Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 4x01 - "Kobayashi Maru"

A good fictional hero is both introspective and vulnerable and a courageous risk-taker willing to sacrifice themselves for something higher. Book is what most of us would be like in his shoes assuming we were even that brave.

 

Squiddle the spoonheads!

 

His name is Gray. Previous host for her symbiont. No complaints about how he's delivered, for my part, I always like Ian Alexander's work.

However, he is the one aspect of the season opener where you need to understand the series backstory, and especially Adira's backstory, to fully understand what's going on. Same when Adira references an earlier host in a prior conversation with Stamets: even viewers who know what a Trill is and all the attached tropes that go with them could be confused by the fact that Adira is clearly not a Trill. The backstory, of course, explains all of this, but I'd be confused if I didn't know it.

Since DSC is clearly not a creature from the age of self-contained episodic network TV storytelling, however, it's not that major an issue.

 

Thanks to both!

 

I agree. As Whitman would put it, Book contains multitudes.

For real. The kind of hero ‪‪I would hope/aspire to be.

You’re most welcome, happy to help.

 

"The bed-chambers ... must be copiously supplied with blindfolds!" -Blackadder

 

I actually know the backstory. I’m just not overly enamored with the character.

 

I get it and I wasn't trying to imply you didn't, sorry if it came across that way. Past the name, I was just meaning to note some added potential complications with the character for general audiences.

 

I like the new President. She talks and acts like the perfect politician. Well, I don't like politicians, but you know what I mean. As a character.

As opposed to the third season, which spent 10 episodes building up, it looks like they laid out everything here right up front in the first episode. Burnham's going to have to make tough choices, people will die, and she won't be able to save everyone. We're being set up to think she's Kirk-like, but there can only be one Kirk. That's where I think they're going with this. Burnham will go through hardship learning what it's like to be a Captain on a regular basis, instead of just rising to the occasion sometimes, she has to be there all the time whether she wants to be or not. And the President will begrudgingly come around to her. Not fully, but fully enough.

Something's going to happen to Su'Kal after Saru leaves Kaminar. Someone's bound to be pissed that Su'Kal caused The Burn. And I agree with whoever said they're setting the stage for Saru to become the Captain of Voyager.

I liked how, at the beginning of the episode, no matter what Burnham said, those aliens were going to twist everything she said into the worst possible way. I've dealt with a few people like that and them running after Burnham and Book guns a' blazin' sounds right.

I refrain from giving a rating to "Kobayashi Maru" at this time. I have to know more about where this is going.

 

Okay. Just finished the cold open. It was legit bad, right? Like, I am not the only one who sees that. It started out with some cool visuals, but how do Book and Burnham not even do basic research on offending these people? They were being so flippant and rude to those people.

 

How would you describe the tone?

ST has always done action and spectacle. Remember all that Kirk Fu back in the day?

DIS is indeed strongly influenced by the visual aesthetics of the Kelvin films. People complained about this in S1 and S2 (as though it were inappropriate to incorporate influences from a highly successful film series???), but now DIS is set in the 32nd Century, so those kinds of aesthetics just aren't a continuity issue anymore.

Hate to tell you this, but we're four seasons in now. This is Star Trek.

I think you are severely overstating the amount of information Archer had and overestimating his ability to influence the events of the Temporal Cold War in his relative future.

That is a bizarrely hostile evaluation of the Discovery crew that is frankly not supported by the facts. The spore drive -- which, remember, Stamets is the designer of, so it's not like it's just some toy someone else gave them -- was only one of the things that made the crew special. The other half of it was that they almost single-handedly discovered the cause of the Burn, ended the risk of any future Burns, discovered a vast source of dilithium badly needed by the Federation, and saved Federation Headquarters from the Emerald Chain. Their efforts also made significant diplomatic progress in restoring the Federation's relationships with Trill, Ni'Var, and Earth. They are an extremely accomplished crew.

I totally understand that concern, but I don't think that's what DIS did or is going. For one thing, Michael never actually undermined the President's authority. She kept her dislike of the President private between her and Vance. And finally, at the end, I think the show was depicting President Rillak as being correct in her evaluation of Michael as someone who, like Kirk in TWOK, has not yet reconciled themselves to the inevitability of a no-win scenario.

I will, however, concede that President Rillak's actions aboard the Discovery bridge were inappropriate. Questioning the C.O. in front of her crew undermines her authority, and doing that in a crisis is particularly inappropriate. Michael was right to require of the President that she either exercise her authority as supreme commander of Federation forces and take command over the crisis, or allow Michael to do her job.

Well, if she did, it would have had to have been before this episode, because "Kobayashi Maru" establishes that she's only just taken office.

I think it's more likely she'll have a role like Vance's last season -- somewhat antagonistic at first, but reconciling over time.

Yep. Although I'm going to be Mister Pedant here and note that Samuels in ENT was only ever identified as "Minister;" his exact portfolio went unestablished. It is the post-finale ENT novels that have established him as United Earth Prime Minister. (Him as P.M. is my headcannon, though.)

To be specific: The admiral in TSFS and Admiral Clancy in PIC S1 were described as the commander-in-chief of Starfleet, and Admiral Bill was described as "the C-in-C." But, DS9 "Paradise Lost" explicitly refers to President Jaresh-Inyo as Admiral Leyton's commander-in-chief.

This is not really a contradiction, though. "Commander-in-chief" is a term that can refer to the commanding officer of any military grouping, not just to the person in supreme command of the entire military. For instance, the commanding officers of the United States's Unified Combatant Commands (who are the immediate next persons in line in the U.S. Armed Forces chain of command below the Secretary of Defense, who themselves is immediately below the President) used to be called the "commanders-in-chief" of their UCC. The Department of Defense re-named them as combatant commanders because they wanted to reserve the term "commander-in-chief" for the President for propaganda purposes.

This is just me being pedantic, but something to bear in mind is that, legally speaking, the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff does not actually have operational command authority. They and the rest of the Joint Chiefs can transmit orders from the President or the Secretary of Defense, and they are the main military advisers to the President and Secretary, but they don't have command authority per se.

Of course, that's a bit of a legal fiction; in reality, the JCS Chair and the other Joint Chiefs have so much unofficial clout that they have de facto command authority even if they don't have de jure command authority. Bob Woodward's recent book Rage goes into this to some extent.

That was... something. The guy is just bound and determined to react to even the most benign, normal of scenes in the most hostile manner possible. I was reading his tweets and just waiting for him to start complaining about the manner in which someone sat down on a chair or walked through a door. It's like the old joke about a kid at lunch who hates another kid going, "Look at that asshole, eating that sandwich like he owns the place."

Edited to add: He used to be a regular contributor to Mark A. Altman's Inglorious Treksperts podcast, but I notice he hasn't been on in a long time. Altman and his cohost aren't DIS fans, but I wonder if RMB got too hostile even for them? Or maybe they, like me, didn't appreciate it when RMB literally called for staff writer/PIC co-creator/ST novelist/TrekBBS member Kirsten Beyer to be forced to do the "Game of Thrones Walk of Shame" (which is a form of sexual assault) because he didn't like her script for "Unification III." End edit.

I mean, they were clearly already hostile and looking for an excuse to open fire. I might have found their irrational hostility unrealistic once upon a time, but real life these past two years has disabused me of the notion that large numbers of people do not become irrationally hostile for no good reason.

Is it a galaxy-ending threat? All we know so far is that it threatens the region of space the Federation inhabits.

Gosh, I just hate it when action-adventure shows make their main character the one who resolves the primary crisis...! It's certainly not a basic convention of the action/adventure format!

That's kind of speciesist!

 

I know the President just took office but she must have had a role in government or maybe something else before that. Something that appealed to people enough to want to vote for her. Maybe she wouldn't have been elected if they knew a secret about her we will find out about. Maybe the secret is not evil exactly but might not be noble and super great either.

 

They're all evil Spoonheads.

Curious if Earth is back in. Would be interesting if they're not. They go off and make their own Federation. With blackjack. And hookers.

 

I liked it. Burnham is so much better when she isn’t overacting and crying and she didn’t shed a single tear this episode! Her and Book have good chemistry and I liked their scenes together. Also, the show flows a lot better with Burnham in the captains chair. I rolled my eyes when she got promoted last season but so far I actually like the move.

I didn’t like the Saru B story line. So boring. I know they want to keep him relevant but it felt out of place in this episode. Hopefully they have a vision to connect him to the main story.

The anomaly worked well enough to advance the plot in this episode but I didn’t find it interesting enough that I think the whole season should be about it. Guess we will have to see what direction that goes in too.

Finally, the president is an intriguing character and very well acted. My guess is she’s just another obstacle for Burnham to run over but she had some valid points on Burnhams flaws which opens the door for character development for her.

 

He also keeps accidentally outing the misogynoir that actually motivates his "critiques":

Wow, what kind of Kirk would do something like that? It's almost like that uppity chick thinks she has some kind of right to be a protagonist who does daring, heroic things.

And then there's this:

Because the problem is that the story has allowed her to be a protagonist who has accomplished extraordinary things, is the point here. It's "insidious" that she's a protagonist at all. She's unreasonably "entitled" no matter what she does or how much it matters.

And just in case the point wasn't clear enough, White Dudes are not being paid sufficient deference by the writing.

If certain podcasts are distancing themselves from him, I expect it's likely because he keeps saying the quiet part out loud.

 

Burnett needs to just sit down. Shut up.

And then shut up.

 

Finished the episode. Overall not bad. Interesting stakes for this season. I really like the president. She was spot on about everything she said about Burnham. Michael just came across as a jerk during their scene at the end, when the president was just trying to manage her correctly.

 

Burnett should have kept his promise.. he said he was done with modern Trek after Terra Firma…. He would have done us all a favor…..

 

I felt like they came across as contrasting but equally-valid takes on events.

On the one hand, I fully understand why Michael, after everything she's been through, is not 100% interested in critiques of her performance from a politician whose interstellar credentials consist of cargo-running for her dad.

OTOH, the President isn't a stock Incompetent Functionary or a poor man's Kai Wynn. She comes across as a distinct character with equally valid points to make and who is genuinely competent within her own sphere.

Not an easy scene to do. I think they found a really interesting take on it.

 

That was not what the President was talking about though. I'm sure that the President is fully aware that Starfleet Captain will at times needs to make the ultimate sacrifice. But this wasn't one of those times. Rillak was specifically talking about Burnham being unwilling to delegate responsibilities to subordinates that may cost those subordinates their lives. This is actually a bad trait to have as a leader. Detmer or Rhys were probably perfectly capable of completing the mission and Burnham should have stepped back and allowed one of them to do so.

A good leader has faith in their crew and encourages them to take risks in order for them to develop experience. Everyone on Discovery's bridge know what they have signed up for and Burnham taking on all of the responsibilities because she wants to bring everyone home is doing her crew a massive disservice. Burnham needs to be sending the kids on dangerous away missions, getting them to do risky endeavours and putting their lives on the line, because as starfleet officers, they need experience in those situations. One day one of these officers, is going to need to make the call, and may find themselves ill-prepared to do so because Burnham chose to bubble wrap her crew instead of empowering them to take calculated risks.

Burnham also needs to realise as Captain that some times when you try to get no one killed, you run the risk of getting everyone killed. Part of the Kobayashi Maru test is to prepare cadets for that inevitability one day. If a Captain can't accept that some of their crew may day in the line of duty because of said Captain's orders, then they don't have any right being in the big chair.