1) As I noted last time out, this episode wasn't originally called this. All season long the opening episode has been sat there without a part 2 until recently.
2) Pointless gripe about pointless recap as said pointless recap drones on. Pointlessly.
3) It amuses me how they just painted a few glowy lines on the USS Discoball and suddenly it perfectly fitted the aesthetic of the 32nd century. It's almost as if it was a wildly anachronistic design for the 2250s...
4) Sorry. Not 'amuses'. The other one. 'Makes my blood boil at the disrespect shown to the roots of the franchise'. Yeah, that's the one.
5) Well, there's two and a half minutes of my life that I'll never get back.
6) Back on the Khi'eth in the Verubin nebula.
7) Cruz and Jones acting their hearts out, I'll give them that.
8) Enter Adira. Who the holo world has rendered as a different alien in fetching blue makeup.
9) And Gray rendered as a Vulcan (but retaining his hair colour). Who Saru and Culber can now see (!).
10) Which raises more questions about Gray's nature.
11) Saru better have some kind of plan here.
12) Meanwhile at Fed HQ the makers of the show got bored with all that wholesomeness, so we're back to space battles.
13) Vance directing traffic.
14) And delivering Important Lines™ about how if Osyraa leaves with the spore drive the Federation is finally doomed.
15) Bet they wish they hadn't brought the Discoball up to 32nd century standards now. For anyone wondering why they don't just use the prefix code - Osyraa probably removed it when her team did the computer reformat.
16) Laser beams! Explosions! Excitement?
17) Boredom.
18) Gotta hand it to the VFX team. They can really do this sort of gig. Hell, it was about the only decent thing about the Season 2 finale.
19) Burnham getting dragged onto the bridge.
20) Witless dialogue.
21) Reports coming through to the bridge that the crew are advancing. SMG winds up for a big hit and..."What can I say, we are Starfleet." Swing and a miss! Who wrote this?
22) Episode made me pause there. So, this one was written by Michelle Paradise who is a co-showrunner on STD alongside Kurtzman. Colour me entirely unsurprised.
23) Corridor firefight with the bridge bunnies. The cute robots ending up as cannon fodder
How very...Star Wars prequel.
24) Ramp up the tension a notch by turning life support off to that deck.
25) Though quite why doing so would make the air evacuate is beyond me, that's not something that's ever been shown to happen in Trek before. Not even with Cardassian tech.
26) Oh, okay, so they opened the vents as well. To let the air out slowly, because Evil People Doing Evil Stuff For The Evilz™.
27) Stamets still trying desperately to go save Culber and Adira. Vance, not without sympathy, shooting the idea down.
28) Ni'Var has sent help. And at maximum warp speed no less.
29) Osyraa ordering the use of space pesticides
30) As Burnham and Osyraa's back-and-forth drones on, I'm wondering if this is the longest STD has gone before showing the opening credits before. Almost past 11 minutes now.
31) Because wondering about that is 4903.18% more interesting than this dialogue.
32) Lord is this stupid. And because of the pathological need to make Burnham the hero, Vance now gets to hold the Idiot Ball™.
33) Intro theme and opening credits. So far, so terrible. At least at the Discoball end of things. Just a sea of bad acting, characters doing stupid things for stupid reasons, and terrible dialogue.
34) Focus back to the Khi'eth. Thankfully.
35) Saru attempting to get through to Su'kal by following Culber's advice.
36) And all too quickly we're back on the Discoball. Zareh arguing with Aurellio about being allowed to Do Evil Stuff For The Evilz™.
37) Witless dialogue ensues. Though Ken Mitchell really is trying, bless him. It's a pity he's surround by crap actors playing crap characters.
38) Bond villain stupidity from Osyraa, choking Aurellio into unconsciousness.
39) Saru still working on Su'Kal.
40) Exposition, of sorts.
41) Maybe getting somewhere.
42) Evil People Still Doing Stuff For The Evilz™. Pausing another moment. It can't be just me that is entirely bored of this? It's not an interesting plot point. It doesn't make for exciting television. It's just a boring, very overused trope.
43) Witless dialogue, again. Counting down to the plot non-twist in three...two...oops, beat the count. Though I figured it would be one of the SW-esque robots, TBH.
44) And thus the villains are outsmarted by the single least intelligent lifeform ever seen in the Trek universe. Nice job Osyraa. *slowclap*
45) There's that cavernous shot of the Discoball's innards again.
46) Bridge bunnies working on life support.
47) Exposition from Owosekun. Nice that they're finally getting around to fleshing these characters out after three whole seasons.
48) Burnham getting a message through to Tilly.
49) Oh, spiffing plan. Set off a bomb in nacelle country. Ingenious.
50) I believe that bit was already spoiled in last week's trailer for this episode.
51) Su'Kal is back.
52) Doug Jones is truly wasted on this series.
53) Back to the nature of Gray a second, who says that he's not corporeal so won't be harmed by the radiation if he goes through the holo edge. Wonder if they're going to get around to explaining Gray at all?
54) Medical Treknobabble from Culber to explain how Su'Kal could cause the Burn.
55) Exposition.
56) And there we have it. Su'Kal got his genetic code mutated by the radiation in the nebula, became one with the dilithium, then one day in 3069 he suffered a shock that made him trigger the Burn (his mother dying, presumably). Leaving anyone watching to scratch their heads and wonder "is that the best the writers could come up with???"
57) A bit more exposition.
58) Back with the bridge bunnies. Time is running out. Owosekun the only one doing remotely okay.
59) So she's going to waste time standing there saying how much she loves them.
60) Burnham and Book still doing Die Hard On A Spaceship.
61) Again with the cavernous interior of the Discoball.
62) Riffing on parts of the chase sequence in Attack Of The Clones now.
63) Yes, of course Burnham would be completely capable of doing that having not long go gotten quite a serious leg wound that has barely seen any medical attention yet.
64) Owo's made it to the nacelle.
65) Cute robot/Zora controlling cute robot imploring her to stand.
66) Boom. Here's where the advert break would be on network television.
67) We're back from adverts as the Discoball falls out of warp.
68) And is promptly tractored into the Veridian. Which presumably will jump straight to warp again, thus barely costing the Emerald Chain bad guys any time at all?
69)
70) Zareh makes the mistake of threatening Grudge, and is promptly and unceremoniously kicked into one hell of a fall. Kirk did it better to Kruge on the Genesis planet.
71) And there goes Osyraa. Along with a one-liner from Burnham that's just a bit too earnest and played just a bit too straight to work.
72) Burnham reformatting the computer.
73) And is crying at her success. Because of course she is.
74) The cute robot saved Owo at the cost of itself
75) Bridge bunnies having a joyful reunion. I still think Owo and Detmer are boinking.
76) Oh,
Jesus. Here we go for Burnham getting the captaincy at last, bet you dollars to donuts. Her first act? Blow up the warp core.
77) Book can run the spore drive. Because of course he can.
78) Meanwhile on the Khi'eth...
79) Poignancy from Gray.
80) For those of us who weren't here already forever ago, his mother dying was indeed what triggered him to trigger the Burn. Thus destroying the Federation.
81) Back to the Discoball. Black alert.
82) Warp core go boom. Veridian go boom with it. After some fake jeopardy of Book being slow to jump the ship.
83) Recording of Issa telling Su'Kal's rescuers to take him to his homeworld. What are the odds of Saru going with him to free up the captaincy for Burnham?
84) Su'Kal realising that he caused the Burn. Poor bugger.
85) The Khi'eth coming apart at the seams.
86) Here comes the cavalry.
87) Day saved.
88) Hey, they finally closed the big door at the back of the Discoball!
89) Burnham voiceover wanging on.
90) Stamets clearly still quite angry with her though. So at least she's got some kind of consequence to face out of all this.
91) Reno getting the cute robot going again for Owo
92) Seeds of the Federation recovery.
93) Saru returning to Kaminar. Called it at 83)!
94) The return of Sahil as a bookend.
95) Vance getting ready to promote Burnham to captain
96) God damn it all
97) I would very much like the makers of this show to **** right off.
98) Everyone gets their new uniforms.
99) And the adventure, such as it is, continues. With the Discoball reduced to the status of freighter, delivering dilithium to various parts of the quadrants to help rebuild the Federation
100) The Courage fanfare, the Gene quote, then the Courage theme...nice try STD showrunners, but no.
