🖖 Star Trek returning to small screens :starfleet:

[pap]

Two weeks without a Star Trek Discovery update? That is unfortunate, especially given the quality of last night’s mid-season finale. Perhaps I’m still basking in the warm glow of its joys, but I’m having trouble remembering a better episode of Trek, especially if I constrain myself to the more action-oriented episodes.

Last week’s cliffhanger set us up nicely. The crew of the Discovery are orbiting a planet of newly discovered sentient life. The Klingons are on their way to destroy the life on that planet. Burnham states the stakes pretty firmly. If Discovery leaves the planet, the sentient beings on the planet will be annihiliated. Here we begin.

Fearing the loss of the Discovery to their foe, Starfleet orders Lorca to return to Starbase 46, an order he appears to obey, but defies as soon a the Admiral is off the blower. Plan B involves hanging around, waiting for the Klingon flagship, and attempting to eke out the secrets of the cloaking technology. This puts the entire ship at stake, naturally, but few more so than Tyler, Burnham and Stamets.

Tyler and Burnham have to secrete themselves onto the Klingon flagship to place some sensors. Stamets, the navigator of the spore drive, has to make 133 jumps in quick succession, something that everyone knows is a risky idea by the time he has asked to do it. The cat is well and truly out of the bag regarding his condition this week.

I don’t want to spoil the end of the episode, but a lot of things get tied up very satisfactorily. It has both kinds of classic Star Trek scrap, ship to ship battles and intergalactic fisticuffs, and it’s all in service of the narrative.

Theory Trek wise, there’s more evidence that Voq = Tyler this week, which will end up being the worst kept secret in Trek if true. They tried. Another interesting theory doing the rounds is that the whole of Discovery is set in the Mirror Universe. Something to reflect on until January, perhaps. There is no more Trek until then. It’s just as well that the mid season finale will live long in the memory.

[PhilippineSaint]

Personally Dr Who is better than any Trek

And i have watched most episodes of both series.

[pap]

I think you’ve got rose-tinted specs on, or you’ve forgotten many years of low budget Who. Didn’t Pertwee spend years just hanging out with The Brigadier?

[Polski_Filip]

Good review Pap.

That was one of the best Trek episodes since Voyager

Really enjoying the love the writers have now for the show and it’ history.

[Saint-or-sinner]

You’re caught up in the flashing lights @pap

Dr Who has always had a superior script, whilst being 50% shorter(never been interrupted by an advert either).

That episode could have been really good, but what a shit start. You have to send two people, to what should be their obvious death and you allow two of the most important senior officers to go? Fuck off, you’re sacked.

The middle was good.

The end was predictable dross(but the middle was good enough to over look this(but not the start, that was unforgivable)).

What the fuck is a mid season finale?

Have you all gone mental? A season is weather related(as people are soon to remember). And stopping a series under any guise half way through is taking the piss out of the gullible.

American tv is a fucking idiots game.

[pap]

Not really sure you understand how fiction works, SoS.

The two people were sent on the away mission because these are two of the people we know the best. Furthermore, Lorca really didn’t want to send one of them. That, by the way happens because the writers are showing that given a similar situation, Burnham has grown.

Then you look at how both their times ended up by the end of the episode, and it makes total sense, from plot and fiction perspective.

As for the end of the show, yes, we all saw most of that coming, because the show telegraphed it big style earlier in the episode. Perhaps you missed it, but I never predicted Lorca would deliberately stitch the jump (and Stamets) up.

I’ve got two months to stew on it. That’s what they call a mid season finale.

[PhilippineSaint]

You mean I have to wait 2 months for the next episode oh shit!

Anyway Dr Who will be back by then

[Saint-or-sinner]

I understand it just fine. I also understand there is good fiction and shit fiction.

The two people were sent on the away mission because these are two of the people we know the best. Furthermore, Lorca really didn’t want to send one of them. That, by the way happens because the writers are showing that given a similar situation, Burnham has grown.

Then you look at how both their times ended up by the end of the episode, and it makes total sense, from plot and fiction perspective.

One was a new character just the other week, but since then the two of them have been on every mission together. It’s been turned into fucking love boat in space.

As for the end of the show, yes, we all saw most of that coming, because the show telegraphed it big style earlier in the episode. Perhaps you missed it, but I never predicted Lorca would deliberately stitch the jump (and Stamets) up.

I didn’t predict it either, but it’s not surprising and has been done before. Lazy writing.

I’ve got two months to stew on it. That’s what they call a mid season finale.

Mid series and finale surely don’t belong together.

You’re a marketing man’s dream punter

[pap]

Alright then, @saint-or-sinner . Tell us how that episode could have been improved.

And as for marketing, guilty as charged. I was plugging this show before it had even been cast.

[Saint-or-sinner]

They could desist from turning it into love boat in space. That would help a lot. The way they have forced it is laughable. There is no real story to justify it. Weak and predictable to tick a required marketeers box.

But, i’m still watching it remember, so it’s not all bad(until they stopped me watching halfway through the series. That is bad).

I like it @pap but they do seem to be doing all in their power to ruin it. The base of all the stories have been good, but diminished by shit brain dead filler. I find that very annoying. The captain, her with the blokes name, the gay bloke and the lanky one are the only characters in it(need to dump the love interest, he’s shit and the whiny one is just there as filler. Although, as i predicted, she has been told, she will indeed make captain. That’s fucking laughable). They really need to expand it. Who’s the little one with the facepaint that looks like they should be in Covent Garden? That one layer of facepaint is one more layer than you’ll ever get out of the love interest.

Remind me in two months(your honesty in your last paragraph makes this a given) and i will watch it again(and moan, i’m sure).

[pap]

What a script! Let’s get that on screen, sharpish.

[Polski_Filip]

I’m kind of surprised everyone missed one epoch changing moment in this weeks episode.

The first ever Gay Kiss.

Now about Mid Season Breaks.

Next weekend it will be Thanksgiving. So every traditional TV show will be pulling out the BIG EVENTS.

Then every show on US TV runs intgo Christmas and Holiday Season and audiences tend to only watch stuff with Santa and shit.

Finally, they were pushing the envelope all the way and filming was delayed. However the CBS All Access Pass is their game changing platform entry into streaming - which EVERY other studio is now doing. They had to hit release date which was already delayed.

Simple fact is that they only finished filming about 3 weeks ago and the VFX/CGI crew simply aren’t ready to release the completed new episodes yet.

Courtesy of Trekcore btw not me being ITK nerdy.

[Saint-or-sinner]

Where? You never asked for a script, only how the episode could be improved.

If you wanted a script you could have saved us both some time by just asking, saving me the time writing the above and this.

No(just in case you were going to ask).

[Bearsy]

v.wise. It’s not like he’d back down if you handed in a superior script. He’d have made you film it.

[pap]

So taking out five to ten minutes and replacing it with nowt, then?

[Saint-or-sinner]

There are people that get paid very well to do that job. Moan at them for their lazy attitude to content and yourself for accepting it.

[pap]

Complaining without offering a solution is just whining.

[Saint-or-sinner]

Damm, someone has already taken the whinging role

Maybe next time.

P. S If you read back you may find i suggested exploring other characters.

[pap]

I honestly don’t know why you find the relationships so troublesome. All of them are serving the narrative in better ways than not doing them would. We care more about Stamets because we also care about Culver. We know the Tyler=Voq thing will hit even harder because Burnham thinks so much of him. Cornwell’s relationship with Lorca has already provided crucial clues about his background that couldn’t have been gotten at any other way.

Besides, the older Trek was far more unrealistic in this regard. People not wanting to shag the only other people for light years around. What’s up with that?

[Saint-or-sinner]

I’m with you on the other relationships, but the instant love match forced on us(together every mission) is just shit. Isn’t she part Klingon? Are they normally impetuous?

Was he an after thought, because someone had an idea(voq relationship maybe) and they wanted to work it in? That’s how it looks. Think back, he was a prisoner being tortured and the next day he’s fucking security chief of not just a starship, but the most important one, going on every mission, whilst failing in love.

I would kill him off as quick as they can, but they won’t, they’ll take the lazy option.

Forget love boat, it’ll end up more, Jeremy Kyle in space.