1) I just know I'm gonna hate this episode, because I liked elements of the last one. And that's been the constant pattern with this whole series so far - one half-step forward, six steps backwards through Bad Writing Junction and off of a cliff.
2) Even the title has irritated me. Because they
aren't going to die trying. At least, no-one who deserves to die will.
3) Wheee, an actual Captain's Log!
4) Saru's hope regarding Federation eagerness for their arrival will almost certainly be misplaced.
5) Burnham winding up for a speech.
6) *phew* False alarm.
7) Burnham still has questions about her mother that she wants answers to.
8) I think I said back in Season 2 that Anson Mount's Pike felt like a character from a better series had been dropped into STD? Doug Jones appears to be stepping into that breach. Pity SMG can't, since the show still wants to stick Burnham near the front-and-centre.
9) Got where they're going, anyway. Even if it is shrouded.
10) I suppose there's a really good reason why the Discoball has that open flight deck at the back? I mean, one issue with power to the forcefield at the back there and a whole lot of the secondary hull is exposed to vacuum. Was a door just not 'cool' enough?
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11) VFX team worked overtime on this.
12) I expect I'm supposed to care about this moment.
13) Crew geeking out.
14) Nhan wondering what the range of a scout vessel is. Probably not all that far if dilithium is scarce, no?
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15) The Voyager-J. Only a few ship names ever get the suffix letter treatment.
16) Saru ordering a hail that they're 'reporting for duty'. Excuse me while I contemplate the sweet embrace of the 'stop' button to escape this writing.
17) Starfleet appearing to not be in wildly trusting mood, taking remote control of the docking. Can't say I blame them.
18) Bored.
19) Boring intro is boring.
20) Bored.
21) Kazon getting a name-drop in the foreground there. Federation expanded into the Delta quadrant?
22) Hey, it's Ardeth Bay from the 'Mummy' films as Vance
23) Still on about contact being limited with far flung planets. I get real-time communications not being available, but it really shouldn't be as limited as all this.
24) Kaminar joined the Federation. Saru heartened by this.
25) Orions and Androrians in the Sigma Draconis system, a system (in)famous in Trek lore as it's where the original series episode "Spock's Brain" was mostly set.
26) "It's the Emerald Chain". Going to be significant, presumably.
27) And someone called Osira or Osyra or Osyraa (edit - seen all three spellings on t'internet so far) is becoming brazen. Hope this one is a better class of bad guy than Zareh was.
28) Tal telling Vance that they (as Senna Tal) didn't mean to keep him waiting. A vaguely touching moment between the pair, then stomped on by Vance pointing out that he doesn't know Adira at all.
29) A medical emergency going on downstairs that Burnham tries to butt into.
30) Saru and Burnham desperate to get to work. And Vance quite rightly pointing out that a debrief comes first.
31) Pausing for a moment to rant. The Discoball and her crew have come crashing 930 years into the future. Is it really all that likely that they'd think they could just go straight to work? No debrief, no questions about what happened back in the 2250s, no briefing on the geopolitics of the future, no refitting the Discoball to get it up to code (or even a whole different ship)? How could they possibly think that there would be nothing like that?
HELLO, EARTH TO STD WRITERS, SANITY CHECK THIS STUFF THAT YOU'RE CRAPPING OUT
BEFORE FILMING IT!
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32) Debrief time.
33) Guy with no sense of personal space.
34) Exposition, of sorts. But not like it's saying much new.
35) Personal space guy is an AI called Eli.
36) 38 known Federation member worlds, from 350 at the peak.
37) The subspace relays went down, hence the lack of contact. No explanation as to why they went down - doesn't seem too likely to be linked to the Burn's effect on dilithium, since most relays were always depicted as self-contained satellites rather than being warp-powered.
38) Tee hee. Burnham shot down in flames as she tries to discuss the Burn.
39) Vance laying out why he's not leaping straight up to trust them.
40) Links to the temporal ******** from the first three seasons of ENT.
41) Aaaaand there it goes, walking into itself again. So the Discoball arriving here is a crime because time travel is outlawed. But time travel wasn't even really understood let alone banned in the 2250s. So the Disco crew are criminals even though there was no way for them to know that what they were doing would be criminalised by the time they came barrelling out of the time vortex. Sure. Okay.
42) Saru going with indignant. Burnham going with snotty.
43) Vance taking the Discoball for examination and presumably getting it at least vaguely up the 32nd century's idea of spaceworthy.
44) Saru shocked at the idea that the crew will be debriefed and then all given assignments that will scatter them. And again, why would he be shocked at this?
45) Burnham wanging on about how 'her' Federation would understand that they can't split up the brave and mighty crew of the Discoball. Jesus *******
Christ...
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46) Please make it stop.
47) Please.
48) Burham wittering on about helping the aliens with the medical emergency to prove to Vance how worthy they all are. Seriously thinking about killing myself.
49) Saru scolding her, so at least that's something.
50) Bets on Burnham going rogue?
51) Saru trying to sell what's going on to the crew. Gigantic 'who cares'.
52) Bored.
53) Bored.
54) Bored.
55) Crew debrief. Culber up.
56) See,
that was amusing. "Clinically dead?" "Well, I was emotionally dead too."
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57) Also amusing from Reno about how it was raining Starfleet officers when they found her. Wonder if any bits of the guy who got smooshed by the rogue asteroid made it all the way down?
58) "What do you know about the Emerald Chain?" There's that again. An alliance of Orions and Andorians who are presumably now the bad guys going forward. Right up until the writers get bored and hand someone else the Villain Ball™.
59) Tilly's confusion-fu game is strong.
60) Nhan going with name, rank, serial number.
61) Burnham still cruising for a spacewalk
sans suit.
62) Oh good. !Georgiou. Just what this episode needed.
63) Yep, witless dialogue ensues.
64) Did David Cronenberg lose a bet? Or is he slumming it in this dreck to do someone a favour?
65) I guess that's what passes for "Kirk talks a computer to death" in this series. Hey ho.
66) Continuing witless dialogue.
67) Meanwhile in sickbay, SW-esque medical robots.
68) Three...two...one...
69)
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70) Exposition, or close approximation thereof.
71) Burnham still going with snotty as her default for dealing with future people.
72) If the writers had any balls they'd make the Discoball crew wrong here, and show them up as needing to learn a whole lot more about the universe that they're now in. That won't happen, of course. Once again the Discoball crew will be famed in song and story
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73) *strangled scream* Yes, okay, so the starship Tikhov from back in the 2250s had this vast plant and seed catalogue. And according to Vance the ship is still around, albeit five months away. But why the hell would that ship and catalogue still exist in the 3180s?
74) That bit about wasting time getting another crew ready to fly the Disco would be a good point from anyone other than Burnham. As it is, it just comes off as her being an arrogant ****.
75) Vance singularly unimpressed, as he would be.
76) Saru acting as peacemaker, which of course gives the writers the chance to put Burnham in the captain's chair on the Disco
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77) Pausing again here for another rant. Last week it was Burnham going down to the Trill world even though there were many other people better qualified or suited to the job. And, lo and behold, it nearly turned to worms. This week it's Saru remaining behind and Burnham taking command of the Discoball because reasons.
78) I really want this show to be better, and it isn't.
79) See, what was the point in that snide comment from the security lady? Did the scene really need more conflict?
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80) Ticking clock.
81) Ion storm. So of course Burnham is ordering the ship to charge headlong into it.
82) Clearly not the 2250s Tikhov then. So what was all that rubbish about at 73)?
83) Detmer's PTSD acting up.
84) Encouraging words from Owosekun. Either those two are banging, or they're just incredibly close heterosexual life partners.
85) The radiation isn't a threat, but it's odd. So Tilly's poking around.
85) Pausing again because I don't understand this. And I don't think I'm being thick here, but I genuinely don't get this part of the story. For 500 years every planet in the Federation has taken turns at looking after the Tikhov and the plant catalogue. And Burnham knows this, because she was briefed or found it out during her year waiting for the Discoball. But if the Tikhov was being looked after then why is it five months away into another part of space from Federation HQ in the middle of an ion storm? Or was it placed inside the ion storm deliberately, which would be a hell of a dangerous way to hide it?
Why does
nothing in this show ever make any sense?
86) Barzans were the last ones looking after the Tikhov, so Nhan's up.
87) Security lady Willa still going with antagonistic.
88) Burnham going with away team, so bridge bunny Rhys gets the conn. Presumably there's no-one past the rank of Lieutenant onboard who isn't needed where they are.
89) Bored. Bored. Bored.
90) Bored.
91) "A lifesign just blinked on and then off again." And because Burnham is about as genre-savvy as a spectacularly unintelligent turnip she puts it down to the radiation interference
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92) This episode is seriously only halfway through. It's got all the momentum of a glacier.
93) And yes, something is tracking them. Because of course it is.
94) Back with !Georgiou and whoever Cronenberg is playing.
95) Witless dialogue that even two very decent actors can't really elevate.
96) Not even exposition at this point. It's just words.
97) They did their best with it, bless 'em.
98) Meanwhile on the Tikhov, Burnham hasn't been murdered yet. Pity.
99) There's that lullaby again.
100) A nice moment between Culber and Nhan.
101) Zhan going through the logs, and we've got ourselves a problem.
102) Appropriate for a show with Cronenberg in it that it should head into horror territory.
103) Actual exposition.
104) Barzan guy, or whatever he is now, attacking Burnham. And yet she still lives. Damnit
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105) The away team having a conflab.
106) Yes, it's linked to the radiation. We were already here forever ago. GET ON WITH IT! /Python
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107) Tilly, Reno and Stamets on the case.
108) Willa attempting an amusing line, falling flat.
109) Magic Fun Time With Transporters™ combined with Radiation Does Weird Stuff™ happened.
110) Treknobabble.
111) Witless dialogue between Willa and the others.
112) Yes, of course Burnham is the only one who can get through to Barzan guy
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113) VFX team throwing money at the screen.
114) I don't get how a show can be so glacially free of pace, yet stuff feels rushed and coming out of nowhere. Like this between Burnham and Nhan, now we're all of a sudden into a morality play about Starfleet ideals vs cultural practices?
115) So Nhan is offering to stay on the Tikhov. Because reasons.
116) "If you stay, you'll be giving up your career." Yeah, 'cause a thousand years past everyone she ever knew I'm sure her career is foremost in her mind
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117) Witless dialogue, tripping over itself in order to elevate Burnham to sainthood
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118) Back at HQ.
119) Oh, no...please make this stop.
120) *strangled screaming*
121) *more strangled screaming*
122) *a frankly uncomfortable amount of strangled screaming*
123) Burnham still picking at the Burn.
124) Culber treating the aliens.
125) Complexity addiction from the writers in full effect, so add the mystery of the lullaby to the list of things that need to be resolved.
126) Weirdness from !Georgiou.
127) Bored.
128) Courage fanfare wasted on this dreck.
129) "Next time..." Booker returns. Hopefully the cat is back as well, as she's clearly the brains of the business.