Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 4x08 - "All In"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
- Start date
You would give a Queen a ship to captain? You give her nothing less than a planet and people to benevolently rule.
She's actually the Borg Queen.
I can see that. I think on some level that it’s meant to show how far Book has gone, and how nihilistic he’s become, that he’s said goodbye to Grudge.
Edited to add: I think Book’s fall is very interesting, because he cared so much about the value of all life, and he’s convinced himself that he’s upholding that by trying to destroy the DMA, to prevent more loss and death.
But it falls apart because of exactly what Burnham and the Federation’s side have said, if they’re this powerful, and can cause this much death and destruction as a side effect of using a tool, then they can’t in good conscience risk pissing the 10-C off, or even more life will be at risk.
Book’s an angry fire ant operating on a revenge instinct. And when a fire ant bites a person’s foot it doesn’t achieve the desired goal of preventing them from stepping on more fire ants, it causes the person to spray a hose and flood the entire ant hill off the sidewalk.
And for Book, giving in to that kind of angry response, even ostensibly trying to stop the DMA to prevent death and destruction, it means denying his true values by risking the greater galaxy more to achieve his revenge. And that kind of hypocrisy, saying that you stand for something while you’re going against it, that’s a form of nihilism wrapped in self delusion and denial, and usually leads down a destructive path.
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I think the previous episodes were fantastic, but they've been done. If they have some new interesting direction, sure, but it seems like they thoroughly mined that vein with Data.
I reckon Zora has the potential to have some very different stories to Data now that they've got her Measure of a Man episode out of the way, as she doesn't want to be human, she wants to be a spaceship, and she's driven by emotions. Zora's also a different type of artifical life to the emotional EMH, as she was born inside the computer with no programming or personality given to her by others, and she's very different to Soji, who believed she was human. Lots of separate takes on what an AI could be.
Tonal consistency and pacing.
When the death of billions maybe trillions of people looms over everything, either through the DMA or a war with 10-C, and then you have this fun and light-hearted side adventure, with some MMA fighting and poker and chasing a cheater, that is tonally completely wrong, and combine that with relationship melodrama, of course, people will call it out.
This is the third episode this season (chasing the Dilithium thieves, Tilly on the ice planet) where the overall threat of the DMA was in the background. The other two episodes at least tried to be serious. What made this episode worse was the tonal difference.
This is a short season. The season started with the destruction of a planet and the death of millions (billions?). The trailer for the season was about a galactic wide threat.
I wrote in a different thread that these writers can't write a good story with a season arc and episodes with an individual story. Season 3 had that problem (the episode on the junkyard planet, the episode on Book's planet, ETC) but this season is worse.
In season 3 we had to solve a mystery from the past, this season we have an imminent threat.
Short season + Imminent galaxy-wide gargantuan threat + side adventure + fun and lightheartedness +relationship melodrama = doesn't work.
This wasn't a heist episode, and neither was "Stardust City Rag" (arranging a meeting under false pretenses so that you can get close to someone to choke her is not a "heist").
What Tarka did in the previous episode was a heist. It happened mostly off-screen, but it was a heist.
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Conceptually this episode is flawed from the start:
1) The last episode ended with a giant cliffhanger: Booker and Tarka flee with plans to build a weapon to destroy the DMA, and that could start a galactic war with 10-C.
10 minutes into this episode, Burnham already suspects (she actually knows already, because she is Burnham) where Booker went, and 10 minutes later, she found him. OH WOW!
2) Having a fun and light-hearted side adventure in a casino, with MMA fights, a poker game, hunting a cheater, ETC, is out of place considering that the threat of the DMA or war with 10-C looms over everything.
The entire drama of this episode comes down to the breaking up of the Booker/Burnham relationship and the ensuing melodrama and if you are not invested in that, the episode is boring.
Other Problems:
Again, the threat of the DMA or war with 10-C looms over everything. Billions of people can die!
But the Federation doesn't want to aggravate the population of a random small planet (is there even more than the casino on Porathia?) and does not fly in with the Discovery, instead, they use a shuttle?
But walking in Federation uniforms around is OK? If there ever was a good time to put on the black leather clothes, this would be it.
In S03E01 Booker said the Federation was gone, he only had contact with lunatics who believed in ghosts, but this planet, that he and Burnham visited between S03E01 and S03E02, had contact with Federation and they are not welcome here. How does this line up?
Did they only develop their dislike for the Federation in the last six months, after it reappeared after the conflict with the Chain?
And why the dislike for the Federation? Very murky, as usual with Discovery.
This show likes to create a deeply personal connection between the crew of the Discovery, mostly Burnham, with the overarching story of the season. These connections, especially in seasons one and two, can be outlandish. In seasons one and two it was all about Burnham:
Burnham's personal connection to the Klingon War.
Burnham's personal connection to characters from the mirror universe, like space Hitler and Lorca.
Burnham's connection to the red bursts, the red angel, to her mother and her fight against Control, and that only the female Burnham lineage can use the red angel suit.
Season 3 was slightly better in this regard.
Burnham's only personal connection to the Burn was through Vulcan and her mother because only she could get information from Vulcan to solve the mystery of the Burn.
Saru had some personal interest in the Burn at the end of the season because of the Kelpien involvement, but this was also minor.
In season four the show goes back to high personal stakes.
First Booker's planet gets destroyed, so he has an intense personal connection to the DMA and we get all the trauma and grief storylines from that. He is also Burnham's lover, so she has an indirect personal connection to the DMA.
With Booker going rogue, and the threat of a war with 10-C, the writers are doubling down on getting Burnham even more personal stakes and we get all the relationship melodrama from this.
1) The last episode ended with a giant cliffhanger: Booker and Tarka flee with plans to build a weapon to destroy the DMA, and that could start a galactic war with 10-C.
10 minutes into this episode, Burnham already suspects (she actually knows already, because she is Burnham) where Booker went, and 10 minutes later, she found him. OH WOW!
2) Having a fun and light-hearted side adventure in a casino, with MMA fights, a poker game, hunting a cheater, ETC, is out of place considering that the threat of the DMA or war with 10-C looms over everything.
The entire drama of this episode comes down to the breaking up of the Booker/Burnham relationship and the ensuing melodrama and if you are not invested in that, the episode is boring.
Other Problems:
Again, the threat of the DMA or war with 10-C looms over everything. Billions of people can die!
But the Federation doesn't want to aggravate the population of a random small planet (is there even more than the casino on Porathia?) and does not fly in with the Discovery, instead, they use a shuttle?
But walking in Federation uniforms around is OK? If there ever was a good time to put on the black leather clothes, this would be it.
In S03E01 Booker said the Federation was gone, he only had contact with lunatics who believed in ghosts, but this planet, that he and Burnham visited between S03E01 and S03E02, had contact with Federation and they are not welcome here. How does this line up?
Did they only develop their dislike for the Federation in the last six months, after it reappeared after the conflict with the Chain?
And why the dislike for the Federation? Very murky, as usual with Discovery.
This show likes to create a deeply personal connection between the crew of the Discovery, mostly Burnham, with the overarching story of the season. These connections, especially in seasons one and two, can be outlandish. In seasons one and two it was all about Burnham:
Burnham's personal connection to the Klingon War.
Burnham's personal connection to characters from the mirror universe, like space Hitler and Lorca.
Burnham's connection to the red bursts, the red angel, to her mother and her fight against Control, and that only the female Burnham lineage can use the red angel suit.
Season 3 was slightly better in this regard.
Burnham's only personal connection to the Burn was through Vulcan and her mother because only she could get information from Vulcan to solve the mystery of the Burn.
Saru had some personal interest in the Burn at the end of the season because of the Kelpien involvement, but this was also minor.
In season four the show goes back to high personal stakes.
First Booker's planet gets destroyed, so he has an intense personal connection to the DMA and we get all the trauma and grief storylines from that. He is also Burnham's lover, so she has an indirect personal connection to the DMA.
With Booker going rogue, and the threat of a war with 10-C, the writers are doubling down on getting Burnham even more personal stakes and we get all the relationship melodrama from this.
While I understand some of your criticism, none of these things bothered me while watching the episode….. honest question: is it really any fun watching something (ANYthing for that matter) the way you do..?
I have a strong general dislike changing the look of species for change's sake – the Kelvin timeline Caitians and the early Discovery Klingons before the hair come to mind.
But if that's how Xindi insectoid look now, I would say that's an improvement like the Discovery Ferengi and the TMP Klingons. The original insectoid, much like the original Ferengi, looked ridiculous. The Ferengi were a joke – you couldn't take them seriously, and they seemed like a caricature humans would make of them in-universe. And the Xindi Insectoid were nothing more than upscaled mantisfly with the mouth of a hornet, which was... cheap. Now they look like a proper non-mammalian person.
It's not overly great, I would have kept the macroscopic compound eyes, and divided insectoid body as opposed to giving them skin (even the Xindi-Reptilian were scaled). Additionally, the new design doesn't convey the unrelatable and alien look that made them completely unreadable in Enterprise. But it is still improvement, as at least it can be taken seriously, and I will brush off some of those as changeling imperfections.
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I think TMP really created a precedent when it comes to 'changing alien appearances for whatever reason'... Sometimes make-up advances, sometimes practical preferences, sometimes just an esthetic choice, whatever. Star Trek (unlike Star Wars) has just never been consistent regarding alien appearances, we just have to accept that. Do not solely blame DSC or any of the other NuTrek series for things the other series did as well. The Romulans, Tellarites, Borg, Trill, Gorn, etc., etc., were all changed slightly or radically during 1979-2005, this is *not* something new. Do I like it? No, I would much rather have them stay as close to the original make up as possible. So in that regard, I agree!
Plus, there are so many different types of insects that I can buy the Xindi-Insectoids looking like that in 2154 but by 3190 having their current appearance. One type of Insectoid clearly came out dominant as the centuries passed or with peace and more quiet relations with Earth, the Federation and other neighbors came Xindi experiments in genome changes. So the Insectoids had a different outward appearance over the 1,000 years after the defeat of their superweapon.
Also, the Insectoids had a maximum lifespan of 12 years, so it's entirely possible that they added humanoid dna or something to their genome in order to extend their lifespans.
Good point. As you say, one was a century-old mystery, the other an imminent threat to the entire galaxy. If ever there was a storyline that justified a tight narrative focus, it's the DMA.
This episode was a step in the right direction finally. Discovery has felt all over the place since season 3. But I'm hopeful it'll see a rise in quality soon.
I guess I missed the Changeling as a Xindi-Insectoid. I don't recall seeing that at all, but maybe I was just looking at my phone at the time.
I guess I missed the Changeling as a Xindi-Insectoid. I don't recall seeing that at all, but maybe I was just looking at my phone at the time.
On the latest episode of The Ready Room, Will Wheaton called Culber the CMO of Discovery.
I can't watch Wheaton anymore after he was crying like a baby over something on an episode.
Voyager killed the Borg (and I don't mean defeated them)
The Borg were about as intimidating as a drunken guy in a bar picking a fight after VOY was finished with them. ENT made them menacing again, albeit for just one episode.
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