Discovery's Mid-Season Finale, The Road So Far, And Thoughts For The Future

Hello and welcome to Future Imperfect. I'm Admiral

Phillips and in this episode of the podcast,

I'll be talking about the mid -season finale

of Star Trek Discovery. Season one, episode nine,

Into the Forest We Go. So, I'm also going to

talk because this is the last episode of the

season until... January 7th Sunday January 7th

I I'm gonna get into my thoughts on the road

so far and my thoughts of the future I'm also

planning on because the the well of Consistent

Star Trek episodes will have dried up. I'm going

to go back to some more topical interface on

this podcast and hopefully I'm going to I'm really

hoping I can get Birdman Dodd on here so that

we can do kind of a breakdown of the season so

far because I I want his perspective being that

for the most part we took this journey on Future

Imperfect together up to a certain point and

then with the debut of the show I just felt like

it was time to bring the podcast back. So I'm

kind of curious what you guys think on the episode

and you can leave your feedback either at feedback

at alteredgeek .com or you can leave it on Twitter

at alteredgeek or at futurewarped or myself at

scp21 and just kind of give me your thoughts

on what's Kind of stood out to you so far this

season whether you're a naysayer or a All hands

down fanatic of the show You can't deny that

a lot of the characterizations Have gotten better

Some of the crew of the Discovery are better.

I still massively hate everything about the Klingons

I think that that's the biggest foobar in the

entire series so far However, they have partially

wrapped this storyline up. And just getting into

this episode, we kind of go through the whole

process of... We begin with the pavins. basically

sending a signal for the Klingons and the Discovery

to meet at that coordinates and Starfleet, the

Vulcan Admiral decides that Discovery needs to

double back to Starfleet and essentially Lorca

pulls a Captain Picard and Captain Kirk disobeying

order in that he tells the Admiral what he wants

to hear and says, yep, we'll will work back to

the Starbase and so their plan is to come up

with a solution to save the Povins and to get

the cloaking information from the the sarcophagus

ship, the ship of the dead and it was kind of

an interesting moment there because it also showed

you know In that instance, Lorca was pretty consistent

with following directives based on his opinion

and also following directives according to his

own war effort. I thought that it was kind of

interesting in that regard. The crew interacting

finding a way to do it and Lorca tells This is

the part that gets a little sketchy in the writing

is Lorca actually acts like he cares to Stamets

and Stamets earlier in the season says Lorca

doesn't care about anybody as long as he gets

his goals achieved and it's like the two of them

completely forgot their personas in this episode

in that regard and Stamets heads his guard down

and Lorca more or less says, you know, we're

gonna make 130 some, you know, instantaneous

jumps. You know, are you gonna be able to handle

it? And I need you to handle it. And Stamets

is like, eh, I don't know, I can't. And Lorca

pulls up this star chart map to kind of show

him. all of this information from coordinates

of places they've previously jumped and ropes

them in with that information and then says that,

you know, after this, you know, we can go back

to exploring and all this other information,

it sounds great, which could be partially Lorca

using him, but partially true, but at the same

time, it doesn't strike with his persona of being

this laser -focused individual for the war effort.

so It was it was really different to see Especially

because how Lorca was totally, you know kind

of indifferent with the space whale thing during

his The hairy mud episode and kind of was like

yeah. Yeah, just get it taken care of He was

totally opposite in this but I think it's also

because he really wanted to go after the sarcophagus

ship and get that cloaking technology and the

the frequency and then so we kind of go into

it and Stamets goes into the The chamber takes

off his jacket and he's wearing what resembles

a blue Medical t -shirt from the original series

in a sense a little bit shinier and without the

black collar, but it very much resembles that

Then we get Special Agent Burnham and Ash Tyler

going over to the Klingon ship and discovering

that Admiral Cornwell is alive. They also come

face -to -face with Ash Tyler's captor, who he

didn't seem to have a hard time getting away

from in the episode with Lorca and Harry Mudd

on the previous Klingon present ship. But this

time he has this PTSD syndrome that just attacks

him spontaneously here. And then Cornwell is

unable to move and then finally Tyler snaps out

of it. It was really strange. And then you get

the whole situation with Burnham going to the

bridge and fighting Cole and... Almost getting

killed but just kind of tidying them off long

enough until she jumps off and being back to

the the discovery along with Tyler and Cornwell

and the the Klingon that that was working on

Ash Tyler which The whole scene that they show

at the end of the episode pertaining to that

situation I could have done without I didn't

need to see a Gangly Xenomorphing looking Klingon

jumping on and Tyler and Having sex with them

at the end of the episode. I was perfectly good

not seeing that It was just disturbing and all

other aspects like they They could have just

left it at that but it was almost like a rape

scene or something like it was just not Not something

I felt should have been in the episode or or

needed to be there they they could have just

left it at the torture aspect It's still it still

kind of leads me to believe that it could still

be that Klingon guy that Was the albino Klingon

at the beginning of the season because he still

disappeared and They could have altered his memory

enough and altered his his physique so that he

resembles a human being that they had George

oh with them for a while, so they're they could

still be standing for the second half, but They

have her locked up for the end of the episode

and then Cornwall is going to a Federation Starbase

and Lorca asks Stamets to jump, and Stamets tells

him, I will do it one more time. That's it, one

more, and I'm done. He says, I need doctor's

help. And so they go to do the final jump on

the Discovery after destroying the sarcophagus

ship completely, which was glorious of them just

hopping around it and firing all torpedoes and

watching Cole get obliterated. So this Klingon

chapter is partially over. It still doesn't explain

how they evolved either to this or after this,

which I'm hoping season two does. And then we

go to them doing the final jump and Stamets goes

unconscious and he comes back and his eyes are

glazed over. His pupils, there's no color in

them, so he's like been stricken blind but he

can see the entire star system so they're basically

stuck where they get teleported but where the

star base should be there's no star base it's

all debris which leads me to believe that they're

in the mirror universe being that Lorca originally

shows that that thing to Stamets earlier with

the stellar cartography type of thing with the

the various multiverse timeline space jumps all

of that information that's kind of intertwined

in space and and I think too because I saw and

this was kind of intriguing as well I saw on

Twitter someone had done the most amazing thing

with with one of the the screenshots and I didn't

catch this When I was looking, the interesting

part was I did see all the debris and everything

and the discovery sitting where the star base

should be. That was my first thought because

all the alarms are going off and there's no rhyme

or reason to where they're located. Their star

charts aren't right. Nothing's showing up correctly.

Obviously, you kind of know that they're either

beyond their expanse of where they should be

or they're in the mirror universe. However, if

you look at the navigation control on Lorca's

keypad on his chair, you see Spore Jumps all

listed on there and it starts off with Spore

Jump 117 through 132. It's got different locations

to jump around mark this mark that blah blah

blah blah, and then it says sport jump 133 and

it says override Lorca G and it says location

unknown so he overrode a a location a star chart

location either a to purposely go to the mirror

universe or B to It to actually go to the star

base and It doesn't know where it's at. So it

says unknown I'm leaning towards he purposely

took them to the mirror universe because I Think

that he could have earlier on been from the mirror

universe and and using that weapon that they

insinuate about with Kirk where They can eject

somebody to another multiverse as a form of imprisonment

to basically eject them from their own reality.

I think Lorca could be one of those and that's

why he has the Gorn bones and that's why he has

a Trivel and why he has all these things that

haven't been discovered yet. However, I think

that there's the possibility that this could

actually be in the Mirror universe. This whole

series. and that they're actually coming to the

regular universe at this point. So there's the

possibility that it could be that or the opposite.

But I did find that interesting that they had

the thing with Lorca overriding it and somebody

tagged that on Twitter and I thought that was

kind of interesting. So there's that and then

there's a lot of different thoughts on this episode

and what I mean is When you look at the New York

Times, they believe that this is the most sloppily

written episode. And it says that one of the

issues with the maiden voyage of Discovery is

that the show doesn't appear to understand what

motivates its characters as a result. We don't

understand what motivates them. That's not a

problem that is unique to this iteration of Star

Trek. Voyager and Enterprise also struggled with

this early on, nor is an issue limited to this

television franchise. But in the case of Discovery,

it has certainly led to sloppy writing. This

week's episode, the mid -season finale, felt

like it was ignoring the previous eight episodes

and all their characters' work, which I did feel

that in a lot of regards of how they handled

some of the characters. They felt foreign to

their personas, and that was a little bit odd.

Just the way that they were handling how they

were through the episodes, It didn't I Couldn't

see it leading up to how their their reactions

to things and how they're how they were speaking

in this episode being the way it was and then

It just yeah, I was a little bit weirded by that

too and that was even before reading this I had

that kind of thought but it makes sense now that

I'm seeing it And then they again say the thing

about the laser focus of Lorca and then there's

the whole aspect of Lorca barely giving a crap

when Cornwall unexpectedly appears on his ship,

even though he was the one that allowed her to

go and not rescue her. And then Lorca's protectiveness

of Burnham on the Dangerous Away mission, and

yet he's let her go on everything else up until

this point, and then he's like, no, no, no, no,

and then finally she talks him into it. I don't

know, there's just a lot of weird writing going

on in that. And then the whole censors to get

the Klingon to cloak. It was a little bit different,

but I could kind of understand that a little

bit more because they didn't really understand

why they had to transport over to place the sensors,

which I kind of get because even in the 24th

century, doing that, you had to have the frequency.

It wasn't something you could just easily find.

You could tell something was there, but you couldn't

tell what. And then even in the 23rd century

when Star Trek 6 happened the firing when cloaked

thing which there was only the one ship that

did that and They they had an ion gas torpedo

which would hone in on the ion gas coming from

the cloaked Klingon vessel so The plasma and

whatnot so I mean I kind of get it there and

and They kind of make this this stupid comment

about how the Klingons seem incompetent that

they don't realize two humans beamed over. Well,

they had this little Iron Man looking orb on

their chest that gave them the... And I saw the

picture of it prior to the episode, and I'm like,

okay, what's this? But listening to the episode,

had they actually done this, would have seen

that they said it gives them the life sign of

a Klingon instead of a human, so they had to

be wearing it, which is why they only detected

one human life sign, which was in the... In that

chamber where the the dead were basically left

which is where Cornwall was so Yeah, it was And

it was funny when Larka basically slapped the

Admiral in the face with yeah, we took down,

you know this whole thing and With with the whole

Battle Going on and and they were told to do

something and he did the opposite and his unorthodox

method Which is something Kirk was famous for

is what essentially took it down They had the

universal translator which was pretty cool and

then the battle was pretty decent for the ship

However the The they they've basically made the

Starfleet ships look weak throughout this series,

which is something I've had a problem with. And

then the rel and call I didn't really care for,

the cloaking field seems to be something that,

this is something else where the New York Times

is just full of it. They're like, why did the

Borg appear on Enterprise? Well, did you watch

Star Trek First Contact? Everything's kind of

connected in a weird way. And in First Contact,

some of the Borg vessel was destroyed back in

Zephyrum Cochrane's time, which was 50 or 60

or so years before, maybe even 100 years before

Archer, which was still 100 years before Kirk.

And the whole thing was is the Enterprise E crew

was there during First Contact. the Borg were

destroyed although some of their vessel crashed

into the Arctic which they were pretty close

to and so they were dormant so that's that's

why the Borg were were in Enterprise I don't

I don't understand who writes some of these things

because it like I'm not the like the most hugely

versed person in and know every detail of Star

Trek. However, this person that wrote this article

and has been writing the things on Star Trek

on New York Times just doesn't seem to have a

clue, which kind of bothers me with it. I'm a

little peeved on certain elements, and some of

their things, they do have a point, but they

don't really seem like they have their head on

straight. Then there's L 'Rell, which... Tyler

may end up changing. They show flashbacks of

torture and dashing into physical appearance

issues. I still think that it's Valk and that

they, that's why there's such a connection with

Laurel and that's why he sees them getting down

dirty at the end is possibly because, and that's

probably why Laurel doesn't. Kill him is because

he's actually Klingon I think but I I don't know

I think that they're they're gonna kind of play

around with that as the season progresses, but

I Definitely think that we're gonna see the mirror

universe in the latter half of the season which

starts in January I'm kind of enjoying it for

what it is. It's not by far the strongest track,

but none of them are really that strong when

you put them up to it. The original films are

possibly stronger, like the even films, and then

the TNG films, you pretty much had the first

two and then the last two were kind of... But

overall, this half of the season hasn't been

that bad. Is anticipated I still like I said

the Klingon thing and then some of the Abrams

II like high -tech miss Irritates me still but

overall I give it a pass Just based on what they've

they've managed to do with it I'm I am wondering

what's gonna happen to stem. It's now that he's

got the physical handicap and he can no longer

do the sport drive and how they get back from

the mirror universe will be interesting because

nobody is supposed to know about the mirror universe

per se until Kirk because it's the first documented

evidence of the mirror universe. So again, I

don't really know what to think about that whole

situation yet. But I guess we'll have to wait

till the second half of the season. I do hope

they wrap up how the Klingons ended up looking

as goofy as they look, and then how they go back

to looking like the TOS and the TNG look later,

which is what they looked like prior. So I guess

that remains to be seen. I'm a little curious

on some of the uniform thing, because I was doing

a little bit of a digging into these Starfleet

uniforms. And I was a little bit disturbed to

discover that the uniforms that Starfleet's using

right now in Discovery, which are all basically

the Enterprise insignia, which wasn't adopted

until after Kirk had the Enterprise. because

each ship was supposed to have their own com

badge, insignia, no matter the uniform difference.

So, I'm a little confused at what they're doing

with that, but their uniforms are actually being

used concurrently with the same uniforms that

Captain Pike is using aboard the USS Enterprise.

And it's that kind of like polo sweatshirt material

with the ruffled collar and they have their rank

on their sleeves, which the rank on the sleeves

thing they keep pulling back to periodically,

like you'll see that reappear and disappear consistently

with the solid bands or the variations thereof

throughout all of Star Trek. Because when they're

not using the pips, they use that. So that's

kind of interesting there, but I did find it

weird that they're using two different uniform

styles at this point in time, which makes me

wonder if they're going to, now their Waymission

jackets have the bluish looking material, but

they don't have all of this yet. So I don't know,

I'm kind of confused how the uniforms play out.

in terms of discovery and how everything's kind

of put in there. I did, like I said, a graphic

with, and I'll put this in the episode post,

I charted them from the 2150s all the way through

the 2800s just because I wanted to see where

each uniform was placed. So I have the Enterprise,

I have the one from Star Trek Beyond. that took

place like 10 years after Enterprise. I had the

2230s, which I know that I'm taking some from

the Kelvin universe there, from those first two

there, but it kind of makes sense that there's

a progression somewhere in there. So I have the

captain of the USS Kelvin listed for the 2230s.

Then there's the 2240s, which is Lorca's brood's

uniform. And then you have Captain Pikes at the

same time during that, which kind of transitions

into Kirk's time through the 2250s and 60s. And

then there's another slight evolution from the

2260s to the 70s. And then you get the motion

picture in the 70s to 78, 78 to 2350s. You have

the Rathicon uniform. And then 2350 through 66,

you have the first TNG. Season one uniform which

changes to again to the collared one Which changes

to the the one from Voyager and then the the

latter half of DS 9 and Star Trek films And then

you get the 2380s through 2409 which is the Sierra

uniform Which is in Star Trek online and it doesn't

really place kind of 2404 you get kind of the

All good things uniform which they kind of show

in the end of Voyager as well So I'm not really

sure where that's placed and then the 2410 through

whatever is the Odyssey uniform and then the

2800s is the the one from the relativity episode

so I'm kind of I'm kind of a little bit well

versed in the uniforms now at this point, which

I didn't expect but I don't know, what do you

guys think on this episode? What do you think

on the season so far? What are your thoughts

on where they appeared? And where do you think

that the season is going to go as it goes on

in 2018 and through to season two? So leave me

your comments there. And so I've been Admiral

Phillips on this episode of Future Imperfect.

I hope you enjoyed this. And until next time,

live long and prosper. Space. The final frontier.

These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise.

Its continuing mission. To explore strange new

worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations.

To boldly go where no man has gone before.