That probably worked better for those of us not in the US because I had no idea who she was when I first saw her. Reading up on the episode after viewing, however, I did think it was an odd choice, and I'm left wondering what political point they're trying to make.
Abrams has become best-known for her work trying to increase voter registration and turnout in the African-American community and fighting laws designed to make it harder for black people to vote. So I would say the political point they were making was, "Racist voter suppression is bad; more democracy is good."
A fairly solid hour of Star Trek. Great visuals. But nearly every point of contention that was brought up in the episode and the preceding season was pretty much big fat VOY reset buttoned at the end. The only consequence was Tarka's death which he had coming!
I don't think Book being required to do penance for his choices is nothing, nor him losing the ship that was his home and livelihood. But I think this season was a season about rebuilding into something stronger than you were before; it was always going to be a season about restoration.
Last episode they could barely talk to 10-C; now they can hold long drawn out conversations.
We saw them figure out the mathematical key for how to communicate exponentially more complex concepts with one-another. It makes perfect sense that with a hyper-advanced super-computer like Zora helping, the
Discovery crew and the Ten-C would be able to communicate complex concepts with one-another.
Side-note: I think it would have been cool to see a sequence where the crew asks the Ten-C's permission to coin a proper Federation Standard name for their species... Maybe something that involved combining Latin terms for speaking and chemicals?
Book got away, virtually, with all of the crimes he committed;
This is absolutely false. His liberty has literally been taken from him and he is being compelled by law to provide difficult labor for a period of time set by the state.
Nadoya gets not only a pass for helping sabotage Discovery and almost the entire mission but she got to go on a suicide mission to redeem herself.
I do agree that Ndoye got off too easily. Even if she did subsequently almost die to stop Tarka, she should not have been allowed to stand in a position of honor alongside the other Federation and United Earth delegates during the final scene with the U.E. President. She sabotaged an allied power's starship and endangered United Earth and Federation worlds; at the very least, there should have been a line about General Ndoye resigning or being charged in a United Earth Defense Force court-martial.
10-C being explained the error of their ways and just shaping up so quickly...too bad that doesn't work on our real world politicians.
I really like the idea that sometimes conflicts like this could just result from alien life-forms not being malicious, but being so fundamentally
different from us that they failed to recognize us as people at first. Differences as something that can be overcome without malice on either side.
The good: Tilly coming back, Vance warping Starfleet headquarters right to Earth to defend it (took me a few seconds to process it at warp
),
Me too! It took me a second to understand what I was seeing.
I do kind of wish we had seen a parallel scene on Ni'Var. Maybe one where Gray is volunteering on an evac ship, so we get a familiar face to frame that portion of events and get to see him again.
This episode could have served as the series finale easily. Which is what was probably planned just in case. I'd imagine Season 5 will be the end. Seems like just the right amount of time and with all of the new Trek in the pipeline they are gonna have to free up working capital somewhere.
It's possible, but I don't see any particular reason it needs to be the end. The show remains successful, and Paramount+ doesn't seem to be using the Netflix strategy of cancelling shows after only a couple of seasons.
I would quibble with your phrasing, but I think your essential point here is correct -- primary concerns of the show are getting in touch with your feelings and redemption.
If you're not open to this approach, that's totally understandable, but then you don't actually like Discovery. It's what they're doing. It's what the show is. It's the very core of the show's identity and what everything else is built on.
To say you love Discovery but want it to stop being a show about redemption and processing your feelings is like saying you love Voyager, you just want it to stop being a show about a crew lost in the Delta Quadrant. Or you love Deep Space Nine, you just want it to stop being a show on a space station. It's perfectly reasonable to not like any of those things, I'm just always a bit mystified by "I love this show, except that I hate it's basic premise, core identity, main story topics, character arcs, and primary themes!"
I do agree with this. And I would add something else: DIS's depiction of a future where the use of therapeutic techniques to manage your mental health is a more realistic depiction of what a truly progressive future would look like than much of ST has traditionally depicted.
So, with United Earth and Titan rejoining the Federation, will Ndoye become a Starfleet admiral?
I really hope not. Not only does she not deserve to become a Starfleet flag officer after she betrayed United Earth's allies and sabotaged Federation property (thereby endangering a Federation world in Ni'Var), but I have never liked the idea that Starfleet just absorbs Federation Member States' local space forces. I would much prefer the idea that the United Earth Defense Force continues to operate within U.E. space, operating alongside the Federation Starfleet (whose operational reach would, of course, extend far beyond U.E. space).
Wait how come Earth gets all this pre-apocalypse asteroid storm stuff when on Book's world they got... a flock of confused seagulls?
I would assume that the DMA got closer to Kewjain before anyone realized it was there than it got to Earth and Ni'Var. Also, IIRC we mostly saw the early effects of the DMA from the planetary surface; it's entirely plausible that things on Earth's or Ni'Var's surfaces might have looked similar.
Also, when the second DMA appeared, they said it was operating more quickly. It's possible that could affect how Earth and Ni'Var were impacted.
Book gets the 32nd century equivalent of community service?
As well he should! Traditional prisons are barbaric and actually
increase a person's propensity for anti-social behavior. The 32nd Century Federation clearly uses a restorative, rehabilitative justice model. Heck, as far back as TOS they made it clear that a great deal of criminal behavior is a function of mental health issues rather than inherent defect of the person.
On the question of how the Tensi would not recognise humanoids as sentient lifeforms/sophonts, this has come up in Star Trek before.
In the licensed, non-canon Star Trek: Enterprise - Rise of the Federation novel "A Choice of Futures", the mushroom-headed aliens from the ENT episode "Silent Enemy" performs experiments on other species because they don't recognise them as creatures with feelings.
When I saw "It's Coming Home", it got me to re-read the relevant section:
“Thank you, Admiral. I do not claim that the aliens’ intentions toward us are harmless. In their view, we are an inferior and dangerous form of life. They see us as we would see wild animals.”
“But we’re clearly not that,” th’Menchal objected. “We have language, technology, civilizations.”
“We distinguish persons from animals on those bases, among others. They evidently do not.” Sato leaned forward. “Their senses let them literally see inside each other, sense each other’s reactions and emotions. We call them Mutes, but in reality they’re in constant communication, linked on a deep level. To them, that communication is fundamental to their sense of personhood. It’s intimately linked to their feelings, their thoughts. We don’t have that kind of connection, so to them, it’s like we have no real awareness or emotion.”
Source: Bennett, Christopher L.. Rise of the Federation: A Choice of Futures (Star Trek: Enterprise Book 15) (S.264-265). Pocket Books. Kindle-Version.
Perhaps Discovery's writers should've put in a similar amount of effort as the above excerpt.
They did. You just missed it.
I actually really liked that General Ndoye didn't die and wasn't sent to a penal colony to suffer for the rest of her days. There's a line when they're back on Starfleet Headquarters about how intent is also an important element in passing judgements and achieving justice, which is like, pure, unadulterated optimistic/utopian ideals. It's Star Trek praxis, so good. The same is true for Book.
I agree, but Ndoye should have had greater negative consequence even if that didn't mean loss of liberty like Book. Her willingness to sacrifice of herself to save Earth and Ni'Var should certainly mitigate things, but she still betrayed United Earth's allies and endangered Earth and Ni'Var. At the very least, she should no longer hold a position of public trust. The galaxy is full of important and fulfilling careers should could pursue that would make the Federation a better place without her holding such offices.
Side note: Her little hat was... I can't describe it. It was dumb, but I also totally bought it as a uniform. There's something so perfectly human about stupid little hats, and it's comforting to think that that'll never change.
It makes sense that a United Earth military would continue to use ornamental hats of the sort found in many national militaries today. I could see it as an evolution of the kepi or some such.
I also totally bought Book's incomplete transporting signal. Mrs. Martin-Green really sold the moment; it's probably one of the first times a death fake-out has actually gotten me.
I don't care what anyone says -- Sonequa Martin-Green is an
amazing actor, and Michael's emotional journey from "The Vulcan Hello" to "Coming Home" is excellent.
That being said: Lordy, people do love wearing those damn CAPES, don't they?
I don't really like the capes myself, but, hey, it's a way to establish that it's the distant future without looking
completely bizarre to modern sensibilities.
Both Tarka and the 10c are suddenly easily convinced with a couple of words that what they are doing is wrong.
I have no problem whatsoever with the idea that the Ten-C were never malicious and just didn't realize they were hurting other people because they didn't fully understand the nature of lifeforms that were so alien to them.
I do agree that Tarka came around a little too easy. I love that line of his -- "Oros would have stopped me. Why isn't he here to stop me?" -- because that line really did capture a lot of what grief feels like. But a guy who's gone that far in his quest to, essentially, go to an imaginary place to find his best friend again, is not going to be talked down by one compassionate speech. He's too far down his own emotional rabbit hole for me to believe in that particular face turn. The episode would have been better if it had featured an acknowledgment that some people aren't able or willing to come back from their own pain and trauma.
Book apparently dies but…Did anyone REALLY believe he hadn't been saved by the 10c?
I figured it was 50/50. It's not like killing off beloved characters is uncommon on contemporary television or on
Star Trek these days.
I strongly resent the message that "all love ends in grief": love doesn't have to end at all.
I mean, maybe it would be more accurate to say, "All relationships end in grief." But it's true: the best-case scenario is that you love someone until death... in which case, you, or your partner(s), or you and your partner(s)' loved ones, experience grief as a result of death. Grief is the price we pay for love. It's a price that's worth it, but until those we love become immortal, it's the price we must always pay.
Also "what am I watching at": the VFX by now are so abstract I don't know why do they bother.
What are you referring to?
Maybe I need to rewatch it, but I didn't come away with that impression (and I binged episodes 7-13 after not keeping up for a while). There was a little bit on rebuilding the Federation at the start with premiere's opening sequence with the Butterly people, then the one episode with the negotiations between Nivar, Earth, and the Federation, and then the tiny and unimportant piece with all the delegates meeting in "But to Connect..." (we didn't even get names or lines for most of the delates in the mission to meet 10-C), but the actual events largely developed in between seasons 3 and 4 or offscreen in Season 4. The rebuilding the Federation occurred in the background, largely unaddressed by our characters, while they really dealt with the DMA.
I think you have right there outlined how the rebuilding the Federation arc unfolded.
Star Trek: Discovery, like every
Star Trek series before it, is primarily an action/adventure show about the grunts out in the field; it is not
The West Wing or
The Crown -- it's not a show primarily about palace intrigue. It was never going to just have episode after episode of people in rooms talking about the political and economic conditions under which Federation reunification would happen. (The closest we got to that was "All is Possible.") So it makes perfect sense that the rebuilding the UFP arc would play out as a season-long subplot against the backdrop of the DMA crisis.
As for changes to the Trek-verse, I do think the only comparable one would be season 7 of DS9. Cardassia destroyed, almost the whole of the Federation conquered,
The Dominion never conquered "almost the whole," or even a majority, of the Federation. I think you might be thinking of DS9 Season Six's "In the Pale Moonlight," where the Dominion is able to conquer Betazed, giving them a beachhead that would allow them to target the Federation's core worlds and wherein Sisko calculates that the war will eventually be lost without the Romulans joining the war. But the Romulans joined the Allies before the Dominion was able to expand any further into Federation space.
Made the Federation/Klingon war in DIS S1 feel like it was happening only in the background.
That strikes me as some hyperbole. The UFP/Klingon War in DIS S1 was the primary or secondary focus on 10 out of 15 episodes -- literally two-thirds of the season. No one stopped the war to have a baseball game.
It really drove me nuts how during Season 3 Stamets slowly built up resentment towards Burnham and then...they just made up offscreen between Seasons 3 and 4.
Yeah, that is disappointing. I would have much preferred to see Stamets retain his anger towards Burnham for her command decisions endangering his husband and adopted kid, and see an arc there play out over the course of the season where they have to figure out how to resolve that conflict.
I think that's why the set the final siuation up as they did - SFHQ warps to evacuate Earth - in the end, Earth rejoins UFP and thus now no reason to warp SFHQ anywhere else.
I'm sure DIS will establish that the Federation has moved its capital back to Earth because they think that's part of how you appeal to the audience and depict a brighter future for Earth, but I kind of wish the Federation capital was a different planet -- one that wasn't a pre-existing society. Deneva, for instance. Just something to make the capital be "neutral" in terms of Federation Members' pre-existing relationships, the way the Federation Headquarters space station was "neutral."
(It's also interesting that while Earth WASN'T a member the current UFP President AND one of SF's highest ranking Admiral's BOTH were born on, and had family living on Earth -- WHAT A HAPPY COINCIDENCE, EH?
)
I'm not sure what you mean? I can't find any reference in his Memory Alpha article to Admiral Vance being born on or having family living on Earth. President Rillak grew up on her father's cargo ship and her Human-descended maternal family had never seen Earth before 3189. Her family were visiting Earth at the time the DMA appeared, but it's heavily implied this is a result of United Earth opening up to off-worlders again after the crew of the
Discovery inspired them to abandon their isolationism in S3.
indeed: what that event was eventually?
I guess it was the Klingon war? Which... I don't think was ever actually mentioned before? But maybe we were supposed to consider the "never explored" event from Trek past as being just earlier Fed/Klingon relations?
IIRC, when Fuller was running things he said the first season was all based on "a throwaway line from TOS." He never elaborated on that and it's never been stated what line that was since the season ended.
I think it's pretty clear that the thing that was never explored before DIS was the conflict between the Federation and Klingons that occurred in the decades immediately prior to TOS. The throwaway line from TOS that Fuller referred to was probably the reference to the Battle of Donatu V from "The Trouble with Tribbles." Fuller took that idea, that the UFP and Klingons had fought a war a few decades before TOS, and turned that into the 2250s war in DIS S1. (Yes, the Battle of Donatu V was established to occur prior to the events of DIS S1, but that doesn't mean the line did not still provide the initial inspiration)
And not count Enterprise, which had already explored this at length?
Not to be too pedantic, but ENT only explored United Earth/Klingon relations -- we never saw how the Klingons reacted to the establishment of the Federation.
His ship can get rebuilt.
Well, it can be
replaced, but the dang thing was vaporized. There's nothing left to rebuild.
I'm still upset they never gave it a name though.
Disco really needs it's own Delta Flyer, their own dedicated shuttle that is designed to address their changed circumstances. Something that's pure 32nd century tech. I'm ready for that new set as well.
In a lot of ways, Book's ship served that basic narrative function -- the mobile storytelling platform with abilities lesser than that of the main ship but greater than those of a shuttle. It would be interesting see something like a 32nd Century runabout, though the new shuttle sets are large enough I'm not sure why they can't just expand on the abilities of 32nd Century shuttlecraft.
Though actually, now I'm wondering... why is it still called Discovery, now that the ship has become a sentient lifeform that named herself Zora?
Well, I think it's a little over-stating things to say that the ship itself is Zora. Zora is the ship's main computer -- there are still smaller computer systems aboard the
Discovery that aren't part of Zora, for instance. And there are plenty of aspects of the ship's functions that are physical and which Zora can't control via software. I would argue we shouldn't think of Zora as being the
Discovery, but instead should think of Zora as living aboard the
Discovery same as any other crew member.[/quote]
But, for me, what was presented did tell the story fully. (JUST BARELY. Cut one line and it falls below the minimum and is now a rushed story. But, I should stop nitpicking 
)
