Reviewing Discovery S3, Episodes 1-4

Hey guys, welcome aboard the USS Future Imperfect.

I am one of your hosts this evening. I am Mike

the Birdman, but I'm not alone as I somehow managed

to get through the galaxy without Dilithium.

Believe me more on that later. We will be talking

about the new season of Star Trek Discovery,

but I'm not alone on the bridge of this wonderful

ship that I am joined with a giant cat. But I'm

joined with the Admiral of this fleet. Steve

Megatron Phillips. And of course, it would not

be thisweekengeek .net without the space custodian.

Oh, are you talking about me? Yes. Yes. Okay.

Because what? Because I clean up all the discovery

shit. But yes, Alex. And of course, we bring

in our longtime collaborator, friend, writer

and all around good friendo. Aaron Paulier. Good

to be here. So, yes, guys, we are back here on

Future Imperfect. We are going to be talking

about Discovery Season 3 in spits and spurts

as the season goes on rather than doing a blow

by blow, week by week episode analysis. We're

going to probably do them every three or four

episodes to give us plenty of stuff to talk about

so you have more stuff to digest. And so we have

a chance to, dare I say, recover. from each episode.

However, though, that being said, this season

has been interesting, to say the least. It's

markedly better, but it all depends on your own

personal rating system of how you rate the series

anyway. I would say that regardless of where

you were on the series beforehand, it would be

hard to say that the season is not a lot better

than what you had already seen. Yeah, I mean

I am watching this as someone who I didn't care

for season one at all season two Was kind of

middling to me, but I thought it was okay Season

three has got me interested. I'm more excited

to see this than I was the entirety of Picard

I like this more than season two of discovery,

but I like lower decks better than this Man,

there's a phrase I ever thought I'd say in my

life. I watched this episode on these episodes.

What is it? Wednesday or Thursday, whenever I

see it on Crave. And then I'm usually like, I'm

okay. I'm like, this is this was decent. And

each episode seems to be a little better for

me than the last. And then I watched the Mandalorian

a day later and go, oh, that's what a good sci

-fi show is like. Yeah. See, I mean. It's something

about the. Oh, I guess I have some weird latency,

huh? I'll admit that my my opinion of season

one and season two of Discovery were were very,

very low. We're pretty rock bottom. Besides Anson

Mount in season two was fantastic in season three.

Yes, I will admit is better than season one or

two. I still do not like it. We did it. All right.

Podcast over. Aaron likes these. We don't have

to talk about anything. I like season three more.

At least in season three, I'm not having to have

my liver recover for four days afterwards on

each episode. It's just like a two day recovery

period before I can drink again. You don't need

a mouth guard to chew down on so you won't bite

your own tongue. I don't need Xanax from watching

them. But then again, there are episodes so far

in season four that are Xanax worthy to me. So

that's saying something, I guess. And what about

you Steve? What have you thought so far? It's

it's definitely better than season one I Was

not a big fan of it at all, but season two Anytime

Anson Mount shows up. I'm good and then This

season I'm trying to like there's certain aspects

I like and then there's others I'm like I think

I might like this season a little more than you

guys, if only because it's scratching my sci

-fi nerd. Not sci -fi nerd as in having to make

logical sense, obviously, but it's pretty much

a reboot of Andromeda, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda.

It's almost... the big plot points are pretty

much the same. In fact, they would be lying if

they said that they weren't inspired by by those

early scripts that he had done in the 70s and

then the eventual show that came out with Hercules

in Space. And was that a good show? No, no, no,

no, it was a terrible show. But it was a show

that was on every day after school. So that's

why I watched it. I would say each Each episode

has gotten slightly better than the last. It's

two steps forward, one step back. And some episodes

are two steps forward, three steps back. And

now nobody's talking. And I can see that. Yeah,

that just kind of hit the collective wall there.

I mean... I mean, it's no big secret. I have

not been a huge Star Trek fan for the majority

of the. I think you could even put the argument

for the life of this podcast and this big revitalization

by CBS injecting money and ideas into this franchise

with Lower Decks, Discovery, Picard, etc. Nothing

has really got my loins excited outside of Lower

Decks. Again, what the fuck? But season three

has got me interested. And Aaron and I have been

talking back and forth in one of our private

Facebook chats, and he said it's an average sci

-fi show, but it's not great Star Trek. And then

Alex and I were talking literally just before

this show happened. We said it kind of has a

feel like Stargate, and I really like Stargate

SG -1. And I kind of dig that feel about this.

It's like Star Trek, but the serial numbers are

slightly not. It's almost like Star Trek knockoff,

but occasionally something shows up that Star

Trek -ish. It's like somebody watched Stargate

and was a fan of it, but didn't know that it

was the writing that made it good. Yeah, if you

if you ignored the fact that they were trying

to make Star Trek here, this would be on par

with Andromeda or the weaker episodes of Stargate.

They might still be kind of fun and goofy. But

if you put it in context of this being Star Trek,

it's head bangingly bad. It's it's oh, I can't

do it. I was going to say it's almost like Sequest.

But Sequest had better episodes sometimes. Sequest

was far better written. Let's be honest. Yeah,

okay. This is like... Actually, even Lex was

better than this. So, like, there's not a whole

lot. It's trying to emulate the feel of the late

90s Star Trek copycats, even though it's Star

Trek in name. Can I can I give you my my overall

really good points because I'll have come yeah.

Yeah do that the Production of this this series

so far is stunning Everything looks amazing the

landscape shots, especially in the first episode

when they're filming in Iceland The director

of photography is clearly skilled It looks beautiful

But that's that's about all I can say for four

episodes of what is actually what I've actually

enjoyed and marked down as, wow, I'm impressed.

OK. Yeah, I would say it's amazing. Yes. Landscape

is good. CG is worse this season. It's it's being

downgraded significantly. They they realize they

blew their load on on the season one special

effects, which again. We're that. Amazingly great

except for the fact that they were spending so

much time rendering things and rendering farms

that they ran out of money the I'm not a fan

of The CGI repair robots. It looks like a cartoon.

It looks it looks like Roger Rabbit those are

yeah and breaking those those repair robots are

cannon breaking and Because remember they were

on enterprise before they went into the future.

So enterprise in Pike's era Before Kirk takes

command has automated. Semi whatever really advanced

repair robots that have any grab systems that

roam around on the outside of the ship and I

guess discovery has them now too and yeah they

look terrible. I'll say that there are two special

effects in these first two up first four episodes

excuse me that really stood out as terrible one

was in the first episode where the ship. that

Burnham is walking towards that had just crashed

and was kind of on the shore, that beach kind

of shot where they're looking down. You can clearly

see a white line in the water that separates

the real from the CGI. It's clear as day. Somebody

doesn't know how to use proper god rays and ray

traced lighting for their special effects. The

second one that stood out. The second one that

stood out is in the fourth episode the one that

just aired When they go down to troll remember

there's that fish that jumps out of the water

and then starts flying around Yeah, I've seen

I've seen better better CGI on on what was it

the oh God now I'm totally forgetting the name

of the show the cartoon where there's programs.

They're actually in the computer and Thank you,

there's better CG and reboot than that freaking

flying fish Yeah, it was kind of awkward. Yeah,

not not season one reboot, but by season three

or four. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and that was you know

22 years ago Yeah on a children's TV show after

the Americans had pulled the budget and it was

just Canada producing it and it looked better

Which is sad shockingly bad shockingly bad also

the entire CG effects scene with them in the

mind meld of the trill looked like bad music

videos from 20 years ago. It was cheap. If you

can't do it, don't try. Find another way. You

know what would have worked? A dark room with

just lights around their heads and having flashes

of electricity, like bolts of electricity sort

of flashing around them. That would have worked

fine. Well, they could have also done something

akin to Deep Space Nine with the prophets. Yeah,

like a blurry kind of white background, like

you're in heaven type type. A room full of fog

and white light. Well, and the other thing, I

mean, remember that episode where Esri has to

channel the the murderer, the the in the episode

where she she takes the phaser rifle that can

shoot through walls and she channels one of her

previous uh hosts and basically like she could

channel them in that sense too but i mean i get

that they're saying that she's human in this

one and can't channel the the trill symbiont

but uh still there was no special effects there

was just standing next to him and oh boy Let's

just start with the first episode of the season

before we jump all around too much. Yes. So the

first episode, Burnham appears somehow lands

on a planet without dying. Well, she crashes

through into the ship that Book was flying and

yeah, somehow doesn't die when, you know. Yeah.

So sure, it lands on the very beautiful scenery.

We find out a thousand years in the future. She

didn't come out at the same time as the ship.

There's stupid reasons for things being completely,

totally fucked up. She makes friends with him,

sort of. They go to a trade -out post that's

supposed to be like... Star Trek's version of

like Mos Eisley And then at the Cantina She gets

arrested and then They escape there's teleporting

things then there's a slug monster that eats

her it spits her out They find out he's an eco

terrorist in quotes that freeze Endangered species

to a planet which we never see again And then

they leave together and live together for a year

while not having sex. They're very clear about

that. That's a no -no. Well, and also in that

episode, they take her to an abandoned Federation

space station with a Federation liaison. There's

a guy sitting there for 40 years every day looking

at a screen that says no signal. My God. Yes,

because his father did it. And he's not a commissioned

officer, so he can't raise a flag. They also

confuse Starfleet and the Federation repeatedly

in those end scenes. They're two separate things,

and they constantly confuse them. Yes. I like

to call him the Apple Man because he looks like

he's living inside of an Apple Store. And then

at the end, she somehow commissions him, even

though she would... If Starfleet doesn't exist,

she technically doesn't have the authority to

do so. He salutes her and it becomes a very raw,

raw, we're America, look at your army kind of

moment. That's sort of the perspective of those

of us that don't live in the States. That was

a very pro -American military propaganda kind

of moment. And then, but they're trying to make

it seem like it's like some heartfelt thing.

And then it's like, Boom, here's what's gonna

happen this season and there's gonna be stuff

about the ship and that's the end of the first

episode as far as I remember Yes, no, that's

a very good summary. No that you're right. I

mean I can obviously before we started recording

I got like the venom out of my system about this

episode. So I'm not gonna like Do my patent impression.

Let's say that but I'll say this at the end of

that episode as snarky as I was and sort of dismissive

as I was when I was giving my description, I

watched that and went, that's a lot better than

I was expecting it was going to be. So agreed.

So you can imagine how low all of our expectations

were. And I would say I met my expectations and

didn't do much more than that. But then again,

I think the entire premise of the third season,

which is all kind of given out in this first

episode, is complete nonsense. Yep. It would

have been it literally would have been better

for the episode to say the Federation isn't around

because reasons literally just saying that because

reasons and leave it at that because everything

is so counterintuitive and Antilogical Yeah,

it's it's it boggles my mind It would have been

better if they just said It's like what happened.

Well, it's been a thousand years the Federation

got so large that it tore itself apart from within

because they were they didn't they weren't able

to manage it fall the roman empire whatever should

we talk about from there we would have been pissed

at it but should we talk about the basis of the

season yes yes let the hate flow through you

so the basis of the season is uh all ships go

boom and then they're like because all ships

all ships go boom And then we're like, well,

fuck that. We don't want to be a federation anymore.

Yeah. Okay. So I'll try to be as, as neutral

as possible here. The, the, the ships go boom

because somehow dilithium becomes a nerd. That's

what's said in this episode. Now, mind you, dilithium

is already a nerd. That's kind of the point of

why it's used inside warp cores. So that's a

little weird, right? But somehow it becoming

inert makes all the ships go boom because the

matter -antimatter reaction in these warp cores

is no longer stable. All right, well, let's ignore

the fact that that's not how dilithium works

in a warp core to make all these ships explode.

Why would the federation of the 30, let's say

3140 about when the burn happened, because the

year that they appear in is 3188. And they say

it happened about 100 to 120 years ago. The fact

that they don't know the exact time. Yeah, the

fact that they don't have the exact time, even

though there's ships and library computers and

all this information still around, no one knows.

I know that's another point entirely, but why

is the Federation A galaxy spanning organization

at this point because we know a lot about where

the federation was in the early three thousands

from time agent daniels and enterprise. Why is

a galaxy spanning federation still using dilithium

matter anti matter warp. cores, when there are

better things out there, well, you might, you

might make the argument, well, none of them are

as efficient. Well, if they, if that's the case,

the Borg would have been using dilithium matter,

antimatter warp cores and they don't. The Borg

are using subspace taps. And if you're saying

that the federation was unable to research anything

more efficient than what Archer was using in

the 2150s, you're crazy. Well, didn't they already

have transwarp? Yeah. there's trans warp and

and you go well it's dilithium is there to power

the ship well again dilithium is not the fuel

source it's a matter antimatter warp core am

i wrong but didn't jordy work on a way to recycle

dilithium yes yeah reconstituting so it was not

not movie with the whales yeah and it wasn't

like i don't think the idea was that it was a

perpetual motion like it couldn't go forever

but You can recycle many, many, many, many, many

times before. It's like a lithium battery. Eventually

it runs out, but you could survive off of the

same dilithium for like a thousand charges or

something stupid. Yeah. And to be fair, they

do say that in a later episode, I think it's

in episode three, that dilithium was running

low. Okay. So you've mined it out. Big deal.

Do you think that Zephyrum, Cochrane's, Phoenix

had dilithium and we know dilithium wasn't on

earth? it isn't on Earth, FYI. So Zephyrum Cochrane's

ship not only didn't have to use nuclear warp

core, it was nuclear. It was a fission reactor

that powered the warp core. You don't need even

matter antimatter to produce a warp field. The

Romulans use black holes. So when the burn happens,

all the matter antimatter warp cores basically

don't work anymore that use dilithium. Okay,

regardless of the fact that these things would

probably be highly antiqued at this point. For

100 to 120 years, no one in a galaxy -spanning

Federation figures out, hey, remember the Romulans?

Yeah, the members of the Federation that we have

now, didn't they used to use naked singularities

to power their ships? If they were smart, they

wouldn't have set the burn at 120 years ago.

They would have set it at 700 years. What they

should have done if they were going to keep this

storyline is the act of them going into the future,

whatever battle they happened, something happened

there that chain reaction caused the burn. So

them going to the future to preserve the future

is what ultimately doomed it. But that would

make it so they would have to go back into their

past and kill themselves and end the show. And

end the show. uh the the the idea of the burn

doing what it did is ridiculous in in the extreme

because not only is it that oh the dilithium

just goes inert and warp cores explode it's only

the warp cores on starships that were at warp

at the time so not only are there or should be

starships that don't use a matter anti -matter

dilithium warp core around because remember this

is 30 3060 or whatever All the ships that were

not at warp at the time are perfectly fine. And

not only that, they specifically mentioned that

other types of faster than light travel are perfectly

usable. They also purposefully mentioned that

not only can they use warp now, but they never

ever figured out what caused that explosion.

You're telling me that all the warp ships that

exploded at that time, this was before anything

fell. They're already at the peak of their technology.

Not one person was able to come up with even

a hypothesis as to what happened? Yeah, that's

it's mind blowing how dumb this is. Now, I was

just I was just thinking we had sort of speculated

before about when I was making fun of what the

ultimate reason for the burn will be and how

it's probably tied to Burnham because you know

the name and because this is the Burnham show.

But I was just thinking we had sort of talked

about in one of the episodes they mentioned Tilly

mentions you know, black holes researching, you

know, as a means to power the spore drive without

using stamets. And he shuts her down because

he's shell shocked and selfish. But what if that's

foreshadowing? What if that's foreshadowing that

they're going to use a black hole and it connects

to the spore drive? And that's what blew everything

up. That's an interesting theory. Regardless

of the reason why it happens, the results are

counterintuitive and Yeah, this entire show is

going to be about the reason it's not they're

saying it's about you know Bringing Starfleet

back. It's not it's gonna end up being bringing

Starfleet back or they're gonna meet people at

Starfleet and the people at Starfleet are going

to have covered up that they caused it and by

they I mean Not Starfleet, maybe well, who knows

actually 31 section 31 caused it by trying to

replicate the Spore Drive, which had been expunged

from their records. OK, or or maybe the parasites

finally come back to roost. Let's but let's put

it in perspective as well. You have Discovery

and Burnham being like the flag bearers of the

Federation 700, 800 years after they left. So

their ship is like trying to sail a trireme around

the world. To rebuild the late Roman Empire of

1000 AD, you know the remnants of it In today's

world They're they're trying to recreate the

Holy Roman Empire It the idea that these people

know how society works or can move around in

in in how society has developed even understanding

the technological breakthroughs that have happened

over this thousand years almost that they've

been gone and that somehow they're the ones to

build back the Federation that is 700, 800, 900

years out of date at this point, their idea of

the Federation, it's beyond laughable. Yeah,

not to mention that their universal translators

wouldn't work anymore. Think about the dialects

that would have changed over a thousand years

that wouldn't be able to interpret it. No. I'm

okay with that. Because language has always been

a thing on Star Trek where you just kind of go,

ah, the universal translator figures it out.

I'm okay with that. The problem is that society

has moved on in 900 years of the Federation growing

to become a galaxy spanning government with untold

millions of new species being put into it. Why

are they still driving ships, even though they're

using like cool -looking holographic controls,

why are they still using their hands? Why isn't

the ship just, you know, connected to their brain?

Why are they still using discovery shuttles?

Which are there in the first episode. They're

literally using discovery shuttles. Yeah. Still.

Laziness. They have instantaneous transportation

to anywhere they want as personal transporters,

but they still use shuttles. This show. Is it

to save fuel? But wait, what powers the shuttle?

So anyway, the basis of the season is nonsense.

And they're going to try to explain why it happened

through the burn. I totally agree. But why it

happened is completely meaningless of why it

happened. Doesn't matter how it happened a freaking

hamster caused it by falling into a computer.

I don't care It does not matter the result is

so ludicrous and counterintuitive That where

the queue? Why have the why did the queue over

the course of the TNG era? At least cute the

queue we know Went from being a malevolent force

to being something that purposely tried to help

humanity and the lesser species You're telling

me that they just allowed it to happen? Or are

they going to cop out and say the queue did it

to stop something? It doesn't matter why it happened.

The fact is that it didn't get solved within

a couple days of everyone going, oh, we'll just

put different engines in our ships. Or we'll

tweak the matter -antimatter engine that is 700

years out of date in an antique. They also mentioned...

that time travel was outlawed. They mentioned

that when she arrived. So you're telling me time

travel is outlawed when nobody tried to go back

and stop the burn? Well, understand that time

travel being outlawed is also meaningless. If

you have a faster than light capable starship,

which they do, you have a time machine. Also,

you banning time travel doesn't mean that the

people from before the ban or after the ban don't

have time machines into your time period. Literally,

the first thing we see is a time traveler with

a time machine coming into your time period that

has the ban. And to the point where that doesn't

even surprise this person. It sounds like time

travelers have shown up and they just get arrested.

Who arrests them? There's no federation. Yeah,

but see what I mean? Counterintuitive and almost

all of my notes for the show are This it's basically

the show is contradicting itself or making you

is asking you to completely turn off your brain

and not ask questions and Star Trek is not that

Star Trek is there to make you ask questions

to make you think Star Trek is there to make

you kind of Try to see yourself in a different

light where this is literally just saying, look

at the pretty fucking lights on, I'm sorry for

swearing. Look at the light, pretty lights on.

Swear away, honestly, if you're mad. There ain't

no kids listening to this. I want you to feel,

and who said it, that Kurtzman said, you know,

the whole point of this season is to make you

feel things. No, no. He wants this to feel like

Trekking. He wants you to feel hope. The show

is about what Star Trek means to you and how

it makes you feel. And I was like, ah. This makes

me feel lost. But that's not Star Trek. Everyone

in this show has to be a complete and utter idiot

to have the events come down like they are. And

we'll get into season three when they go back,

not season three, episode three, when they go

back to earth, because that is a shit show. Ultimately,

the bad thing here is I feel bad for lead actress

Sonequa in that she seems to be having a good

time doing the show. She's going to view this

on her career. like in 20 years as a black mark

because yes, the fans, they've made new fans

and there are people that are fans of the show.

But if you looked at it's not just social media

can be toxic. There's an overwhelming amount

of people that are now even posting things like

every episode comes out. We're three seasons

in and the show hasn't gotten better. And they're

starting to blame things like her acting. And

I'll admit, she's not a good actress either.

I don't think she's a terrible one. I think she's

a good supporting, but not enough to be exactly.

She overacts. It's like, she's panting. It's

so... This is why that's why when that's why

when Anson Mount was present it was actually

good But it's like she's acting like she's acting

like she's on a Nickelodeon kids show Mocking

Star Trek She's over -the -top like melodramatic

and if that's what they want out of her fine

if that's you know, whatever but the scene where

she's drunk like the They drug her and she's

overacting to the - and did you notice how awesome

she was? Even drugged out of her mind. How awesome

she was in a firefight where she was taking people

out with weapons that she was not trained with.

They tried to make a funny moment as if she was

Jackie Chan in the Drunken Master movies. It

was awful. It was awful. So that's what I'm saying.

She might I haven't seen her in anything else

So I don't have anything to compare to she might

be doing a fantastic job of what they wanted

to do But she does not come across as somebody

who could lead a show like this Well, what's

what's funny is the and I'm not a big proponent

of using this site because I think they're garbage

anyway, but rotten tomatoes they have the overall

for discovery their average tomato meters 85

percent fresh but the uh the no but get this

the average audience score is 44 percent uh right

and shocked that it's 44 well and well in discovery

season three there the rate the tomato meter

says 93 percent fresh and 51 audience score uh

and if you look at it we talked about it before

uh this show had like a hundred percent for season

one on the tomato meter from the uh from the

uh oh it's since dropped and it was at like 20

or 19 from viewers season one and at the time

and at the exact same time that was airing uh

the orville season one came out and that number

was basically reversed because the orville is

star trek yes and then when season two came out

Season one of the orbital got like, let me pull

it up here, just as an example of this was where

it seemed like there was a purposeful push by

the media, like people had to have been bought

with the way they were rating things, or it was

a perfect storm or something. Well, what had

happened is a lot of the sites that were reviewing

Discovery Season One were unemployed from CBS.

Oh, really? Oh like part of their their extended

network of yes websites. Yeah So it was it was

kind of like a nudge nudge hey Because like looking

back at the Orville season 1 they get a 30 %

tomato meter in a 94 % audience and what's funny

is season 2 had a 100 % tomato meter in 94 %

audience and And if you had looked them up the

a lot of the top critics that were reviewing

both shows their scores basically flipped on

season two. Yeah. So they completely changed

their mind, but not much, not much had changed

from the writing after the first four, like after

episode three or four of the Orville season one,

they get into the groove of how they, they presented

the rest of the show from season one and two.

So either they only reviewed the first three

episodes and then said, Hey, that's the show

or whatever. But yeah, like it's, it's. it's

apples and oranges in the sense that they are

two separate shows, but I bring it up because

it's going to be very interesting to see this

year what season three of the Orville is like.

It's kind of amazing to me how I don't think

Discovery could have come out two years earlier

than it did and have gotten the same reviews.

It was like the perfect timing for it to have

come out to that kind of that kind of review

and audience. I don't think the show, if you

put it on a regular network, like it would like

if they had put it right on CBS other than the

pilot episode, I don't think it would have lasted

the season. No, no. So it's it's the epitome

of good enough for streaming is what they're

going for here. And episode one, you know, I

think we're pretty much done on that. But like,

it does get a little better. It does get a little

better each episode. Uh, episode two, Michael,

you said that that's sort of fresh in your memory,

right? Like, yeah, like episode two was dealing

with discovery landing in the new 930 something

years in the future. And there was no Michael

Burnham till the last like two minutes. and I

felt it was one of the strongest episodes of

the show. You got Saru, you got Tilly, you got

Giorgio and the bad or one of the guys from Dawn

of the Dead 2004, all fighting in a bar. And

it was actually legitimately really entertaining.

You had some good moments with Stamets, that

woman engineer who doesn't like anybody. Reno,

and it was clever from a dialogue perspective.

The idea of parasitic ice. Okay, sure. I'll bite.

And I was thoroughly entertained, and it proved

to me one thing. The show can be led by Doug

Jones as Saru. When you take Sonequa Green out

of it, or I think that's her last name, Burnham.

When take her out of it the show can survive

without her when she's on screen working with

people but not overpowering them in a scene the

show works it really can. When Michelle Yeoh

works with everybody else in the scene as we

discussed before the show Jones and Yeoh are

seasoned actors who've been around the block

a number of times. They know what they're doing.

They can help compliment and bring up people

working with the show. Whenever they're not writing

her to just kick everybody and kill them. Yeah,

exactly. When she's not like, I'm section 31.

I'm Empress or Giorgio, whatever. I'm Empress

Zod, kneel before Zod. Yeah, see, I like Michelle

Yeoh. I just hate the character. There's no reason

for her to be there. And there's no reason for

the characters to ever want her around because

she's just a giant pain in the ass. They keep

her around for one reason. If they ever want

a violent streak in the show, it's there. She's

there to be their assassin. That's it. In this

episode, violence solves the problem. Like you

have Tilly actually trying to talk these guys

out of holding them at gunpoint in episode two,

right? And I wrote down, hey, that's great. This

is kind of a Star Trek thing happening. But then

Giorgio shows up and shit falls apart and violence

has to be used. That's not Star Trek. Every time

that Giorgio is basically on screen, it's not

Star Trek. And it's desperately not Star Trek

because it's always snark or negativity. or violence

that is in the scene. Giorgio is there this season

to randomly go to these weird actors that we

barely ever see in the show that never spoke

before that have a couple lines to then plant

seeds of all these people she's going to take

off the ship with her to make her own show. And

this is something that I noticed, especially

in episode two. I didn't know who the hell Detmer

was until this season. It took three seasons

to establish who Discovery's pilot is. I didn't

know her name before episode two. That's terrible.

All you really knew is that she's friends with

the one other lady from the bridge, which I don't

know her name. And she has an implant and she

has shell shock. And that's it. There's her arc.

See I would say like this episode my country

I like the third episode is it yeah Go to dinner

because is she shell -shocked or is she just

an asshole? I thought it was gonna be that she

had like computer virus in her brains, but PTSD

yeah Because it's been a while since I saw season

two, but the Android earth or the the cyborg

lady's dead, right? Yes, they well As far as

we know, she, she shut down and drifted into

space. Cause cyborg lady was probably the only

character that they actually fleshed out that

wasn't Saru. Like, I don't, I don't understand

why this show has such an aversion. to filling

out its back catalog of characters. I mean, Anthony

Rapp, I think that's his name, the guy that plays

Dr. Stamets. He can do wonderful things when

he's on screen. He brings up other people with

him when he's performing. However, all he gets

in his dialogue is snark, snark, snark. I'm smarter

than you. I'm smarter than you and I'm selfish.

Yeah. But when you let him breathe to be human

with him and his husband, Some real emotion and

genuality comes out of it, but it's overshadowed

by look at me. I'm so smart. Blah, blah, blah.

I'm Mr. Mushroom, man. And his husband's sole

purpose this season is to try to tell the audience

why Michael Burnham is the important character

of the show. Yeah, like there's just so many

things wrong. And I said this before the show,

too. And I'll make this point here. When the

show is a true ensemble. it works when you have

when it splits off into the side quest of michael

burton i feel the show suffers however in the

fourth episode which aired last week i felt that

was diminished a little bit into the point that

i'm making is she worked in conjunction with

the other actress. to portray the first human

trill. And I thought that was actually pretty

cool. It worked because she wasn't overpowering.

It didn't have to be her. It didn't have except

the doctor said it had to be you. Because I don't

want to do it. And then what the doctor should

have been like, I'm the fucking doctor. I should

be going down to help because I'm like, if anybody.

Sorry. If anybody, and we'll get an episode four

in detail after, but just this quick point. If

anybody should be going down to meet with the

Trill and try to work with their doctors on how

this physiology would work, it would be a human

doctor that specializes in human physiology.

Agreed. But instead he's like, no, Burnham, you're

important because you're top build. So you have

to go down. One of the things that, at least

looking at this from a mission specialist thing,

Burnham is a scientist. Your job is on the bridge,

maybe doing stuff at a science station. You are

not cultural expert first contact. Her job is

not map out the known stars to find the other

parts of the Federation now that you're on the

ship. Your job, Burnham, should be what was the

burn, what caused it, what could have caused

it. Mm -hmm. But that's beside the point. So

episode two, as we sort of beat around the bush,

the plot line is the discovery finally arrives.

We find out later on, it's been a year since

Burnham was there. They crash land on a planet

with ice that is parasitic. Sure. And then we

enter a western -style bar where some locals

are being held up for supplies by a bunch of

bandits. They end up sort of befriending them,

and that causes their death. Sort of a fight

happens, like you said, and they make friends

with those that are there and sort of the first

bonds of maybe... Maybe a new Federation or showing

that maybe some good can still come from the

Federation Is there they make it up into space

and they meet Burnham and she's like I'm in here.

It's been a year That's why I got long hairs

They were just everybody. Let's all cry like

we're unprofessional They were trying to launch

from the surface, but the ice was keeping them

down and it was Dave's ex Michael that showed

up Okay, that's what it was. Okay. Yes, and then

they all cry Everybody cries everybody on the

show cries I like I've never seen so many people

in the military cry for so many little things

ever Ever it's one thing like you'd be reunited

but to them I could see Michael crying. It's

been a year to them. It's been hours Why are

they crying? End of story I suppose because they

all survived I guess, but it's so weird. Also,

didn't they fucking hate her for a season and

a half? Yep. Why do they suddenly trust and like

her? Except for Tilly, because she's stupid.

There's so many inconsistencies with the writing

and the characterization. Sometimes you get some

really good characterization moments, but they're

never allowed to breathe. They gave, they tried

to make this reveal of them and like, as, like,

as emotional as when like the Picard and crew

saw what they thought was Tasha are when it was,

you know, Tasha's daughter. And it's like, which

is by the way, the most fucked up story if you

ever think about it, uh, like what happened with,

with that whole storyline, but it's good though.

Yes, yes, fucked up good. But it's like, OK,

that's an emotional thing because people on that

crew, you know, actually witnessed her die as

hokey as that death was to a sludge monster.

But yes, and so that was and this and this didn't

happen like she died and then two episodes later

or one episode later, she was brought back and

it's like some big emotional thing. This was.

over the course of multiple seasons. So it was

like a surprise. And in the show, multiple years

had passed as well. So that made sense. So everybody

involved would have an emotional connection.

This was, we'll see you there. We're right behind

you. Oh, we crashed. We just spent an hour fixing

the ship. Oh, she's alive. Let's cry. But you

just basically went on a lunch break. And we

knew you were going to be alive because the suit

was going to protect you. We knew that we would

end up in the same place. If anybody should be

crying, it would be Burnham. Only Burnham. Because

Burnham's like, for all I know, they were shot

another thousand years in the future and I'll

never see them again. Okay, that's my end of

episode two. Discuss. I'm sorry for like trying...

I know I have some latency here or something

and I'm sorry that I talk over. Over you. Yeah

the I don't know episode two honestly for me

out of the first four episodes is the best one

Just because Burnham's not around for most of

them. She does show up. Obviously. She's the

best and saves everybody. Um There's like the

parasitic ice. All right, whatever. I already

said Giorgio doing violence to solve problems

Seems to be an ongoing motif in a lot of these

episodes I'm not a fan of that, but I really,

once again, liked the photography. I really liked

the set designs. I liked the visuals that they

made in general. And I really appreciated Saru.

The character in this episode kind of showed

why he's a good commanding officer. And that

was a standout moment. Otherwise, again, you

have a starship that isn't designed to land,

crash into a planet. Crash full speed remember

the episode of Voyager when Voyager crashes into

a planet What happens it's wrecked? It's right

the whole yeah members Star Trek generations

Yeah, the ship isn't ship designed to land unless

you're like a bird of prey or you have your landing

gear down like Voyager Voyager yeah, you have

very special technology that lets you land on

a surface, but remember discovery just bowls

into the to a wrecked planet Right. Remember,

these are the same people that did Star Trek

Beyond where I saw the trailer and how it starts

with them taking off from a planet with little

pygmy monsters attacking them. And I went, oh,

I'm never going to watch this and then walked

away. So these are the same people that thought

that was OK. OK, so the ship crash lands and

yet is able to take off a few hours later. Somehow

and it wails into this planet and there's no

casualties really I mean in but Yeah, I mean

well when you get to the Enterprise D which is

You know more sophisticated and larger and everything

else like and it's just the saucer section like

theoretically it should have you know With all

of discovery should have blown it to pieces once

it hit the surface Yeah, that just it again it's

these Silly. Let's set this up. And, you know,

there should have been massive hull breaches

on this ship. And as soon as it went into space,

I don't care about Ford's fields. This ship was

wrecked. Yeah, you're showing later on the freaking

CGI auto repair bots running around on the hull.

You mean all the R2D2s? Well, they look more

like Wall -E. No, they look more like the Vaxter

Stockman's robots. Yeah, yeah, so the ninja turtle

robots clear fix the ship with the ice That's

that's that happens in the show All of its systems

are good enough that by episode 3 They can jump

to earth yes, so episode 3 also known as the

episode I Was probably the most mixed on out

of all of them people of earth I'll say I despised

this episode because it makes you have to completely

shut off your mind and forget everything you've

learned in school about science to the extent

that clearly the 20th and 19th centuries never

have happened because the people of Earth are

that dumb. Well, the people of Earth are that

dumb and they've reverted to like 1500 years

earlier racism, xenophobia to the point where

somebody comes to talk to them and they immediately

attack. Shoot first, ask questions later. No,

shoot first, ask questions never is now the new

policy. So I should probably say that the basis

of this episode is that they decide they need

to go to Earth to find the Federation. One of

the big positives here is that Michael Burnham

actually gives a proper start date, believe it

or not, 865211 .3, which actually is in the year

that they are supposed to be in, in 3189. Okay.

And then they decide to be, for whatever reason,

for the sake of camera shot, that they're going

to... transport or sorry they're going to uh

uh spore drive in the middle of our galaxy like

our our solar system sorry like you would think

that maybe they don't know what they're getting

themselves into they they would they would perhaps

spore drive i don't know just outside like uranus

okay so so just far enough away or like it would

only take them like a minute to get here by impulse

powers Yeah, so so what Michael says is that

they're worried about what Earth might think

of a starship just coming in at warp since Nobody

can warp around anymore. Even though there's

evidence that everyone still warps around So

she says we need to jump in outside of their

sensor range. So, okay. Hold on for a second

In the 23rd century, where she's from, we know

about how far long -range sensors can go, okay?

At least a few light -years. This is like Kirk's

time, where they can detect things a few light

-years away. Okay? Fair enough. And by detect

things, that few light -years away is full -on,

we know exactly what it is. This isn't like us

pointing a telescope and going, that speck could

be something. It's like, they know, they can

read a signature. Well, if we assume Burnham

didn't listen at all to anything that was said

in the first episode, she would make the assumption,

hey, maybe we should jump in about four or five

light years away from earth and then come in

at superluminal velocity, you know, like really

close to the speed of light. So we get time dilation.

So it might only be a couple of days for us,

but it'll be however long it takes to get to

earth. Right. So let's say that, but remember

in the first episode that the guy on the space

station says my sensors are really damaged and

I can only see out to 600 light years away. So

Burnham knows that sensors that are damaged from

this time on the outskirts of Federation space

to 600 light years. Do they like, do you know,

sorry, do you know the what planet they were

on? Do you know what part of Federation space

they were in at the beginning of the season?

I don't think they even remotely mentioned it.

It was supposed to be something something prime

It doesn't matter But I was gonna say like like

you'd think that they would go like the idea

is this is supposed to be the fringes of Federation

space so if What they're saying is like this

advanced technology at the fringes the outer

edge like the frontier of Federation space can

read so many light years you're telling me that

like earth prime like friggin like the center

of our, of our entire government and economy

and everything doesn't have better sensors. So,

so I mean, worst case, if Burnham paid attention

at all, she would go, oh, my damage sensors at

this time from wherever they were can read out

to 600 light years. So she would go, well, we

need to jump in outside of that because earth

is clearly going to have the best shit because

federation, right? But yeah, and it's earth.

And if they landed, like 600 light years away,

if that was the outer reach of the Federation's

sensors, they would probably have Federation

ships there that they could escort them in. So

think about that. And then where do they want

to jump? They jump in next to Saturn inside the

solar system, inside the solar system. And that's

somehow outside of Earth's sensor range. What

they assume is Earth sensor range, even though

every piece of logic would say, oh, look, today,

when we launched the Voyager probes back in 1977,

our deep space network was able to keep a track

of Voyager 2 out past Saturn, Uranus, Neptune,

and it's still in contact with it today. And

remember, I mean, this keeps going on, mind you,

because the main bad guys are these raiders that

are plaguing Earth because Earth has shut itself

off as no longer a part of the Federation. There

is no Starfleet at Earth. Earth has these amazing

freaking starships, right, that have like completely

disconnected warp nacelles and things like that.

There's nothing like connecting parts of these

ships. So it's super high tech stuff. And there's

a planetary defense shield like we saw in Picard.

OK, great. Cool. But they don't know what the

hell's happening in their own star system because

these Raiders are humans that live on Titan,

a moon of Saturn. And no one knows on Earth What

was going on on Titan even though literal goddamn

radio? and actually transmit between Saturn and

the earth Easily because remember the Voyager

probes transmitted information back from Saturn

no problem, and you know how powerful their transmitter

is your refrigerator light Inside your refrigerator

is stronger than the transmission power Voyager

and they launched those and monitored them with

8 -bit computers that were less powerful than

an original Nintendo Entertainment System. Somehow,

Earth doesn't know what's happening on Titan,

a thing that you can literally point goddamn

telescopes at. And not to mention that they mentioned

that it was work they were doing there that had

trouble and malfunction, that they hadn't even

terraformed it properly yet. And they have these

They have ships that use wireless power and all

this crazy shit, but they weren't able to terraform

or properly maintain what would have been one

of the first outside colonies that Earth would

have ever had. It tightens, like you wouldn't

think about terraforming tight. But the problem

is that the whole reason why this kind of like

this shit happened on Titan, is that they need

dilithium for their power systems, meaning that

they have to be using a matter antimatter reactor

on Titan. Which is the stupidest thing I can

ever think of, because you don't want to have

antimatter on a planet in case you lost containment.

And then you have a hole in your planet. Not

to mention that if they were they could power

it with solar power. Seeing as it's still close

to the frickin Sun when like close enough that

they could just have giant solar arrays up in

space. I Mean you could do that. It's not the

most efficient thing It would be better just

to have a vision reactor or a fusion react What

I'm just saying like there would be ways for

them to have fixed their own problem even without

having to ask for help There would have been

a way to fix their problem with today's technology,

that's what's sad There's no reason for any of

these people to be doing what they're doing the

way they're doing it without the only reason

being I need to write a story that has an antagonist

and we need to have some reason why they don't

know. He has to wear a Darth Vader mask even

though he doesn't need a breathing apparatus.

He's human. Like, yeah, this is it's insane,

but Regardless, so the entire basis of this episode

is complete nonsense. But the two points that

they try to make in this episode is we want to

go to Earth because... Earth is the home of most

of our crew and it means something to us But

yet we only get one scene where a whole bunch

of crew go down to what used to be Starfleet

Academy To basically sit around a tree that they

all remembered from them being at the Academy

and go yeah, that's pretty cool This tree is

awesome instead of actually letting us learn

anything about these characters about their own

personalities about their own likes as I said

before the We started recording You know, Tilly

in this episode was talking about how she's sad

because her mother obviously has died. Everyone

she knows has died. All of her family is gone.

Wouldn't it have been amazing to have Tilly go

down and find like her family's crypt and lay

flowers at her mother's grave as eroded in a

way. And you came up with the idea of saying,

hey, she goes into this old cemetery that's all

overrun and overgrown. And yet the last thing

we see is that she found her family's tomb. and

like Krypton, the areas where all of her graves

are, and they're perfectly maintained, which

means that there's somebody that is still around

that remembers. And that would have been this

really uplifting thing. Let's see one of the

other crew members cook a meal that was important

to them for some of their descendants. Like,

hey, I don't know if this ever got passed down

to you, but I want to cook gumbo, or I want to

cook matzo ball soup that you've maybe never

even had. Something like that. The alien... Let's

just learn about... I keep forgetting the name

or the type of alien. The one that looks like

a frog guy. Do they mention his name? He's a

historian. Okay, yes. Like, how great would it

have been if just one of the characters randomly

went, like, they went and cooked dinner and they're

like, this is what I've been talking about. This

is eggplant. You know, something that they couldn't

get, you know, in space. Like, and just sharing,

they should be sharing the Earth culture with

those on the ship that maybe have never been

to Earth. Yeah, so you have this big dropped

ball there. But the other thing that they kind

of do in this episode is show that there is a

human that has a trill symbiote in her. Believe

it or not, I don't have a problem with this.

It actually makes sense because we know from,

again, Enterprise and Time Agent Daniels that

by the early 3000s, which is like almost 150

years before... This is taking place that humans

is just kind of a description that basically

daniels who looked human had dna from dozens

of different races in him. That over this thousand

years of the federation that. There's been a

great mixing of races which. I think that's a

really cool thing so. This human has a true symbiote

in her and it's made to be like oh crap this

is really. This is really fascinating. But remember,

at the time, no one knew about Trill symbiotes

from Discovery's time. So this shouldn't mean

anything to them, right? Wasn't it Saru who was

the only one that even referenced having any

knowledge? Yeah, but why would Saru know anything?

Because they established that he was like a super

brown -nosed nerd that when he joined Starfleet,

he tried to learn as much as he could about everything.

So he studied like all of the computers. symbiotes

no one knew about the symbiotes oh wait wait

wait don't forget the ship merged with that the

ship merged with that computer of all of the

knowledge of the universe yeah and they would

have transmitted that back to memory alpha because

the amount of data was so large that even to

remember they sentries for the entire federation

they did not they took it on the ship to the

future Yeah, and that's why the ship talks to

him now. Yes now the ship has a no ship has a

computer virus and The ship has a computer virus

and it talks to them Just like the computer holographic

pilot from Andromeda only it's not At least we

don't know yet So is this computer thing evil?

No It's supposed to be well not yet. I don't

think they'll do two seasons in a row with evil

computer No. Well, they're also saying that it's

basically like they're referencing that episode

Calypso. Oh, is that what Calypso is supposed

to be? Yeah, Calypso, the ship is abandoned.

It's just kind of floating derelict somewhere

and waiting for its mission or something. And

it's by itself, the AI Zora, which is the same

one that's talking to Saru here. um is running

it and the guy uh craft that comes aboard um

much like the names of like book um uh he he

um references the vedraish which is also referenced

in the second episode with by the uh the guy

trying to steal the dilithium so so is the federation

yes That's what it is. So the Federation are

the bad guys in Calypso. That's what it's coming

off as being. Yes. So what we're gonna basically

see is that season three, they're gonna discover,

he's gonna discover that Starfleet is bad. And

then the end of, so at the end of this, the end

of the season is gonna lead into that, that Calypso,

and then we're gonna take up after that? Or is

it gonna be how the show ends? Like, is the show

just gonna end entirely there? It was implied

in Calypso that Discovery had been without a

crew for a long time, like centuries, if anything.

So to me, when I saw Calypso, I said, well, that

kind of takes all the Mickey out of any kind

of plot that has threat to Discovery at all,

because we know Discovery is just going to be

fine in the end. Because at some point, it's

going to have to be left alone for centuries

just sitting there waiting for people while there's

a war with the Federation going on. It's very

much like Andromeda, very much. I want to talk

to two things about this, the computer issue.

And it goes back, one of these things is the

sphere data. They didn't know about control when

they got the sphere data. So there would have

been no reason why they didn't transmit it back

to memory alpha to share. Except that they didn't.

They didn't because of plot for some reason,

right? They didn't because of laziness. So let's

let's move on from that. To me, like control

already has the information because the information

would have been automatically shared back to

Federation databases at the time because there

was no reason not to. All right. So anyway, the

computer is in episode four where we finally

see it kind of having a personality. Saru asks

the computer questions about like how to get

the morale of the crew. The computer is clearly

malfunctioning. Remember that Saru has no idea

about the events of Calypso, which are in his

own future, right? All he knows is suddenly the

computer is talking strange, acting like it has

a personality, acting like it has emotions and

weird shit is flying up on the screen. So what

does Saru do? What would any reasonable Starfleet

officer do? they would report the issue to the

freaking engineering team. Maybe somebody's trying

to hack into the computer. Maybe there's a giant

malfunction. What does Saru do? Nothing. He asked

us to run a diagnostic on yourself, self malfunctioning

computer, instead of being like, okay, and then

just quietly walking in person. And he should

have walked up to the engineering lady and been

like, just whisper to her, something's not right

at the computer, check it out. Because... That's

what you would do if you thought that somebody

was watching or somebody had compromised your

entire computer security system Because this

is this is in a time before Remember before the

m5 computer the day stream developed the m5 computer.

There are no self -aware computers I'm ignoring

control for a second because control makes no

sense either. There are no self -aware computers

in Starfleet and or computers that even have

personality and suddenly Saru's encountering

his own computer on discovery, having clear personality

and acting strangely. And he's pretending either

he's too dumb to realize it or like he sort of

stammers for a second to ask it again. But I

don't think does he look at the screen when all

the red garbage pops up or is he facing away?

I think he's. Yeah, his back is turned for a

second. Regardless, I don't think he sees. It's

really doing something weird Yeah, the voice

halfway through talking changes to have an accent

And it shifts its tone repeatedly through through

the the scene and It's clear that he knows something

is wrong because he asks it to make a diagnostic

and it gives it like oh There's nothing wrong

with me that kind of like it was it was still

had its personality and remember at the end of

the episode He even talks about how maybe Discovery

is here to help her own crew. He just assumes

that it has personality. And Dr. Husband goes,

okay, that's perfectly okay from a medical and

psychological standpoint that our captain thinks

that the computer on the ship is now in love

with everybody on the ship and wants to keep

them safe. Yeah, that's a thing. It's terrifying.

And no one is seemingly competent enough to figure

out that there needs to be something asked, like

questions asked. And this is the captain. And

it's not like at least they didn't go so far

as to have him have that that talk with Engineer

Lady, because if you had a talk with Engineer

Lady and her snarky ass didn't just go, what

the fuck did you just say? I at least believe

a couple of the characters wouldn't do that,

but I'm seriously questioning the efficacy of

the doctor. He's not really good at keeping people

healthy. No. At all. His entire report is like,

everybody's mental health is down. I have no

plans on how to fix that. It's not like we have

you know, like they don't have a counselor Okay,

whatever but like you're telling me that not

one person on the medical team was a like clinical

psychologist Well, like the lady that's that's

the navigator should not have been put back in

that position until she was of sound mind yeah,

you have a major concussion and You clearly visibly

to everybody We're disoriented and then you're

like, yeah go to sickbay and then they turn away

and let her walk by herself And and not only

that that she's acting like an asshole All the

time like she clearly either is an asshole or

has PTSD Extreme PTSD and no one seems to mind

Like her her friend that's on the bridge doesn't

really seem to care that there's her friend is

acting Strangely, she just kind of defends her

Like saying, yeah. She should have like when,

when Detmer left the bridge, she should have

stood up, turned around and said, uh, captain,

I'm worried about her. I want to go take, you

know, go with her. Then that then just gone with

her, but no, they just literally brush her off.

Yeah, go ahead. Go away. Go to sick bay. If you're

that's like, if the. We're kind of bleeding into

the events of episode four, where a lot of this

ass hattery happens, but they go to Trill. They

end up going to Trill in the fourth episode.

And I'm just. Yeah, that episode, it's called

Forget Me Not. And there's actually a couple

of really cool things in it. I will say it's

the episode I like the most, but I still have

problems, obviously. Oh, there's. Yeah, I like.

I like when the computer gets glitchy and gets

a personality. I thought that was actually kind

of nice. It reminds me of an episode that I actually

wrote for Star Trek Adventures. Then there is

the scene where all the former Trill hosts are

kind of in the mindscape and talking to her,

the new Trill. I liked that. I thought that was

well done. I liked how the former hosts, their

kind of memories were there supporting her and,

you know, being kind. I really like, you know,

uh, speak your names, that whole thing. That

was, that was well done, but most of the rest

of the episode was awful. Awful. Um, it was,

yeah, it was, it was, um, the, the, it was weird.

Some parts of the A plot, which was the trill

plot was good. Some parts of the B plot were

good, but it was, it was probably 50, 50, like,

and it's probably out of all of the episodes

of this season, it's the one that has probably

the best ratio of good to bad, in my mind. Okay.

I mean, I thought the scene that had the most

potential for being really cool is that dinner

scene where Saru kind of invites all the officers

to sit at a dinner with him. But for some reason,

he invites Giorgio, the person who he knows and

has been told, eats Kelpians, and is generally

nasty to everyone that she's always around. Unless

it's Michael Burnham. Unless it's Michael Burnham.

And she's still nasty to everybody at the table.

Why would he invite her? She does nothing except

antagonize people. He comes across as not obviously

a fool, but what's strange about this is his

character had been established in the last two

seasons to be highly sensitive to danger. and

highly sensitive to people's emotions. And yet

now he doesn't... He evolved past it and can

no longer read people. Yeah, it's awful. God,

I hated that scene because Saru was an interesting

character. When he had his fear and his... the

the danger cilia and all that that that was an

interesting character here's a character that's

in starfleet and is faced with danger all the

time and is is a scaredy cat and he's always

having to try to rise above that that's an interesting

character and they took the one interesting thing

from that character and removed it so now he's

just basically weird alien guy that's trying

to understand humanity okay fair enough i mean

if you have good writers that's you can do interesting

things with that but You don't have good writers

here. And now he crosses an asshole. It's not

that much of a stretch either. Have you seen

Doug Jones? He kind of looks like an alien trying

to understand people. Doug Jones is a great actor.

That's the thing. Oh, absolutely. Like his work's

been always fantastic. But there's like tons

of stuff that that are in this with Michael Burnham

that it's just it's Saint Michael Burnham. She's

here to do it. She knows how to do everything

and is somehow able to do it. She accompanies

the human Trill down to Trill. And the Trill

are incredible xenophobes. They're racist beyond

belief. They first at first say, hey, all the

Trill symbiotes, these symbiotes are the basis

for our entire civilization. And every symbiote

that is able to make its way back to Trill, even

though there's no warp, every one of them is

a great gift to our society. And then they're

like, so where's the trill host? Well, we don't

have a trill host. The symbiote's inside this

human. And effectively, the trill council there

says, get the F off our planet, human scum. Well,

one of them says we want to gut it out of her.

We're going to cut it out. One dude's like, nah,

I don't think we cut it out. And then the other

lady is like, well, This is the basis of our

faith, but we will we have never forced anybody

To be separated so we won't do it this time you

can go and they're like, okay and then they need

to go for a walk and then the one guy that's

like cut it out of his like We're gonna cut it

out of you and they pull out a bunch of knives

and spears And they're like we're gonna cut it

out and then Burnham kills all of them basically.

Well, well sorry stuns them, but doesn't say

that You know, they don't mention that they were

stunned until after. It looked like they were

murdered because they weren't breathing. Yeah,

I did that whole thing. Well, anyway, they get

they get the the human trill into the trill somebody

out caves and. she kind of gets thrown into the

milky liquid where all the symbiotes are, and

she can try to get in touch with her former hosts,

like the memories of her former hosts, to get

a greater connection to her symbiote. And things

go wrong, right? Yeah, so Kurtzman couldn't,

you know, couldn't skip the chance to make a

scene for scene, almost shot for shot copy of

Minority Report with With the eyes rolling back

and the white liquid and I'm like come on man

Like stop copying better movies So I guess this

guy has to like Have Michael Burnham go into

the mindscape to save this trill some symbiote

even though throughout all this episode No, nobody

except trill have ever been able to do this and

the only reason this human trill mix is able

to do it is because there's a trill inside of

her. Now I'll make the argument that again, human

is in double, you know, big quotations that there's

been a lot of genetic mixing by this point. Yeah.

So why would the trill council ever be surprised

that a non pure trill would be able to hold a

symbiote? I'd say like, there would have to be

so few pure trill left in the galaxy at this

point. Well, and that's what they establish is

that it's like, like that's what they're arguing

over right Michael like hey there's so few of

us left it's all a gift and the one is like you

know we have to change our ways and the other

one's like no our religion won't let us and then

and then the one's like maybe we should just

let it happen and then they're like okay so anyway

somehow Michael Burnham who is pure human is

able to completely interface with all the trill

symbiote memories And yeah, I just and she's

able to get into the mindscape and solve the

problem and Save the symbiotes memories and make

everyone happy Yeah, and it looks like a Sega

CD full -motion video game with how bad the the

sort of tentacly water effects are Yeah, and

what Burnham shouldn't have been in there at

all like at all Burnham should have been standing

on the outside trying like fighting people or

trying to stop people from getting in while She

was under the water and it should have been explained

that the only reason she was able to survive

is that the trill symbiote Had an emotional connection

to her because it belonged to her significant

other Like the whole idea of like that maybe

that Trill symbiote was purposely trying its

best to keep her alive during this But they don't

do that What can I say what can I say this This

episode had a lot of good things in it. Well,

I won't say a lot of it had good things in it

But it's again baffling just utterly baffling

like the weird choices the kind of counterintuitive

stuff that characters just start acting in weird

ways like the trill the trill are completely

xenophobic at this point don't want this human

trill symbiote mix on the planet but after michael's

able to save them they're totally okay with becoming

a part of the federation if it ever uh you know

comes back hey you guys are welcome here they're

like yeah uh like please stay with us we need

to study you and all this like no I think I'm

being told that I should go with them. That's

my mission. And that's where they're like, uh,

no, you're going to stay with us so we can figure

out why this worked. Since apparently we didn't

think it was possible. We should study you for,

you know, several weeks so that we can then maybe

find other hosts. But they're like, nah, I'm

going to go in space where I'm probably going

to die. And I mean, it's, it's yeah. And then.

I'm more excited about the cameos for the next

episode than I am for what's happened so far.

Pretty much. But you've been pretty silent, Michael,

and what about you? What do you think? I'm interested

to see why he's here. I'm wondering if the next

episode is going to be like they find a cabal

of ex -Federation scientists that have been locked

up in like a think tank for like 100 years. No,

I think they're fine. That's the actual Federation.

And that's when they find out they're evil. And

what they're going to have to do is then break

away and find the small sleeper cell sex of real

Federation supporters. And that's where we're

going to find some previous actors that have

been in Star Trek that magically found them way

into the future. We're going to find like Barclay

or something stupid in it. It wasn't interesting

Ricardo as a hologram again. No, no, it'll be

Andy dick as the other hologram Yeah, it'll be

Carrot top the hologram. Well, oh My god, no,

it'll be the they'll bring the wrong. No, they

can't afford the rock anymore. You can't play

the champion Why don't they just find a Crenham

ship so they can use it to go back in time and

start erasing people and just erase all these

bad things? But no, they showed a preview of,

I guess, somebody that they meet initially at

what appears to be Starfleet, and that is played

by Odin Fair from the Mummy movies and Resident

Evil movies. Good character actor. If you've

ever seen a TV show called Sleeper Cell, he's

really good in it. He usually plays either a

sidekick good character or a terrorist in almost

everything he's in. So I'm pretty sure he's playing

a terrorist in this one. And then one frame at

the very end, it's David Cronenberg, the famous

horror director out of nowhere. So I would be

very interested to see if he directed an episode,

but if anything, it would probably be a short

trek. and I would be very interested to see what

kind of crazy body horror he does. It wouldn't

be good track. Wait, wasn't he on board? Wasn't

he supposed to direct like Star Trek six or something?

Or no, he was supposed to direct. Was it Empire

Strikes Back or Dune or something? It was something.

It was something crazy big that he was supposed

to do. And then they're like, no, because all

your movies end up being like NC 17. So they

just didn't do it. But like for. I was trying

to figure out why they would cast him because

he's he's only acted in like three things One

of them being like Jason X but he's like he's

been like he's an academy nominated director

and Just to have him randomly look he looks to

be the head of Starfleet from what I can see

He's either the head of Starfleet or he's like

section 31 and that's why Giorgio is sitting

there. Yeah, that's that's Probably more likely

like maybe this this sect of Starfleet is section

31 taking over in in the space of Starfleet And

that's why they're like evil and can't be trusted

Yeah, probably and then if that's the case then

Odin Farris character will probably be evil to

start But then you find out he's actually a good

guy and leaves with them Yeah, and then because

it'll be revealed that David Cronenberg is is

trying to Horrify the universe by using teleportation

fly monsters or something. Just about. So I guess,

do we have any kind of closing thoughts on this?

Cause we've been going on a while. Yes. Sorry.

Sorry. Optimistic for what's happening, but as

bad as we've been, you know, tearing the shit

apart, it, we're tearing it apart honestly, less

than I think we probably thought we were going

to. I think it's got potential. It just depends

on where they go with it Yeah, like Alex is kind

of like he's kind of had me Pivoted a certain

way like it's like if you think of this like

again again because I've been in the Stargate

mood recently think of it like that in a sense

and you'll enjoy it a lot more and I'm thinking

you know what you're not wrong because they are

doing new things each and every week and it's

not as fun as SG1 is for example And as long

as it's not the Michael Burnham show, it's it

can be really good, but I don't want them like

I want other crew members to shine. I want to

see more in different stories. I want to see

more in different backgrounds. I want to know

this crew. I knew things about like half the

crew on Voyager before the end of this before

the end of the first season. I knew that Tom

Paris hung out in the Holodeck a shit ton. I

knew Ensign Kim played the clarinet. I knew all

these little things. Well, we know more about

lower decks than we do this Yeah, I knew I didn't

know Dettmer's name until season three in Enterprise.

You learned more about the crew in the two -part

pilot than you've learned in three seasons Yeah,

a little less flash a little more character like

Star Trek to me has always been about like exploration

but character. These are stories about people

that happen in space and there is a fantastical

element to it, but they're human stories at the

end of the day. This, some of these episodes

are just action piece after action piece. I think

if they do more character focused things, we're

going to be a lot more satisfied, but I'm enjoying

discovery season three that I enjoyed the entirety

of the card season one. I like this. You liked

when they made a pizza. And... When 7 of 9 vaporized

a guy. And that was for the wrong reasons. They

were like, what? But like, genuinely, you liked

when they ate a pizza, and that was it. Like,

genuinely liked. And I went back and rewatched

when I got the Blu -ray, and yeah. I still like

the short tracks better, and that's not saying

much. Obviously, I'm pretty... down on the Star

Trek elements of Discovery Season 3. They're

in that there aren't Star Trek elements or what

Star Trek elements that they try to put in are

just counterintuitive or stupid. I just can't

get behind any kind of show that asks you to

literally turn off your brain in order to believe

plot happening the way it is. Asking you outside

the show that this is you know, this is here

for Star Trek fans Star Trek fans that want to

think about plot that want to think about News

or moral quandaries or scientific exploration

and It's completely shitting on that all the

time We might have to do I don't know if you

guys all have disney plus like mike and i have

but we might have to do a mandalorian episode

just i'd be down for that i actually watch it

and that's it's actually not as bad as i thought

there are some episodes where i feel like it's

kind of like it drags but overall yeah between

the production value and the the consistency

it's it's pretty spot on it's only eight episodes

per season and they they operate under the less

is more in that They don't try to go out of their

way to write contrived stories. It's a little

more sparsely written and you fill in the blanks

yourself. It's interesting because season two

so far is actually very similar in plot to what's

happening this season in Discovery. Stay with

me while I explain that. This season so far they

have found a young a young officer that is in

the trill person and they're trying, they tried

to return that trill to its own tribe and they're

trying to find their own in a galaxy that's falling

apart. Well, season two is literally taking the

little passenger trying to go through the exact

same thing. Trying to find its own tribe only

handled very differently With much better emotion

and something that Star Trek hasn't seen in years

a little thing called subtlety and a lot also

a lot of show me don't tell me And they actually

have things like panning shots a Shot that lasts

more than three seconds before flashing to the

next thing Also really good like scenery also

better acting it's it's kind of interesting to

see how they sort of They're running at the same

time. I think they cost about the same to make

which is insane to me because they look very

different But yeah, it'll be interesting to sort

of maybe do that because they're not and they're

also not full -hour episodes like I almost feel

like sometimes Discoveries episodes go on longer

than they need to just because they can With

the scripts of the Mandalorian, they range anywhere

from 36 minutes to 48. It's whatever the script

dictates. So yeah, maybe something we'll do once

everything's done in the new year. I mean, I've

watched Mandalorian the first season and I loved

it. I thought it was great. It was well written.

It was entertaining. It kept me interested. But

we'll save that review until we actually get

around to watching it and reviewing it Yeah,

like I can talk and Alex knows I'm a huge Mandalorian

mark and I can talk about it endlessly Like I

pick up on the Easter eggs. I'm like that came

from the role -playing game in 1992 because I

know the page that's on what was that that I

hear you to hear you whisper Canon and lore.

Yeah, I know it's wonderful and they don't fuck

it over But anyway, that's a conversation for

a different day. So thank you to everybody who

has enjoyed this catharsis over Star Trek Discovery

season three. Hopefully you've had a lot of fun

with us. We like some of it. We like some of

it, which we can't say about the last two seasons.

Exactly. So hopefully things will continue on

an upward trend. We'll see what surprises they

have in store on. That's the Michael Burnham

show. So anyway. Thank you for joining us. So

for this week in Geek and the GeekCast Radio

Network, we have been leading the fleet. Steve

Megatron Phillips. In charge of the fastest garbage

scowl in the galaxy. Alex, I don't have anything

special to say. Memory Alpha himself. Aaron Pollyay.

And I've been Mike the Birdman saying, live long

and prosper.