Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 4x05 - "The Examples"

[fireproof78]

Seems a bit callous and unfeeling given what posters have shared. But hey. You do you.

Empathy is a tough skill.

 

[DaveyNY]

Empathy means having to admit that your own emotions may be eating at you.

Something many people don't want to deal with.

 

[DEWLine]

Mine absolutely are eating at me. I'd like to better manage arie'mnu without diving into kolinahr, but that's for discussions to be had elsewhere.

 

[NCC-73515]

duet was one of the best episodes in Trek ever and the kind of thing modern Trek seems afraid of attempting. Its only fault was the totally unnecessary assassination at the end, it would have been interesting to keep the cardassian around for future episodes.

The end made it even more tragic and elevated the whole episode even more, because now you have a good guy trying to bring justice by pretending to be a bad guy - AND a victim killing him who's innocent out of pure hate. A hero among the villains, and a villain among the victims. I thought it was brilliant.

 

[Jayson1]

Empathy means having to admit that your own emotions may be eating at you.

Something many people don't want to deal with.

I think that is simply coming to terms with your own emotions. Maybe overcoming some denial. Empathy is about feeling bad for others who are in pain. It's also something the holds people back from causing pain because people don't want to feel the guilt of causing that pain.

 

[Sci]

You get trauma and grief!
And you get trauma and grief!
Every character gets trauma and grief!

Everyone who is capable of loving another person eventually gets trauma and grief, because we all inevitably lose someone we love. It is realistic and honest of DIS to portray the fact that trauma and grief are common shared experiences.

DIS is, indeed, a show about how its characters cope with trauma and grief, and how they form a found family and continue living. That makes it a very worthy piece of art.

 

[Starkers]

Possibly my favourite episode of the season so far, and as someone who's rarely Michael's biggest fan I liked her here, that little speech at the end felt captainy. I'd still rather Saru was captain with Michael as his corner cutting XO but we are where we are and I won't mind if she keeps this up.

Great to see Reno back, need more of her though! That whole little quartet was great.

Culber again very good and loved the conversation with Kovitch

Nice to see Rhys get a little bit of development.

Didn't miss Gray/Adira

Do miss Tilly

 

[Sci]

I liked how the episode was low-key a critique of the prison-industrial complex in the U.S.

 

[cooleddie74]

Minor offenses getting out-of-proportion prison sentences just to justify the prison's existence. Yep.

 

[Cap'n Calhoun]

You know it's possible the change was forced on them by CBS. Between this and the new Pike show I wonder if their was a order to make Trek more stand alone again. Across the board. It will be interesting to see if this plays out on Picard as well.

I guess it's possible, but I don't see why we'd assume anything is being "forced on them by CBS" rather than just being the direction the show is going in the moment, especially given that this season isn't all that more episodic than, say, the first half of season 2.

 

[Search4]

And Booker's only had...weeks, at most, per the story thus far?

I gather he is "emotionally compromised". C'mon, we need to hear that phrase again.

 

[DEWLine]

He is deeply emotionally compromised.

 

[Sci]

I guess it's possible, but I don't see why we'd assume anything is being "forced on them by CBS" rather than just being the direction the show is going in the moment, especially given that this season isn't all that more episodic than, say, the first half of season 2.

Because there's a subset of fandom that just always starts from the assumption that the writers are fucking up and someone else needs to come along to "fix" their "mistakes." Because in their eyes, the show can do no right.

I gather he is "emotionally compromised". C'mon, we need to hear that phrase again.

I'm not even sure what that phrase would mean for Book? "Emotionally compromised" implies that there's some sort of objectivity a person is supposed to maintain in the performance of duties. But Book is not a leader or an officer -- he's basically self-employed private ship owner. So he's not really "compromised" because he has no standard of objective duty he must live up to. He's just a guy in mourning for his loved ones and his people. A genocide survivor.

 

[Fateor]

I liked how the episode was low-key a critique of the prison-industrial complex in the U.S.

Pretty sure it was more a low key critique of places like China that put prisoners on display as propaganda pieces...

 

[Sci]

Pretty sure it was more a low key critique of places like China that put prisoners on display as propaganda pieces...

I think that is also a valid interpretation. I don't really see a contradiction between the two. (The U.S. does similar things.)

 

[fireproof78]

I gather he is "emotionally compromised". C'mon, we need to hear that phrase again.

How about he is just emotional and going through the grieving process, which is neither quick nor easy.

 

[plynch]

He is a lot, lot more together than I would be, had I lost my entire planet I was empathically connected to, and all my fellow people, and my newfound family. I wish they’d show somebody really messed up. Like really. They were goin there with Detmer, but then: aaaand… she’s fine.

How long was Culber by himself in the mushroom dimension? Shouldn’t he be like psychotic from that?

 

[fireproof78]

I wish they’d show somebody really messed up.

I don't think that is treated as really Star Trek. I agree it would be nice to be shown, but it isn't in line with how emotions are to be handled.

 

[nic3636]

He is deeply emotionally compromised.

you might say his warp core has a coolant leak and emergency containment protocols have been activated.

 

[jackoverfull]

Pretty sure it was more a low key critique of places like China that put prisoners on display as propaganda pieces...

this brings me to an interesting question... the announcement of a Star Trek theme park shortly ago led me to the realization that the show must be quite popular over there and that there must be in fact a huge number of fans that don’t really interact with us westerners, as they post on their social networks, their own video-sharing sites, pretty much being on a mostly separate version of the internet by now.

Anyway, back to my question, I wonder how episodes like this one, which might be interpreted as having a message against the government, are dealt with, if they are censored, get a “politically approved” dubbing (this is something that still happens in some cases even in Italy! Over here adira is a she, no doubts about it!) or not broadcasted at all.