(TV) Star Trek: Discovery

[Endus]

So this is going to be semi spoilery


Last warning.....


DIS sort of lifted "Control" from the books. In those, Control was a an evolved version of Section 31's AI that predated the founding of the federation and was written put in place to secretly protect Earth. For oever 250 years Control existed and evolved and was the secret guiding hand behind the Federation.

Discovery's Control is a far bit different, but I think it is echoing some of it. Control is the secret power behind not just Section 31, but the Federation for 100 years. It's been evolving, and in the 28th Century it would evolve into a machine life form that conquered the entire galaxy. But the Red Angel stuff and the Sphere changed the timeline and accelerated its evolution, so Control is achieving its level of sophistication it would achieve centuries hence, now.

That's the big bad of the season. Not aliens or the borg, but a rogue Federation AI. Frankly, THE Federation AI. That's pretty new. Star Trek hasn't really explored that all that much.

I think the big key to this was the underscoring (I think last episode, maybe the one before) that there's no concrete connection between the red signals, and the red angel. The red angel often shows up at those signals, but not always. And it can show up without them, as it did with Spock.

I'm betting the "red" factor is going to be a temporal redshift or something; it's an indication that someone or something is traveling back in time to that point in spacetime. And there's two groups, in the future; there's some future enemy (possibly Control itself, at the height of its power, trying to supercharge its own evolution here to "win") that's causing the red signals, and the Red Angel is the one human(oid) able to fight back, by using the time-travel suit they either stole or built to try and fight that enemy's attempt to change the timeline.

If it IS Control, then in that future, they're winning, and there's likely no hope. If it's secured a win at that point in spacetime, it can either expand its reach spatially (and if it's throughout the galaxy, expanding to others is a big stretch), or it could expand it temporally, by ensuring it comes into its strength much sooner (and if it has time-travel tech, this may be much easier for it than expanding outside the galaxy). So the timeline as it stands, without interference, Control wins. The timeline, as Control wants it, Control wins much sooner. So it's not going to be just about stopping the time-travel bullshit, but also fighting Control in the here and now.

If that's what they're doing, it's fantastic. If it isn't, I'm calling dibs on that plotline.

[WoWGoneBad]

I think the big key to this was the underscoring (I think last episode, maybe the one before) that there's no concrete connection between the red signals, and the red angel. The red angel often shows up at those signals, but not always. And it can show up without them, as it did with Spock.

I'm betting the "red" factor is going to be a temporal redshift or something; it's an indication that someone or something is traveling back in time to that point in spacetime. And there's two groups, in the future; there's some future enemy (possibly Control itself, at the height of its power, trying to supercharge its own evolution here to "win") that's causing the red signals, and the Red Angel is the one human(oid) able to fight back, by using the time-travel suit they either stole or built to try and fight that enemy's attempt to change the timeline.

If it IS Control, then in that future, they're winning, and there's likely no hope. If it's secured a win at that point in spacetime, it can either expand its reach spatially (and if it's throughout the galaxy, expanding to others is a big stretch), or it could expand it temporally, by ensuring it comes into its strength much sooner (and if it has time-travel tech, this may be much easier for it than expanding outside the galaxy). So the timeline as it stands, without interference, Control wins. The timeline, as Control wants it, Control wins much sooner. So it's not going to be just about stopping the time-travel bullshit, but also fighting Control in the here and now.

If that's what they're doing, it's fantastic. If it isn't, I'm calling dibs on that plotline.

so we are getting a Terminator story in Discovery?........

If this was not a Bad Robot sister company producing I would be surprised but considering it is, this seems plausible. They did it in the movies so why not TV. Except for the fact it FAILED in the movies. So why go back to a bad formula

[fakaroonie]

I like the idea of Red Angel being a good AI and then the other being the bad AI.

[bloodkin]

This isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Blow up the Discovery, destroying the Spore Drive, and let's destroy all records of that tech because shit's fucked up. Crew escapes. Pike goes back to the Enterprise. The Enterprise, having been in dock for a while for repairs/overhaul, now needs new crew, since the old crew weren't waiting around a year or more; Pike takes his pick from the best on Discovery, since he knows what they're capable of.

Pull Saru in (because Doug Jones is fucking awesome), Tilley, New Spock (he was old Enterprise anyway, and I actually like the new guy), maybe some of the visible bridge crew like Keyla Detmer that we really don't know much about. Leave out Burnham, Ash Tyler, probably Stametz and Culber (I think they're great, but I also think they've run their course, story-wise, after this season). Introduce new characters to fill in the gaps.

Shift some of them around a bit; Tilley's the new Chief Engineer, youngest in Starfleet. Put Saru in charge of security; his new predatory instincts and intellect allow for a COMPLETELY new spin on the role for the series.

Keep Michelle Yeoh's Georgiou around occasionally, if you can, because she's great.



She's also not growing as a character. They gave her the best possible arc at the start of Season 1, and then basically ignored it, and hand-waved it away by the end of that season. Shifting to the Enterprise is a good excuse to dump her. I can't put all the blame on Martin-Green; she's been given pretty poor material to work with. Burnham's just angry or confused, like, all the time. Even her romance sideplot with Ash is mostly anger and confusion. Occasionally, disgust.

Agreed, that would be the best course, however I do expect thst we are going to get more of burnham forced to the front. I'm very annoyed that she's such a forced character to me, and her acting is worse than in the walking dead, in which I enjoyed her far more.

[Strawberry]

This is getting a bit annoying.

It's not "Star Trek Discovery", it's "Michael Burnham Show".

Michael Burnham, starts a war with the Klingons.
Michael Burnham, ends the war with the Klingons.
Michael Burnham, The Red Angel from the future.
Michael Burnham, the one who will save all sentient life in the galaxy.

Can they make it more Michael Burnham?

The funniest part about the latest episode is that everyone was watching her die on the big screen. How fucked up isn't that XD

[Endus]

This is getting a bit annoying.

It's not "Star Trek Discovery", it's "Michael Burnham Show".

Michael Burnham, starts a war with the Klingons.
Michael Burnham, ends the war with the Klingons.
Michael Burnham, The Red Angel from the future.
Michael Burnham, the one who will save all sentient life in the galaxy.

Can they make it more Michael Burnham?

The funniest part about the latest episode is that everyone was watching her die on the big screen. How fucked up isn't that XD

For the second two of those, try finishing the last episode. Because they're wrong.

[Ivanstone]

This is getting a bit annoying.

It's not "Star Trek Discovery", it's "Michael Burnham Show".

Michael Burnham, starts a war with the Klingons.
Michael Burnham, ends the war with the Klingons.
Michael Burnham, The Red Angel from the future.
Michael Burnham, the one who will save all sentient life in the galaxy.

Can they make it more Michael Burnham?

The funniest part about the latest episode is that everyone was watching her die on the big screen. How fucked up isn't that XD

Could be worse. She could've start the universe's sketchiest bromance with a near-omnipotent being who almost obliterated the Federation how many times?

Also the funniest part of the episode is watching Georgiou fuck with Stamets's head.

[Biomega]

Could be worse. She could've start the universe's sketchiest bromance with a near-omnipotent being who almost obliterated the Federation how many times?

Doesn't really count. The Federation was never REALLY in danger. The ST equivalent of "it was just a prank, bro!". Omnipotence just adds a little spice to it because it means you know it COULD happen. But it won't. But it could. But won't.

[Ivanstone]

Doesn't really count. The Federation was never REALLY in danger. The ST equivalent of "it was just a prank, bro!". Omnipotence just adds a little spice to it because it means you know it COULD happen. But it won't. But it could. But won't.

Point was that Picard was the focus of many, many episodes of TNG yet never seems to get any shit for it. Not that I think it was needed but he's an incredibly capable person who never gets called a "Mary Sue".

Also the Borg was a ghastly threat through TNG and VOY. That's a pretty lethal prank.

[Endus]

Point was that Picard was the focus of many, many episodes of TNG yet never seems to get any shit for it. Not that I think it was needed but he's an incredibly capable person who never gets called a "Mary Sue".

The hilarious thing about calling Burnham a "Mary Sue" is that Mary Sues are without flaw.

Burnham committed mutiny in her first episode and got kicked out of Starfleet and thrown in prison. That her rank was restored by the end of Season 1 does not change that. She's also demonstrated plenty of character flaws; she can be a poor friend, she has difficulty forgiving and moving past things, she's often too emotionally reserved.

I would agree that I think she's one of the least interesting characters in Discovery, and that there will be little reason to keep her past this season. The mutiny/pulled back into service without rank story was interesting, I thought. I would have preferred they not give her back her rank, ever. Without that, we've just got "she's Spock's sister", and that's just retreading Spock. And now we've GOT Spock, and the actor's great, so let's let Burnham move on and just stick with actual Spock, rather than surrogate almost-Spock.

That said, modern television is much more focused on long-arc storytelling with major central characters, than the episodic serialization of TNG, where it was easy to do one-off episodes every week focusing on a different crew member. We keep focusing on Burnham because the plots of both seasons integrally involve Burnham; the only way to get around that would be to remove the season-wide plot arc, and I don't think that's an improvement. It's a hallmark of when people would miss episodes and not have PVRs set to auto-record; in this day and age, between PVRs and on-demand streaming, you don't have to skip an episode, and long-form storytelling is preferable overall.

[Kithelle]

Doing so great that even the shills are giving up on this dumpster fire...only 60% from critics

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/st...covery/s02/e10

[Ivanstone]

The hilarious thing about calling Burnham a "Mary Sue" is that Mary Sues are without flaw.
.

The second most hilarious thing about the recent episode was Spock roasting Burnham. McCoy had it easy by comparison.

[Endus]

Doing so great that even the shills are giving up on this dumpster fire...only 60% from critics

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/st...covery/s02/e10

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/franchise/star_trek/

The overall is 83%.

That puts it lightyears ahead of Enterprise, ahead of Voyager and TOS, and somewhat behind TNG and DS9.

[Spike`]

its to much Michael Burnham, i have no problem at all a character having more importance but this is really to far especially on a spaceship crew, its sad that i see on The Orville alot more of this than in Discovery

i even see more of the ship people and interact with them in The Orville then in Discovery

but as of Discovery can't really get why the need to capture the Red Angel if its helping them especially if the AI is already here, so the cut the wormhole and capture the Red Angel doesn't make any sense now or its just me that failed to see something

[Endus]

but as of Discovery can't really get why the need to capture the Red Angel if its helping them especially if the AI is already here, so the cut the wormhole and capture the Red Angel doesn't make any sense now or its just me that failed to see something

They can't figure out what it's doing/planning. They know it's helping, but they don't know how THEY can help, because it can't communicate with them because of the tech it's using.

So they fucked with that tech, so they can have a chat and get some real answers.

[Independent voter]

This last episode was solid and very much a "Trek" episode. Hope to see more of the same in the future.

[draykorinee]

Are we really back to Burnham being a Mary Sue after all the times she's been saved by others after fucking it all up...

Michael Burnham, The Red Angel from the future.
Michael Burnham, the one who will save all sentient life in the galaxy.

At least we all know you don't watch the show your criticising.

[Strawberry]

Are we really back to Burnham being a Mary Sue after all the times she's been saved by others after fucking it all up...



At least we all know you don't watch the show your criticising.

Oh yeah? Just because the story changed at the end of the latest episode?
I watched it alright, just because the story was changed doesn't change the fact that the story WAS about her being the red angel, so my post was correct.

[Endus]

Oh yeah? Just because the story changed at the end of the latest episode?
I watched it alright, just because the story was changed doesn't change the fact that the story WAS about her being the red angel, so my post was correct.

Except she never was, and thus your post was not correct.

The story didn't "change". You made an assumption that was wrong.

[Strawberry]

Except she never was, and thus your post was not correct.

The story didn't "change". You made an assumption that was wrong.

Holy shit you must be fun at parties.
The story about her WAS right until the very end when IT WAS CHANGED.
You have to be in the story as it's going, not watch it completely and say "yeah I knew everything and the ending from the start of the episode".
Man I'm fucking done.