New Star Trek series - 2017
- Thread starter Spit
- Start date
Pretty sure the actress identifies as non-binary as does the character.
Pretty sure Stamet's smug grin was "Well done for being so brave in speaking up".
Pretty sure i expected all the crew to walk in at that point and clap loudly.
Soldato
- Joined
- 30 Sep 2005
- Posts
- 16,684
Other than the crying and the constant social issues bring rammed down our throats, I'm actually quite enjoying this show.
I did wonder how long wed last in the 22nd century as I'm sure they were chomping at the bit to show us cool new tech.
I did wonder how long wed last in the 22nd century as I'm sure they were chomping at the bit to show us cool new tech.
Soldato
Just popped in after latest episode to see if it triggered folks. Surprise surprise it did lol.
Soldato
3x09 - Terra Firma, Part 1
1) An actual two parter this time, rather than...whatever the hell was going on with the title of the first episode this season.
2) Bored of me griping about the recaps? Imagine how bored I am of them
3) Future medical imaging tech.
4) David Cronenberg is back as Kovich. Hope this episode doesn't waste his talent as badly as his first appearance did.
5) Temporal Wars call-back (or indeed call-forward from Culber's PoV).
6) Romulan mining ship travelling through time - the Narada, I guess? So a JJTrek link.
7) Exposition.
8) Magical Fun Time With Computers™ is alive and well in the Trek universe.
9) Meanwhile, in the mess hall. Seems like this is where we left the bridge crew last week. At least when episodes started with log entries you could work out vaguely how much time had passed between one episode and the next.
10) !Georgiou not even slightly stable. To the point where her hand is passing through the glass that she's trying to pick up. So, how come she doesn't fall through the chair? And the deck? And the hull? And she can breathe the air? And...hey ho, not the first time in Trek for that particular hole in logic
11) Burnham with SMG's "I'm concerned and sad" look on her face.
12) Tilly.
13) On the receiving end of typical !Georgiou nastiness, because of course she is.
14) Burnham charging in to break it up. About 15 seconds too late on that one Michael, nice going
15) The magical solution the computer spat up is to go to Dannus V. No mention of what the cure actually is yet, just that it's there.
16) Pausing a moment. It's unfortunate for SMG. She's in a scene here alongside Doug Jones, Wilson Cruz, Oded Fehr - decent actors playing decent characters - and David Cronenberg, who is at least trying his best with the material handed to him. On a series like The Walking Dead she at least comes across as sort-of knowing what she's doing compared with many of the surrounding cast. Here, she's just taken me completely out of this scene because I was so annoyed with her delivery of the lines about the sphere.
Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh. Not good.
17) It's funny, the Disco crew seem very ready to trust the computer. If this was TOS, Kirk would doubtless end up having to talk it to death with deliberately faulty logic
18) Plan has a slim chance of succeeding. Slim of course being better than none, especially if it gets !Georgiou out of the series.
19) Welp, Saru pointing out the problem of Emerald Chain activity meaning they might not be able to go.
20) Gamma Quadrant name-dropped.
21) Vance authorising it. On one condition. And with an armour-piercing question - can Burnham let !Georgiou go and not **** the whole plan up?
22) Nice moment between Vance and Saru, done well by Oded Fehr and Doug Jones.
23) Burnham and !Georgiou's brand of witless dialogue.
24) !Georgiou trying to get Burnham to fight her. So, as wretched as this series is I did at least get to see Burnham getting slapped
25) More witless dialogue.
26) And back to SMG whispering. Which is also infecting Yeoh now as well
27) That was about ten minutes of awful (and one minute of vaguely decent with Fehr and Jones). And all I get for sitting through it is the crappy theme tune. Joygasm.
28) Discoball still got the shuttlebay open at the back. I wonder if there's a reason for that which actually makes sense?
29) Bored.
30) Boredom briefly alleviated by Jones killing it once more. I'm glad he was able to step up with Anson Mount's Pike leaving the story and SMG's complete inability to actually lead the show getting more and more pronounced.
31) And an apology of sorts to Tilly from !Georgiou. Wonders never cease.
32) Sphere data has sent them to...snow.
33) Tal still working on their algorithm.
34) Or not, as the case may be, because they accidentally left it paused. D'oh! At least Stamets spotted it.
35) Culber's return has clearly done wonders for Stamets. He's almost all of the way to a functioning, likable human being now.
36) The algorithm has finished working, and has produced...something. Something which requires the presence of the captain. So at least we've got some plot movement.
37) Sorkin walk-and-talk with Saru and Book.
38) Oh dear. Back with Burnham and !Georgiou.
39) So the sphere data said beam down to that previous location. And now they're walking, and walking a fair old way by the look of things. So, why didn't the sphere data put them closer? Or is that too straightforward and obvious for these writers?
40) Witless dialogue.
41) Hmm. Paul Guilfoyle, and a wooden door. That's weird. Did this series just become a Doctor Who expy?
42) "What d'you call a cute portal? A-door-able." Well, props for the pun. But what the hell is going on???
43) Okay. Fighting through the brain aneurysm that the story is giving me here. Neat bit of amour-piercing from 'Carl' (Paul Guilfoyle's character) there, pointing out that Burnham is being antagonistic towards him because she's angry with !Georgiou.
44) And Burnham has absolutely no response. Meanwhile, !Georgiou destabilising which at least gives the VFX team something to do while the plot goes completely off the rails.
45) *throws hands up* Okay, so it really is Doctor Who now. Sure. Whatever. Do what you want STD.
46) Fun scene transition there. Fade to black except for the snow falling, which becomes the stars in the VFX shot of the ship in orbit. Purty.
47) Oh. The distress call is/was a Kelpian.
48) The Kelpians were on a mission to investigate a dilithium nursery (a what now?) in the Verubin Nebula. Dilithium was always mined before this point in-universe (see the sixth film, and Rura Penthe). This series is racking up inconsistencies.
49) A plan, and prefix codes getting a mention so I'm going to pause because now I get to reference Wrath of Khan
In that film, following the surprise attack on the Enterprise by the Reliant after Khan had stolen her, the Enterprise had only a few shots of phaser power left in her which wouldn't have gotten through the Reliant's shielding. But Kirk and Spock knew something that Khan didn't (or at least hadn't considered) - with the prefix code they could tap into the Reliant's computer and lower the shields, thereby allowing them to actually deal some damage with their remaining phaser power.
A similar trick reappeared in TNG's "The Wounded", where a Cardassian warship was given the rogue USS Phoenix's code in order to destroy the starship...but failed, because Cardassian warships were always crap and even a briefly shieldless Phoenix was more than a match.
50) Back on the planet.
51) Burnham truly is dumb, not understanding what Carl means when he says if !Georgiou goes through the door she'll end up on the other side For those of you who haven't quite kept up, or who suffered brain damage in the past from repeatedly bashing your head against a blunt object, it's very clearly a portal back to the mirror universe. Quite why Burnham couldn't have guessed that is beyond me.
52) "God, Michael. Know when to shut the hell up." Thank-you, !Georgiou. You may be one of the lousiest characters in this show and a complete waste of Michelle Yeoh, but you're spot on there.
53) Dragging the scene out.
54) Aaaaaaaaaaand she's back in the mirror universe with the mirror crew...on the mirror Discoball? So she's travelled back to a time before that ship was swapped with 'our' Disco and destroyed by the Klingons.
55) Welp, barely a minute in the mirror universe and I'm already over this. It was a neat idea when first used in TOS. It was problematic when used in DS9 because of the way they changed up how the mirror characters behaved, turning them from Federation-but-darker into morally ambiguous rebels fighting for survival in the case of most of them (though Worf as Regent with Garak as a snivelling minion was fun, as was Kira as The Intendant) and making all the women bisexual because [reasons]. And it flat out sucked in STD's first season.
56) Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored.
57) Called it at the second half of 54).
58) Bored.
59) Yeah, I'm just gonna tune out for a moment while this bit of the story whips me into a light coma.
60) *snore*
61) Yes, yes, mirror universe evil. We get it.
62) If the rest of this episode is this, I might as well just hit stop now.
63) I should have waited until after 5pm to do this so I could have a drink or twelve.
64) A spot of awful poetry from !Stamets.
65) Theatre here used for filler to pad out the episode runtime.
66) Buh-bye !Stamets.
67) !Burnham no smarter than 'our' Burnham then.
68) Though she at least has more of a grasp of what she is than Burnham does.
69) Nope. Not this time. This episode doesn't deserve it.
70) This scene would have been much better if, mid !Burnham speech, !Tilly had shot her in the back, muttered "oops" and sauntered off.
71) SMG heading into 'ham and cheese' territory with this bit of 'acting'.
72) Bond villain stupidity. From both of them.
73) "Next time..." Nothing of consequence in the mirror universe. Maybe a plot development in the prime one.
2) Bored of me griping about the recaps? Imagine how bored I am of them
3) Future medical imaging tech.
4) David Cronenberg is back as Kovich. Hope this episode doesn't waste his talent as badly as his first appearance did.
5) Temporal Wars call-back (or indeed call-forward from Culber's PoV).
6) Romulan mining ship travelling through time - the Narada, I guess? So a JJTrek link.
7) Exposition.
8) Magical Fun Time With Computers™ is alive and well in the Trek universe.
9) Meanwhile, in the mess hall. Seems like this is where we left the bridge crew last week. At least when episodes started with log entries you could work out vaguely how much time had passed between one episode and the next.
10) !Georgiou not even slightly stable. To the point where her hand is passing through the glass that she's trying to pick up. So, how come she doesn't fall through the chair? And the deck? And the hull? And she can breathe the air? And...hey ho, not the first time in Trek for that particular hole in logic
11) Burnham with SMG's "I'm concerned and sad" look on her face.
12) Tilly.
13) On the receiving end of typical !Georgiou nastiness, because of course she is.
14) Burnham charging in to break it up. About 15 seconds too late on that one Michael, nice going
15) The magical solution the computer spat up is to go to Dannus V. No mention of what the cure actually is yet, just that it's there.
16) Pausing a moment. It's unfortunate for SMG. She's in a scene here alongside Doug Jones, Wilson Cruz, Oded Fehr - decent actors playing decent characters - and David Cronenberg, who is at least trying his best with the material handed to him. On a series like The Walking Dead she at least comes across as sort-of knowing what she's doing compared with many of the surrounding cast. Here, she's just taken me completely out of this scene because I was so annoyed with her delivery of the lines about the sphere.
Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh. Not good.
17) It's funny, the Disco crew seem very ready to trust the computer. If this was TOS, Kirk would doubtless end up having to talk it to death with deliberately faulty logic
18) Plan has a slim chance of succeeding. Slim of course being better than none, especially if it gets !Georgiou out of the series.
19) Welp, Saru pointing out the problem of Emerald Chain activity meaning they might not be able to go.
20) Gamma Quadrant name-dropped.
21) Vance authorising it. On one condition. And with an armour-piercing question - can Burnham let !Georgiou go and not **** the whole plan up?
22) Nice moment between Vance and Saru, done well by Oded Fehr and Doug Jones.
23) Burnham and !Georgiou's brand of witless dialogue.
24) !Georgiou trying to get Burnham to fight her. So, as wretched as this series is I did at least get to see Burnham getting slapped
25) More witless dialogue.
26) And back to SMG whispering. Which is also infecting Yeoh now as well
27) That was about ten minutes of awful (and one minute of vaguely decent with Fehr and Jones). And all I get for sitting through it is the crappy theme tune. Joygasm.
28) Discoball still got the shuttlebay open at the back. I wonder if there's a reason for that which actually makes sense?
29) Bored.
30) Boredom briefly alleviated by Jones killing it once more. I'm glad he was able to step up with Anson Mount's Pike leaving the story and SMG's complete inability to actually lead the show getting more and more pronounced.
31) And an apology of sorts to Tilly from !Georgiou. Wonders never cease.
32) Sphere data has sent them to...snow.
33) Tal still working on their algorithm.
34) Or not, as the case may be, because they accidentally left it paused. D'oh! At least Stamets spotted it.
35) Culber's return has clearly done wonders for Stamets. He's almost all of the way to a functioning, likable human being now.
36) The algorithm has finished working, and has produced...something. Something which requires the presence of the captain. So at least we've got some plot movement.
37) Sorkin walk-and-talk with Saru and Book.
38) Oh dear. Back with Burnham and !Georgiou.
39) So the sphere data said beam down to that previous location. And now they're walking, and walking a fair old way by the look of things. So, why didn't the sphere data put them closer? Or is that too straightforward and obvious for these writers?
40) Witless dialogue.
41) Hmm. Paul Guilfoyle, and a wooden door. That's weird. Did this series just become a Doctor Who expy?
42) "What d'you call a cute portal? A-door-able." Well, props for the pun. But what the hell is going on???
43) Okay. Fighting through the brain aneurysm that the story is giving me here. Neat bit of amour-piercing from 'Carl' (Paul Guilfoyle's character) there, pointing out that Burnham is being antagonistic towards him because she's angry with !Georgiou.
44) And Burnham has absolutely no response. Meanwhile, !Georgiou destabilising which at least gives the VFX team something to do while the plot goes completely off the rails.
45) *throws hands up* Okay, so it really is Doctor Who now. Sure. Whatever. Do what you want STD.
46) Fun scene transition there. Fade to black except for the snow falling, which becomes the stars in the VFX shot of the ship in orbit. Purty.
47) Oh. The distress call is/was a Kelpian.
48) The Kelpians were on a mission to investigate a dilithium nursery (a what now?) in the Verubin Nebula. Dilithium was always mined before this point in-universe (see the sixth film, and Rura Penthe). This series is racking up inconsistencies.
49) A plan, and prefix codes getting a mention so I'm going to pause because now I get to reference Wrath of Khan
In that film, following the surprise attack on the Enterprise by the Reliant after Khan had stolen her, the Enterprise had only a few shots of phaser power left in her which wouldn't have gotten through the Reliant's shielding. But Kirk and Spock knew something that Khan didn't (or at least hadn't considered) - with the prefix code they could tap into the Reliant's computer and lower the shields, thereby allowing them to actually deal some damage with their remaining phaser power. A similar trick reappeared in TNG's "The Wounded", where a Cardassian warship was given the rogue USS Phoenix's code in order to destroy the starship...but failed, because Cardassian warships were always crap and even a briefly shieldless Phoenix was more than a match.
50) Back on the planet.
51) Burnham truly is dumb, not understanding what Carl means when he says if !Georgiou goes through the door she'll end up on the other side
For those of you who haven't quite kept up, or who suffered brain damage in the past from repeatedly bashing your head against a blunt object, it's very clearly a portal back to the mirror universe. Quite why Burnham couldn't have guessed that is beyond me.52) "God, Michael. Know when to shut the hell up." Thank-you, !Georgiou. You may be one of the lousiest characters in this show and a complete waste of Michelle Yeoh, but you're spot on there.
53) Dragging the scene out.
54) Aaaaaaaaaaand she's back in the mirror universe with the mirror crew...on the mirror Discoball? So she's travelled back to a time before that ship was swapped with 'our' Disco and destroyed by the Klingons.
55) Welp, barely a minute in the mirror universe and I'm already over this. It was a neat idea when first used in TOS. It was problematic when used in DS9 because of the way they changed up how the mirror characters behaved, turning them from Federation-but-darker into morally ambiguous rebels fighting for survival in the case of most of them (though Worf as Regent with Garak as a snivelling minion was fun, as was Kira as The Intendant) and making all the women bisexual because [reasons]. And it flat out sucked in STD's first season.
56) Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored.
57) Called it at the second half of 54).
58) Bored.
59) Yeah, I'm just gonna tune out for a moment while this bit of the story whips me into a light coma.
60) *snore*
61) Yes, yes, mirror universe evil. We get it.
62) If the rest of this episode is this, I might as well just hit stop now.
63) I should have waited until after 5pm to do this so I could have a drink or twelve.
64) A spot of awful poetry from !Stamets.
65) Theatre here used for filler to pad out the episode runtime.
66) Buh-bye !Stamets.
67) !Burnham no smarter than 'our' Burnham then.
68) Though she at least has more of a grasp of what she is than Burnham does.
69) Nope. Not this time. This episode doesn't deserve it.
70) This scene would have been much better if, mid !Burnham speech, !Tilly had shot her in the back, muttered "oops" and sauntered off.
71) SMG heading into 'ham and cheese' territory with this bit of 'acting'.
72) Bond villain stupidity. From both of them.
73) "Next time..." Nothing of consequence in the mirror universe. Maybe a plot development in the prime one.
The Good
- The bit after the briefing scene, with Vance and Saru.
- Stamets and Tal, with him trying to help them figure things out now that they can no longer see Gray.
- Doug Jones emoting through that Kelpian makeup.
- Potentially nearer to writing !Georgiou out.
- SMG's whispering as Burnham.
- SMG's delivering of her lines about the sphere in the pre-mission briefing.
- SMG, basically. Except when it's...
- SMG as !Burnham, managing to surpass herself in awfulness.
- Almost all of the mirror universe crapola.
- The big-lipped alligator moment down on Dannus V, with Paul Guilfoyle and the door. I can't have been the only one getting Doctor Who vibes from those scenes.
- What's a "dilithium nursery" when it's at home?
- If the sphere data plan has sent !Georgiou back in time, and she manages to change the past (she's already doing so by killing !Stamets when she did), what happens to the events of the second half of STD's first season? Will the Discoball start to fade out of existence like Marty in "Back To The Future"?
I actually really enjoyed that. The mirror stuff came as a total surprise. SMG is far better as the mirror Burnham.
so for anyone not keeping up Carl is clearly the guardian in physical form. Referring back to TOS and the newspaper Carl is reading gives a very obvious clue to who and what I'm talking about.
I also don't think Georgiou may actually be where she thinks she is. Its either a dream or she is there. To change how events happened.
I also don't think Georgiou may actually be where she thinks she is. Its either a dream or she is there. To change how events happened.
Soldato
A) I don't think you're right.
B) Even if you were, that's damning her performance with faint praise.
Soldato
I’m not fully enjoying STD so may have missed this but I have a question, the burn wiped out traditional star ships that use dilithium, yep ok. Correct me if I’m wrong but Romulan vessels don’t use dilithium, they essentially use an artificial controlled quantum singularity. Why aren’t they ruling the galaxy and why aren’t other races and the federation adopting this technology?
Soldato
Yeah, I pondered on this earlier in the thread. No solid answers I'm afraid.
Soldato
Ah, apologies. Ok, at least I’m not alone then!
Soldato
Like much in this 31st century universe, it makes bugger all sense
Sure, the Romulans were hampered (as far as being a galactic power goes) by their sun and homeworld getting Blowed Up Real Good™. But they still had a fleet capable of vaguely serious menace after that (see the Picard season 1 finale). So where did that power source go?
Soldato
Exactly, and now we’ve learned that Romulans and Vulcans are now best buddies, you’d think they would dominate the Alpha quadrant at least.
I guess the show producers... kind of forgot about the Romulans singularity drives... Honestly though, it's clearly just going to continue to be ignored and 'left to the audience' to decide how/why the Romulans seemingly abandoned everything.
Whatever I guess... Now, was the door something to do with Q? It certainly felt like it was, can't really figure out why though and i'll presume that it won't be explained.
Whatever I guess... Now, was the door something to do with Q? It certainly felt like it was, can't really figure out why though and i'll presume that it won't be explained.
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Awesome episode! These are the ST episodes i used to enjoy, time travel, mirror universes, Q like beings.
SMG was really good this week and only a few dramatic whispers, frick, even Georgiou did a little of acting this episode.
More like this please.
SMG was really good this week and only a few dramatic whispers, frick, even Georgiou did a little of acting this episode.
More like this please.
If you've seen TOS and especially The City on the Edge of Forever, there was a massive hint as to who the being could have been. Hint: the newspaper title.
Soldato
I'm still not sure that the newspaper being The Star Dispatch means that Carl has to be a manifestation of the Guardian of Forever. But, we shall see.
Honestly the mirror universe episodes are some of the best out there. I really wish they would spin off a whole series into it. Imagine a "man in the high castle" version of trek, it would be absolutely amazing.
This episode:
This episode:
We all knew this is, for now, the end of Georgiou on discoball due to getting her own series. But it was still a very sad ending and ive loved her presence in the show.
Long live the empire!
Long live the empire!
Soldato
3x10 - Terra Firma, Part 2
***edit***
1) *sigh*
2) I forgot to note last week that the episode was only the 13th in all of Trek with a title in Latin. This will be the 14th, obviously.
3) Recap this week serving only to remind just how deeply unintelligent Burnham is. I mean, just proper 'box of rocks' territory.
4) And no more intelligent in the mirror universe.
5) I remarked on this in the season 2 finale, but the Discoball is truly cavernous inside.
6) Witless dialogue, with the added bonus of being from the mirror universe so even less important to the plot of the season than usual
7) I don't want to say that sodding off to the mirror universe for several episodes was an element that doomed the first season, because it was doomed anyway. But it definitely didn't help and yet they repeated the mistake.
8) !Burnham has definitely contracted the same whispering disease as 'our' Burnham. That, or SMG has utterly lost what little talent she ever had.
9) Witless, pointless dialogue continues. With a quick call-forward to DS9's depiction of the mirror universe.
10) New scene, similarly witless dialogue.
11) Well, I'm glad that's over. Even if it means listening to the bloody awful opening theme. With the changed up background for the titles to reference the mirror universe, because these guys are hacks who feel that they have to beat the audience over the head with stuff
12) Oh, that's a shame. I nodded off during the intro and woke up thinking that it was all a bad dream and they'd made a different, better show than this. But nope. Still mirror universe trash.
13) Is it genuinely possible to die from boredom?
14) Is it genuinely possible to die from being subjected to...whatever the hell this thing masquerading as Star Trek is?
15) Pausing a moment. Honestly, this is throwing the rest of my complaints about this season into a new context. I thought some of what we'd seen this season was terrible. But I knew nothing. Because this, this is terrible. The other bad stuff barely registers in comparison. STD hasn't been this bad since the first season (with a dishonourable mention to the season 2 finale). It's impressive, in a way, just how face-meltingly awful this is...badly-written, badly-acted, boilerplate direction and - again - utterly irrelevant to the plot of the season because it isn't even set in the same universe. Some folks like this mirror universe stuff (@kindai, for one). I like that original depiction in TOS, and a couple of the turns in DS9 were fun ("Shattered Mirror" when Sisko goes over and helps the rebels get their copy of the Defiant to strut her stuff, "The Emperor's New Cloak" for being one of the rare decent Ferengi-centric episodes in spite of the gigantic plot hole it created regarding the Alliance and cloaking devices). But this...this is just bad.
16) Now !Detmer has been sacrificed to the badness of this episode.
17) Episode continues droning on in its badness. I get up and put the kettle on. Not even bothering to pause now, clearly I'm not going to miss anything important.
18) The absolute worst episode in all of Trek that I can recall right now is Voyager's "Threshold". I'm not sure anything in Trek canon will ever surpass that for lousiness (though Star Trek Into Darkness got bloody close). The crew of the USS Voyager set out to create a shuttle that can do warp 10 - infinite speed. They succeed, and Paris test flies it. After being everywhere, he manages to shut down close to Voyager somehow. With me so far? Good, because here's where that episode truly goes off the rails. After doing infinite speed, Paris starts mutating. Because [reasons]. Eventually he kidnaps Janeway and flies off with her in the modified shuttle to again achieve infinite speed. The Doctor has, by this point, worked out how to reverse the mutation. Somehow, the shuttle ends up coming out of infinite speed within range of Voyager again and has landed on a planet. The crew arrive, find that Paris and Janeway have both turned into amphibians (!) and have had babies (!!). The crew recover Paris and Janeway, reversing their mutation, and leave the babies on the planet (!!!).
I mention this purely because the terrible nature of this episode got me all nostalgic. Maybe I'll even watch "Spock's Brain" from TOS later, which is incredibly bad but at least has a sort of camp charm about it that "Threshold" and this episode both lack.
19) Oh, is this still going on?
20) At least I have a mug of tea now.
21) Gosh, I can hear the plot walking into itself. !Detmer's going to get killed by !Burnham so she can 'prove her loyalty'. And then presumably another double cross will happen.
22) Add !Landry to the list of characters no smarter in this universe than 'our' one.
23) And !Detmer. Called it at 21) though.
24) Future chopsticks!
25) Witless dialogue.
26) Doug Jones doing his best here. But even he can't elevate this dreck.
27) Though boy did he try his hardest. The man's a professional.
28) Still, all less-terrible things must come to an end. So here we are, on the bridge, watching a bunch of jackasses Do Evil Stuff For The Evilz™.
29) This is another of those episodes that I should have watched later in the day so I could drink.
30) "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!" and the rest of the prediction (such as it was) at 21) is confirmed.
31) Maybe stabbing myself would liven this up...
32) Witless, whispered dialogue.
33) Mixed with Bond villain stupidity.
34) And here we go with the inevitable raygun battle devolving into fisticuffs.
35) At least I got to see !Burnham get run through with a sword.
36) Which SMG promptly ruins with some wild overacting in her death scene
37) Doug Jones, once again doing his best.
38) Welp, back out of the mirror universe.
39) Paul Guilfoyle's 'Carl'/Guardian of Forever (because he clearly is the Guardian now, I'd have much rather him been a Q Continuum member but hey ho) one of the precious few bright spots in an episode that seriously has me wondering if Trek has a future with the current shower in charge of it.
40) That at least pins down the timespan of the MU portions of this episode and the previous. ~3 months.
41) Burnham still easily the least intelligent lifeform for lightyears around.
42) *strangled screaming*
43) *yet more strangled screaming*
44) Heh, that's fun though - using the audio of The Guardian announcing itself in "City On the Edge of Forever". Bartell La Rue did the voice, one of a few roles on TOS - voicing a Provider in "Gamesters of Triskelion", Trelane's 'father' in "The Squire of Gothos" and Yarnek in "The Savage Curtain", he also had a couple of minor on-screen roles in episodes. He was basically used every time they needed a proper baritone
45) VFX team out to play again.
46) Gosh, whiplash there with the scene change. Back to the story about the Kelpians and the distress signal.
47) Amusing bit of meta there, Stamets grousing that he hadn't seen Reno in ages. She hasn't been in an episode for a few weeks.
48) They're a fun triple-act this team.
49) And now Book is actually getting to do something as well other than try to have sex with Burnham/have sex with Burnham/wait until he can have sex with Burnham.
50) Spot of Treknobabble.
51) Back on the planet, with the Guardian.
52) Which is in hiding. Presumably because of the past/future/always/never temporal war shenaniganry.
53) Yep.
54) "I failed her...the Empire..." "Yeah." Why oh why oh why can't STD writers manage to write like this for an entire episode?
55) Okay. So the Guardian is going to send !Georgiou back to a time when the universes were still aligned. Counting down to Burnham crying about that...
56) "Can Michael come with me?" "Afraid not." Bugger
57) The Guardian not functioning at all like it did in TOS then, with the vortex not running time in fast forward. A minor quibble, Expanded Universe authors already showed characters interacting with the Guardian and having static destinations 'programmed' into it (see A.C Crispin's "Yesterday" novels).
58) "GET ON WITH IT!" /Python
59) "I will never find another like you." Michael Burnham, One True Light And Saviour™
60) Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored.
61) Buh-bye !Georgiou.
62) Back with the actual plot.
63) Vance making a decent point regarding the risk of using Emerald Chain tech.
64) And continuing to make decent points.
65) Oh, for God's sake...eulogising !Georgiou now.
66) Where in the hell does this even come from?
67) *an infinite amount of strangled screaming*
68) I really need this episode to end.
69) Nope.
70) "Next time..." Back to the actual story.
2) I forgot to note last week that the episode was only the 13th in all of Trek with a title in Latin. This will be the 14th, obviously.
3) Recap this week serving only to remind just how deeply unintelligent Burnham is. I mean, just proper 'box of rocks' territory.
4) And no more intelligent in the mirror universe.
5) I remarked on this in the season 2 finale, but the Discoball is truly cavernous inside.
6) Witless dialogue, with the added bonus of being from the mirror universe so even less important to the plot of the season than usual
7) I don't want to say that sodding off to the mirror universe for several episodes was an element that doomed the first season, because it was doomed anyway. But it definitely didn't help and yet they repeated the mistake.
8) !Burnham has definitely contracted the same whispering disease as 'our' Burnham. That, or SMG has utterly lost what little talent she ever had.
9) Witless, pointless dialogue continues. With a quick call-forward to DS9's depiction of the mirror universe.
10) New scene, similarly witless dialogue.
11) Well, I'm glad that's over. Even if it means listening to the bloody awful opening theme. With the changed up background for the titles to reference the mirror universe, because these guys are hacks who feel that they have to beat the audience over the head with stuff
12) Oh, that's a shame. I nodded off during the intro and woke up thinking that it was all a bad dream and they'd made a different, better show than this. But nope. Still mirror universe trash.
13) Is it genuinely possible to die from boredom?
14) Is it genuinely possible to die from being subjected to...whatever the hell this thing masquerading as Star Trek is?
15) Pausing a moment. Honestly, this is throwing the rest of my complaints about this season into a new context. I thought some of what we'd seen this season was terrible. But I knew nothing. Because this, this is terrible. The other bad stuff barely registers in comparison. STD hasn't been this bad since the first season (with a dishonourable mention to the season 2 finale). It's impressive, in a way, just how face-meltingly awful this is...badly-written, badly-acted, boilerplate direction and - again - utterly irrelevant to the plot of the season because it isn't even set in the same universe. Some folks like this mirror universe stuff (@kindai, for one). I like that original depiction in TOS, and a couple of the turns in DS9 were fun ("Shattered Mirror" when Sisko goes over and helps the rebels get their copy of the Defiant to strut her stuff, "The Emperor's New Cloak" for being one of the rare decent Ferengi-centric episodes in spite of the gigantic plot hole it created regarding the Alliance and cloaking devices). But this...this is just bad.
16) Now !Detmer has been sacrificed to the badness of this episode.
17) Episode continues droning on in its badness. I get up and put the kettle on. Not even bothering to pause now, clearly I'm not going to miss anything important.
18) The absolute worst episode in all of Trek that I can recall right now is Voyager's "Threshold". I'm not sure anything in Trek canon will ever surpass that for lousiness (though Star Trek Into Darkness got bloody close). The crew of the USS Voyager set out to create a shuttle that can do warp 10 - infinite speed. They succeed, and Paris test flies it. After being everywhere, he manages to shut down close to Voyager somehow. With me so far? Good, because here's where that episode truly goes off the rails. After doing infinite speed, Paris starts mutating. Because [reasons]. Eventually he kidnaps Janeway and flies off with her in the modified shuttle to again achieve infinite speed. The Doctor has, by this point, worked out how to reverse the mutation. Somehow, the shuttle ends up coming out of infinite speed within range of Voyager again and has landed on a planet. The crew arrive, find that Paris and Janeway have both turned into amphibians (!) and have had babies (!!). The crew recover Paris and Janeway, reversing their mutation, and leave the babies on the planet (!!!).
I mention this purely because the terrible nature of this episode got me all nostalgic. Maybe I'll even watch "Spock's Brain" from TOS later, which is incredibly bad but at least has a sort of camp charm about it that "Threshold" and this episode both lack.
19) Oh, is this still going on?
20) At least I have a mug of tea now.
21) Gosh, I can hear the plot walking into itself. !Detmer's going to get killed by !Burnham so she can 'prove her loyalty'. And then presumably another double cross will happen.
22) Add !Landry to the list of characters no smarter in this universe than 'our' one.
23) And !Detmer. Called it at 21) though.
24) Future chopsticks!
25) Witless dialogue.
26) Doug Jones doing his best here. But even he can't elevate this dreck.
27) Though boy did he try his hardest. The man's a professional.
28) Still, all less-terrible things must come to an end. So here we are, on the bridge, watching a bunch of jackasses Do Evil Stuff For The Evilz™.
29) This is another of those episodes that I should have watched later in the day so I could drink.
30) "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!" and the rest of the prediction (such as it was) at 21) is confirmed.
31) Maybe stabbing myself would liven this up...
32) Witless, whispered dialogue.
33) Mixed with Bond villain stupidity.
34) And here we go with the inevitable raygun battle devolving into fisticuffs.
35) At least I got to see !Burnham get run through with a sword.
36) Which SMG promptly ruins with some wild overacting in her death scene
37) Doug Jones, once again doing his best.
38) Welp, back out of the mirror universe.
39) Paul Guilfoyle's 'Carl'/Guardian of Forever (because he clearly is the Guardian now, I'd have much rather him been a Q Continuum member but hey ho) one of the precious few bright spots in an episode that seriously has me wondering if Trek has a future with the current shower in charge of it.
40) That at least pins down the timespan of the MU portions of this episode and the previous. ~3 months.
41) Burnham still easily the least intelligent lifeform for lightyears around.
42) *strangled screaming*
43) *yet more strangled screaming*
44) Heh, that's fun though - using the audio of The Guardian announcing itself in "City On the Edge of Forever". Bartell La Rue did the voice, one of a few roles on TOS - voicing a Provider in "Gamesters of Triskelion", Trelane's 'father' in "The Squire of Gothos" and Yarnek in "The Savage Curtain", he also had a couple of minor on-screen roles in episodes. He was basically used every time they needed a proper baritone
45) VFX team out to play again.
46) Gosh, whiplash there with the scene change. Back to the story about the Kelpians and the distress signal.
47) Amusing bit of meta there, Stamets grousing that he hadn't seen Reno in ages. She hasn't been in an episode for a few weeks.
48) They're a fun triple-act this team.
49) And now Book is actually getting to do something as well other than try to have sex with Burnham/have sex with Burnham/wait until he can have sex with Burnham.
50) Spot of Treknobabble.
51) Back on the planet, with the Guardian.
52) Which is in hiding. Presumably because of the past/future/always/never temporal war shenaniganry.
53) Yep.
54) "I failed her...the Empire..." "Yeah." Why oh why oh why can't STD writers manage to write like this for an entire episode?
55) Okay. So the Guardian is going to send !Georgiou back to a time when the universes were still aligned. Counting down to Burnham crying about that...
56) "Can Michael come with me?" "Afraid not." Bugger
57) The Guardian not functioning at all like it did in TOS then, with the vortex not running time in fast forward. A minor quibble, Expanded Universe authors already showed characters interacting with the Guardian and having static destinations 'programmed' into it (see A.C Crispin's "Yesterday" novels).
58) "GET ON WITH IT!" /Python
59) "I will never find another like you." Michael Burnham, One True Light And Saviour™
60) Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored.
61) Buh-bye !Georgiou.
62) Back with the actual plot.
63) Vance making a decent point regarding the risk of using Emerald Chain tech.
64) And continuing to make decent points.
65) Oh, for God's sake...eulogising !Georgiou now.
66) Where in the hell does this even come from?
67) *an infinite amount of strangled screaming*
68) I really need this episode to end.
69) Nope.
70) "Next time..." Back to the actual story.
There have been a number of truly bad episodes of Star Trek over the years.
There would have to be. As of this episode there have been 785 episodes and 13 films produced and aired. You can't make that much content and not have some of it miss the mark. Sometimes, a decent concept comes up against the limitations of what you can actually show. Sometimes, the concept was just bad from the off. Sometimes, time pressures happen and it just becomes a case of 'get it aired, move on to the next'. Sometimes, it fails on multiple levels in multiple ways.
And thus we end up here. This was a truly bad episode of Star Trek.
I'd love to know how much money they spaffed on making a show this terrible, because I'll just bet it was eye-watering. And for what? For good chunks of the last episode and this one the plot of the season didn't get advanced any. It wasn't even in the same universe as the plot, in fact. Clearly they needed a two-parter to pad the season out, because there was really only one episode of material here. And even when it made it back to 'our' universe, it was a very quick "here's a McGuffin to fix the sensor issue" deal to get back to the plot. Hell, they spent about as much time on that as they did eulogising !Georgiou!
It's not just the story that's terrible here, though it was indeed absolutely terrible with the all-too inevitable betrayals and counter-betrayals and the Bond villain stupidity and the aneurysm-inducing awfulness of much of the dialogue. The pacing was once again weirdly 'off', slowing to a crawl at certain points. It really didn't help the timeskips in the story (the MU portions take place over three months) either. SMG once again butchered every scene she was in culminating in a death that either needed dialling waaaaaaaaay back or going even harder past the point of absurdity into full on camp. As it was, it just came off as annoyingly overdone.
Redeeming features were few and far between. Doug Jones did his absolute best. The triple-act of Stamets/Tal/Reno provided some brief amusement, with Anthony Rapp, Blu del Bario and Tig Notaro shining. They should do an episode solely focused on these guys and their interaction. But, at least we're probably done with the mirror universe now. And !Georgiou is written out to free her up for the Section 31 series that I'm going to completely ignore.
Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh. That sucked. I'm gonna have another mug of tea and a couple of paracetamol, see if I can shake the headache that it's given me.
There would have to be. As of this episode there have been 785 episodes and 13 films produced and aired. You can't make that much content and not have some of it miss the mark. Sometimes, a decent concept comes up against the limitations of what you can actually show. Sometimes, the concept was just bad from the off. Sometimes, time pressures happen and it just becomes a case of 'get it aired, move on to the next'. Sometimes, it fails on multiple levels in multiple ways.
And thus we end up here. This was a truly bad episode of Star Trek.
I'd love to know how much money they spaffed on making a show this terrible, because I'll just bet it was eye-watering. And for what? For good chunks of the last episode and this one the plot of the season didn't get advanced any. It wasn't even in the same universe as the plot, in fact. Clearly they needed a two-parter to pad the season out, because there was really only one episode of material here. And even when it made it back to 'our' universe, it was a very quick "here's a McGuffin to fix the sensor issue" deal to get back to the plot. Hell, they spent about as much time on that as they did eulogising !Georgiou!
It's not just the story that's terrible here, though it was indeed absolutely terrible with the all-too inevitable betrayals and counter-betrayals and the Bond villain stupidity and the aneurysm-inducing awfulness of much of the dialogue. The pacing was once again weirdly 'off', slowing to a crawl at certain points. It really didn't help the timeskips in the story (the MU portions take place over three months) either. SMG once again butchered every scene she was in culminating in a death that either needed dialling waaaaaaaaay back or going even harder past the point of absurdity into full on camp. As it was, it just came off as annoyingly overdone.
Redeeming features were few and far between. Doug Jones did his absolute best. The triple-act of Stamets/Tal/Reno provided some brief amusement, with Anthony Rapp, Blu del Bario and Tig Notaro shining. They should do an episode solely focused on these guys and their interaction. But, at least we're probably done with the mirror universe now. And !Georgiou is written out to free her up for the Section 31 series that I'm going to completely ignore.
Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh. That sucked. I'm gonna have another mug of tea and a couple of paracetamol, see if I can shake the headache that it's given me.
***edit***
1) Did !Georgiou change the 'past' in the MU? Or did the Guardian do some temporal chicanery to avoid that? Because if she changed the past at all, then how would TOS's "Mirror Mirror" end up?
2) "Don't tell, show" really ought to have been invoked with the 'Lorca plotting against !Georgiou' stuff. But, I guess Jason Issacs was too expensive/too busy. And with the pacing of this episode, it would have pushed the main plot of the season completely out.
3) Looking around t'internet, it seems I wasn't alone in thinking that all the eulogising of !Georgiou was unearned.
4) They didn't show where !Georgiou ended up. And you'd sort-of think they would have, to drum up 'excitement' for the Section 31 series. But if the "new Trek projects are getting cancelled!!111oneone" rumour is actually true on this 4319th occasion then perhaps it's for the best that they didn't.
2) "Don't tell, show" really ought to have been invoked with the 'Lorca plotting against !Georgiou' stuff. But, I guess Jason Issacs was too expensive/too busy. And with the pacing of this episode, it would have pushed the main plot of the season completely out.
3) Looking around t'internet, it seems I wasn't alone in thinking that all the eulogising of !Georgiou was unearned.
4) They didn't show where !Georgiou ended up. And you'd sort-of think they would have, to drum up 'excitement' for the Section 31 series. But if the "new Trek projects are getting cancelled!!111oneone" rumour is actually true on this 4319th occasion then perhaps it's for the best that they didn't.
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