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Star Trek Discovery Discussion: Light and Shadows
57 Plays1 year ago
Burnham goes on the hunt to find her brother while the Discovery crew tries to unlock the secrets behind a Time Storm that appeared after the Red Angel's most recent visit. After finding Spock, his mind in disarray and learning she definitely can't trust Section 31 we find ourselves heading to an old familiar place. find out what we thought of this exciting episode of Star Trek Discovery and let us know what you thought too!
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Overview
00:00:01
Speaker
And we're back, we're not live, but we're back on another exciting episode of Star Trek, Star Trek. No, Starfleet book. Talking about Star Trek casually and informally, and today we're focused on Star Trek Discovery. We're a little bit behind, so we're recording this episode a week later for Light and Shadow.
00:00:21
Speaker
episode seven, and I'm so grateful and excited to be joined by the Starfleet Boy Summit, or Quorum. And there's not 12 of us, so I don't know about that. But anyways, welcome back, PJ, Fathery, and Sean. Thank you for joining. Hello.
00:00:43
Speaker
Thank you for having us. Thank you. Awesome, I've I've.
Episode Summary: 'Light and Shadow'
00:00:49
Speaker
They talked about this and I've tuned into some of the discussion, so I'm going to try my best not to overlap, but I think that there are some.
00:00:59
Speaker
topics that deserve a little bit more conversation. But before we go into those questions and topics, would any of you guys like to give a brief summary of the episode or shall I go ahead and do it? I volunteer to give the summary for the next episode. Oh, OK. A deal. If someone else does this one, then I can do the next one. PJ and Sean, do you decline? No, go ahead, Father.
00:01:27
Speaker
Go ahead. Go ahead, everyone. Everyone else. He wants to do the next one. So I'm going to do this one. So he's going to do if memory serves. So light and shadow summary.
Burnham's Quest and Time Rift Tensions
00:01:40
Speaker
Basically, we're still try it's post-caminar.
00:01:48
Speaker
Sorry. Now we know your secret. So post-Cavanaugh we have Burnham resolute to find and she thinks she knows where he might be based on her gut intuition and so she goes off to see if her gut is correct and heads home to Vulcan.
00:02:13
Speaker
On the Discovery, there's a remnant from the red angel episode or incident, which is like a time rift, basically. And so the Discovery is examining this time rift and a whole bunch of stuff happens, including Ash.
00:02:32
Speaker
and Pike comparing the sizes of their piloting prowess. And we go into this crazy situation where Pike and Tyler are stuck in the anomaly and the Discovery crew has tried
00:02:54
Speaker
Vulcan. Burnham is correct. She finds Spock and his mind is in a shambles. He's totally batshit crazy and he's trying to kind of center himself unsuccessfully. So, you know, originally Amanda is trying to hide him from the powers that be, but Sarik intervenes and kind of lays down the law much like what's his name in Lord of the Rings who Elrond
00:03:22
Speaker
of Rivendell. He's like, no, I am the father. I decide what happens. So he sends Burnham, he sends Spock with Burnham to section 31 and decides that that's the best course of action and tells Burnham that her career will in fact be in jeopardy again, which we'll talk more about in the next episode. And so when she gets to the section 31 ship,
Escape from Section 31 with Georgiou
00:03:47
Speaker
There's everything, you know, although it seems very section 31 in general seems very dark and scary. She's kind of on board with the plan because she thinks it'll write Spock's mom just to extract these memories and use this kind of technology to do so. But then in an interesting turn of events, Captain Georgiou, sorry, rather Empress Georgiou,
00:04:08
Speaker
Emperor Georgiou informs Burnham that the device will actually cripple Spock's mind even further and Section 31 is just after the memories of the future.
00:04:21
Speaker
So they stage a fight and Burnham and Spock escape. Burnham comes to the realization a little earlier that the coordinates or the numbers that Spock has been writing is an inverse of what it actually should be. So she plugs the coordinates into the game. He discovered that the coordinates lead to Talos four. And that's it. The episode ends. Oh yeah, wait, sorry. They save Tyler and Ike from the anomaly.
00:04:50
Speaker
And no one really talks about the implications of the time rift or the time tsunami on Kaminar, so I'm assuming nothing happens. But that's it. So yeah, did I do it? Did I get everything? Yeah, you had all the broad strokes. Thank you. There was also like a squid from the matrix that showed up. Oh, yes. I forgot about the squid. Thank you. So the probe that they launched to examine the
00:05:19
Speaker
time uh rift uh goes into the future and comes back from the future as a crazy scary uh uh matrix squid it's tampered with by dr octopus of the spider-man universe wow stuff like discovery into the spite of us
00:05:41
Speaker
Oh my gosh, that would be amazing. So if you guys can put your minds back a week ago into when you first saw this episode, obviously there's a lot more revealed in this week's episode if memory serves.
Saru's Character Development
00:05:55
Speaker
But if you go back to this, what were kind of like the biggest questions I guess that you have that we could talk about during our discussion today?
00:06:07
Speaker
that you still have an answer positive things or bad things so just anything anything we can go to the net I'll open up we can start with the nitpick corner I'll open up with my beef with Saru and the fact that he's just he seems completely back to normal and I'm just I'm puzzled about that they did this whole very
00:06:27
Speaker
emotional and important arc about how he kind of went nuts because he lost his ganglia. And we've seen it previously in season one that when he loses his fear, he's just kind of insane. But in this episode, in episode seven, he seems fine. Very well adjusted, completely normal. I don't know. I didn't take it that way.
00:06:52
Speaker
still struggling with it, but that he was doing a good job of composing himself. I also thought that he was a lot more confident. I do notice a change in Saru, especially in the next episode too. It's kind of addressed more directly.
00:07:05
Speaker
But I mean, we don't want him going batshit crazy. I think they could have had just one line in there of Captain Pike or someone saying, so are you sure you're OK? Are you sure that you're going to be able to serve? You're feeling OK?
Modern Influences on Discovery
00:07:50
Speaker
that would help
00:07:50
Speaker
But I did like Saru taking command, because he's always great when he's in command of the ship, when he tells them, we're going from a research mission to a rescue mission. He just naturally feels like a captain.
00:08:06
Speaker
Sean is rolling his eyes at that though yeah okay i do agree he does naturally feel like the captain he i feel like Discovery will eventually displace him as the captain um and that's that's kind of what all his stories going to be about but i i'm i'm not a fan of the um we have gone from research to rescue i don't know it's just just instead of talking about that just do it just say look give the orders you know lock onto this ship do this do that whatever
00:08:33
Speaker
I forgive Saru his one-liners. He's trying to like, you know, he's probably inspired by Pike. Pike gives these like awesome one-liners, right? So he's like, well, what can I say? That'll be similar. I'll tell you what, Enterprise, as it was really, it came out in like the year 2000s and it has these, these specific year 2000s floors. They have a season finale where, right. Arches running in slow motion in front of an explosion. It's corny as hell.
00:09:00
Speaker
You know, since season three, I remember watching that in 2004. It's got that cringe. Yeah, I cringe at the time, like when it happened. Okay, so every series in a way has its flaws, like of the time. And I feel like Discovery has its own flaws of this time. And so I don't know, it's just like it resembles a lot of other shows in that sense. These one-liners feel, they feel the flash to me, but
00:09:28
Speaker
The Flash. That's going to be the millennial. We are the Flash. We'll look back at Discovery as the millennial Star Trek. But it is. It is the millennial Star Trek. Remember when they had hipster Spock with a beard? Everything's very artisanal. All the food is artisanal that comes out of the replomads. Like Tilly started making selfies of her food.
00:09:58
Speaker
She'll go back to her quarters and we'll see her vision board hanging up on the wall. Okay, Tyler says the word spoofed at one point. He says like someone's... Yeah. I was like, dude... By the way, that's next episode, just FYI. Oh, sorry. My bad. He says owned in the first season, so he's very well versed in our current lingo.
00:10:21
Speaker
He is from Seattle. I lived in Seattle for three years and I feel like it is a mecca of millennial culture and in a good way, in a positive way. I say that with love. And so I do think that Tyler is representing the Pacific Northwest pretty accurately. On the original series, Gary Mitchell was talking to Kirk about, remember when we were reading that long hair stuff or something like that?
00:10:49
Speaker
It's like long hair. No one has said that since the 60s. So, yeah, I mean, of course, naturally a show is going to be a product of its time. I do think that Star Trek does a pretty good job of staying staying as timeless as possible, though. Overall, overall, some Star Trek does it better than others. Like I think I think TNG and DS9.
00:11:12
Speaker
do a pretty good job. Voyager sometimes feels kind of 90s-ish. Like, I remember there's one episode where, um, I think like Tom Parris says some dumb joke and then Harry Kilm is like, lame. And then right after that, Jakote walks under the bridge and he's like, what's up? And it's just like, it felt so modern. He actually says, what's up? Harry Kilm says lame.
00:11:39
Speaker
I can't wait to, I'm so excited about my Voyager release. I would argue that TNG feels 80s right into the 90s, but it's got those onesies and everything. Yeah, the first couple seasons of TNG feel very 80s, but then like after, I would say like season three or four TNG onward, and then DS9, other than like maybe a specific haircut here or there, and like LaVar Burton's high top that he's got rocking.
00:12:10
Speaker
I gotta bounce off this topic though and give a shout out to Discovery because you know as controversial as the redesigns is where I think they win consistently is outside you know of whatever you think of the uniforms is the
00:12:27
Speaker
The enclosed discovery so far has been very reasonable, I think. There's nothing crazy dated or weird looking. It just all seems very fitting. I've heard the critique that it might be a little Game of Thrones-y medieval. But you know what? This era of Star Trek is like the middle ages of Star Trek. I hate the ability to enclose on Star Trek. TNG and Voyager and DS9, anytime they have someone out of uniform,
00:12:56
Speaker
they they look effing stupid like i feel like they look so niveau chic i feel like voyages are right i'm i'm like i'm in season four of my rewatch of voyager and they have civette and clothing that aren't like they're not too bad when they were in hawaiian shirts on the holodeck i guess that's just corny because that's a corny program everything concerning the hologram until we get to cap the proton sucks
00:13:20
Speaker
I mean, like, Jake Sisko, like, look at anything Jake Sisko has ever worn. It's terrible. Like, no one will wear that in the future. I'm offended by the Marseille, the French bar, the French pub that they have in in in Voyager, by the way. That offends you? Yeah, so much. As a Frenchman, as a Frenchman, you're offended. Noted. It's not even as a Frenchman. It's just as someone that that's lived in Marseille. It's like anyway.
00:13:58
Speaker
Yeah, five-week vacation. Quick side topic there. I'm sorry. I'm just very jealous. What is like the defining regional dish of Marseille? Like Dijon has, you know, like... Mustard? Steak. Mustard, yeah. Like things like that. But what is like the... Are you looking it up? You don't know? I'm looking it up, right? You should just know. I thought you lived there.
00:14:12
Speaker
it looks like nothing like anything that exists in Marseille.
00:14:25
Speaker
Yeah, it's like, you just search your memory. We need the telogen to probe you. Let's be real honest. I don't know if there's like an actual dish, but they have like special sources and stuff that they do their own. So like aioli, enchueyad, that kind of stuff. But like, I don't eat that because there's garlic in one of them, there's anchovies in the other. So
00:14:49
Speaker
I ain't too Marseille. I'm not too keen on French food anyway. Oh my god, I'm like a lover of those things. We'll talk about that offline. I'm not nouveau chic. We should all compare our regional foods.
00:15:09
Speaker
It's true that we should have a special, Starfleet food special. We'll have like a like a potluck or something, virtual potluck. Like the Texas national dish is chili. I thought it was barbecue. No, that's chili. Oh, nice. Have you ever had Cincinnati chili? I won't eat chili that's not from Texas because it's probably terrible. Oh, my God. There you go. I love it.
00:15:36
Speaker
What is Newfoundland known for? Fish and chips. And that's it.
00:15:46
Speaker
That's not exciting. It's just... Here's bring it. Jigs dinner. Jigs dinner is the most popular Newfoundland food throughout the world. It's just like potatoes and turnip and like lots of salt and just not good for you. Salt beef. I make salt pork. I make a pretty mean shepherd's pie that I'd love to share with you. Lemon meringue pie is very popular. Oh yeah.
00:16:16
Speaker
Oh, let me bring it back to bring it back to Star Trek. What's the national dish of Vulcan? Oh, make soup, duh.
00:16:24
Speaker
Excellent. Well done. We get a mention of the Mutara sector. Burnham mentions to Pike in the opening that Spock kind of diverted to there. And I was really hoping we would see the Mutara sector. But why do you think Spock goes there?
00:16:47
Speaker
It's true. And bring the future. That's true. Maybe that's where he, that's the frozen planet he goes to, I guess, maybe. Oh, be it. I love all these references that they do, but I can't help feel like they're making the universe so much smaller.
Star Trek's Space Portrayal Consistencies
00:17:11
Speaker
Because every, like the corny thing with every Star Trek movie,
00:17:15
Speaker
is that we're the only ship in the sector or like we're the only ship close enough. And it does make you feel like space is freaking huge. Um, but then, I dunno, it would seem like spot going to the mature and mature sector or going through it just, it makes it feel less far away or less. But it's the prequel show. So things should be kind of closer together.
00:17:42
Speaker
And then like, they're not venturing out to, yeah, they're not venturing too far out of the immediate area, which is kind of a little interesting. It's like,
00:17:53
Speaker
I would say that a critique of Star Trek in general and maybe all space shows is that like sometimes when it's convenient things are really great distances away and then sometimes they're like a hop skip and a jump away and like even you know I but I think that's like a common thing like even when we watch uh shows like the expense that it's specific to Star Trek the expense doesn't have that problem
00:18:17
Speaker
Well, they're, yeah, they're only dealing with our solar system so far. The expense is a different problem where the main ship seems to be like where it needs to be at every point and everyone seems to meet up with it for some reason.
00:18:32
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like this is a Star Trek issue. I thought The Expanse was perfect. I thought you like hyped that up as like the greatest show ever made. I'm sorry, I retract what I said and nothing is wrong with The Expanse. Exactly where they need to be because that's how you make a great show.
00:18:54
Speaker
We do that in Star Trek where things aren't, where distance seems kind of weird, where sometimes they'll say, we're the only ship in the sector and it's at Earth.
00:19:07
Speaker
Like there should be tons of ships at Earth. You're like the very center of the Federation. Like, uh, case in point, uh, Star Trek into, I mean, Star Trek, uh, 2009, there's like no defense system generations. The Star Trek, the motion picture.
00:19:37
Speaker
You know that the last episode of Voyager, when the Borg are coming to Earth, because the slipstream is going to open up in front of Earth, and that whole Armada forms to protect Earth. It's like, where have all those ships been all these years? They've been waiting for another Dominion attack, you know, at Starbase, whatever, with Cisco. Because there's so many ships in Deep Space 9 in those Dominion wars.
00:20:05
Speaker
When I was a kid, my friend Julio and I created this huge map of what we speculated at the time, based on the Star Trek role-playing game and information available at that time of what the galaxy was like. And we actually would deploy ships in a way that was sensible. It's not hard to do. I feel like this is something that Starfleet maybe needs Julio and Sohail.
00:20:34
Speaker
The writers' room needs a map on the wall where they place all of their shit at any given moment and then they write depending on that, right? They might be doing that for the Picard show because we did see that Kirsten Beyer was drawing up a map of the galaxy when they started writing.
00:20:52
Speaker
That didn't really make a map of the galaxy, but I mean, it looked like a bunch of squiggly lines on a grid. We should have an interactive Star Trek map by now on Star Trek.com or something, I feel. That would be cool. I agree. It seems that... Actually, what would be cool is... Hello? Go ahead, PJ. All right, see? Yeah, go ahead. He's not in this new Picard show, the Borg maybe.
00:21:18
Speaker
pretty prevalent in a certain part of the galaxy and that they're not defeated yet but and they're still like a lingering threat and yeah that's I think I said in that drawing you're talking about I think I saw like a whole section where it's like Borg yeah they she had like the Delta Quadrant labeled Borg
Speculating the Borg in Picard Series
00:21:38
Speaker
Yeah like so they're not gone. They're still around like they're gonna like attack at any moment. I think that's what the Picard Joe is gonna be about. Picard's gonna be off doing his Indiana Jones adventures or like tending to like the vineyard and they're gonna call him back. They're gonna call him back into service like that guy from Rambo
00:22:02
Speaker
He's like, you got to come back. He's like, no, that life. No, I'm done with that life, man. He's like, no, you've got to. And then like Riker or somebody he loves gets killed, like Worf gets killed or something. I've got to defeat these damn Borg. I think that when they get back to the Delta Quadrant, they're going to find out that the Borg have been wiped out because Neelix and the Talaxians have killed all the Borg. Oh, really?
00:22:31
Speaker
to be honest, their map might be full because they still have Dominion written in the... Is the Dominion still alive and well? They were completely wiped out.
00:22:48
Speaker
But aren't the founders, aren't the founders doing their own shit? Anyway, sorry. Come on, come on, Sean. Let's get it. Odo went to the changeling world and like joined the Great Lake and he said, we're just going to stay here and learn to not be assholes.
00:23:05
Speaker
Okay, good luck with that. And constantly have some kind of strange liquid sex all day long. Except for the lady, the leader of the founders. She's in a federation prison somewhere. I think they keep her as a prisoner.
00:23:20
Speaker
Doesn't she dies anyways? Um, no, that was, that's the topic at hand. So I have a question. So the, the, um, are the, the remnant of that was this like time rift. Is that something that's been happening like everywhere? Like does everywhere that the angel visits create like, uh, like this big time anomaly or was that something that do you think?
00:23:47
Speaker
When Admiral Cornwell investigated the anomaly,
00:23:51
Speaker
at the first site where the Hiawatha was, they detected all the tachyons and the time rifts and all this shit. And this is pretty much the same thing that Discovery is now in charge of investigating. Shouldn't they have some background information from Admiral Cornwell on what this is? They seem to be not really knowing exactly how to deal with it. It's like they have no information on it prior to this event when they should.
00:24:18
Speaker
I don't think there was a time. I don't think there was a time rift when Cornwell investigated, though. I think she talks about tachyons because there's like, like there's ruminant traces of time travel. The aftermath of one or something, maybe. Yeah, it was leaving. It was leaving behind residual tachyons. And they weren't sure if it was time travel. They thought it could be, but they also thought it could be cloaking devices or transporter signatures. That's right. Now I remember you're right. But they did. They did hint that it is likely time travel.
00:24:48
Speaker
I thought that the episode did a great job of like showing time dilation and basically a time tornado or hurricane or whatever it was. One of my favorite scenes was actually when Tilly notices
00:25:06
Speaker
the captain, the captain, the whole scene repeating like where the captain says the chair out ranks the badge or whatever. She's like, what the frick? And I just love the way that was done visually. I thought that was a high point. I think one of you guys pointed out though, that like, why wasn't Tyler aware? Why was, why didn't he see the echo or the time ghost? Let's call it time. Oh, that was you. The time ghost.
00:25:36
Speaker
the other scene and I think I think I'm willing to buy that it was so like distracting and loud in that shuttle that like Maybe Pike is the only one that knows it We also don't know where the microphone is that's picking up the sound of that so maybe only if you're like super close to be to the Illusion of the future you would hear it. It is a phase of fire though
00:26:03
Speaker
And it's a pretty loud moment. You would think that Tyler would at least turn around going, what the hell is going on? But Nick pointed out that he was very occupied. I don't know.
00:26:16
Speaker
It could also be part of what, cause that, that happened while they were in the, not the heart of it, but they were really deep in the time rift. It could be that like you could have isolations that are great. Like, whereas like maybe one effect only affects Pike for a moment and Tyler isn't even aware, like it's. Yeah. For Tyler, cause he's like just slightly in another time, you know, junction or whatever. So that could be like a more, I guess, scientific explanation of it because then I think Stamets later. Go ahead.
00:26:46
Speaker
And the look Pike gives when he sees the thing is like, am I hallucinating? Like, what the frig? It's almost like he's not even sure that he's seeing what he's seeing. It's not even that clear. And it's funny how you don't see the octopus tend to go around Tyler's neck. It's just vague enough so you don't know exactly what's going on. Right. It did fool me.
00:27:12
Speaker
Because but then when the scene occurred, I was like, ah, I love that idea, though, of just the the the writing of that, where you set up this this mystery of like, what is going to happen to make Pike shoot at Tyler? And then the fact that like he sees it, but he's not going to say anything because he can't trust this Section 31 Klingon, basically classic. That's a raven.
00:27:39
Speaker
You guys remember that? I don't know what that means. I'm in my mid 30s, I've never seen it. Oh my god. It was this corny Disney show where this chick had these visions from the future but she would only see like half visions. This for example, she would see someone being shot at from the front or whatever and then you'd figure out later on in the episode that it was like a fake gun or something. So her visions were always kind of false. They were always kind of wrong.
00:28:06
Speaker
Oh, that's so Raven. Where's data when you need him? Because data, as we saw in the episode in TNG with the time dilation occurring, was the only one that immune to it because he was operating in a way that prevented the effects from happening. So I kind of like that the time dilation was disorienting them and they had no idea. PJ, you had a theory about Pike and Tyler
00:28:33
Speaker
that i think that i think we're gonna talk about pylar pylar talking about shipping pylar i love pylar that's a great i really like the relationship in like this episode in the next one because they're like an old mary couple like arty bonker and edith
00:29:08
Speaker
the
Pike and Tyler's Dynamic
00:29:13
Speaker
Yeah, because of you, I took note of the time when Pike says we might be stuck in here for all eternity together. And I was like, oh, so he's succumbing to like the he's succumbing to the idea that like, you might have to like be intimate with with Tyler. So when they almost hold hands when they reach out and touch the the dial and like their their fingers touch.
00:29:17
Speaker
the the
00:29:40
Speaker
One of the critiques I had personally last season for Star Trek Discovery is that I thought they could do more with the opening credits sequences, like in terms of modifying them and to kind of give us clues or whatever. And while it's still not exactly what I would like, I did like that the time traveler, Red Angel, was now featured in this episode in the opening credits, and I took note of that.
00:30:06
Speaker
I'm still not digging the opening credits on Discovery, but they're better than Enterprise. I actually think that you're sad. Like most of the other things on a TV show. I think Voyager had the best opening credits, just the visuals of the ship flying by a star. Yeah, it's true. The score for each Iceman and Voyager are the best, I find. Yeah, 100%. Cherry gill. Voyager.
00:30:40
Speaker
So the forests of Vulcan, I wanted to talk that a little bit. I know that in the animated series, you do see these trees and stuff like that. But I don't recall anything about trees growing. Most of the scenes we've seen previously of Vulcan have been mostly desert-type scenes. But when you look at Vulcan from space, there are huge oceans. And so it's not infeasible that the city that we see here
00:30:59
Speaker
Very cool.
00:31:09
Speaker
Those oceans and that's not like rain and go ahead go ahead father Yeah, they also have freaking oxygen on the planet. So there's got to be some vegetation. There's there's some makes sense Yeah, maybe maybe Vulcan is predominantly desert, but there would be tropical places. There would be you know cold places I think a lot of planets that that are in class planets basically operate much like Earth and they have
00:31:40
Speaker
like perhaps like earth to some cultures is way too cold. It's like, God, it's just the weather sucks. Yeah. The, the Kardashians need, um, need like warmer temperatures than us from what I recall. And they need like less light. Yeah. Hmm.
00:32:02
Speaker
I still like Forge, which in the next episode Spock mentions the forests of the Forge as being barren and being just a desert. But I also appreciated a little cross discussion into the next episode that the trees were barren. They didn't have leaves on them, so it implied that this area was bereft of
00:32:24
Speaker
of life, but it also seemed like it was too close to their house. So I don't know. It's a little weird. Anyways. Mark, do we ever get that? Sorry. Yeah, go ahead. No fear. All of the visuals, like all of the Vulcan visuals to me were outstanding. I loved like the cityscape. I loved
00:32:43
Speaker
just that the shuttle landing next to the house. I loved it all. Yeah, it's like the magma. Like if this if this was a modern Star Trek movie that it's what we would have gotten just the shots probably would have been like a little bit longer. They would have gone on a little longer. But I mean, like it was that cinematic level of quality. I was very impressed by it.
00:33:04
Speaker
And and on that note, the time riff was beautiful, too, like, especially when it had these like explosions and tsunamis and just like the whole sequence. I just felt like for a show with such a limited production period, it just felt really well done considering everything. You know, there's a lot of great direction in this episode.
00:33:23
Speaker
Marta Cunningham is, she should, I'm assuming it's a she. Yeah, she's married to James Frane. She's the real life wife. Oh, nice. Yeah, she knows what she's doing in terms of visuals because like when you see the visuals in Vulcan, they're
00:33:43
Speaker
like there are a lot of still shots there there's still camera movement and like floaty angles and a little bit of light flare here and there but she uses it perfectly like every time you see the light flare or
00:33:56
Speaker
the way the camera moves, it's all appropriate to what you're seeing. And you get the episode before that, which is like the camera's all over the place. And there's lens flares all over the place. And then, you know, episode eight, which we're gonna talk about later, that has the same problem. Like there's a smoke machine on 24 seven in the background. Jonathan Frakes and this director for this episode are my two favorite directors so far.
00:34:26
Speaker
She brought out the best, so Rick, that James Frane has given up until now, I reckon. Yeah, she's like, you better do it, husband. You better do a good job. Try again, husband. I know that name's Frane. Take 42. Take 47.
00:34:44
Speaker
I know that James Frane originally said he wanted to like do his own take on Surik and what have you and maybe no one really like no one wanted to say hey you can't do that just do Surik properly but maybe his wife was able to say
Exploring Vulcan Family Dynamics
00:34:58
Speaker
that like hey look calm down all right this ain't your own take just do just do Surik I like that whole family dynamic
00:35:08
Speaker
Yeah, why do you do that? It was really well played out here. Who's the actress who plays Amanda? Does anyone know her name? I forgot her name. It's just weird that Marta Cunningham... I don't have any memories, but I've looked it up. Let me search. I will find her name. Well, y'all are looking that up. It's weird that Marta Cunningham would direct her to argue with her husband. Mia Kirshner. Mia Kirshner, thank you. How old is she, by the way?
00:35:38
Speaker
43. She's she kind of looks like a shit. What's her name? Lois Lane from? Yes. Man of Steel. Yes. What's her name? Amy Adams. Yes. Good enough to look like Amy Adams. Wow.
00:36:02
Speaker
We just crossed the line there, first check on the... Yeah, no way. Terry Hatcher was the best-looking Lois Lane in the 90s on Lois and Clark. Lore experts talk more. Is that mentioned before, ever, before this episode? No. That was a new thing, I believe, unless it appeared in a book or something. It was never in any of the shows, though. I think that's a word they must have, or a term that they must have made up for Spock, because I don't think any Vulcan has had.
00:36:29
Speaker
Dyslexia. No, Tokmar. Well, that too, but Tokmar was... What am I thinking? Tokmar. No, you're right. There was another pad, but Tokmar was what Serik was meditating, like that stinking and trying to reach out to Spock and Amanda. Yeah, that was never mentioned before. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's what I thought. Yeah. I'm thinking the other thing is just learning disabilities. Yeah.
00:36:56
Speaker
And I think we get introduced to the katrik arc for the first time in Star Trek 2009 too, because I don't recall it ever being mentioned before. Is that correct as well, or? Yeah. Katra was first mentioned in the original series. No, but the katrik arc, like this like place, it seemed like very similar to what this environment was where Spock was being hidden. They don't say that. They don't say it. They call it a crypt, but they talk about the katra stones. Right. I wondered if those
00:37:24
Speaker
Yeah, those stones are kind of slightly psychic or something, and they have the knowledge of Vulcans in them or something like that. In Enterprise, we see Vulcans use stones for weird things, like to carry the the Catra of Siroc and also like to have like all the teachings of the Book of Siroc or whatever they called it. And then in Next Generation in Gambit, they had like that
00:37:49
Speaker
that mystical stone that the space pirates are after. Oh, I totally forgot about that episode. Wow. Yeah. They're all about logic, but they have all this spiritual shit going on. I was thinking the same thing. But they are a deeply, they do. Well, the thing is, is that I think the thing that people forget is that Vulcans look at logic as the form of spirituality. They find deep
00:38:12
Speaker
They express their spirituality through logic, which is interesting. It is a nice interesting twist. I couldn't live there. Too many vocals. You can't deal with it. We're nearly at a time on our time limit that we've set for this discussion. I think we're doing a really good job. So I want to breeze through some of these questions that I had, but then I'd like to open it up to you guys.
Ethan Peck's Spock: A Character Analysis
00:38:36
Speaker
But my next note was on Ethan Pack. What did you guys think? Obviously we get more Spocky later on, but what did you think of like our really our first final, our finally our first look at Spock at the new portrayal by Ethan Pack? He's not really a character in this episode. He's a plot device. I would almost say he's a prop that that Sinequa Martin Green has to carry around
00:38:59
Speaker
He's a cardboard cutout of Spock. Basically, and he's just mumbling incoherent stuff. It's not really a character until we get to the next episode. I do think, though, if one of the notes I wrote about his performance is that, like, that first scene, we see him and they do a close-up of his lips and he's like, oh, look, he kind of does this, like, really strained kind of voice, right? And it did remind me of Leonard Des Moines. What would it sound like? Can you do that again?
00:39:30
Speaker
Yeah, if I heard that, I would totally think that. Logic! Logic! That sounds like Ethan X. Come on! So much pain! The woman! The woman! The woman! Cry! Hurt! Burn him!
00:39:50
Speaker
bitch. Oh God. She's awful. She's awful. It's a little Spock. It hurt my feelings. Um, that's the next episode. Come on. I know. I know. I know. I know. But he's, he's timing. Why me here? Okay. So, um,
00:40:08
Speaker
Let's see what else no one cares about. But I thought there was a little interesting thing when, when he's like, you know, but I wouldn't have married a human if it, if I didn't like respect humans and she kind of like raises her eyebrow. And I think it would have been like, well, what about that Vulcan princess? She used to be married. She didn't work out really well, did it? Do we know if, if, if Cybok's parents were ever married?
00:40:36
Speaker
oh oh my god i don't think there's a prequel to discovery yes sorry was living in like the capital city he fooled around with the princess but then he had to run away or something
00:40:52
Speaker
I love the additional dimension of Spock having learning differences as a child. It makes sense to me, especially because of who knows what could happen when you mix two different species, even if they're compatible sexually and can reproduce. It still begs the question of what is the child going to be like. I also like that they finally brought
00:41:20
Speaker
the Alice in Wonderland references episode and kind of like made it made it and it made sense like Alice in Wonderland would be I think a great way to deal with illogical things and like and it's a very like you know it isn't absurd the whole idea of the novels are you know it's to be absurd and so I like that
00:41:40
Speaker
a lot of our discoveries doing a good job at tying in all of these loose ends or just random plot like devices that they use in season one. I didn't know the point of all of those references in the first season.
00:41:55
Speaker
apart from like that corny shore leave episode from the original series, right? That's the only thing I can make of it. But interesting, again, interesting tie-ins, like it's just like nice to see these little connections and the reds that come up. Let's talk, last thing I guess is
00:42:13
Speaker
just what did you think of the Burnham Spock relationship? Like do you buy it more now? Like is it something do you like see how Burnham fits in like because I know there were a lot of objections from both fans of the show and non-fans about like where you know Burnham just doesn't make sense like it doesn't you know all that kind of stuff. I buy it more after what happens in the next episode
00:42:35
Speaker
Right, right, of course. It sounds like you're wanting to wrap up. Do you want to mention anything about Section 31 in this episode? Yeah, yeah, actually. So what I wrote about Section 31 is just that they did mention the only thing that stood out to me really for that was Leland is responsible for the death of Burnham's parents. Yeah, that's kind of a big bombshell, but I don't know
00:42:59
Speaker
If that was really necessary I kinda wanna see what the secret is when it's fully revealed before I can lay judgement down on that.
00:43:10
Speaker
I feel like he needs to be, he's being set up, but he's the villain of this, this season. The red angel is the mystery, but Leland is the villain. And by the end of the season, he'll be dead or put in prison or something. And cause he's, he's very shady or whatever. That's when Georgia will take control of section 31. It's like, she'll be the leader of section 31. And then I'll move on from there. That's how I feel. They're going to wrap this up.
00:43:33
Speaker
I have a theory about Leland that he is a like, he's like what Tyler Volk is.
Leland and Section 31's Dark Past
00:43:40
Speaker
He's a converted Klingon and that he was actually one of the Klingons that killed her parents. He was like the leader. He was one of the ones that like murdered her dad and then raped her mom to death. The rape is implied. They don't say that straight out.
00:44:03
Speaker
That's a pretty strong image. You know what's disturbing about the... You know what's disturbing about the Klingons, having two images? Is that when you imagine something like that, it makes it all that much more worse to think about? It's like, oh. Burnham is hiding in the closet as a little kid listening to her mom. Oh, no. That's horrible. I don't even want to hear that story. When she told that story in episode 15, I actually wanted to throw up.
00:44:31
Speaker
Because I'm like, they just illustrated that they have two things.
00:44:35
Speaker
And then she implies rape onto her mother. No, does, how does Balana's internal organs work? Does Balana have like double, double things? I mean, we could really guys within a time from here. And I think that's going deep. That's deep. That's probably should. Yes. We could do this on drunk space.
00:45:05
Speaker
I want to end the main discussion first by seeing if you guys had any notes or questions that I didn't address that we want to talk about.
00:45:14
Speaker
I still have problems with the fact that there's no chief engineer, no medical officer, Reno is absent. They have serious scientific problems, they have serious engineering problems in this episode on the discovery regarding the time rift. They could have used a chief medical officer, they could have used a chief engineer to help them with this, but they just don't exist.
00:45:36
Speaker
The show is really I feel like the shows are I mean, this is another Star Trek problem, isn't it? Because like we would get episodes where you think like, well, a certain character should have been like at least just like a quick whatever. But does that mean do you think that that means that they're not? Do you think I don't know. This might be a fact that's known. Is the season finished being written before the whole thing is produced or are they still writing episodes as they're going along? Do you guys happen to know that? Because it is indicative of that. Kurtzman stated that
00:46:06
Speaker
this season was backwards engineered that they first came up with the end and then deconstructed it deconstructed it somehow or devolved it to a point where they would I don't know all I know is that the backward engineer did so that this Red Angel thing
00:46:25
Speaker
is definitely going to have a resolution. Everything's going to be explained. How good or bad that explanation is going to be is yet to be seen. I think that I think that there's no way like, I mean, these episodes are getting denser and denser. And I feel like there's really no way you can include all of the characters, even though I do agree with you 100 percent that like, yeah, there should have been like just one scene from engineering saying like the strains on our core are full because of, you know, and again, you know, it's like something like that.
00:46:56
Speaker
Yeah, there's never any interaction with the chief engineer which is such a common thing in track and now it's completely absent and They might set that up in season three though. We might go into season. Oh, yeah a CMO and a and a chief engineer chief engineer gets killed and then jet Reno gets promoted Yeah
00:47:20
Speaker
No she's not because apparently I thought she was the chief medical officer but her like her ranking is lower than Culver's so it wouldn't make any sense. There is a doctor that we see in the season one episode magic to make the sanest man go mad who he's in the the shuttle bay when they bring on the Gormagander okay and then like Harry Mudd shot him but oh god
00:47:43
Speaker
That might be one of the timelines that didn't actually happen. So I think he might be the chief medical officer, but I'm pretty sure we only see him the one time. I feel like they should really have, even if they don't want to focus on these characters and they don't want to show them too much, I feel like they really should have them in staff meetings with Pike or something. Just a bunch of people say that these are the senior officers from the ship. Have them interact with Pike. But then when Burnham comes in, if you want to film Burnham interacting with Pike, then he dismisses them with something. That's fine.
00:48:12
Speaker
But I feel like they should be there. It doesn't bother me too much, but I agree. It should be in there at some point. But if enough people keep bitching about it, they'll probably... Apparently, that's what happens. I'm fine with making Star Trek the show different for the audience, but I feel like in-universe, the hierarchy or the way the inner workings of a ship needs to remain consistent. Yes. I agree. I agree with you.
00:48:39
Speaker
I just want to say one thing about Ethan Peck, even, even in this episode where he's just like mumbling and stuff in the background, he's doing a pretty good job. He's got that voice too, right? Like he, it's not hard to imagine him as the character. So.
00:48:54
Speaker
On the Well podcast, which is the podcast that Anson Mount hosts with his friends, Brendan Hedgens, I think is his last name. There's a really great interview with Ethan Peck and he goes through his process and how he came to, how he got the role and then his process of becoming Spock. And it's really fascinating to listen to. Yeah, he got the role by saying that he's like,
00:49:18
Speaker
Ethan pecks my granddaddy. Hire me. No, I'm just joking. He's good though. He really is a good guy. He's great. Atticus Finn.
00:49:29
Speaker
What? Yeah, Gregory Peck. That's great. Nice. All right, guys, ratings time. I'll go first as tradition because Sean doesn't trust my ratings. You say that. You say this, but it was the doctor that didn't trust your ratings originally. I know, but you just get the, you get that to wear that mantle because you do look at me suspiciously when I give my ratings after. I disagree with your ratings. That's very different.
00:49:58
Speaker
I give this one a 9.5. I did think that there were a few little minor kind of plot holes and stuff like that, but I'm gonna be Gary. I'm gonna be the guy who gives it the high rating in this episode. So go on, next. Thank you, next. Father?
00:50:21
Speaker
I don't know because I've been thinking about the more recent episode a lot lately, so I'm trying to think back to my initial reaction to this one. I liked it, but it wasn't one of my favorites of the seasons. I would probably give it
00:50:38
Speaker
either a seven or maybe a little lower than that, maybe a six and a half. I'll be generous and give it a seven. I'll have seven. Thank you. It helps with the average. Thank you. You're the average. I will give this episode my highest Star Trek Discovery rating. There's only like two other episodes I give this rating to.
00:51:07
Speaker
And it's a 7.5. That's an achievement. If there's an episode of Discovery, that's an eight. That's a real win. That's amazing. Okay. I'm, I'm, I'm amazed at this, but my, my rating is 6.5. So I give the lowest.
00:51:25
Speaker
All right, so I think it's fair to say we can average it out of the seven, just like a Starfleet boy rough estimate here, right? So that's good. Every time we get together it's a seven. It would be exactly a seven between the three of us, but then you kind of skew it up too high with your 9.5. I know, but I ferred it out. I got fair, right? So it's like the general consensus would be a seven.
00:51:50
Speaker
And yeah, I recuse myself because I'm so absurd. I can't help it. The fanboy in you. I can't help it. I have to say, like, I know I'm probably going on Emotion and it's like what Sean called it the hype or whatever. So it would be interesting to revisit this at the end of the season and see how I feel the season ends. But like, I'm really loving the ride. Like, I just feel like overall, and I guess it's because season one
00:52:19
Speaker
It's like made me so like, ugh, like I was just, but this is even like, I've said this before, but I feel like this is even enhancing season one for me with these like little tie-ins to season one. That is very true. This is making season one better. It is making season one better and more watchable in general.
00:52:37
Speaker
Gentlemen, I think we did pretty good. We tried to stay minutes and we made it or so. Whoo. How's that? Is this the shortest Starfleet boy ever? No, we've done 30 minutes and we can we could do it again. I believe we could do it again. I mean, it can happen. It's harder with four people, but but I think we could do it. Oh. Time crunch typically, but today we're doing two back to back, so we have less time than we normally do so.
00:53:05
Speaker
All right, gentlemen, we'll see you in just a few minutes. And then, audience, you're going to get a, I don't know if it's a treat or a dread, but you'll get two episodes of Starfleet Boy back to back. A double feature. So live long and prosper, and we'll see you next time.