give Reno somebody to insult. (Not that they need to go out of their way to do THAT... )

 

[Campe]

I see you Occams Razor and raise you Small World Syndrome. If two people in the same fictional universe could possibly be the same person, they usually are. It applies to Star Trek just as much as it does to Fargo.

Even if it were Dax it wouldn't really be any of *our* Daxes. 24 personalities instead of 9, with memories inaccessible to the host. It would still be more Adira than Dax, only getting vague emotions and memories from Dax.

Well, we'll see, won't we?

 

[eschaton]

The main plot arc is finding the Federation and rebuilding it. Finding out what caused the burn is necessary, not because of revenge but for the need of understanding it and to prevent it from possibly happening again.

It's pretty clear the way the season has been set up so far the mystery is "where is the Federation." What caused The Burn is a side issue. It's not the plot for the show, it's a necessary McGuffin that causes the setting to work.

I'm not saying that we might not find it out, but making this the primary quest of the season seems silly at this point. The trail is very, very cold at this point after all.

If someone caused the Burn, it's entirely possible that they have the means to undo the Burn. Replenishing dilithium stores so that people can travel freely at warp is a cause worth fighting for.

Moreover, the ones who caused the Original Recipe Burn would also have potentially the means for the Burn II: Dilithium Boogaloo, and no one wants that.

There is no in-universe reason as of yet to think the Federation in particular was targeted. If dilithium elsewhere in the galaxy was fine than the Dominion or the Borg (or someone else entirely) would have rolled over the area. Instead things have been low-level chaos.

Undoing The Burn doesn't actually accomplish anything. As I said, it provides all appearances of having been a one-time thing. You can't un-explode the dilithium, and you can rebuild stocks right now.

IMHO if we discover a cause, it's either going to be some sort of natural disaster which was inadvertantly caused by the Federation (as a global warming analogy) or it's some Q-like entity trying to teach us a lesson/take us down a peg. In the case of the latter there's not a damn thing that Discovery can do about it anyway.

 

[mr.peany]

I have one gripe

The actor who used to be Ariam is now clearly fairly senior on the bridge, as she sat in the chair while Saru was out

But they missed an obvious opportunity to give her some character identity. I may be wrong but I think she had no dialogue?

Alm they had to do as Saru comes back on the bridge is have him say “(Name) report” and then she gives a brief status report.

Gives her a voice, an identity, some authority.

Same applies to all the bridge crew. GIVE THEM A MOMENT TO BE IDENTIFIED.

Basic script writing going astray at times.

Otherwise, solid episode. Saru is great as captain. As many have noted, it feels like Star Trek

I understand your concern about Nilsson, but the bridge crew are and have been identified many times before. "Brother" even made a point of identifying them one by one so I don't quite understand your complaint here?

 

[Search4]

On another note: a post-Federation Earth is something I never thought I'd see in Star Trek. Makes me even more curious about what the V'Draysh are like and where Starfleet Command now is.

Thought it was remarkably brave to do this. Earth as the “special founder of the Federation” is off the table and that really scrambles the chessboard. Isolationist Earth feels very politically current too.

In a time without / severely limited dilithium you’re going to be very focused on your territorial waters and less worried about getting to Vulcan in 3 hours. Well done Discovery.

 

[Search4]

Given what we know from Deep Space Nine... Fusion...

Or did you forget that stations and the like didn't have warp reactors?

But ships next to DS9 could have exploded - lots of ways bases and relays could have been damaged.

 

[Nenya]

The older I get, the less I care about ship registry numbers matching up, or canon/timeline issues, or what the uniforms look like or what the ships look like. Short of straight-up, blatant in-universe contradictions, I just want to feel like the thing overall is authentic, that it tells a good story. All those other details are cool if you have the time and energy to think about it, but in the end it's all just window dressing.

I think I was too subtle.

 

[BillJ]

Adira is an intriguing addition to the cast, I'm guessing given the promos that Starfleet command may now be on Trill? Thank God she isn't Dax.

I still am not convinced it isn’t Dax. Name change for some reason isn’t out of the realm of possibility.

 

[Crazyewok]

It's pretty clear the way the season has been set up so far the mystery is "where is the Federation." What caused The Burn is a side issue. It's not the plot for the show, it's a necessary McGuffin that causes the setting to work.

I'm not saying that we might not find it out, but making this the primary quest of the season seems silly at this point. The trail is very, very cold at this point after all.



There is no in-universe reason as of yet to think the Federation in particular was targeted. If dilithium elsewhere in the galaxy was fine than the Dominion or the Borg (or someone else entirely) would have rolled over the area. Instead things have been low-level chaos.

Undoing The Burn doesn't actually accomplish anything. As I said, it provides all appearances of having been a one-time thing. You can't un-explode the dilithium, and you can rebuild stocks right now.

IMHO if we discover a cause, it's either going to be some sort of natural disaster which was inadvertantly caused by the Federation (as a global warming analogy) or it's some Q-like entity trying to teach us a lesson/take us down a peg. In the case of the latter there's not a damn thing that Discovery can do about it anyway.

Actually the federation could of been targeted but with accidental blow back on whoever did it.

Could of been a super weapon meant to target just federation sectors but it worked to well and took out the galaxy.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

I don't know it this was mentioned in the past 16 pages, but the one thing I did like is that Earth still seems to be a decent place -- despite the defensive isolationism.

What I mean is that it appears Earth did not regress into a post-apocalyptic dystopia where Tina Turner runs Thunderdome. At least from what we've seen, it seems like a civilized world.

 

[picardjean-luc]

Stamets and Tilly were wondering why Adira immediately knew 900 year old systems so well, so even if it's not Dax in that belly, the symbiont is probably that old.

Agreed. I think the Tal symbiont is at least as old as Dax. Perhaps it'll be revealed later that they're actually twins??

The symbiont must have been integrated to Adira's brain and vital organs by now. Of course not fully since she's human and not a Trill but some of its knowledge must've been transferred to Adira, hence her knowledge about the galaxy, perhaps also her knowledge about Discovery engines, since one or more of Tal's past host might've work as a Starfleet engineer.

I assume Adira hasn't been addressed as Adira Tal because she's not a Trill, isn't it?

I'm curious how would

Spoiler

they incorporate Grey into the plot. Perhaps at some point Adira can no longer carry the Tal symbiont inside her so it needs to be transferred to him/her?

That's my theory anyway .