Star Trek Discovery: Season Three

[clearspira]

I cannot remember a point in which Spock and Tuvok were not the only two friendly Vulcans in Star Trek. They were dicks in ENT, Sarek and every female Vulcan we see in TOS are dicks, they were Maquis members, serial killers or arrogant baseball players in DS9, bullies in the Abramsverse.

''Their way of life'' is the Vulcan way of life period.

Don't forget Sarek.

To be fair, I remind you that this is the product of TOS not later seasons. Everyone assumes Spock is the typical Vulcan but our first exposure to Vulcans other than him is the discovery that they practice ritualized murder and sex duels. Spock is what you get when you have the Vulcans Dark Side removed due to Federation values.

Yeah, it helps also that Spock is half human and Tuvok has been friends with Janeway for decades - a woman who clearly wasn't going to put up with Tuvok's shit for long. Interestingly that applies to T'Pol as well, with her bad attitude being broken by the Enterprise crew.

Of course, breaking out of your echo chamber and having someone tell you that you are being a dick is how you break xenophobia in real life too.

[Captain Crimson]

Of course, breaking out of your echo chamber and having someone tell you that you are being a dick is how you break xenophobia in real life too.

And yet it never seems to work on Hollywood.

[Makeshift Python]

I cannot remember a point in which Spock and Tuvok were not the only two friendly Vulcans in Star Trek. They were dicks in ENT, Sarek and every female Vulcan we see in TOS are dicks, they were Maquis members, serial killers or arrogant baseball players in DS9, bullies in the Abramsverse.

''Their way of life'' is the Vulcan way of life period.

Don't forget Sarek.

To be fair, I remind you that this is the product of TOS not later seasons. Everyone assumes Spock is the typical Vulcan but our first exposure to Vulcans other than him is the discovery that they practice ritualized murder and sex duels. Spock is what you get when you have the Vulcans Dark Side removed due to Federation values.

I was always kind of annoyed by the fan supposition that Vulcans are all like Spock in that they all have the same interests like science and pacifism. For example, early negative reactions to VOYAGER was the presence of Tuvok, a Vulcan security chief. Apparently for some fans that contradicted what they thought of Vulcans, and that it doesn't make sense to make a Vulcan chief of security because they're supposed to be pacifists. Kind of odd to assume a culture that values logical thinking would NOT think security/tactics is a necessity.

In fact, part of why I liked Tuvok was that he did break away from the Vulcan stereotype. He's logical like Spock, but he sees things from the perspective of a detective rather than a scientist. I really liked him in the early seasons and how he was used like when being assigned as a drill instructor, and wish he wasn't kind of forgotten in later seasons.

[Link8909]

I was always kind of annoyed by the fan supposition that Vulcans are all like Spock in that they all have the same interests like science and pacifism. For example, early negative reactions to VOYAGER was the presence of Tuvok, a Vulcan security chief. Apparently for some fans that contradicted what they thought of Vulcans, and that it doesn't make sense to make a Vulcan chief of security because they're supposed to be pacifists. Kind of odd to assume a culture that values logical thinking would NOT think security/tactics is a necessity.

In fact, part of why I liked Tuvok was that he did break away from the Vulcan stereotype. He's logical like Spock, but he sees things from the perspective of a detective rather than a scientist. I really liked him in the early seasons and how he was used like when being assigned as a drill instructor, and wish he wasn't kind of forgotten in later seasons.

Agreed, while it was annoying in Enterprise that most of the Vulcans we saw were a-holes (which to be fair, mostly everyone during the first two seasons were a-holes as well), I don't think this is a cultural norm, and while we do see Vulcans with his behaviour even during The Original Series (hi T'Pring), Vulcans like Spock and Tuvok do show being logical doesn't equal being an a-hole.

I also do like Chuck's talk in his "Lethe" review about the Vulcan Extremists and how even with a universal belief, individual morals and ideas can lead to different interpretations of those beliefs.

[CharlesPhipps]

I do think Berman severely misunderstood Star Trek on a fundamental level with the Vulcans and Enterprise, though. He assumed that the fans would automatically side with Archer in being, "Humanity, Fuck Yeah!" Except that's pretty much the opposite of Star Trek's message or at least that humanity is one small part of a greater whole.

Humans Rule, Vulcans drool is just the kind of xenophobic drivel that the series is against.

[Link8909]

I do think Berman severely misunderstood Star Trek on a fundamental level with the Vulcans and Enterprise, though. He assumed that the fans would automatically side with Archer in being, "Humanity, Fuck Yeah!" Except that's pretty much the opposite of Star Trek's message or at least that humanity is one small part of a greater whole.

Humans Rule, Vulcans drool is just the kind of xenophobic drivel that the series is against.

I absolutely agree, and bringing it back to Discovery, I'm really happy that kind of mentality was dropped, especially now in season three we see that the ideals of the Federation aren't a human only trait and people from all over the galaxy and of all walks of life can uphold those ideals.

[Zargon]

Episode 8

Lots more bad writing....

So Michael has been all obsessed with "I must discover the source of the Burn" all season, now just tosses that aside as Book guy needs help. Guess all her talk about "saving the Federation/Universe" was just a lie.

So lame not really a captain Saru needs a cool catch phrase, just like all the real captains have..yuk yuk yuk. And he picks "continue on"? Beyond funny. He is really saying "I'm a useless non captain, so just do what you know is right to do". And really we see how useless Saru is, when he gives an order to the other African American guy on the bridge, that guy is all like "blah blah blah rules". Then idiot Saru has to explain things to him. No real captain would ever put up with that.

So...er....the Discovery does not fire on the evil criminal terrorist cartel because they don't want to "drag the Federation into war with them". Because evil criminal terrorist cartels care about laws and rules and semantics.....and don't just do whatever they feel like they want. Like did anyone think that Orrisa would just say "oh well I was not attacked by a Federation vessel " and not go to war with the Federation? Gosh you just can't trust evil criminal terrorist cartels at all, eh?

The "fight" between Orrisa 's Dreadnought and Book's silly little Millennial Birdy (snicker snicker) is just so bad. Like the itty bitty little Millennial Birdy could do any real damage to the Dreadnought . And it should have taken less then say three hits from the Dreadnought to blow up that itty bitty ship.

So if the Brothers Book are animal empaths why can't they tell just the locust eating the crops to go away? Sure they can't effect "all" of them at once, but how about just do it a bunch of times? And the Book planet people have high tech...is there some reason they can't put a shield up around the crops? And...well...um....does the planet not have replicator technology to make food? (you know that ye old 800 tech?)

Oh look we got to see the Chief Medical Officer Lady for a coupe seconds...you know who is NOT a main character and it outright EXILED from the whole crew. She did not even get invited to the Thanksgiving meal a couple episodes back.

I'd guess Emperor Lady's, er, temporal dimensional anchor is fading? Guess she needs to go back to the 23rd century to star in the Section 31 show, right...wink wink

Oh and the dumb music. So once again we have some sort of dumb thing connecting the whole universe, like everything happens in an idiots basement.

And, so, wow, after all the hype the 'they' new characters are really, um, great? They are a delusional they in love with a memory/ghost they and they get a line or two and play music. Wow, amazing characters.

Sigh

[Asvarduil]

Hey Zargon beat me to Episode 8! And, given that he hasn't stopped hating it, I think he actually likes it. For my part, I agree, S3 E8 was actually pretty good, with one rather big exception.

At the start, I was expecting a Burnham Fastball Special, not going to lie. Then, a bit later, I was expecting to the see the very rare Book Fastball Special. Interestingly? Neither came to pass. Both Burnham and Book made very smart decisions. Instead, we merely got a simulated Detmer Fastball Special, at Tilly's suggestion no less. However, Tilly at least thought through the consequences ahead of time.

I think this whole command thing is working pretty well for Tilly! She has managed to harness the full destructive power of the Fastball Special, and turned it against the enemies of the Federation. Don't fuck with The Tilly! She literally Burnham'd a cruiser-class starship, which seems somewhat bigger and more powerful than the Crossfield-class Science Spearhead Refit [T12]. I bet it has, like, a bajillion tactical console slots, or something stupid.

With that said... interestingly, the flagship didn't attack Discovery right away. For all the Chain's bluster, if they really didn't fear the Federation, they would've just destroyed Discovery and sent teams to the planet to kill everyone (or just glassed it.) They didn't. The Chain is actually probably power-wise equal to the Federation, at least militarily. They have a 50/50 chance of winning a war, and they know it; of course, being an evil criminal syndicate, they don't win battles by direct shows of military force.

Now, Detmer's little attack run on the Emerald Chain flagship isn't exactly how one cures PTSD - if anything, I expect in real life, it would be begging for a sudden attack, which shows that DISCO's writers don't actually understand PTSD, they merely think it's weakness leaving the body, or something stupid - yet, Detmer put Luke Skywalker to shame with her flying and fighting. And she's not even Force-sensitive, or a Druid! I'm glad Detmer got a full-on, A-plot outing, she needs more.

Speaking of high level Druids! I think I may have underestimated Book's character sheet, as Book was able to successfully cast Sympathy/Antipathy with his Brother from Another Mother, which is an 8th level Druid spell, meaning he has to be at least a 15th level Druid. He's probably the highest level character on the show, at the moment; while Burnham has definitely taken levels in Fighter and/or Monk, I don't think she's unlocked all the abilities that class confers.

Interestingly, Book "wanting in" to Starfleet/The Federation is an interesting progression of the S3 "Rebuild the Federation" campaign. Up to this point, we've seen Discovery interact with various worlds, and get them re-interested in the Federation; this is the first time we've seen a direct difference made. Interestingly, that Andorian culture has become so antagonistic to the Federation is interesting, I'm curious what made them go that direction.

As much as I'd like to talk about Georgiou's little B-plot, though...there's not much to say. Sure Georgiou doing Georgiou things is entertaining, but this time there was little substance. I feel like it's more the development section in a Classical music orchestration - it takes the main theme, and builds on it, until the piece reaches a musical climax.

I also guess this is the episode where Adira Tal's actor came out as non-binary, which is OK. They're treated with respect, and certainly no less love from the Stamets family, and hell, they may as well adopt them as their adopted child (I don't think in English a pronoun exists for a neuter-gender offspring, as far as I'm aware, despite English's Germanic roots.)

If I had to level a criticism at this episode, I'd say that there's a more subtle problem (which is MUCH LESS of a problem than anything we had before. Science-Commando Dumbass Burnham.) in that now there's too many characters being given screen time equally. We needed less Burnham, certainly, and that's something that should be kept. However, I'd like for the writers to refer to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine for inspiration. While we don't need a seasonal "(Character) must suffer" plot like O'Brien had, we also had "Bashir episodes", versus "O'Brien", versus "Sisko", versus...well, you get the point. By focusing on a character, and allowing all the other characters to support that plot, you get stronger writing.

Now, I've taken the long way to get to this, and I certainly don't want to encourage Zargon - though, that also seems unnecessary - but he has a point that the writing still has room to grow. DISCO S3 is unquestionably better than the first two seasons, by leaps and bounds, yet it can be better still. The good news is that - fina-fuckin'-lee - it's actually reaching for that, despite the writer's limitations. Like confusing PTSD, a potentially deadly mental illness, with fear.

Most of the episode was good. I condemn the writers' lack of knowledge of what PTSD actually entails. Sure, they showed at least proper respect to non-Binary persons, which is legitimately good, but they managed to bitch-slap everyone who has a chronic trauma-induced mental condition while doing it, which is less good. That's a Burnham-grade writing decision, right there.

[Captain Crimson]

I want to revisit a point I'd brought up earlier, the bragging about how "more diverse" Star Trek has become. We see this with all sorts of older rebooted IPs the new, modern studios like to inject woke into it and pretend it's their own. I've seen people criticize this by waving it aside, "Well, Star Trek was always diverse." So which is it then? You cannot literally claim "more diverse" as you claim it was "always diverse" unless you want to look like a deliberate hypocrite.

[Mabus]

So on today's episode of Slowmo Trainwreck Disaster:

-More drama from the 50-year old teenage girl, now her cringe is tearing apart the fabric of space-time;
-"Atomic scan" of her body? What, is her negative attitude increasing the amount of electrons in her body? Or maybe her protons are turning into antiprotons.
-Michael Burnham is important.
-Oh, so now The Burn affected other objects than just ships. How convenient.
-"Sea locusts"? Really? Was calling them flying jellyfish be too Avatar-y?
-The Admiral is just there to remind people that the actor has bills to pay. Seriously, you can replace him with a carpet and it won't change the plot in any way. Everyone walks all over him.
-Oh no, Not!Ramsay Bolton was eaten by Theon's magic cock! Anyway...
-Of course the forgettable song was tied to The Burn in some way. Why else would they introduce it.
-Fain to knoweth yond the english language hasn't hath changed in 1000 years.
-Michael Burnham is important.
-How the Green Cringe stole Christmas.
-Discount bad accent square-jawed Karl Urban is supposed to be important but I don't think that even the actor knew what he was supposed to be, since in one scene he hates books, in another he's passive aggressive, in one scene he somehow knows about the Andorian, in another he's a traitor (I think) or just wants to protect his home planet or something, then suddenly he has a son... It's like they just put together whatever scenes they had lying around.
-Photon torpedoes that cause city killer-sized explosions from orbit, but up close they're just glorified car bombs... wait, that one's actually in line with other Trek visuals. Scratch that.
-Michael Burnham is important.
-Tillie's plan is... yeaaaaaaaah... no. You do realize you're just sending a non-Federation ship that was docked inside Discovery aka a Federation starship, to attack some other ship with the excuse of... "But it's not Starfleet! I mean, Federation! It's some other ship!" And you expect to get away with this... how exactly? The Grinch will believe you? The Admiral will take that excuse seriously? The ship came out of your fucking hangar bay. You didn't even bother to cloak it! It may not be Starfleet ship, but you carried it, from the Grinch's POV, you brought that ship to attack them. It's on you! Really. This is an excuse a kindergartner would try to use to fool his parents... oh look, the main villain doesn't buy the stupid ruse... how shocking... our heroes ladies and gentlemen! If the ship doesn't get impounded the next episode, Starfleet is lead by a bunch of spineless cardboard cutouts.
-What glorious space battle! 90% of it is just a bunch of close-ups of Book's ship (I'm just gonna call it bookshelf from now on). What, did a trance worm eat the episode's budget?
-"Shields are at 10%" well shit, one shot and you're de... oh wait, the Green Cringe will allow you exactly one minute to take your eyes off the viewscreen and say an important speech to the guy the Grinch wants dead or something. And then 3 more minutes so that Detmer can disable the ship. Better not shoot to blow up the bookshelf, otherwise the series will lose a main character. I'm talking about the cat of course.
-Also, didn't Detmer have PTSD? I guess her PTSD didn't renegotiate its contract with CBS.
-Michael Burnham is important.
-Oh look, all they needed to keep the bugs away was a large scale brainy ultrasonic technobabble. I guess those Kwejian researchers whose life depends on the food crops that the Avatar jellyfish are eating never considered the idea of using 900-year old science to fix the issue.
-Because Michael Burnham has to be important. Again.
-"They [Emerald Chain] are running out of dilithium" "I'm the only one who knows" REALLY? In the post-Burn galaxy which is running low on dilithium, the most important secret of a dilithium-wasting organization is that... they're running low on dilithium? *insert shocked animated Kirk face* YOU DON'T SAY!

I can't wait for the next week's episode, I heard it's the worst so far. It's a two-parter, so double the pain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxcC3H1Aabg