DIS - An Obol for Charon

[Linkara]

Well, as for Kelpians not figuring it out until now, the Ba'ul maintain a very dictatorial control over them, with watchtowers and everything. Given what we later find out, they're VERY thorough in watching over them and making sure something like this doesn't happen. While some might have found out, they kill the ones that do so the knowledge doesn't spread.

I like this episode. Despite goofier and dumber non-science, I love, love, LOVE how Jett makes fun of the stupid magic mushrooms. She's a breath of fresh air in the show both with her attitude and how she recognizes how dumb the spore drive is. I like the development with Saru's people, and hey - the sphere download, unlike Voyager's "Twisted" where the alien database thing happened there, actually has plot relevance and importance later on.

[Taurian Patriot]

I honestly had to pause the review for about ten minutes after hearing that line from Michael so I could process it while making myself some soup.

I get that sci-fi writers aren't scientists themselves. I get that sci-fi usually fudges up things like the square-cube law, relativity, ground pressure, or evolution as neutral system of change rather than some arbitrary forward progress. Besides usually being excused by magical science, these are concepts far enough removed from daily life that they're easy to ignore for just about everybody except an actual scientist.

What I don't get is a writer having "smart" characters spouting lines that can be fact-checked by a ten-second Google search, in the event that none of them ever heard of polio, ebola, various influenza, or a little thing called HIV. Or that nobody who saw the script or edited the episode thought to take the line out, because it serves no purpose other than to make Michael look like a dribbling idiot who missed grade-school biology.

(Just to check, I typed "are viruses deadly?" into Google, and the top three results were articles on the deadliest viruses on Earth. It didn't even take ten seconds.)

Seeing Saru take a level in badass made me feel much better though.

[CrypticMirror]

"It is not logical for a virus to kill its host."

I can't believe anybody in showbiz would be so fucking dumb as to write that line. The amount of funerals I went to in the 1980s and 1990s puts the lie to that one right off the bat, it is just so awful that it is outright offensive.

But then what should I expect from Mickey Sue, I suppose. Then after that one she is all "Saru, I know you are dying and Imma gonna let you finish, but let me make your death bed all about me and Spock who I am totally the human sister of and legally required to remind people of at least once a chapter...sorry, episode". Yet another sterling Poochie moment.

And Saru's dying? Cool, I'll fire up the grill and someone fetch the BBQ sauce before they wuss out and let him li... Aww, too late. And he PokeVolved too?

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

"Saru, I know you are dying and Imma gonna let you finish, but let me make your death bed all about me and Spock who I am totally the human sister of and legally required to remind people of at least once a chapter...sorry, episode".

Is she saying this in an Italian accent?

[Thebestoftherest]

"Saru, I know you are dying and Imma gonna let you finish, but let me make your death bed all about me and Spock who I am totally the human sister of and legally required to remind people of at least once a chapter...sorry, episode".

Is she saying this in an Italian accent?

It a me, Micheal.

[CrypticMirror]

"Saru, I know you are dying and Imma gonna let you finish, but let me make your death bed all about me and Spock who I am totally the human sister of and legally required to remind people of at least once a chapter...sorry, episode".

Is she saying this in an Italian accent?

You know what, yes. Yes she is. She's Italian now, in my mind, which manages to make her at least a little more bearable and interesting to me.

[Sir Will]

"It's not logical for a virus to kill its host"

Parasite, you're thinking of a Parasite, Micheal. Viruses infect and move on, parasites set up shop and linger.

And even some of those kill their hosts as part of their lifecycle. Nature's weird and creepy.

[Sir Will]

the sphere download, unlike Voyager's "Twisted" where the alien database thing happened there, actually has plot relevance and importance later on.

Huh, now that IS something new.

[Mabus]

The whole "environmental" scene in the Engineering feels so forced I wonder if the ghost of Roddenberry's lawyer didn't just came back and actually wrote it.
But then again, Star Trek usually is as subtle as a jackhammer in a china shop.

[Deledrius]

Well, as for Kelpians not figuring it out until now, the Ba'ul maintain a very dictatorial control over them, with watchtowers and everything. Given what we later find out, they're VERY thorough in watching over them and making sure something like this doesn't happen. While some might have found out, they kill the ones that do so the knowledge doesn't spread.

I like this episode. Despite goofier and dumber non-science, I love, love, LOVE how Jett makes fun of the stupid magic mushrooms. She's a breath of fresh air in the show both with her attitude and how she recognizes how dumb the spore drive is. I like the development with Saru's people, and hey - the sphere download, unlike Voyager's "Twisted" where the alien database thing happened there, actually has plot relevance and importance later on.

You're probably right. If such a thing did happen, they probably eventually found out and wiped out the entire village and anyone who knew. And that's apparently normal enough it wouldn't cause suspicion, either.

The Stamets and Reno argument was almost good, but it's two people who are wrong arguing about being wrong, but not intentionally. It makes it hard for me to want to see either of them get in the last word.

I too really liked this one. I'm sad about where it ends up going, and I really hope season three follows up on it well (but I don't have much faith). The babel scene, the dying entity, and the Saru scenes really elevated this one for me.

They are writers that focus on writing story

I think that's debatable, too.

The whole "environmental" scene in the Engineering feels so forced I wonder if the ghost of Roddenberry's lawyer didn't just came back and actually wrote it.
But then again, Star Trek usually is as subtle as a jackhammer in a china shop.

I'm pretty sure this is part of the plot in the first-half that was setting things up for the second half we never got thanks to the second Purge behind the scenes. It really felt like this was going somewhere on the issues caused by the spore drive, before it's all swept under the rug and everyone acts like none of it happened during the CONTROL crisis.