1) A word or several on the episode title before I hit 'play'. Kobayashi Maru of course refers to the test of character seen at the start of "The Wrath of Khan". Kirk 'beat' the simulation by re-programming it. A Trek novel (also called "Kobayashi Maru") details that plus how Chekov, Sulu and Scotty dealt with the test. Chekov blew up his own ship to take the Klingon attackers with him, Sulu avoided the fight entirely by refusing to enter the neutral zone and violate the treaty, Scotty kept improvising engineering solutions and tactics until the simulator had to throw an overwhelming force at him to destroy his ship. Somehow, I doubt that Burnham's solution to the test would have been particularly good. But who knows, maybe they're about to reveal that
she was the one to beat it rather than Kirk.
2) And yes...I'm stalling. Alright, here goes. *hits play, is immediately hit with a wave of regret*
3) Oh good. A recap. Just what we needed, a reminder of how the plot of last season was utter ********.
4) Though I do find it amusing that at the end of the season they turned the USS Discoball into a glorified dilithium freighter, using her to deliver the crystals with the Super Duper Spore Drive™
5) The episode begins. Vaguely ominous music.
6) Book's ship popping out, and doing a wholly unnecessary pull-apart-and-recombine. VFX team must have wanted to have some fun.
7) Burnham and Book on diplomatic duty. What could possibly go wrong?
8) Yep, already bored.
9) I expect this is meant to be either funny, or exciting, or a combination thereof.
10) Bored. Bored. Bored.
11) Tilly knows Burnham all too well.
12) Deeply uninteresting exposition from Disco crew.
13) Hot damn is Burnham heroic
14) Send out the cute robots!
15) If that's how all of Burnham's diplomatic missions have gone then...well, you can imagine my total lack of surprise.
16) I sit through all that, and all I get for my troubles is the only Trek theme and intro more boring than the one in PIC.
17) Hol' up. When did SMG gain a producer credit? And not even a co-producer.
18) Half of the credits are producers of various kinds, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
19) Down on Kaminar. Debate ongoing.
20) Heeeeeeeeeeere's Saru.
21) Who at least is someone who can be a diplomat.
22) And is indeed doing diplomacy. Rather than whatever the hell Burnham was doing.
23) Oh, that's a shame. We're back with the Disco. Witless dialogue ensues.
24) Tribble? Moving rather quickly for one though. Probably the least of the continuity concerns, mind.
25) Right, pausing a minute here. Burnham is getting pissy about the Fed president 'using' the occasion of Starfleet Academy getting going again after 125 years. But, we know Starfleet continued to operate all that time. We've seen a bunch of starships at the Federation HQ where Vance works. So are they all crewed by incredibly old people? Perhaps Starfleet has been relying on NCOs to crew their ships all this time? Nevertheless, are the STD writers
seriously expecting the audience to believe that for over a century there has been no Starfleet Academy of any kind? Bull. Of course there has to have been a training centre, presumably at the previously mentioned Federation HQ. So...what, the announcement is just them nailing a big 'Starfleet Academy' sign over the door to this training centre?
HELLO, EARTH TO STD WRITERS, SANITY CHECK YOUR GOD DAMNED WORK!!!!!!!!
*rage*
26) Oh yeah, and Book is popping home for a ceremony involving his nephew coming of age. That's going to be a plot point.
27) Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored.
28) Bored.
29) Book making a salient point about Burnham's almost suicidal overconfidence earlier. All handwaved away by Burnham saying that it worked
30) Federation back up to 59 active member states.
31) Boring speech delivered in boring fashion by boring actress playing boring character.
32) Bored.
33) President Laira Rillak, played by Chelah Horsdal. Hopefully won't turn out to be a clichéd obstructive politician, but you know how this series loves to mine tropes until there's nothing left...
34) Yes, yes. Today would not be possible without the USS Discovery and her brave, magnificent crew. All hail Michael Burnham, One True Light, Saviour Of The Whole Galaxy
35) Exposition.
36) Cute. The Archer spacedock, and then the soundtrack picks up "Archer's Theme" (from the end credits of ENT).
37) More exposition.
38) VFX team earned their corn.
39) Vague approximation of wit from Tilly and Burnham here.
40) "Emergency. Emergency. There's an emergency going on. It's still going on. It's still an emergency."
41) Impressive lack of urgency from everyone here. I know the Super Duper Spore Drive™ makes travel as good as instant but you'd have thought a space station in serious trouble would be an 'all hands, emergency departure' kind of deal.
42) President Rillak wants to go with. Burnham, for once, being intelligent and not wanting to bring her along.
43) Rillak no-sells her objection. What was it I said at 33) again?
44) Pausing again here. Why does this antagonism that Burnham is displaying regarding the President feel like it's coming out of nowhere?
Oh. Right. Because
it is.
Maybe something happened off-screen between stories which this series will get around to later. Or maybe it's simply that the writers are (incompetently) designating the President as an antagonist for Burnham to expose/defeat/win over with her awesomeness/whatever. Place your bets now!
45) Still wasting time during an emergency to have whatever this conversation is.
46) 32nd century transporters really do help you make a Dramatic Entrance™.
47) Go go Super Duper Spore Drive™.
48) The President utterly unruffled by the jump. Burnham disappointed. This pleases me.
49) The station is taking a wild ol' tumble. Hope the artificial gravity is still up, or the crew onboard are going to be pretty much minced by now
50) Meanwhile on Kwejian...
51) The ceremony for Book's nephew.
52) There's probably a really good reason why the story has come to a shuddering halt for this.
53) Ominous bird flocking.
54) Back with the station emergency, Tilly rattling off the figures for how screwed the station actually is.
55) Yes, yes. You've figured out what possibly happened. D'you maybe wanna concentrate on a rescue plan?
56) Well, at least they're finally getting around to it.
57) Plan of action then. Still reckon Owosekun and Detmer are in a relationship.
58) VFX team get to play again.
59) Tal still talking to themselves. Gray talking like they're going to get a corporeal body at some point.
60) Technobabble, alive and well.
61) Solve one problem, another one immediately crops up. No tropes untouched here.
62) Amazing that chunks of frozen methane can do all this damage through shields. It's almost as if the writers don't know **** about ****...
63) Hooray for continuity! The Heisenberg compensators getting a name-drop. This is the device that makes transporters work, making sure that anything going through the process doesn't get scrambled to all hell. How do they work? Time Magazine asked this of
Mike Okuda way back. His response? "They work just fine, thank you."
64) An escape ship that's only programmed for one-way trips. That seems...short-sighted. Almost bizarrely so. Kinda like an idea that a writer who's a complete hack might make up.
65) Witless dialogue, culminating in Burnham deciding to go do something heroic.
'Woo'.
66) And then everything comes to a shuddering halt for a truly dumb argument between Burnham and the President that goes nowhere, does nothing, and seems to exist only to provide a vague approximation of tension while completely killing the pacing.
'Woo'. Again.
67) Jesus, now we're back to Kaminar. This episode really is all over the place in every respect.
68) Saru and Su'Kal having a heart-to-heart.
69) Nuh uh. This one doesn't deserve my customary 69 joke.
70) I'm gonna let the episode off for halting the story for this, because this is a genuinely well-acted scene.
71) And all too soon it's gone, replaced with a VFX fest and Burnham's 'only I can save the day' act.
72) Right up until her pod gets walloped. Sadly, this won't kill her.
73) Neatish directorial touch, taking the sound away after the impact.
74) Technobabble. Burnham in Iron Bonehead mode.
75) Station captain Nalas wigging out. The President appealing to him for calm. And seems to be succeeding.
76) Burnham angry that someone else got to do some saving of the day so decides that now is the perfect time to get pissy at the President over the comm link. Honest to God, she is genuinely the least intelligent character ever seen in a Star Trek series.
77) Bit of a timeskip there, Burnham is out of her spacesuit.
78) 'Tension', such as it is, ramping up. And now I understand why they picked this episode title. The whole deal is a real life (in-universe) Kobayashi Maru test.
79) *strangled screaming* Please make this stop.
80) Well, that's some precious seconds wasted on a pointless argument. Good job team.
81) We rejoin the action from 53) at Kwejian, with Book and Kyheem figuring out what got the birds spooked. Which will be important to the whole season ahead.
82) Yep. Things are about to seriously turn to worms. World-ending anomaly in space. And while Book probably has plot armour I'm not sure his brother and nephew do. So, Kwejian is probably going to be destroyed. Will it stay that way at the end of this season or will they find a big Reset Button™?
83) Escape ship is back. Tilly, Adira and Nalas piling on.
84) I mean...there's no way Nalas is making the end of this episode alive, right?
85) That's gonna leave a mark.
86) Called it at 84).
87) Burnham's gonna pout about it.
88) President name-drops Kobayashi Maru, Burnham leaping straight to this meaning that she was in Starfleet. I mean...maybe, or maybe she just read up on it before re-opening (still think this is a dumb plot point) the Academy? Or was told about it by Vance?
89) Witless dialogue ensues.
90) This is all stupid and terrible and I hate it.
91) That's mildly amusing. The President says that Burnham isn't qualified to captain the new USS Voyager testbed and Burnham goes straight to a Princess Stampyfoot™ "well, I didn't want the job anyway so neeerrrr!!!"
92) The President pointing out that Burnham is a wrecking ball. Genuinely might be the quickest that any other character in all of STD has had Burnham 100% figured out.
93) Burnham going with 'snotty' as her response to someone so thoroughly having her number.
94) Book returns. Trouble.
95) Guess that confirms 82). And shades of the intro to "The Undiscovered Country". In that film, the Excelsior science officer Valtane says something like "I've confirmed the location of Praxis but...I cannot confirm the
existence of Praxis". Owosekun here: "I inputted Kwejian's co-ordinates, but...". Book: "What?" Owosekun: "Nothing's there."
96) Yeah, I don't think your brother and nephew lived through that one Book.
97) Quite the downer ending.
I can live with it
