Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 3x11 - "Su'Kal"

An example: Several episodes back, Michael wants to obtain a third black box in order to triangulate the position of The Burn. Up to this point, we know nothing of these black boxes and now they are suddenly very important. She mentions to Saru that she had already acquired two. We never actually see this occur. Earlier in the season, we are shown Michael handed what turns out to be a black box, but, only in retrospect. In the moment we see it handed to her, it's part of a longer montage showing what Michael has been doing in the year before Discovery arrived. No specific importance is placed on that moment and that item she is handed was not identified as a black box at that time and it's no more important than the other scenes in that montage. She's just being handed something that we assume has information about the Burn because her voiceover is accompanying the images we are seeing. But again, it's just one of many other images that are just simply showing her quest to gather information from wherever she can.

My point is, Discovery seems to suggest that there are moments happening off screen that are just as important, at times even MORE important, than what we are actually seeing occur on screen.

 

Do we have to? I see no need for three "Black Box Adventures".

They spent some time focusing on the "black box", enough that folks began speculating on what it was. More so than other shots in the montage. So the seed was planted.

Are they?

 

I checked Doug Jones' twitter account to confirm if he is in the fourth season. Here is a relevant tweet:

(14) Doug Jones on Twitter: "Thanks to my brilliant wellness coach @NewBreedAtlas for keeping me on task when it would be so easy not to....." / Twitter

I am not as bothered about the Discovery being captured so quickly. The ship had an inexperienced captain who had never completed the command division training ("talent without training is nothing") and read her opponent wrong, had been damaged in traveling through the nebula - three of its shield generators were offline and this was before the mini-Burn which knocked out its cloaking device and who knows what other systems, and knowledge of the ship and its systems had become known to the enemy through an unidentified source. There have been worse head-smacking moments of stupidity in the franchise, two with Riker alone (Star Trek: Generations and "Rascals").

It is a miracle that the Discovery survived the nebula; we know at least two other Federation ships were not so lucky, the KSF Khi'eth and the USS Hiraga Gennai.

That was one itty-bitty nebula. The planet is at the center, and it is 200 kilometers from the edge. So, that makes the nebula, what, 400 kilometers in length, or roughly 250 miles in length. That nebula could fit comfortably into the state I live in, which is California.

 

Sorry that so many people are getting angry about this.

It was just meant as a joke in connection to the post I was quoting. Real trolls I would just report

 

Yeah, that bumped it down from an eight to a seven for me. "I'm walking on my heel"...Your holographic heel?

I'm underwhelmed so far on the explanation for the burn, but I'm willing to wait until the season's over until I make a final judgement there, so it didn't factor into my rating.

 

The program could give you the illusion that your heels are touching the ground by applying pressure on them (with a forcefield) after all that's what holodecks do, they give the illusion of space, of distance, of height. Sisko and team were in a holosuite of relatively small size yet they had the illusion of being in a baseball park, which is a rather large area, much larger than a holosuite.

 

Saru could also feel his human face.

 

All done with mirrors forcefields

 

Bajoran Culber was cool, too.

 

I felt they could have done so much more with Tilly's first command... Good episode otherwise. Good to see Doug in the flesh for once.

 

Just got to say that it was awesome to see Bill Irwin on Star Trek. He is a very underappreciated gem.

 

In reality they should be smacking each other in the face every few minutes but hey space magic

 

At least it finally showed the Emerald Chain to be an actual danger. As cool as Luke Detmer was it was also crap to see the big bad guy taken out by a shuttle craft

 

God dammit.

• Holodeck episode. God damn it.... I thought Trek was finally done with those with the death of TNG and Voyager. Not impressed
• Osyraa has a ship with tentacle arms that grab Disco to feel her up. Not cool. I wonder if that was where the probe from last season got its tentacle arms. It did make me think of that.
• How the heck will our plucky heroes get out of this jam they are in?

Anyone have any predictions for how they get out of this mess?

 

Was that the Borg, sounded very Borg?

 

I love that there was a sarcastic joke going round that DIS is " not real Trek" without a holodeck episode and not only do we get one but it's the cause of a galaxy wide catastrophe.

Makes Moriarty look like small fish

 

It does indeed.

 

A 7 from me this time around. We're stepping around the plotholes for it, but props for a suspenseful and visually stunning episode with a few very good sections.

The good: stunning work on both the nebula and the holo-environment, including the 'monster'. Everyone had something to do, even if it was minor. Excellent performances by Jones, Martin Green and Cruz during the away mission segment. And for once, Osyraa felt like an actual threat and intriguing character. The hints of trouble between Adira and Gray and the moment with Stamets I also appreciated, as we haven't really dealt much with the fallout of the joining lately, or how much Adira has learned about its effects (either normally, or differently now because they are human).

The bad: Tilly in command during a crisis situation - as I suspected when she was promoted, it goes south rather quickly. This is just not working for me. She shows a few good moments when she tries to cut off Osyraa's psycho-analysis of her and when she orders Stamets to get into the spore chamber and leave the away team behind. Otherwise, we're treated with a stellar showing of incompetence on behalf of the Disco crew when they get overrun by the Chain forces in short order. Nobody on the bridge notices the ship is being boarded in engineering? Like, intruder alert, security teams, etc.? And if we can threaten with the self-distruct, then why not arm it with a delay? Discovery seems woefully unprepared for a boarding scenario. Also, Su'kal is supposedly the source of the Burn. One person, affecting the entire galaxy? "Must be evolution because of this planet". Really? Just, no. Space is big. Really, really big. Unless our dear Kelpien is suddenly a Q-level being, this is too much for me, at least without further clarification. Trek has no shortage of very powerful aliens, but rarely on this level.

On the fence: we're treated to a momentary lapse on the part of Saru because he's distracted by the fate of the other Kelpiens, and Burnham has to step in (and not Tilly!). After Burnham's failures earlier in the season, and Tilly's showing of clearly-not-ready later in the episode, I can see some parallels in a 'we might not be perfect, but we're all we've got' conclusion for all of them when it comes to the command structure. That could work for me. The move to change the away team's species was also odd. It gave Jones a chance to show what he can do without his makeup, but if the holo-program can thus apparently be ok with depicting someone as human - why the need to change Burnham and Culber? We can perhaps blame the failing holo-software, but still. Also, Discovery being captured by the chain, and Book and Adira being off-ship while it happens. I like the idea of depicting the Chain as a real threat this way, and the chance it gives the newer characters to do their part later for the rescue. We'll have to see where that goes.

I'll also comment that the entire rescue plot felt a bit rushed, especially given that we're here either a) for figuring out the reason for the Burn and/or b) to rescue a single person who's already been stranded for over a century. Neither seems to warrant barrelling straight into the nebula like that. Maybe the threat to Kaminar upped the timetable, but I don't recall that was ever stated outright.

 

Yes, for example the ship gets an upgrade with detached nacelles but we never see what benefit that actually gives it. Or any of the other visual changes.

It’s like the first season, where the Klingon war is the big thing happening but you never actually see it