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Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 4x09 - "Rubicon"

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Yet another dull entry a lot of action (which always pauses long enough for the character to discuss stuff, of course) but very little substance.


So, Michael somehow sent book a transmission on how the anomaly is actually a mining tool and Booker somehow sent Michael a transmission which somehow can’t be traced, but why should she even try to trace it, since she has a tracker on his ship anyway.


Tarka somehow installed a security measure on book’s ship designed to kill anyone trying to enter and somehow Booker didn’t know about it, also somehow once those measures can’t be stopped once deployed. Well done mr best genius in the galaxy!


Booker somehow forgets he can just turn off the scattering field and have the people on the shuttle beamed, ending up with almost killing them. Oh well, perhaps he was in fear of being transported as well, I guess.


Booker and tarka for some reason have to wait 6 hours for the weapon to be ready but don’t start their search for the controller until those hours are ready. Well, I guess they needed a nap.


Somehow both B&T and discovery find at the same time the controller. But wait a minute, wasn’t the anomaly several light years in size? And they converge on the same tiny controller at the very same moment? Even finding it seems REALLY far fetched, but at the same moment?! And why is it OUTSIDE the anomaly? And, since it was so easy to find, why didn’t the several ships studying the anomaly find it before? Where are those ships now, by the way?


Also, Michael somehow thinks of a way to predict when the anomaly will move again. All those federation scientists studying it for weeks and saying it was unpredictable must feel very stupid now.


They do that “stay between The millennium Falcon and the controller” for a while, somehow predicting where book will jump (how?) and mr genius doesn’t think he can just beam the torpedo behind discovery. Until he does. I guess that with having his nap interrupted earlier he must be tired and not thinking straight.


Not to mention that they for some reason don’t answer hails but Book is so impressed in seeing Michael’s in a shuffle that then he does, listens and accepts being taken in to custody. really? I mean ok standing down for a week, but surrendering? Does he really thinks the federation will let them go with their super weapon and the prototype drive? Tarka must have wondered the same.


Anyway, in the end the anomaly can’t be destroyed (predictably) and the power source is located at 10c’s place, again predictably, the feds decide to speed up the first contact mission. But wait a minute, what are they waiting for to start it anyway?


Only interesting bits:

1) tarka was working on his plot for ten years. He definitely knows much more than he’s telling and it seems he let the anomaly kill millions (billions?) to his advantage.

2) Commander Nhan’s involvement and actions were very well written and sensible. Please more of this and less nonsense.

The space scenes still fail miserably to look interesting to my eyes, with the exception of the new cloak effect (was it the first time we saw discovery coloacking?). This is an issue with the general art direction in discovery I have, so at least it’s consistent. On the good side, there wasn’t much of the usual constantly moving, sickness-inducing, camera work that had come back recently.

7. And I’m being very generous.
 
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The space scenes still fail miserably to look interesting to my eyes, with the exception of the new cloak effect (was it the first time we saw discovery coloacking?). This is an issue with the general art direction in discovery I have, so at least it’s consistent. On the good side, there wasn’t much of the usual constantly moving, sickness-inducing, camera work that had come back recently.
It's interesting as over at that other Star franchise I'm seeing "Robert Rodriguez is the worst director EVER!!! (TM)"

Maybe the franchises should switch directors for a couple of episodes and see how well that goes. :rommie:
 
also think a lot of the complaints about how the season is dragging out would be mitigated if all the episodes had been released at once.
They are trying to use an old fashion way of broadcasting shows in an era where many of us are very used to being able to binge entire seasons and it's to the detriment of each episode.
Agreed. This season reminds me exactly of Netflix's Daredevil so I lack the same level of ire.
 
And even Nhan was way too soft because of her past connection to Burnham.

Vance: We called on all temporal, cloning, and synth resurrection favors for this one Captain Burnham. Your new officer will put you in your place and then some. Let me present...

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YES! THIS is who we needed on that mission! Jellico was seriously a great commanding officer that KNEW when to make serious commands. Nahn should've been like him, but she failed at that.
 
On the good side, there wasn’t much of the usual constantly moving, sickness-inducing, camera work that had come back recently.
If I'm not mistaken, Olatunde Osunsanmi is directing the finale again. So get your whoppers ready for maximum grill and be sure to do some neck stretches beforehand, it's gonna get kinetic, man.

YES! THIS is who we needed on that mission! Jellico was seriously a great commanding officer that KNEW when to make serious commands. Nahn should've been like him, but she failed at that.

Jellico ... and the Disco crew. The mind boggles.

Someone's getting confined to quarters / the brig within ten minutes of him stepping on board. :lol:
 
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Pros:
* Visually? Top notch. The VFX team has done a sterling job in giving us some head to head starship action.

* ♫ Saru has a crush on T'Rina. T'Rina has a crush on Saru. ♫ It's adorable.

Cons:
* 5 light years across. They both land in the same spot, relatively speaking. I wish they'd have made the DMA so much smaller, because it's the size of the distance between Sol and Alpha Centauri. Every time they show it, too, it looks like it's not that big, maybe 500,000 km across, or something far more reasonable in size for what it is.

* Lots and lots and lots of do-overs. Lots of second, third, fourth, and fifth chances. The whole "he's just trying to warn us" stuff, Nahn not making the decision even though she was there to do just that, despite the ship getting shot at repeatedly by people who have stolen a super powered weapon that could cause a supremely advanced race to come fuck them up with extreme prejudice. It's not a good look. Oh, I completely understand why, but that's why Nahn was there in the first place, and she failed at that. I mean, good for us, but that strains things quite a bit when it comes to whether or not the Federation really truly wants to prevent getting wiped out by an alien species that creats 5 light year (hurgh) wide vacuum cleaners.

Ruminations:
This one feels like more of a low boil episode, with actions taken that could have been done in half the running time. That's not to say it's bad, but there were certainly long stretches of uncertainty, too many IMO. I'm certainly glad Book and Michael know each other so well they can practically predict each others tactics, and it makes for some interesting back and forth strategy, that was interesting to watch, but the measures taken were unreasonable (IMO). She takes a shuttle craft, in the middle of the DMA, to talk to Book? I mean, seriously? That one was a little hard for me to see as anything but over the top and even silly.

This one gets a 6/10. It feels like it's primarily just setup for the next episode, and so they filled the time with what they could.
 
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Generous 7..
10 times better than last week's blah.
Decent action, Nhan, nice visuals.
Bad..
Let's just stop for 10 minutes for a hug, some scones, Earl Grey. :whistle:
Okay back to action!
I will say that the writers have embraced technobabble instead of whatever they found on Wikipedia.

Any other captain .. Kirk to archer .. Would have given book a chance.. Then destroyed him..

Way way to touchy feely this season.. Crews emotions need to be taken care of... .. F÷%% that.. Your Starfleet obey or gtfo of the way.
Need some tough love... :censored:
 
I think the melodrama/emotionality aspect of DIS is really not a bad idea, and even provided many of its best moments, but the writers seem to forget that, in order for two characters to reconcile, they have to actually oppose or hurt one another. These characters never quite seem to do that? They never lose faith in one another, only to have it restored --- which is a shame!

And when betrayals happen, they get patched up so fast. Again, shame. Let Book truly turn from Burnham, so that her faith in him pays off when he realizes he's wrong! Let Nhan take over, and let Burnham resent it, so their talk at the end actually feels like they're mediating and reconnecting!

Stray notes:
  • The production value is so good, the actors are good, and it consistently falls a little flat for me. That's on the writing, I'm afraid.
  • Why go to the ready room to talk to Nhan mid-battle. Don't we have an established sphere of silence?
  • Emergency transport --- better beam them directly to the bridge? Beam them to sickbay, you freaks!
  • Everyone --- everyone --- staring at Burnham was WILD, y'all. If I'm directing a space battle, and it's in the thick of it, the bridge crew should be punching buttons like mad to keep the gravity on, or whatever. Or at least nervously pondering the viewscreen! ("Orders, ciptin?")
  • Did enjoy the space battle. Some WoK vibes. That we ended where we started, however, is about as far away from how WoK ended s possible ... lol.
  • The idea to put Zora on it to speed it up --- How, exactly, where you not enlisting the sentient supercomputer with all the universe's knowledge from the jump, folks?
  • Saru is just a great character, and probably my single favorite aspect of DIS. The writers again chose this week to have an episode that was 96% A-plot and 4% B-plot, which hurts Saru's screen time by making seem extraneous (same for all characters not named Michael Burnham, which is okay, she's the main character, but pretty unartful).
  • Notably, I think LD does a superior job at weaving together the plots and subplots to tell a full episode while advancing the crew, and PROD does a superior job of advancing its crew over a season (so far, at least). I like DIS and PIC, but I really think the two animated shows succeed more fuller on their own terms.
 
It was better than last week, but still kinda "meh". I want to see species 10C already. It was nice some side characters like Saru get screen time, but it could be argued now is not the time for side-plots. Nesting dodecahedron; maybe 10C are fifth-dimensional beings. 7/10.
 
It’s been that way for 55 years. It ain’t JUST Discovery. 25 years ago they wrapped it up with a bow and a reset in 46 minutes flat.
And the problem immediately reappears after they got rid of it XD

Discovery took a Full Spread of Quantum Torpedoes (9x consecutive hits spread across the hull)
Discovery's Shields went from 50% down to 20%.
Shield technology got pretty tough by the 32nd century to take that much abuse and still be alive.
They're probably microtorpedoes like a shuttle or runabout would carry. Unless the Tardis tech from that 31st century capsule is used to store torpedoes, and they get larger when fired - you could store thousands of them in a little shuttle XD

If we don't make contact with 10-C next week I'm going to have a very hard time keeping interest in the remainder of the season, what with Picard episodes dropping at the exact same time.
I'll watch PIC first, no matter what happens on Disco. I guess we'll get to 10C in E10, which ends with crew reactions to what they see, then they'll try to communicate and get through in E11, when we might finally see 10C, then E12 and 13 are the actual conflict of the season condensed into the finale, and it'll be resolved in the last 5 min.

**If Adira/Gray do not actually kiss before the end of the season, I am going to lose my goddamn mind. That's probably the biggest storytelling mistake this whole season for me -- how did these two not make out when Gray finally gets his body back!
Covid might be the reason for no kissing, just hugging this season

Tarka’s origins confounded me more than ever after this episode but I’m almost positive we’ll be hopping to his universe for at least one of these final episodes.
His universe is the prime universe. He's trying to get to a paradise universe which he already calls home - I hope it's the nexus ;)

Star Trek captains don't have a good history of romantic relationships lasting long. Book will either die stopping the aliens or at best be doomed to old captain flame irrelevance like Beverly Crusher.
Beverly did have a thing with a flame though...

So I take it Section 31 is finally gone? Because they totally would've just blown up Book's ship at the beginning and that would be that.

Also Saru's "Despite how we may feel about each other" line and then Bryce and Rhys glaring at each other. I thought they were supposed to be bros?
31 would've attacked the DMA immediately. Maybe they don't exist anymore.

I remember the scene now, and I took it as them being at odds about Book and how to deal with the DMA, but not a serious conflict.
It felt very artificial to me

I'd be more wondering why trained Romulans and evil Vulcans don't just do this to everyone. Sybok should've done that instead of that feel your pain routine he had going.
Sybok wasn't evil, he wanted to convince people to join him, and did explicitly not want violence.

The best one is Hi am Worf, I just murdered a political leader of a foreign government. My punishment is I get a mark on my permanent record....
A great episode of TNG, but seriously that's his punishment....I can see the Klingons not thanking anything was wrong with what he did, but Starfleet or the Federation....That legitimately should have ended his career.
It seems respecting the victim's culture is what matters most. The Klingons accepted what Worf did. When Beverly broke Ferengi tradition against the murder victim's family, she was fired, and only reinstated after she found out who the killer was and that the victim's achievement was real.

It was better than last week, but still kinda "meh". I want to see species 10C already. It was nice some side characters like Saru get screen time, but it could be argued now is not the time for side-plots. Nesting dodecahedron; maybe 10C are fifth-dimensional beings. 7/10.
Oh no, maybe they live in a tesseract bookshelf. They'll relate to Book cause they're books.
 
They're probably microtorpedoes like a shuttle or runabout would carry. Unless the Tardis tech from that 31st century capsule is used to store torpedoes, and they get larger when fired - you could store thousands of them in a little shuttle XD
I wouldn't be surprised if 32nd Century Torpedoes Micro Torpedoes aren't much larger than your standard Pringles cannister for Chips/Crisps.

Imagine how many of those Micro Torpedoes Mr. Booker could contain in his vessel.
 
Though I did not want to say it, this has the feeling of Avatar, where an advanced culture is mining a moon for a valuable resource and considers the natives at best as nuisances, if they consider them at all. I remember in Avatar when Sully wrecked a mining vehicle and the Humans repaired the vehicle. I thought the Species 10-C would do the same, repair or replace their DMA with a new DMA and continue with their mining. So, seeing a new DMA in the end was not a surprise to me.

I am thankful the writers showed restraint in the conversation between Rhys and Bryce, in that we did not have another background exposition dump for one of the characters. They feel forced and artificial.
 
Though I did not want to say it, this has the feeling of Avatar, where an advanced culture is mining a moon for a valuable resource and considers the natives at best as nuisances, if they consider them at all. I remember in Avatar when Sully wrecked a mining vehicle and the Humans repaired the vehicle. I thought the Species 10-C would do the same, repair or replace their DMA with a new DMA and continue with their mining. So, seeing a new DMA in the end was not a surprise to me.

I am thankful the writers showed restraint in the conversation between Rhys and Bryce, in that we did not have another background exposition dump for one of the characters. They feel forced and artificial.
We have 20 seconds to make our move, so let me explain to you what my motivations are and why we need to do this my way.
 
It was better than last week for sure but it seems like the whole “we gotta stop Book” was just a whole lot of nothing. Other than moving up the time table on the first contact mission.

Naan should have given the order.

I’m surprised the Vulcan trained Burnham didn’t recognize “The needs of the many…”

The stuff with Saru and the Vulcan President felt tacked on, even though it’s been building since last season.
 
Next week, the crew risks violating Book's safe space and possibly hurting his feelings. It's all so touchy feely but it seems really out of place with the mission at hand. It didn't help that there's no sense that the crew would do anything even if Naan had pulled the trigger. Not even "warning shots" leaving the shields at 20% were of too much concern over the power of love (cue Huey Lewis).

And having an Indian actress playing a character named Naan always bugs me. What's next, Lt. Tortilla?
 
900 years later and they still use photon and quantum torpedoes. I would have made up a new type. Plasmotic Torpedoes for instance.
 
Or at least the transphasic torpedo technology brought back by Voyager in 2378.
 
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