Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 3x07 - "Unification III"

It was a pretty good episode. I'm not sure if I like the hero worship that Burnham is getting, but this episode did a great job showing her flaws and Gabrielle was so good. I also like the connection to Picard with the Mallett and Absolute Candor. As for Tilly's storyline, I'm not sure I agree with it, but it did seem obvious from prior episodes.

Last week I gave that episode a 6 and thought it was the weakest episode of the season. This episode is probably closer to a 7.5, but I'll go with 8 because the scenes during the Quarum were so good and this episode just flew by.

 

So we learn that the founding members Earth and Vulcan both left the Federation after the burn. Andoria probably left too as you have an that Andorian/Orion syndicate. Makes me wonder about Tellar.

 

Picard and the Qowat Milat are mentioned, and Gabrielle is a member!
That was some good writing, and the tears finally work.
My first 10 this season!

 

Again, I'll use Torres as an example. She may have been a brilliant engineer, but she was beating people who disagreed with her. That is not the trait you want in a department leader. And yet Janeway made Torres Chief Engineer because she saw her potential and gave her the benefit of the doubt.

I get the reservations about Tilly, in fact I am worried that Saru may have set her up to fail unintentionally, But let's not pretend that this sort of stuff is suddenly unusual for Trek because Discovery is doing it.

 

This makes me wonder if it was the Federation who caused the Burn and all the neighboring worlds just got pissed off. Then why would earth leave?

 

Star Trek 2009 also did this too, with Kirk suddenly becoming the captain of the flagship of Starfleet, after he was fresh out of the academy, unlike in TOS when it was established that he was the #1 on the Farragut prior to serving on the Enterprise.

 

So much for No More Tears.

I cried and cried.

 

Okay, so, the one thing I don't agree with at all wasn't enough to knock the episode down. It's just something I don't agree with.

Otherwise, there was one thing I saw that I never would've guessed I'd see in 1,000,000 years. I definitely liked that. And there was a couple of connections to Picard.

I'm a cryptic bastard.

All I'll say. Night everyone!

 

I remember ST09 being criticized mercilously for that. I understand promoting someone young (Or unqualified) has happened before, but this does feel a little unearned. Also, in the example of Torres, Chakotay vouched for her primarily because he wanted Maquis in leadership positions rather than feeling like they were still subservient to the Federation. That's a good enough reason for why B'Elanna was made Chief Engineer.

 

He only made her acting 1st officer until he can find someone else.
He must be unhappy with all these other poor bridge officers

 

Oh I definitely see your point, I guess my issue isn’t so much a DSC vs other Trek. It’s literally just the choice of Tilly seems so unearned.

Torres was clearly the Chief Engineer of the Val Jean and Chakotay was the Captain so to put them in positions of authority to me makes logical sense. I just can’t see the same sense in Tilly being first officer. That being said, I’m happy to see how it plays out and see if the pay off is worth it.

 

Wesley getting to be one of the rotating helmsman/button pushers on the bridge with a field commission is vastly different than a new ensign being put first in line to succeed the captain of a starship. As we’ve seen in many of the series, there’s a lot of things one needs to be able to do and coordinate to be a successful Number One. I don’t see Tilly as being in a place in her career to handle the pressures of the position, and as she said - she didn’t even complete the command training program. I think Saru is setting her up to fail.

 

well this episode wasn't great.... last week was infinitely better and i'm questioning saru captainship in light of making tilly his temp XO

 

Yup.

 

I'm sorry but this episode just wasn't very good, although I liked the Leonard Nimoy scene.

Tilly being even acting first officer makes no sense rank wise, and no amount of self awareness lines of how "others are more qualified" are going to change that. It's on the cadet to captain level Star Trek 2009.

The Vulcans and Romulans must have gained a lot of patience in the last 900 years to not walk out of Michael's self-discovery speeches. And didn't she, yet again, overreach by offering to share Burn data with Ni'var? Pretty sure Admiral Vance didn't authorize her to do that.

And with all the political fights over the Burn data, the (I would asume) logical Ni'var president just hands the Burn data to Burnham just like that because she got all emotional about Burnham's bungling? What? Did she not just start a full fledged civil war on Ni'var? Won't be surprised if she's booted or assassinated by the time the show revisits Ni'var and that young Vulcan purist is the new president.

 

So the name Ni’var is very appropriate

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Ni'Var

According to memory alpha

 

I was hoping for this episode to be a good one, but honestly it wasn't that great. I'm being generous giving it an 8 but honestly it felt like a 6. Glad to see Gabrielle take Michael down a few notches, but besides that it felt like a very weak sequel to the TNG Unification two parter.

 

An okay episode but how did the admiral know that Spock was Michael’s sister? I thought all information about her was erased. Would have been better narrative wise if she told him.
Speaking of which, I’m disappointed no one said, “Kirk’s Spock?” To her. That was always my favourite line in the novels which always has the response of, “I wasn’t aware I was his possession” from Spock.
The mother thing came out of nowhere and made no sense since she should be stuck in a alternate timeline. I wasn’t a fan of that part of the story. The Tilly thing as well made little sense. I would have had Willa.

 

I think all mention of the spore drive was erased, but Michael being Spock's sister must still have been in records, just her listed as being destroyed with USS Discovery.

 

My point is that this is not the first time in Star Trek that someone who is unqualified was given a position of responsibility.

I'm assuming from Discovery's logs which were mentioned being handed over in 'Die Trying'