Star Trek: Discovery - spoilery thoughts?

[GandALF]

TFW you're a glorious space capitalist and you have to deal with starfleet pinkos

[Deledrius]

This was an exciting episode that worked pretty well plot-wise as I watched, but the parts really crumble when I look back on it (and some parts I didn't appreciate as I witnessed them).

• That awful party was probably the least interesting party I've seen on Star Trek. Which says something. Who knew that the future Starships would be staffed by people who listen to awful music and throw lame frat parties? This felt forced, as if the show was trying desperately to finally show Star Trek being "hip" but it just made the party seem ordinary and contemporary. TNG-era parties may have been considered stolid, but they weren't ever dated in the same way. Side note: how likely is it that Cadet Tilly is an advanced student that managed to get an early posting, super-intelligent, no friends, and yet despite all of that is also a party girl? In real life, those traits rarely go together. Inconsistent characterization? Not sure, but it seemed out of place for her.
• I'm so tired of the "boring person must be made to have fun" and "person who doesn't enjoy something is teased for being awkward" plots. They aren't funny, they don't make your characters look like nice people, and it's just been done to death. At least this is a Trek tradition (Barclay, Worf, etc.), but it's one I think we could have left behind.
• The plot-driven romance between Burnham and Tyler was ridiculously forced. They've spent barely any screen time together in the previous episode (which Burnham confirms is basically true), and now they're doing a we-can't-hide-our-feelings plot between them? I don't see it. This may be realistic, but it's dramatically empty. Even an episode to develop their chemistry between the last one and this would have helped. But the worst part is that it feels forced twice over, because if the speculation is correct that Tyler is not who he seems to be, then the forced romance between them is only being set up to force drama from the crushing revelation later.
• The tone whiplash of goofy Harry Mudd murdering the crew left and right, including the captain dozens of times on screen in a montage, and then by the end given a goofy "we'll send him to live in an unhappy marriage!" resolution is really strange and disturbing, but it really only hit me after it was over. This is possibly one of the darker outings in Star Trek when it comes to the horrors of what we see the crew go through on their loops, but the villain is just let go? Also, while his first appearance was quite consistent (though in retrospect just set-up for this episode), here I have a hard time believing that even if they let him go Mudd's name would not go in the Starfleet database as "EXTREMELY DANGEROUS". Sure, the final loop's crew didn't experience any of it, but if they went along with Stamets enough to succeed, they must have taken his account of the events pretty seriously. This man was deranged, homicidal, and exceptionally smart.

What I really liked was that it was cool seeing a time loop episode from outside the perspective of either of the loopers. I'm not sure the execution really drove that home as well as it could have; as it progressed the editing shortcuts were more and more hand-wavy, and by the end it really strained credulity that Stamets was able to convince everyone and execute their plan all inside of what seemed like the first minute of the loop.

Also: good catch Fixer. They showed his control device disappear into a puff of CGI, but they never revisited the creature and the ship hidden inside (even the Tardigrade got a stinger at the end of its introductory episode to let us know it was still around) so it's hard to say whether that's a piece of tech they kept or not.

It's also baffling to let him get away once he knew everything about the drive. They've pressed how absolutely important the element of surprise and secrecy is around this drive, so this is either a plot hole to be forgotten or a plot contrivance for a later episode.

[Durandal_1707]

If I were to nitpick, Mudd in his previous incarnations including the 25th Anniversary game appearance as a man that dealt in illegal goods and shady deals. He was a lot less murder-y and high treason-y. In addition his punishment at the end should have been far more severe as a result.

In "I, Mudd", he tried to imprison the entire crew on that planet for the rest of their lives, while simultaneously unleashing an uber-powerful race of androids that wanted to dominate the entire galaxy. That's some solid supervillain stuff right there, no matter how charming he came across.

Heck, even in 25th Anniversary, Mudd had that bit where he tried to take away the one tool the crew needed to fix the air recycler thing just as the air recycler started malfunctioning, which implies he was hoping they would end up asphyxiating themselves. Dude wasn't nice.

[Deledrius]

If I were to nitpick, Mudd in his previous incarnations including the 25th Anniversary game appearance as a man that dealt in illegal goods and shady deals. He was a lot less murder-y and high treason-y. In addition his punishment at the end should have been far more severe as a result.

In "I, Mudd", he tried to imprison the entire crew on that planet for the rest of their lives, while simultaneously unleashing an uber-powerful race of androids that wanted to dominate the entire galaxy. That's some solid supervillain stuff right there, no matter how charming he came across.

Heck, even in 25th Anniversary, Mudd had that bit where he tried to take away the one tool the crew needed to fix the air recycler thing just as the air recycler started malfunctioning, which implies he was hoping they would end up asphyxiating themselves. Dude wasn't nice.

I think perhaps the difference is his intent. In those instances, it was always a sort of opportunistic greed mixed with an apathy towards the well-being of others. In Discovery, he's out for bloody revenge and killed an entire ship of people... multiple times... often in-person and directly...

And this incident is before those, so there isn't a natural progression.

[technobabbler]

Nitpick: according to the series canon, T'Kuvma is not the Klingon Messiah. at best so far in the series, T'Kuvma is a religious martyr fo a minor sect with a ragtag group of followers. (out of order episode or just sloppy writing?)

Hence, Harvey Mudd probably would not have gotten much of a price for Michael Burnham. And Harvey Mudd would/should have known that. And Harvey would/should have rejoined the timeline in the second to last loop that the audience saw.

[GandALF]

Nitpick: according to the series canon, T'Kuvma is not the Klingon Messiah. at best so far in the series, T'Kuvma is a religious martyr fo a minor sect with a ragtag group of followers. (out of order episode or just sloppy writing?)

It was made pretty clear in episode 2 that he was seen as a reincarnation or successor to Kahless.

[Deledrius]

Nitpick: according to the series canon, T'Kuvma is not the Klingon Messiah. at best so far in the series, T'Kuvma is a religious martyr fo a minor sect with a ragtag group of followers. (out of order episode or just sloppy writing?)

It was made pretty clear in episode 2 that he was seen as a reincarnation or successor to Kahless.

At least by his cult, yeah, and he was attempting to cement that reputation. This was at least consistent with the rhetoric on the show so far. I suppose we haven't seen whether he was successful yet, but we know by TNG his name never comes up instead of Kahless, so...

[Madner Kami]

Nitpick: according to the series canon, T'Kuvma is not the Klingon Messiah. at best so far in the series, T'Kuvma is a religious martyr fo a minor sect with a ragtag group of followers. (out of order episode or just sloppy writing?)

It was made pretty clear in episode 2 that he was seen as a reincarnation or successor to Kahless.

At least by his cult, yeah, and he was attempting to cement that reputation. This was at least consistent with the rhetoric on the show so far. I suppose we haven't seen whether he was successful yet, but we know by TNG his name never comes up instead of Kahless, so...

Neither does the Retardigrade-Drive, so...

[Deledrius]

That's definitely the running question for nearly the whole show: is the fact that none of this matters a hint, or just a poor premise? We won't be able to judge until it's all over. Very frustrating for conversations on the series.

[Madner Kami]

If the show is successful, it will be a reboot. If the show fails, it will be a parallel universe. Yes, I am that cynical about the writing and planning for this series.