Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
DSC: "Red Directive" & "Under the Twin Moons" (s5e1-2) with Shereese (@SciFiSavage)
97 Plays1 month ago
BURNHAM'S LAST DANCE. The final season of Star Trek: Discovery is a perfect season for those curious about the show to jump right into. It helps that the overarching story is a sequel of sorts to "The Chase" from Star Trek: The Next Generation, but more importantly, the straightforward treasure hunt plot allows the show to focus on its characters growing and changing as the series heads towards its surprising ending.
Joining Bryan for this voyage through Disco's 5th season is Shereese the Sci-Fi Savage (@SciFiSavage on all social platforms). She has a weekly stream on YouTube called "The Savage Stream," every Wednesday night, 6pm PT/ 9 pm ET -- check it out!
Captain Michael Burnham and the crew of the USS Discovery need to get on the clue trail to finding the technology left behind by the race of aliens Picard & crew got a holographic message from that said all the humanoid species in the galaxy are connected. That message of unity doesn't quite survive to the 32nd century and a pair of criminal lovebirds have plans to steal it and sell it to the highest bidder.
The grades begin at (19:18).
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Trek Mary Kill Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
This week on Trek Mary Kill. Infinity. Raynor. Picard. Let's Fly. It has been a hell of a journey.
00:00:33
Speaker
I shall follow your lead. The greatest treasure in the known galaxy is out there. It's more important than you can imagine.
00:00:50
Speaker
We're on a search for one of the greatest powers ever known. You could be very dangerous in your own hands.
00:01:00
Speaker
This clue is the most important thing. We have to keep it safe. Let's fly.
00:01:40
Speaker
Mary, kill.
00:01:45
Speaker
Hi, I'm Brian. Hi, I'm Charisse. Welcome to Trek Mary Kill, a podcast that seeks to pass judgment on Star Trek with the integrity and intelligence of Captain Michael Burnham.
End of an Era: Star Trek Shows Conclude
00:01:56
Speaker
2024 marks the end of two Star Trek shows, Lower Decks and Star Trek Discovery. Lower Decks just started its final season, but Discovery ended its run a little over four and a half months ago, and I think it's only fitting that we hold to our format of we usually do the most the most recent completed season. We've been doing a lot of Strange New Worlds. There's no new Strange New Worlds this year. So it goes to Discovery. and And it'll just be funny because we're kind of jumping in after having only done the pilots.
Charisse: The Sci-Fi Savage Returns
00:02:25
Speaker
So if anyone out there is listening and they haven't watched Discovery, it's going to be a big shock to them. But I'm glad that I'm doing the shocking journey with Charisse, the sci-fi savage, returning to the show. I'm so thrilled you're here. I'm just dropping you right into Star Trek Discovery's canon. Welcome back, Charisse.
00:02:44
Speaker
Yeah, thanks so much. This is my third appearance on the show. Super excited to be here. um we And we were talking a little bit off mic about how beautiful this show is. So if you have not watched Discovery, it might not be your cup of tea story-wise, but it's just it's just like dessert for your eyeballs. So if you just want to look at something beautiful, I highly recommend.
00:03:04
Speaker
Yeah, it's definitely every penny of your Paramount Plus subscription is winding up on the screen. that yeah yeah ah So of course, Charisse is the co-host of the TNG g podcast where they recapped every episode of Next Generation. That's going to be important for this episode we're about to talk about, or these two that we're about to talk about. ah She's appeared and on Drone. Go listen to that episode ah voyage from Voyager and Lost in Translation. You can find her on TikTok and Instagram at the Sci-Fi Savage. And I just want to point out that Cherise, you're going to be sticking around for the for this whole season of Discovery that we're doing. So everybody's settling out there and you're going to be blown away by Cherise, who's going to be walking through Discovery. The end of Discovery. We'll all be saying goodbye to Discovery together. through it Because this is your first time
00:03:53
Speaker
going through it right and this is basically my second time i watched it all when it came out and now i'm revisiting it for the first time since and to be perfectly honest it is my first time revisiting any season of discovery i've watched it the whole thing through one time yeah my first time going back and rewatching so Yeah, this is my first time through this last season. So I made sure to catch up to this last season in time for this podcast recording to be like, what's even going on? yeah um And I was so glad that I caught up like really quickly because I was like, I don't I don't know if I would have been able to watch this every single week as it was dropping. And it's good that they give you a lot of recap. So if you're you're curious, I think this is a really actually a good season for people who either watched and went away from it or aren't sure what the show is about. It's a pretty straightforward
00:04:41
Speaker
season. It's only 10 episodes and there's not a moment of the show that doesn't indicate what Discovery has always been ah for Good or Ill. And so I think it's a good season to watch if you're a Star Trek fan that's remotely curious about Discovery. This week we're going to talk about the first two episodes from the season as they were released on the same night.
Premiere of Star Trek Discovery Season 5
00:05:00
Speaker
We're going to look at the first two episodes of season five, Red Directive and Under the Twin Moons. Red Directive is written by showrunner Michelle Paradise, directed by Olatunde Osensanmi. Under the Twin Moons is written by Alan McElroy, directed by Doug Arneakoski. They debuted together on Paramount Plus April 4th, 2024.
00:05:20
Speaker
Memory Alpha describes Red Directive, Captain Burnham and the USS Discovery are sent to retrieve a mysterious 800-year-old Romulan vessel until the artifact hidden inside is stolen, leading to an epic chase. Meanwhile, Saru is offered the position of a lifetime until his efforts to help pull her into a tangled web of secrecy. What Memory Alpha isn't telling us about that one is that the hidden artifact is stolen by a pair of thieves named Locke and Maul. We'll hear about them more later.
00:05:50
Speaker
And the offer of a lifetime for Saru, position of a lifetime, comes from the president of the Federation. who asks him to become the ambassador of a group of smaller planets as the galaxy continues to heal from the burn, and these planets need some representation in this galactic governance that's going on. For Under the Twin Moons, Memory Alpha says, on Saru's last mission as Captain Burnham's number one, the team ventures to a seemingly abandoned planet to hunt for what might be the greatest treasure in the galaxy. And that's where we discover
00:06:23
Speaker
that there's this technology out there that could conceivably create and destroy all life in the universe. So the season mystery is based on the Next Generation episode, The Chase, which you covered. You've already done this episode, but I didn't listen to it. So where did you kind of, where did you personally kind of land on that one?
Debate on TNG Episode 'The Chase'
00:06:45
Speaker
Yeah, so I personally hate that episode. So having an entire season of that episode was like, oh my goodness for the love of Pete. like And I was literally thinking last night, what other storylines would I have preferred to see spelled out over a season? And I thought of like 10 off the top of my head that I would have preferred to see just over time. like Let's really dig into this storyline. This was not one of them. This was not one of them. Give me a little taste of that 10. Give me two.
00:07:13
Speaker
Yeah, like almost every episode I thought of I was like, this would be more interesting. So the episode symbiosis where we've got the planet that are kind of drug addicts and the planet that are drug dealers. yeah I would love to see what happens with that conflict or those species over time. That'd be interesting. yeah um I would love to see like,
00:07:29
Speaker
the Roga Dana episode, where he was kind of like the super soldier, you know, Jason Bourne, and then he comes back to his government who's thrown away all their soldiers because the war is over. And now they have to come to some kind of decision. How do we move forward as a people and honor our soldiers and not throw them away, but also like, put them in a peacetime? How does this look like I would love to see what a society like that would look like? Or does it become all militaristic? Or does like what happens? That'd be super interesting. The chase oh Like, I think the idea of we're all one kumbaya is beautiful. But I just I just really hated this episode. My co-host on the other hand loved it. She loved it. She loved every second of it. She thought it was amazing. She loved the message at the end. She loved the we are one. um And so I don't know. So when I was watching these two episodes, I was like, how does I I just had questions. I had so many questions that we can get into as we keep going.
00:08:20
Speaker
Well, like I said, in our episode on of Chuck Mary Kill, when we did the chase, it was that it for me, that episode was a pick me up in what was starting to be a sagging run of the show. You know, if you chart the run of Next Generation, it really does peak maybe in season five. And then it's a pretty steady decline. Yeah. Season six through season seven. And then, you know, then the finale is so amazing. Yeah. It's a.
00:08:45
Speaker
tied that raises it. It ends on such a high note that it makes you think that all seven seasons were amazing. And even though um season seven was amazing, one there was only like four good episodes the whole season, but the last episodes and that's what counts. You cannot let us down in the finale because that's all we will remember. That's right. It is. Yeah. So I mean, the chase, my my feelings on it were is a really good episode of establishing that Picard, when he retired, could have just gone and been an old archaeologist, which was when when they were and when they first announced Star Trek Picard, I'm like, are they going to do old man Indiana Jones? is he goingnna It would have been amazing.
00:09:29
Speaker
All right, let's talk about the other kind of, you know, it's with Discovery, you have to always think about it as each episode is and not even a chapter. It's just like a sliver of the larger story. and But there are like season arc, you know, season villains overarching things.
Introduction of New Villains: Maul and Locke
00:09:45
Speaker
And this season, they give us two basically villains, Maul and Locke, Bonnie and Clyde.
00:09:51
Speaker
ah and wild love, which I think in this in these first two episodes, they used to really interesting effect that the the relationship, how it resonates with our characters. But I do. I got to ask you, Cherise, just on ah on a basic human level, have you ever had a Clyde to your Bonnie or Bonnie to your Clyde? I don't know. I youre so I have I have not I have not ever had a partner in crime. I've also never really gone on a crime spree. So that might be right.
00:10:21
Speaker
as a prerequisite. How about you? I mean, I like to think I'm thick as thieves with my with my beautiful wife and my partner. Yeah, I think that's I think that's where it works. But but I love the excitement of of ah young and in love or anything like that. And you feel and and I like the stakes here in Star Trek. You know, you feel like it's it's us against the world, right? That's how it is. But here it's yeah us against the galaxy. And that's kind of a cool idea, I think. So i thought that was a lot of fun.
00:10:50
Speaker
Uh, and I also have to say the, I'm going to get his name wrong, but the, the guy who plays, uh, lock Elias to fix this, I think is his name. I'm probably saying it wrong and I
Actor Spotlight: Elias Toufexis as Locke
00:11:01
Speaker
really apologize. It's not intentional. Sorry, Elias, when you heard this episode. Yeah, I really.
00:11:07
Speaker
I really had to come around on him because he plays an absolute shit-heeled dirtbag in The Expanse in season one. And I really hated that character. He did such a great job of playing such a character. You're like, I hope that motherfucker dies. I hope he dies.
00:11:24
Speaker
And that's how you know the acting is so good. i don't I don't know if you've ever seen the movie, the the TV show Prison Break, which is not Star Trek related at all. But in that show, the writers do this masterful job of creating these bad guys, these villains that you hate, like you hate, you just hope everything bad in the world happens to them. And then it'll flip it by the end of the season. And you feel so much sympathy for them. And you like want good things to happen to them. And you want them to escape from prison. And then like it flips again. And you're like, oh, that guy's the worst. I hope that guy. It's just like they really play on your emotions. And that's masterful writing and masterful acting, when you can actually make people feel like strong emotions either way about a character.
00:12:04
Speaker
I totally agree. I mean, I just have to reset because he's playing right off the bat, a completely different character from from his expanse character who I'm pretty sure from like instant one, you're like, this guy needs to get punched in the face. And I think that's how if I memory serves, that is what happens to him pretty quickly. I'm not familiar, I was not familiar with Eve Harlow's game heading into this. She's been in a lot of genre TV agents of SHIELD, ah NCIS, ah The 100, The Rookie. These are all shows I do not watch, The Night Agent. And so I just didn't know, she was on an Unreal, a show I really like, but I don't remember her. So she has a really stark, strong look. And so I think that really helps.
00:12:48
Speaker
You know, that's like a Star Trek trope sometimes, especially in the later Rick Berman years. We're like, we don't know what the character is, but you have a look and a vibe and we're just going to let that be the character. So I think that was a good starting point. So I'm intrigued by the villains start there. Let's take a look at the production elements of this before we get into the grades. The cast and crew didn't know this would be the final season of Star Trek Discovery when they shot it.
Discovery's Final Season Revelation
00:13:12
Speaker
And as we go through the episodes, I think we might ask How could they not? Are you sure they didn't know? Because certain certain things come up in this se in the season and and in even these two episodes where people are saying goodbye, they're already talking about their futures that suggests that they know that an end is coming or a change is coming. But anyway, they they were able to go back and shoot an actual proper epilogue. But before that, Michelle Paradise said that the showrunner said that the goal of the season was to have an Indiana Jones style or Indiana Jones size adventure.
00:13:45
Speaker
with the very clear mission established early on versus the mystery box that they'd been doing. And let's face it, way too much genre stuff has been doing this century. That was a good choice. I think it really helps crystallize and shape the for these first two episodes. ah Red Directive, the premiere, premiered at South by Southwest back in March. ah Kind of a tiny echo of the original series, Cherise, because that actually premiered Star Trek, the original series. The first episodes were shown at a science fiction convention the summer before its debut. That's neat. Not super surprising, but very cool. That's that's where it should be shown. ah Get people excited.
00:14:23
Speaker
Yep, Callum Keith Rennie joins the cast this season as Commander Rainer. He's basically, at least in my mind, genre TV royalty with a very long list of credits, The X-Files, Highlander, Lefim Nikita, and I mean, Man in the High Castle, Jessica Jones, the Umbrella Academy before the season of Discovery, but pretty much most famously, Battlestar Galactica as Leo Vin. If you don't clearly remember he who he is, he's the dude that Adama fights in the TV movie.
00:14:53
Speaker
Kind of the the shaggy, the dirtbag looking skin walker. He's the one who gets spaced. That's right. Thank you. He's the first air-locked person yeah that we see in the series of air-locked people. But it's so shocking because it's the first one. And you're like, oh my gosh, did they just shoot him into space? They sure did. They sure did. A little more about Rainer in this though. He's a Kelleran and look.
00:15:19
Speaker
Cherise, I can't fucking believe they imported an alien from a random Deep Space Nine episode. They elevated like a background alien into a co-lead for the season is just kind of funny to me. ah Well, they do that with lower decks, right? With the all of season two was about the pack lids, which was such a life. Well, so they so the in that episode, at least the pack lids were memorable for that one episode, right? They were the main characters of that killer. And they're like, I think they're the other race that we don't aren't as memorable as the main race, which has the wild hair.
00:15:56
Speaker
styles. aha And so it's just funny that our Armageddon game is an episode we did, we trekked it, and that's it's most famous for basically setting up the O'Brien Bashir friendship. That's where it it emerges in that episode. I just think it's funny. like Just this random... You know what I wish though, I wish that the president, this was not from this episode, it was the episode before this when they meet like the president of Earth or whatever, which is just a funny thought, the president of Earth. That's DC Abrams, the president of Earth. Which was awesome, but i wanted I wanted the president of Earth to be um not human.
00:16:29
Speaker
I guess it makes sense that they would be human cause it's earth, but I wanted them to have like some ridges or cool ears or just like, or like the cool like trail tattoos or just something to be like, Oh, it's like more integrated. Yeah. Human beings had intermixed. Yeah. Right. Like it's because they have like, we've seen it so much on, on even at TNG, g like ha everybody was half human. So it was like, I kind of wanted that. And then I was like, Oh, it's a human with a whole delegation of humans. Okay. Like, I don't know. I don't know. I wanted to like a Vulcan. I don't know what I wanted, but I wanted like some alien nest to be mixed in with Earth to make it be like we're a part of the whole galaxy, you know? But I mean, this that this does that. I just think it's funny that it's the Kelleran. I mean, that if you were to do a random Star Trek alien generator, that's a good one.
00:17:17
Speaker
Uh, so congrats to them, I guess, because I mean, it works. I'm not criticizing it. it yeah It's funny. Uh, and then finally before the grades, just want to point out, because now we have these numbers more frequently or more regularly, I should say. These two episodes cracked the Nielsen streaming top 10, uh, disco had 257 million minutes viewed according to Nielsen's measurements, which was good enough for 10th place.
00:17:40
Speaker
ah The caveat for all these Nielsen streaming, first of all, any Nielsen rating is a sampling. And I actually don't know how Nielsen gathers the streaming sampling, because in the old days it would basically, they'd like literally give you a box to track and also a journal to fill out to get the sampling and they would select certain demographics, they would like literally send
Nielsen Streaming Metrics: A Critical Look
00:18:04
Speaker
you an invitation. Would you like to be a Nielsen family? I don't know how ah how they do it now with streaming. I know that other services had basically generated it through like online chatter as a kind of a workaround. So I don't know what Nielsen is doing now to gather their minutes. The other caveat being that the sampling is based on every possible it's just millions of minutes viewed. It's not necessarily per episode.
00:18:29
Speaker
So it's a little tricky. So what I'm saying is if people were catching up on the previous season of Discovery, that would have counted in the weeks that they were sampling as part of the the measurement. So it may not reflect the actual episodes that ran, but it does.
00:18:46
Speaker
it but they still got intoated right It's still instigated by the episodes being newly released. so But yeah, i mean I think it's always a question because there's a lot of online trolls and I'm sure we'll get into that discussion of it later on in the season. But like it's always that like no one's watching this or I'm complaining about it and that's all that matters. and it's like I think people like Star Trek and they watch it. Lots of people do. yeahp That's why Paramount felt very comfortable basically basing an entire subscription service on Star Trek to yeah start. so And that's why I subscribed.
00:19:18
Speaker
That's why I'm paying the freaking premium for it. I still can't believe I'm paying. It's like the I'm paying $12 a month for Paramount+. I can't believe it. All right. Let's get into the grades. Cherise, you're going to go first, but I'm going to introduce them. Let's start with great scenes and we're going since we're covering two episodes, we're just going to we're not going to segment it like we do our lower decks where we do half an app. I'm just going to mix it all together and see how it goes. So ah how many great scenes do you have?
00:19:46
Speaker
I have five, and you know we were talking off mic about what makes a great scene a great scene yeah um versus a new grade that we have, which is is more about like the visual elements of scenes. I just mixed and matched. I had so many things under like, this is really pretty, that I put half of them under great scenes, and then I left half of them under this is really pretty. so I have five great scenes, that being said, yeah to say. um The first is the infinity room.
00:20:14
Speaker
which is basically like a Matrix-style all-white room that they were talking in that was like a secure location. Now, I don't think this scene is very pretty um or unique, right? Because it's literally from The Matrix. yeah But it gave me like a ah nostalgic happy spot in my heart because it's from The Matrix.
00:20:37
Speaker
and it just kind of touched into the feelings of something else that was wonderful. That was their intention. I know that's their intention every time they every time someone copies The Matrix it's to be like hey remember how great that movie was. queer Think of us like that too okay um so it worked.
00:20:54
Speaker
And then- Stealing Valor is what you're saying. Oh, yeah. I mean, this is this is marketing 101. So I also have, um when the three ships were inside of the warp stream, which they called the warp bubble, that was just so cool. Like, oh, it was so cool. um Yeah, as far as a great scene being all around great writing and acting, it was none of that. It was just pretty. But like I said, I had so many pretty scenes. I had to split them up. um The sand racing fight, the sand racing fire fight,
00:21:21
Speaker
like both parts first they were like shooting their phasers while they were racing on the sand racers and that looked cool and then later the ship like comes out of the sand and starts shooting back at them and they have shields on their sand racers suddenly i was like oh like just the visuals were so pretty i don't know how they filmed this but the visuals were so great Again, a computer, but i but they still had to be sitting on something and they still had to have like dust somewhere and wind somewhere. They had to have some kind of practical effects for this, um but it was beautiful. And again, like not a lot of depth to it, but I would absolutely watch that episode again to watch that scene um and all these other scenes. And then there's the double starship shield.
00:22:02
Speaker
when like the sand avalanche came and then the starships like buried themselves and made a shield, I was like, oh, that's nice. You never see ships grounding themselves on purpose. That's crazy. But they made a they made it make sense. like This is why we're doing this. Now, parts of that scene still didn't make sense, but I'm OK with that because it looked cool. And then the last one is ah from Twin Moons, when the statue head opens its eyes.
00:22:27
Speaker
And then the eyeballs fly out and start shooting at them. I was like, oh my gosh. It literally got an emotional like visceral reaction from me. Because I was looking, I was like, wouldn't it be creepy if those eyes opened? Which is what they wanted you to think. But then when the eyes came out, I wasn't ready for that. I didn't i think i thought it was going to be like a great What I secretly wanted was for the statue to become alive and to be like a Titan. And the statue would just like try to step on them. And like it's unbeatable because it's a statue, which is not what Star Trek is about. But I just thought it would be fun to watch, right? Like a giant statue. You can't beat it. So anyways, that's it. Like an eternal or like a. Yes. Like one of those. Yeah. Yeah. Like it just it wakes up like you've woken the beast and it wakes up and that's the security guard. It's a giant statue and it like tries to crush them under its giant statue feet. I would watch that.
00:23:14
Speaker
This is a good contrast, compare and contrast between us, because we, I danced around every, like we don't have the same overlap. We don't have any overlap in our grade scenes. ah For red, to I mean, I have four total, but I have a couple of fuzzy things I want to throw at you and see what you say. But just for red directive, I thought, I guess I'm like, sure, is the Fred scene great? Why not? we We've got a soon Android being data like,
00:23:41
Speaker
But also like an evil data, but not as yes, but yeah. Yes. Uh, it was, you know, kind of a clarification of the plot and not a thuddingly obvious pure exposition way. They're all kind of in a character doing a bit, doing a thing. The performances are all kind of interesting. You're like, what's going on here? Oh, it's an Android who's a criminal block. Okay. Uh, I don't know. I mean,
00:24:06
Speaker
I'm giving it a great scene label, but I'm also like. He seemed torn about this choice. They don't know how to negotiate. He's like, I'll give you three bars of Ladnem. And she's like, nah, that's not enough. I'm like, you don't count her? Like, you've certainly dealt with anything before. I also got three bars. That doesn't seem like a lot, did it? After 1,000 years, that's like 900 years? No inflation after 900 years. That's like, there's an inflation here. I mean, that's pretty ridiculous. That's like, what, a penny? So yeah, for the whole lot. I thought that was funny too. I wrote that in my notes. I was like, they're still doing latinum. We're still doing that, huh? He's easy to kill, but he survived for, you know, the androids 400 something years old. I'm like, I think he can dodge these, you know, yeah, this is like the slowest, the slowest Android in the history of androids. Right.
00:24:50
Speaker
Well, I guess you could argue, if you wanted to be very generous, that he was probably of the slave synths that were made for reasons that are still to this day very upsetting why they went in that direction with Star Trek regard. And he could say, well, the slave synths are not like they don't have the reflexes of the data one.
00:25:08
Speaker
Right, but then what would be the point? Because that's part of the utility. I'm just saying, what would be the point of building a race of slave androids when you're in a post-scarcity society? I don't know, but anyway. So many questions of what's the point. Yeah, I didn't think about that, that the android did not have increased speed, strength, any abilities more than a regular human would have. I wasn't sure that it was a sense like it was a complete like synthetic organism. I thought it could have been like how they did with gray. They put his consciousness into a synthetic body. Yeah, but they call him a synth and then when Culber and But isn't it still a sin? They say that he's a soon type Android. So, like, they're very clear. He's very light with the the hair. No, he looks just like, you know, Data's long lost cousin. But I was wondering, like, is like, was he always this way or was this like a consciousness transfer like they did in Picard? You know, were and that's why he was all slow and sluggish because he was really like.
00:26:07
Speaker
It's a regular dude. and did not be funny on that That is what happened, though. They transferred Picard into the Gollum synth body and he's still is exactly like perfectly. Yes. He was like an old man. He can't go upstairs. He sounds like it. Yeah, exactly. A lot of flaws with that whole plan. um All right. Then the other one I had from Red Directive was Saru tells Tarina he's going to accept the president's offer to become an ambassador. And then Tarina proposes him. Now, listen,
00:26:37
Speaker
Is it a great scene in the way I think about great scenes where there's like dramatic conflict, great direction, or performance that leads the direction?
00:26:49
Speaker
You can argue me out of it, but I i think for whatever reason, and they the writer is very did a really good job of picking up on it, or maybe they wrote it in there and the actors performed it so well. We're like, we got to keep going. But from the moment Saru and Tarina were paired up when they met each other in discovery, either instant chemistry or instantly, like these two characters need to be together. Yeah, it was love at first sight. You could see the way they would pause and stare at each other. And yeah, it's it's pretty cute. I really love that scene.
00:27:20
Speaker
Yeah, all their scenes together to me feel like like I'm always rooting for them. yeah And I think the actors are always delivering it. I do think that in these two episodes, the writing kind of lets down the performances. But this is kind of like my bigger overarching discovery thing that I'll talk about later. But like the actors are always game. And so they are almost always conveying a very strong emotion about the intention of the scene. And the scene was written well enough that you knew what the point of it was.
00:27:47
Speaker
so I'm going to call it a great scene because I think it works. It's very clear what it is and you care about it and you're paying attention. They have this innocent love. It's almost like looking at teenagers in love, but not the really horny teenagers, but like the kind of naive teenagers who are like, love can solve all things because it's just love at first sight with no strings attached. This is just it. We're in love and that's it. We don't need to explain it. We don't need to understand it. That's it. right But at the same time, it's very mute like their emotions are very muted.
00:28:15
Speaker
right? They're not like making out heavily in the corridors or anything. Yeah, but but there is there's also an intention. There's a passion to it. It's like that they're almost passionate about how safe it is. Like that's kind of how it comes across. And I think especially for like Saru who's been like, you know, running for predators his whole life. and And I think, you know, yeah the sensibility, the Vulcan Romulan sensibility of like, here is a passionate person who has also reigned it in a different way. And I think that's,
00:28:42
Speaker
ah There's just something it comes across on the screen. It like jumps off the screen if you're paying any attention to it. And so I think it's a credit to the actors. And then under the Twin Moons, I also had two, but I had two that I wanted to talk about anyway. But the two that I thought were actually great scenes was the inquiry scene.
00:28:59
Speaker
where Burnham and Rayner are answering the president's questions, I really like Rayner in this scene. and I like Sanico Martin-Green in almost every scene she's in, but I also think one of the biggest challenges, the way you know an actor is at least good, and and I think good is a very high floor, but I also think, I think it's actually a sign of a great actor is when you can see them being character as they're just listening. And I think,
00:29:25
Speaker
The writing of the show is like, well, Burnham's the hero, so she's got to be listening or always talking or you know directing the action. But in that scene, because they were trying to elevate Callum Keith Rennie and like make us clear that Rainer's going to be a character, she kind of had to sit there for a minute and listen. And because she's such a generous actor, like she's doing a great job. But I thought what he was saying, I didn't like what she would what they put in her mouth, but I liked what he was saying and how he was delivering it. I also thought it was completely absurd that the president of the Federation was in a Starfleet inquiry. It seems both illegal and silly. but But I went with it enough because I liked what he was saying. And I thought all the performances were very solid. So I thought that was a great scene. And then the other great scene I had.
00:30:10
Speaker
was book confronting Maul and Locke, and he tries to warn them to ditch their pursuit because Starfleet will get him. And that's when we learned that Maul knows who he is, ah presumably from their courier days, but we'll find out the real reasons soon enough. It's on, I thought the scene was on plot and on character, which is a rarity, because the show is so busy, like, you know, laying out the exposition. And I think in previous seasons, it's because the, the stakes were very unclear and they were playing to the mystery box game in here. It's very clear of what's going on. So all he's doing is like, you shouldn't be pursuing the the the thing we're all pursuing because it's dangerous for you. And I thought all the performances were really great. ah The mall actor or Eve Harlow later in the season, though, will go really off the rails. But here she's pretty like she's kind of arch, but kind of in it in a way that I thought really worked.
00:30:59
Speaker
um But again, if I was to like tweak it, I still think it's a great scene, but it's like these Paramount Plus shows are all pitched as feature quality with the sensibility that's derived from Alex Kurtzman. Basically, you know, he's like one of the most successful summer blockbuster writer producers of the early part of the century. So he's bri like that intention. These episodes are very expensive. You're talking about all the pretty pictures. This is all about like delivering a feature.
00:31:24
Speaker
Well, movies are about sight and sound more than and the sound is usually like conveying a mood, not necessarily dialogue. And so I was such a great scene because it's all in the eyes and they're all give it. They're all very present, but they still get stuck with this dialogue of like, you know who I am? And she has to answer that question. And I'm like, no, we got it. You had a close up on her. But it's playing to. Yeah, you got a close up and we heard her go.
00:31:48
Speaker
So like we can do, you know, context boost. They have to write past that because they know people are like half paying attention or watching it on their phones. So it like robs it of the cinematic intent. But the actors are playing it like they're in a movie. But then they have to say the TV words. And that's annoying. I think it's a discredit to to them in that sense. But I thought that they handled it well. And I thought it was a really great scene. Now, I want to talk about the two scenes real quickly. Throw it out there that I thought should have been great because you were because of the acting.
00:32:18
Speaker
OK, I pretty desperately wanted in under the twin moons, the scene between Burnham and Saru. Yeah. Walking through the wood scene. No, the walk into the woods. Uh-huh. The goodbye scene ends with the sentiment that was being set up in the scene. But it's like.
00:32:34
Speaker
where she talks about how she's going to miss him and they convey their appreciation for each other. yeah I could feel the actors trying to get the intention of the scene across the finish line. But again, the writing, I feel like just kind of let him down. Saru says he remembers when she first came aboard Discovery. She was a mutineer and all this other stuff.
00:32:52
Speaker
It didn't feel right. It was like factually correct. But the relationship goes way back. It goes beyond that, like it's farther. But he was there when she became a mutineer, like saw what it did to his life. it She ruined his life for a time. And I it's like much more traumatic. And so I feel like the relationship was frayed and it was it was the scene they were playing was deeper than the scene that was written, which I felt was very shallow. And it it kind of was like Hallmark card deep.
00:33:22
Speaker
for their, they're just kind of fond of each other. And then when she says he's the bravest soul she's ever known, it just felt like a disconnect because it just felt like they were like, what if we just copy pasted the Wharf line and Michael Burnify, Burnify a little bit, you know, what Picard says to Wharf in first contact. I just thought it was like, it was a nice moment. She was, you know,
00:33:43
Speaker
And then he responds with you. You're a force. yeah You're amazing. No, you're amazing. yeah No, you're amazing. You're more amazing. I'll miss you. I'll miss you more. Okay. It's very surfacey dialogue and the actors I really did feel were playing.
00:34:01
Speaker
i have like Sonequa Martin Green and Doug Jones have worked together for however many years. And that's what they were playing. That they were being written as like children but on the last day of school. And I think that's why i wanted I so desperately wanted it to be great because I could see the actors and directors bringing it and they were just elevating what was there.
00:34:21
Speaker
but You know, it's been cool to if they if they mentioned like specific examples, not like you came on and you were a mutineer, but look at how far you've come, you've really grown. But if it was like, do you remember that time and they could actually call back to like an episode? You remember that time when we were stuck in that, you know, cave and we thought we weren't going to make it? You were the one who kept me going. So some like some like deeper emotion that you didn't see in that, like you saw it in that episode, but they didn't say it in that episode, but you always remembered it from that episode and you felt it and they call back to it. Because then we would feel like these are real memories and we would feel like we're a part of them, which would like draw all the connection. But this just, yeah, you're right. This felt very much like... Or just, um you could dig it deeper. She's like, I'm going to miss you. He's like, there's a time I never wanted to see you again.
00:35:01
Speaker
right now it's right you know what i mean like you can turn now that i won't see you every day i don't know how to handle it yeah yeah it's it it would have been what i'm saying is the actors i'm saying all this because the actors were so conveying that to me through the tv screen and but the but the writing was not the words they were saying were not but how they were presenting them it was very real and raw and i that's why i was like i want to put it i guess i've talked myself into it it's a great scene You know what, they just if you want to watch actors elevating very sketchy writing, because youve heard everyone's for that saying, right? ah Good writing cannot say bad acting, but good acting can say bad writing. that is And I think that's what's happening here. But then the other one I want to say, and I know it's mean to rip on the writers, but guess what? Since the 1960s, Star Trek's writing has been the the pinata.
00:35:50
Speaker
that the the producers and the fans have taken cracks at. That is, if you're a Star Trek writer, that is you are right in the front of the fire. That's true, because there even if their sets are crazy or the aliens look weird or whatever, you're still like, well, sci-fi, so like that's fine. You still aren't willing to like forgive it all because it's like imagination and bad writing, like no forgiveness. This has been my trouble with discovery is that it's flipped that, right? Because you're saying, look at all the pretty pictures. They have the money to paper over the empty pages. So yeah like it's ah it's a strange inversion. And then the other one I wanted to say would be great for almost the same reason.
00:36:29
Speaker
was the Burnham Rainer scene at the end where she makes him the first officer in the first officer job. First of all, it's not an offer, and she's already cleared it. So you've um you've robbed the scene of all of its conflict. he you know because Do you see what I'm saying? like She could have been like, I want you as my first officer. he's like Vance isn't going to go for that. And even if he did, command's not going to go for that. I'm whatever. I'm i'm now i'm i'm damaged goods or whatever. And she's like, I was like, you know she could have been like, I was like that too.
00:36:57
Speaker
You know, yeah there is nothing that bridges them. She's already coming in with all the answers. He's already in his position. Nothing is learned or changed except this fact change. Oh, you're you're out. Now you're back. That's all. its So but their performance is weird, actually, that he is going from captain to first officer. Well, it gets busted down. I could buy that.
00:37:19
Speaker
Yeah, but I think it's like I think it's a weird thing to happen. I don't think I've seen it before on track or not that I remember. Well, Kirk went from admiral to captain. Oh, I'm not knocked down. I'm not as up on the TOS game, um but I wanted i I wanted that to be the emotional challenge or I wanted that emotional challenge to be there. I wanted to be like,
00:37:37
Speaker
Cause you saw how like in control he was the whole episode. Like I'm doing things my way. I know what's right. I'm the boss. It's my ship. It's my crew. Follow my orders. Forget what Burnham's saying. She's not in charge. And now when it's like, Hey, I want you to be my first officer. Okay. Like I want him to be like, uh, he did say I'm not a yes man, but that's not the same as like, I'm the boss here. Like why would I listen to you? I know better than you.
00:37:59
Speaker
You just pointed it out. That is the dramatic tension of the scene, is that she's not going to him with an offer. She's convincing him to come back, bust it down, and be a second banana.
00:38:11
Speaker
That's, that's the conflict of the scene. She, she wants him, but doesn't mean she's going to get him. She doesn't work to get him. I think that's what, why. Yeah. And he doesn't fight it. Like he doesn't fight being a second banana. He's just like, it'll never happen. It can never. Oh, it it's could happen. Okay. Well, let me zip up my jacket. I guess that means I'm in.
00:38:31
Speaker
Folks, drama is conflict. That doesn't mean that people have to always fight each other. There just has to be some tension point. And there is no tension point because he's fully given up, right? Because he did another version, if you were to like minimally change what was there, is that he just doesn't want to come back.
00:38:47
Speaker
You know what I mean? And so she's like convincing to come back entirely. But I'm saying if the least amount of effort to put into reworking that scene would just be, he's kind of, he's unzipped and he's looking out the window and he's like, I'm saying goodbye. I never thought this day would come, but now that it's here, I kind of like it. And then she's like, nope. It's like the end of Back to the Future part two. Nope. She's like, come right in.
00:39:15
Speaker
It's not you, Marty. It's your kids. Wait, what?
00:39:22
Speaker
So, yeah, anyway, but i I just got to give a ah real hats off to the acting for the actors and Discovery. And these two episodes in particular, I think pretty much a lot of them bring it really hard and sell a lot of stuff. um And I don't think it's like crappy stuff they're selling either. I think the clarity of the mission actually makes the writing a lot stronger. but I think it makes it easier. I don't know about stronger, but it makes it easier. Uh, yeah, I was being generous and I said strong. It's just easier, right? Cause now you don't have these convoluted storylines to try to make sense of. It's like, you're not trying to hide the ball of what everything means. Right. yeah It's like fine. Find the mystery. yeah like i mean That's the whole idea. It gets a little goofy when they start bringing in TV room terms later on, like clue trail is what
00:40:09
Speaker
every procedural show does, what's the clue trail for this Bones episode? And the fact that they speak that into the show, and that's what the characters are saying later on, is wild. But it's one of the reasons why I got rid of most of its time quality for this season, because I'm like, this is going to bog down the show. Let's get into the best trick jokes right now. ah Why don't you kick us off for the two episodes? All right, so I have two, and just for Red Directive.
00:40:36
Speaker
And the first one was the hallway negotiations between Burnham and the ah Bonnie and Clyde, Mullen-Loch. Because it just felt very Picard to me to be like, all right, we've got our guns out, but let's talk about this. you know maybe maybe we can Maybe we can work something out. like It just felt very Picard. And then coming out guns blazing felt very Janeway. Like, you know what?
00:40:56
Speaker
Talk is not gonna work. um And then the next the next scene that I put for best tropes is when Rainer's like, don't worry, my my engineering team will figure it out in time when there's like less than 60 seconds left, but like figure it out. And I was like, yeah, it should because they always do. So I was really waiting for his engineering team to be like, yeah, we got it. You know, like when there's three seconds left, but then they didn't.
00:41:18
Speaker
So that was like, I guess, a nice, you know, um misdirection. But, ah but I think it's a good trope, though, when engineering usually gets it together in the last three seconds before the ship explodes, the planet dies, whatever. Yeah, that's a good one. i I have all mine from the other episode, oh right under the twin moons. So that's nice. Um,
00:41:41
Speaker
I'm not immediately recalling another instance of this, but I appreciated it when Saru called out how efficient the Tamarian technology was after thousands of years of being inactive. It still works and works well. I just liked the characters calling out, not a plot hole, just a story contrivance to like make it go.
00:42:00
Speaker
And I know other shows have done the other shows have done this in some way. And then they do it even again when burnham and after Burnham and Saru have fought past the security system and they're approaching that ancient temple. It's like a beautifully rendered landscape image of this of the ancient temple that's you know in disrepair, falling apart because it's ancient. And then you've got this beautiful wilderness that they're walking through. And that they you just use voiceover to for Saru says, perhaps we were meant to enter the structure itself. And the very next line is Burnham saying, no, wait a minute, over there. And we cut right back to the same like plot of land that just been walking in circles around. it's I just thought it was a nice trek trope of, or TV slash trek trope of
00:42:46
Speaker
writing to your limitations in a way. And because the show is so expensive and basically every shot has a visual effect, which is insane. It's just funny that they're like, we can give you a taste, but here's why you're not getting the whole meal. But you were but you're not getting the whole meal. We can't afford that. ah So I just thought it was funny. Now, if they had had fewer shots of of stuff that having to be morphing on their hands or popping up in front of their faces that had to be tracked,
00:43:11
Speaker
Could they have afforded to maybe build part of the temple set? Maybe. I don't know. I don't know. That's not the choice. One giant pillar's fine, I guess. Yeah, they didn't want to write to that. So that's where they want to spend their money. Because then it probably would have been another trapped in the basement scene if it was the temple. Fair enough, yeah. Because they would have gone animal and lock would have been in there and they would have closed them in and they can't beam out because something can't beam out and then it would have really become Indiana Jones.
00:43:34
Speaker
Plus you would have really, it's like, is the juice worth the squeeze? You would have actually really had to go farther than just do a pillar. You'd have to make it look interesting and ancient. And you're right. Just that old statue was enough. Um, I liked the hollow communicator Rainer coming in. I didn't like the scene really. I mean, I liked the idea of it, but ah the execution was whatever where it comes into help blue and, um, I've been listening this whole time and, uh, and Tilly. and And I like that he's just a hollow coming in. It's the tweak on the Deep Space Sign idea that actually makes it work. they they played Remember, they toyed with it in Deep Space Nine and then they got rid of it because it sucked, because it could only stand in that one ring. and I guess they thought it's too much if they can walk around. It's too weird. So they didn't do it. And then in this show, they have no qualms about it. They're they're just walking around. Which is so interesting because it doesn't mean they're walking around on their ship as well. Like in space, they're not bumping into things. So here's where the it works, I think, if it's more like the holodeck. Like if they're communicating through the holodeck kind of thing, I think that makes sense. And they're like stationary in their location and their hollow can walk around. yeah But I mean, we don't know how it works in Discovery. And it looks amazing. Yeah. Sometimes it's better to not explain things or try to get in the weeds about it so that you it's easier to go with it. So I don't know how it works.
00:44:53
Speaker
and discovery and I don't want to know he just says he was monitoring comms and he just beams in there and I'm like great I don't you're walking around fine I don't maybe you're in the holiday it's great rarity yep the jewel on true slash ro Romulan language There's some Romulan lore. I'm putting this as a best Trek trope for a very good reason. Michael Siobhan built out the Romulan lore a whole lot in Star Trek Picard season one, which folks, if you've been listening to our season premiere, you know, we're going to cover in January for its five year anniversary. Uh, well.
00:45:27
Speaker
I don't know what people's opinions of Star Trek Picard is season season one, especially after all these years. Again, it's like all good things kind of lifting the opinion of the seventh season of TNG. I think Star Trek Picard season three maybe raised the opinion of the show as a whole. But I don't know. I think season one of Picard has some issues. And but one of the things they did do was like really try to build out the Romulan you know, society and give us more sense of what they're about. ah And I don't think it works so much there, but sometimes when things don't work, the way to fix them is not to ignore them, it's to double down. And I really think that
00:46:07
Speaker
Michael Burnham and Saru quickly expositing what was like two or three episodes of like long boring scenes of Romulan lore and Star Trek Picard getting thrown out in 30 seconds made it so much clearer and better like it was way more interesting when they just exposition dumped it as background so it's like good job We learn more about the Romulans in a way that fits perfectly. I get it now, or i don't I'm not bothered by how it's portrayed. right um and and ah And that kind of gets into my next and last best trek trope, which is kind of colonialism slash desecrating a sacred space. They really are the liberal space cops.
00:46:49
Speaker
in this one where they're like using people's culture as the solve for things the Romulan stuff the Romulans by the way are like mostly dead in this century they're merged with the Vulcans their planet's gone so it's kind of like ah ah there's like some weird token-ing going on but also the desecrating the sacred space and putting as a best trick to it because Captain Burnham orders that the dots go and fix this holy site, the sacred site. And they kind of mentioned, well, we don't want to, like, mess it up too much. But they're there for a very express purpose, which is to find something, to disrupt something. Well, here's the thing. There's this part where they're standing in front. there're They've moved the statue, and I think Saru maybe scooted it back or something. And then, like, all the, you know, killer eyeballs are powering back up, and they're coming out of another statue's eyes. And Burnham's like,
00:47:40
Speaker
Okay, Tilly, get us out of here. We've disturbed this, this sacred space enough, we don't want to disturb it anymore. And the second they're beamed off, it's like, like, it gets blasted. So you're like, well, I mean, it's been disturbed by like, there were explosions, full on explosions over these statues, like five minutes ago. yeah So I think the desecration, I think we've crossed that line at this point.
00:47:59
Speaker
Um, my thing, this is where I started to get irritated when they found the, the Romulan writing on the statue and they were like, Oh, Romulan haikus have five lines or whatever they said. And they're like, we must find the fifth line with the fifth hidden. I was just like, I was so, okay, this is, this is why I didn't like the chase is because but So we have this alien race that dispersed their DNA all over the Alpha Quadrant or whatever, and then gave life to all the living things because of all the primordial ooze. Yay. So now it's like this Romulan found the technology to do that, okay? And then they're like, Ian, in the wrong hands, man, this could be bad. How? How could this be bad?
00:48:40
Speaker
i have thoughts yeah i have that to point out want to blank later yeah i'm like I need you to explain that to me now because right now it sounds like the worst that these people could do is spread their DNA all over the quadrant and so what if there's no primordial ooze all the biospheres are already taken up with living things there it can do nothing you need to tell me like oh this device can be reversed and destroy all life in the universe whoa like okay like all right now i know the stakes but at this point you're just like it's technology technology from the makers amazing technology like i don't we have we have all the technology like give me something so then programmable matter in discovery programmable matter the coolest thing ever and then so anyway so that was irritating and then when it's like oh the puzzle box but the puzzle box has a diary but diary leads to a clue but the clue leads to a poem and the poem is another clue i was like i'm done it's like why is this an escape room
00:49:30
Speaker
Yeah, right I mean, that's not perfect. What is wrong with this Romulan for him? Like, what was in his mind to be like, I know what I'm gonna do for the last 40 years of my life, I'm gonna create an elaborate escape room across the galaxy to honor the progenitors. So I'm gonna put poetry on statues, regarded by killer eyeballs. I'm gonna like, I just was like, and then when they found like the key, and they were like, now we just need five other keys. I was like, I'm done. I'm out.
00:49:54
Speaker
like I'm totally I don't care about this story anymore because I don't want to see your journey to get the five keys. The five keys lead to a key which lead to a key I don't I don't even I'm done. For a show that prom that premises itself on being the emotional Star Trek it's oddly unemotional and it's irritating and to your point about what you just said because I have this as a note later you the the idea was let's do an Indiana Jones adventure. And in te and ah Raiders of the Lost Ark, in the early scene when the government visits Indiana Jones, he brings out the book and he shows them what the Ark of the Covenant does. Like you see a picture of what it can do. So you're absolutely right. Like in the episode in Red Directive, because he's he, you know, Kovac
00:50:42
Speaker
does all the fan service crap and like here's the chase, but doesn't say what does it do, you know. What does it mean? How does that show it? What are the stakes? You need to give us stakes. The stakes are always like the end of the galaxy, the end of the universe. But I need to spell it out. How does this device that brings life going to end the universe? I like to imagine if I had five minutes to pitch something that doesn't totally disrupt anything, basically what could you put in someone's mouth that would crystallize things instantly?
00:51:14
Speaker
Simply, we'll find out later. I think the reason that they don't do it is because it really establishes later on what the larger intention is. But basically, if you have the power to create species, then it could be like. Here's the really bad pitch, but like this person created the Klingons.
00:51:33
Speaker
You know what I mean? Like, that like or whatever an alien that we didn't see in the chase that wasn't seated like these people who are bad guys this season or this race who are good guys are because of this progenitor tech. So do we, you know, the Federation's at war or is getting its ass kicked suddenly by this race that just came out of nowhere or that we don't we don't know anything about them. That is one way to explain if you can jump around the galaxy, which, you know, the entire Milky Way galaxy, I think basically in discovery is explored or pretty close to it this would be a good way of this would be a great way of saying where do these species come from we've explored most of the known galaxy i'm just saying but like but this technology takes millions of years to for evolution to take hold it's like well We don't know we don't do I mean cuz to me it's like what so the progenitor's tech is putting some ah a Life bomb on a comet and then the comet crashes into a planet doesn't see or it creates the comet You know, I mean like i mean yeah, it was very vague in the in the chase. It was just like we thought spread our genetic material all over the galaxy, it was fuzzy. And that was fine. Because the big idea was, you're all connected, there's a little piece of us in you, like, so that was fine. But now to be like, oh, actually, there was like, a black box that magically did that. And if the wrong hands get their hands on it, you know, if the wrong people get it, they can spread their DNA. of Like, like, there's just no like, so what if the wrong people get it, that's only going to affect
00:52:56
Speaker
thing billions of years from now, you need to give me closer stakes of like now, you need to give it to me now. Why this chase is the most important thing. It can't just be Kovach's word and his pinky promise that this is the most important thing, Burnham. Just trust me. It's just empty threat, because if you wanted to be about something, here's another pitch. If you to your point about what you're saying about you're a little disappointed that the president of Earth was just fully human and not a mix. who You could have done the progenitors tech could you know, enforce racial purity. You know what I mean? Like yeah no half breeds or we're going to remake everybody to our race or whatever, reformat the population as we see fit, uh, because this is, this is the Supreme, but that's an idea. White supremacy, whatever that start checking the past would probably tackle, but I don't see any 21st century producers tackling that.
00:53:50
Speaker
I think about like the West Wing, and for whatever you want to say about the West Wing and Aaron Sorkin, all criticisms I think are totally valid. dude Did you watch the West Wing? I did. Oh, wait. No, I did not. I watched Westworld. Folks, the West Wing is Aaron Sorkin. ah He wrote the first four seasons. It went seven seasons.
00:54:11
Speaker
He was yeah going through personal issues. I think he was arrested for drugs in the airport and all stuff. So he's going through it. And it was it was that he was basically writing every episode and he was going to leave at the end of the fourth season and how he left the show for the people.
00:54:25
Speaker
was the president's daughter was kidnapped and the president had resigned or had like, you know, stepped down and given, and because there was no vice president, the Republicans were now in charge. So the speaker of the house took over as president. So like he left them in a very, in a huge, like a massive lurch. Our, our, do lurches have sizes or is alert to him? She left them in the lurch.
00:54:48
Speaker
but He he later would say what his intentions were with the president's daughter being kidnapped and all that. The president's daughter played by the wonderful Elizabeth Moss at the time, which is why whenever I see her in anything new, I'm like, it's Zoe Bartlett. Anyway, in the show, she's dating the president's valet or assistant Charlie, who is black. So it's an interracial relationship.
00:55:11
Speaker
The way they resolved it in the fifth season was that Middle Eastern terrorists had grabbed the president's daughter. But in the fourth season finale, he puts in the CIA director's mouth. This is not like some complicated operation. We're not going to find her in in Saudi Arabia. We're going to find her in the back of a muffler shop like and and Aaron Sorkin said, in my mind, she was right. And I was trying to set up a story about race relations in the country. That it was a bunch of white supremacists who kidnapped the president's daughter because she was dating a black guy and they were trying to restore racial purity. There is nothing in the TV producer executive mindset that would
00:55:53
Speaker
Allow for even half a thought of that type of idea existing today. And so everything. Star Trek is about something. All that is like empty rhetoric now because it's it's so much of a lightning rod for the show to be about anything. But the most they can do is put a black woman in the lead and then.
00:56:14
Speaker
That's it. and i like they can It can't be about any of that, it which in some ways that can work because it's the future and we're not supposed to be talking. like it We're supposed to be beyond that where it's not an issue, but it's never touched on.
00:56:27
Speaker
and any case I think the idea that you couldn't do anything with this progenitor tech that was actually meaningful, it just had to be a sci-fi, junky, schlocky concept so to set the wheels of motion is what your the friction that we're feeling. Not just because we know Star Trek can be thoughtful, but because it's like, why am I watching this? What's the point of doing this?
00:56:48
Speaker
yeah And you're right, and it's not even, because Star Trek, some of the best episodes are the social commentaries, which don't have to be necessarily, and almost never are, the Federation being the bad guys. It's always some other culture that's like wayward and needs to be like taught our ways or whatever. But there's always, you know, the the best episodes have a good social commentary where it makes you think about your beliefs, your choices, your actions, how you treat others, and all of that. But I would all, and and I would add, just good storytelling, like any good mystery is gonna tell us why this thing's important.
00:57:18
Speaker
yeah um Like, to your point of if it's Indiana Jones, we know from the beginning, ooh, we don't want this to get in the wrong hands. We know exactly why in the beginning. And it's this exciting, fun adventure to the end. And we're like, will he, won't he? Like, who is he going to be successful in every step of it's really exciting? I will say in discovery, every step, every step is exciting.
00:57:37
Speaker
But the stakes are just not there to like, emotionally anchor me into like, Oh, they have to win. Like they have to get their first because the stakes are not there. Every time they do anything. I'm just like, Who cares? We've got to get it before they sell it. Why? We've got to get it out of their hands. What for? We've got to, you know, risk all of our lives. And we might all die. But as long as we win, that's what matters. Really? Does it? you i mean Like, I don't have the I'm not understanding why they're doing what they're doing. And I feel like that robs the purpose of the exciting scenes. It takes away from how cool those scenes are, because you you don't feel the sense of victory, or like the sense of loss when the bad guys get away. Oh, no, it's in their hand. Like, you're just kind of like, okay, all right. yeah They've got a diary. Cool. So do you have worse trek tropes, then?
00:58:22
Speaker
Um, I do. I have a lot of my biggest category. So when Dr. Kovach is telling Michael, um, secure that ship, whatever force is necessary, you know, me like don't do stun, only do like lethal attacks or whatever. I put that as worst Trek trope because we don't often see leadership in Star Trek being just like,
00:58:44
Speaker
straight up evil or like dictators, we only see it from time to time. um And whenever we see it, it always feels like it's it's always like a good time, because then you're like, Oh, what's gonna happen? The perfect Starfleet is not perfect. So like, I like when they add in a little bit of difference. But I put it as work's trek trope, because it's always irritating, right? Whenever you have that admiral who comes in, and they're just like, destroy all the you know,
00:59:04
Speaker
destroy all the Bajoran people. They're against us or whatever. You're like, that's me. Come on. That's know my worst trek trope. And that is very much a discovery one that Strange New Worlds sh treads in, which is always checking in with command. Like these two, those two shows do it a lot. Like Discovery cannot operate episode to episode without Vance or Kovach or the little the fucking president. telling them what to do and they have to always check in to get like orders or to make sure they're making the right decision and and I think that's reflective of the times.
00:59:37
Speaker
Yeah, it's kind of like an insidious way of of like managers and executives kind of controlling people. You can't do anything without approval. Yeah, I think it's like a weird anyway. But, you know, but it just maybe it's like a subconscious thing that's being written into the script. Maybe that's ah the fair way of putting it. Yes. But I think it's a bummer when space travel, they just get boiled down to being space cops. It's not a adventure um because like that's not what Star Trek is about, Kirk.
01:00:07
Speaker
was his own person. Like the ship was his own ship. Picard listened to authorities sometimes, you know, like when it made sense when it was ethical, or whatever. But like, the reason why he's the captain of the flagship is because he is an intelligent, capable person who can make independent decisions. He knows what they're about. And he knows what what he would Picard would check in and Kirk would check in when it's like,
01:00:32
Speaker
Maybe this time I don't know all the answers. Right, or like this could cause a huge war between the entire Federation and a whole other species. Let me check in this time. But like other than that, for day to day, like usually not.
01:00:48
Speaker
And um you know i was just learning recently about some military kind concept called commander's intent where like the commander tells the people below them. What the big ideas here is what we're trying to accomplish so that if they're perfectly laid out plan all falls apart everyone still knows what they're supposed to do so maybe the plans not gonna work in the landing site wasn't right in the. buildings weren't empty and all the things weren't the way it goes according to plan, but they know the big idea is to capture this location or whatever so that they can all kind of get on the same page and reroute their strategy. So all that to say is like, I feel like captains to be a captain, you have to understand commander's intent and be able to take independent action, which is why you became a captain. Like that's why you were promoted because you can do that. And if you can't do that, you, sir, stay a first officer for the rest of your career. I think that's why it's so tricky because Burnham
01:01:40
Speaker
We meet her as a mutineer and we will touch on her being like being very strong in action. I just, I think I'm always, it works in seasons one and two where she's an underdog. And then once we jump ahead into the future, the 31st century or whatever, 32nd century or whatever it is, the 70th century, it might as well be, whatever it is, um whatever ridiculous notion they have of turning so Star Trek into, you know,
01:02:09
Speaker
the Alpha Quadrant, it's basically Westeros, right? They want to just reimagine the whole world. um It's just, it's far less, it was like a shock to me. I still, it still and so comes up whenever she's checking in with Vance of like, wait a minute, they had a chance to like fully lean into it's us against the galaxy, you know? Discovery is its own thing now. And they didn't do that. Instead, it's like much more.
01:02:36
Speaker
They're bringing it back. Yeah, they brought it into this. right off and It was weird. All right. Any other worst structures? Yeah. no So a couple more. One, with ah the captain goes on a super dangerous away mission. yeah That always bugs me. Two captains, both Raynor when he's the captain and Burnham.
01:02:53
Speaker
and book, it's always like, how few people can we take on this extremely dangerous mission? Like when it's the captain, when it's just Michael and Saru on what's yeah definitely going to be dangerous, where they are going to encounter most likely Mullen Locke, who are heavily armed and don't care who they take out. You don't have any security staff on this entire ship. Like I was just like, okay, that's one of the worst trek tropes whenever the captain goes on the away mission because the captain should never go on the away mission. oh If you're going to send two people, fine. But the captain, you need to stay on the ship. like This is where you should be. I mean, the fact that they want to get so far away from the redshirt trope that they won't even like it doesn't even. Yeah, to the point where they don't have a security force. It's the opposite of common sense suddenly. Yes. I mean, a red directive doesn't give you any additional resources. You know what I mean? so Right. Right. Or even just like why don't you have regular resources?
01:03:43
Speaker
but Why don't you have people who are trained for away missions specifically, like as their role or function on the ship? I don't know. It's just kind of silly. It's just kind of silly. So that's i mean it's weird. Cause it's like Rainer could be like, I gotta have, I gotta have brutal. I gotta have Brutus come over.
01:03:59
Speaker
or Popeye from my ship. That guy can, that guy has saved my life so many times. There's something like that. It would have been. Yeah. That guy's from the alien race. It's like super strong or super fast. And he's perfect in a fight because he's super strong or super fast, but we're just going to send our squishy selves and hope for the best. Any others?
01:04:15
Speaker
Yeah, landing on the planet that looks like Tatooine. Usually when Star Wars in the past, like especially in TNG, g when Star Trek site tries to do a Star Wars thing, it's an abysmal failure, horrible decision. Everything is bad. And it's just embarrassing. Not here. This was actually beautiful. But I put it down as a worst trek trope, because in all the times before this, it's been bad. But this was really good, really beautiful. I didn't read it as Tatooine as much as um we're wherever Indiana Jones is when he's when he's you know with the with the monkey. you know i thought I thought that's what they were kind of trying to evoke more, but you're right. Desert Planet, it's kind of we kind of always go. I mean, Desert Planet space faring. Yeah, absolutely. It doesn't bring up too many other scenes, but yeah, it was beautiful. So um worst trek tropes when there's the avalanche and someone yells avalanche and someone else yells turn around, like run away from it.
01:05:10
Speaker
I was just like, so I wrote useless commands to do exactly what any sane person would do without someone yelling at them. Because, you know, like the Warped Corps is breaching and they're like, run, run away. It's breaching. And you're like, OK, so the sirens and like the whistles, the steam didn't. All right. Well, thanks for telling me to run. It's where they go. Like we try to do a movie every week. I'm like, but you're writing it like a radio play.
01:05:33
Speaker
yes Yes, like that yes, exactly. So that was the worst trope is like, and it's not just discovery, but like, you know, whenever that happens. Yeah, it's worth still putting in there. Yeah, it's like fire. Put out the fire and you're like, okay, we can't see the fire. We didn't know that until you said the word fire. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. But anyways, and then the last one was, um for for Red Directive was when was when they were like, we don't have much time, followed by we've got one shot at this. I just felt like this should be a drinking game because this this line comes up so many times and like episode after episode, like multiple times an episode. We don't have much time. We've got one shot at this. You don't ever have time. I don't know. I don't know. So that was just that was a trek trope specifically. Yeah, I was also if you were going to do discovery counters, also the number of times they say weird.
01:06:25
Speaker
ah And then the last one was, for Discovery specifically, all the goodbye scenes I just put as a trek trope, because they're always saying goodbye to someone or something. Lots of hugs, lots of hugs and farewells, fondness, yes. Yeah, so that's it for me. What about for you?
01:06:42
Speaker
ah The ones I have that were different from yours were, they can't use the transporter beam to go where they need to go for for reasons. right There's always a convenient thing. and Again, you're in ah you just crashed the ship on a planet in the previous episode, so you can't bring the ship down suddenly and under the twin moons? All of a sudden we're not resilient.
01:07:01
Speaker
You can score drive anywhere instantaneously, but you can't beam down right there. ah I think the techno babble and under the twin moons and over, and especially in that one, but kind of, this is a discovery thing. The way they deliver techno babble in discovery as but specifically, it sounds like they're all like the actors delivering a baby. It sounds very forced. It seems like every actor struggles with it. It's not it's not natural. It doesn't flow. And the way they break it up is all it's very fraught. And so I don't enjoy when Discovery delves in the techno babble and they delve into a lot of it. It's very and it's very last five minutes of Voyager for almost every episode. You know, remember Voyager in the later seasons, the last five minutes are like, we're out of tech, the tech, the interferometric polls, boom, boom, like that's every episode of Voyager is just the last five minutes.
01:07:55
Speaker
ah is ship check boom now the no ma you're right ah now that I think about it. So but also here's another thing that was like a question of mine was like why don't why do they only use their super intelligent AI computer like Google?
01:08:09
Speaker
because they don't get the computer in. That's why it's there. No, they got it. So see, so we're getting into it now. I'm trying to be positive. But discovery is like a reaction to old Star Trek. And they're like, we needed our own Alexa. And we don't want to say computer anymore.
AI & Technology in Star Trek: Missed Opportunities
01:08:25
Speaker
That's old. That's what Star Trek was. We're trying to make it what it is. How do we bring it into modern day? What if they had their own Alexa? I don't want to say computer. So that's literally why that's there.
01:08:35
Speaker
But like the thing is they went through the trouble of being like, it's an AI and it's a new life form and all these things and it's so smart and it can help us. But whenever they have a problem, like when they were, wasn't it under the twin moons when they were trying to, Tilly and Adira were trying to figure out something. So they're sitting there going like, oh, when they're trying to figure out out how to shut down the killer eyeballs. And they're like, can we do this? Can we do this? Can we do this? And then they're like, Zora, how many power sources were on this planet a thousand years ago? You were five? Okay, thanks. Well, come on guys, we gotta think really hard. Wait a minute, wait a minute.
01:09:04
Speaker
Can you ask Zora more things like, Zora, can you figure this out? Zora, can you scan everything and just tell us what the energy source is? Zora, now that you know the energy source, what should we do to stop the energy source? Like, I don't know. And I get that from a storytelling perspective, it's too powerful, because now, like, it can just solve all conflicts. However, to just use it to be like, hey, what's the weather like today, Zora? Okay, cool, cool. Thanks.
01:09:25
Speaker
All right, guys, we got to figure out how to stop a tornado. You're kind of like a timer for 30 minutes. That's how long they have till the electromagnet. Remind me to pick up eggs today. OK, so now we have to figure out how to save these people who are going to die in the next 30 seconds. OK, I'm pretty sure Zora could figure that out in like one second. That's literally all it is. Like why are we? That's so much here to me.
01:09:45
Speaker
to use a kid's term, Discovery era show is so OP that they instead of lean into the fact that all the technology is basically magic and beyond, you know, it's that they, that that should free them to tell interesting drama. Like what is the drama within this new reality? And they don't do that. They just use it to reflect Okay, well, everyone has a Siri. Yeah, basic. Zora, what's a thousand divided by four? It's just like, why are you asking the questions that you don't even need Zora for? Like you have a super computer, ask better questions. That wasn't a worst-track trope. That just bothered me. In the episode, I was like, you have seconds left. What are you doing? Yeah. Any other worst-track tropes? Sorry, it was your turn. I was already done. That's all right. That was just a rant. My last one was,
01:10:37
Speaker
Why, my last one is, and it's not like I'm denigrating the show. I just think it's funny when, cause like you said, you pointed out the Picard, let's negotiate. Let's not shoot. The worst trick trope is like, why don't we just blow it up? Uh, which is Rainer's idea and red directive.
01:10:52
Speaker
He has the idea, why don't we just blow up the entrance? And then in Burnham's idea in Twin Moon, she's like, why don't we just blow up the power source? You know what I mean? Or, sorry, that's ah is that Saru's? No, it's Burnham's idea. She's like, we just blow this up. Saru's like, that might have unintended consequences. So I just think it's funny. and That might also kill us. Oh, right. Strange New World does that because Pike can't ever think of an idea. He's like, what if we just fire photons or vetoes? And sometimes Spock's like, good idea. And other times, like, bad idea.
Cosplay in Discovery: Iconic Styles
01:11:20
Speaker
and that's plain into yeah Alright now most cosplayable character or moment. I think you're gonna run circles around me I'm still struggling with this grade, but I like it here and I think people are responding to it Well, I didn't pick as many as I could have because I picked so many pretty scenes. What's the most cosplayable? Yeah, but the two that I picked which are basically the same, was in Red Directive, I picked, I call them the Tron suits. So it's the outfits that the, that Mullen Lock were wearing when they raided the Romulan, um like, ship. Yeah, they were, it just reminds me very much of Tron, because it's got the cool, like, just lights that are kind of outlining things. And it just was so, like, I loved everything about, and I really love helmets. Like, I love, like, you know, cosplay helmets. I've never heard anyone say that before.
01:12:04
Speaker
But it's true because I feel like so I had this whole thing with helmets like I made a I made a big Star Wars stormtrooper helmet like out of like foam and eat like I did a full cosplay thing with just that because the helmet is like what makes the stormtrooper cool or like shredder it's the helmet or like just so many things where you're like, it's the helmet. If you just like a cool outfit, like that's cool. But the helmet, you know, or like the Mandalorian, like there's something about that, that's so distinctive. So I love these helmets on these people that have these like slits that were red, and they're going up and down. And they look like bad guys, because it's red, but also just future. Very cool. And then the second one is almost the exact same thing. So it's from twin moons. And it was the outfit that Michael and Saru were wearing on the planet.
01:12:44
Speaker
which was basically another Tron outfit. That one, though, was all black, and then, like, the scenes were outlined in iridescent white. That was cool. And she's cool. I don't remember that from previous seasons. Was it, like, is it a new action suit? I can't remember. Perhaps. I don't know, because, like, all of the... I mean, like, everything is so beautiful. So all of their uniforms, all of their outfits... Every episode, they just buy a new wardrobe. Literally. I mean, when you saw them back on, like, Tatooine or whatever, just even those are, like, cool. Like, no matter what they're wearing, even if they were just in a huge battle, covered in blood and dirt,
01:13:14
Speaker
they're still going to look great. So I don't know if it's new, but it looks amazing. And I would wear both of them. So my basic ass answers are for Red Directive, Fred. Cause I also think you could go really funny with his ridiculous yeah black wig hair piece, but it's also seems like a pretty simple costume. You do the paint yourself white, the the vest you're getting from like a REI or something that he's wearing. It seems pretty basic. And then under the twin moons, I can't do contacts, but yeah, I mean, I don't know. Uh, under the twin moons, the, the dot that's cleaning the dust off the ship. That'll be a good pause playable moment.
01:13:49
Speaker
ah Now it's time for the line must be drawn here. Great lines. I'll go first from red directive Burnham. Oh, I haven't disliked someone this much in 930 years. Do you have any from red? Yeah. Mine from red directive is when Tilly says computer coffee, large now. I just love that order. Uh, do you have any from under the twin moons?
01:14:15
Speaker
I do. I loved it when um Dr. Colbert was talking a book and was like, uh, that's what you're doing. I want to know how you're doing. I love that line. Cause he was like, uh, I, I, well, uh, I'm a right mate. You know, it just was like, he just did. i I don't know. I just loved it. I love that moment. Cause he seemed like he didn't know what it's, this is what I read, but I may be wrong. It seemed to me like book was thinking he was going to be like in trouble.
01:14:40
Speaker
Like when he came in like, Oh, Hey man, like it seemed like he felt guilty, you know, probably about all the bad stuff he did last season. Um, but Colbert was like, Hey, and like gives him a hug and Stephanie's like, Oh, and it seemed like he was getting like affection when he thought he was going to get punished, but that I could have been reading too much into that. So I didn't see that. I saw that as a, as a continuation of when they,
01:15:03
Speaker
first met and hugged earlier in the episode and Again, like now that I've reframed my mind while watching the show where Culber's entrance comes, it's very clear that they feel like they need to have talked to character moments to make sure it's clear to the audience what's going on in another character's interiority, which is
Dialogue and Subtext in Storytelling
01:15:27
Speaker
fine. That's the thing that happens, but it is something that happens more in like soap operas and teen CW dramas, yeah because where Culber enters in that specific scene is right after he real he ages down mall
01:15:40
Speaker
and you know realizes so now it's like what does this mean so then you have that character immediately come in to check it and he expresses it it's so like transparent the part that i'm talking about is when he first sees when Booker first walks into yeah when he first walks into oh you're talking about first time not the second time Yeah, the second time was very much like a counselor, Troy. Hey, guys, what's going on? Moment when you just like the first roll into a room like what what are you even doing here? And it was right after he saw Moll. Yeah, that was contrived. Totally right. Culver was it was played like I'm back on the ship. How are people going to treat me? Exactly. Yeah. So I like a lot of thoughts about David Ajala that I'll say in a few minutes here. So that's good. Do you have any other great lines?
01:16:19
Speaker
Um, I liked when he said, let's say we give them a cliff and see if they're willing to jump. Because you could tell that they're trying to do cool one liners before every commercial break. And this one I actually liked. So that's why I wrote it down. I was like, okay, I like this one. Let's give them a cliff and see if because it didn't feel because it didn't feel like a cliche.
01:16:38
Speaker
And it fit with what they were talking about, as opposed to all the other one liners where it was just like, all right, we're going to give them a run for their money or whatever. Just stuff where you're like, all right, well, I mean, not not I'm not criticizing the writers for not being great. However, so I almost prefer to just yeah, I almost prefer to just not have that line, like not try to whenever you try to have a good one liner, it's like almost always going to fail miserably instead. Like what to your point?
01:17:01
Speaker
Use um subtext with your dialogue, and that would be way more engaging and interesting. Because you'd be like, oh, they said one thing, but they meant another. I'm in on it. like That's so much more interesting than than just like straight up saying like something that you think sounds clever. But I like that line. so There is an art to your act-outs. My last one is when Tilly says, wait, who lost a foot? Which is like, wait, who lost a foot? And it was like, oh, no, is Tilly back in the champagne?
01:17:29
Speaker
right You're on duty, girl. My lines from Under the Twin Moons, I think it was just Doug Jones' delivery. I failed to see how that is good news. We cannot shut down a planet. those good And then burn them. Thank you, Saru, for giving me a second chance. Why'd I have that line there? Because I felt her.
01:17:47
Speaker
saying that. So I think it's a great line because it's a very powerful line. and ah And like I said to you, I wanted that jungle scene or the wilderness scene between them to be a great scene. But I think the point of that scene actually gets encapsulated in that line, which happens later when she's saying goodbye in his arboretum room, his quarters, which are basically the arboretum. And then the other the last one I have is Rainer's line. Burn him, I'm not a yes, man.
01:18:15
Speaker
Her line, I'm counting on that. It's fine. Good would have been, ah would have been in good as well. I don't know. I just. Yeah. I thought she was going to say, I know. Yeah.
01:18:27
Speaker
yeah because we know that. That's why I thought I just thought she was going to respond with, like, I thought she was going to look at him like, and just be like, I know. And then walk out.
Action Sequences: Structure and Critique
01:18:34
Speaker
Cause like, we know, we all know that. That's why she, and the subtext is, and that's exactly why I'm picking you. Yeah. That's like the subtext. I guess they're like, it's not clear. What is the clearest possible way to deliver? I am counting on that. Would this episode be a fun, hollow novel to play out? So we're dealing with two episodes here. So we'll split them up. well So red directive would have to be a fun, hollow novel. Yeah. I play red directive and I would not play twin moons.
01:18:56
Speaker
Yeah, I'm the same. I mean, for no other reason, you have all the bike chasing in the first one. Thank you. You've got the desert race. For that reason alone. Yeah. In the second one, though, you'd have to be doing a lot of job offers and saying goodbyes. It sounds pretty boring. And then getting shot at in hiding. That's not nearly as fun as the sand racing. You're shooting and they're shooting back, but you're racing. That's more fun. Was not their sequence on the planet just arsenal of freedom?
01:19:22
Speaker
That's literally what I wrote. I was like, oh, it's arsenal of freedom. like But this is a, it's more intense. I don't know, arsenal of freedom, I guess, was it was intense because the weapons kept getting harder. Every time they came back, you're like, oh man, it was kind of like the Borg, right? They just kept getting harder and harder. So that's what made them interesting. But this felt more like anxiety inducing to me than arsenal of freedom did. I guess that was more like kind of kitschy. But this was just like, they're exploding. And they're just like, the thing though, when they're underneath the foot,
01:19:48
Speaker
and the things are like shooting at them and exploding on the foot. I was like, these eyeballs are what? Like four inches in diameter. They could just fly down into the hollow and shoot them. They don't have to shoot them from the air. Like they could just fly down 10 more feet. They're exploding above the foot. They could explode inside the foot. They could explode inside their hand. So that was a little bit kind of like, why are these why are these drones so limited? Like conveniently right now? like They're several thousand years old. It's the wonder they work at all. Maybe they could do that before. I know. Now they can chase you, but only at 30 feet that's above the ground. They used to have more dynamic range. They don't yeah have less dynamic range. ah The Anton Krudian Award for Best Performance.
01:20:36
Speaker
So I've got nothing for this these two categories, these next two, so you go for it. I'm gonna say Doug Jones as Saru in episode one because I already mentioned his scene and I don't know, I thought he did a nice job. And then David Ajala in episode two, Booker is amazing in in that episode, I thought. ah like A real standout, and I'm gonna highlight it in a little bit in a way maybe you weren't expecting, but i I
Character Depth: Book's Emotional Journey
01:21:05
Speaker
always like book. I i have nothing against book, so i'm I'm invested. But I guess i was like I was really surprised on this rewatch of like,
01:21:13
Speaker
He's conveying a lot. And I'm going to say it later. I'm going to explain why. So I just thought that was great. The Shatner. So you don't have anything for this. So i'm I'm giving it to J. Adam Brown as Fred and Red directive. ah the Like they even overdid him with the wig. You know, like it's all very big. It's a really good one for it like he's data. He's data. He's data. Yeah. da made him Fred. but Yeah.
01:21:38
Speaker
I guess like fraud. So it's like, yeah yeah I guess yeah I wouldn't, I think I wanted a different name for Fred when they were like, it's a, it's a trader. His name is Fred. Fred. What? Just Fred. I was like, yeah okay. Like this is like, just share. Oh, that's okay.
01:21:54
Speaker
What honorable mention I have, though, is it was my initial one until I like really chewed on it. And I was going to initially give it to Sonequa Martin Green in Red Directive because of the way she's delivering all these like Marvel or Joss Whedon quippy lines. but This is not how I expected the night. to You know, I mean, like she's just being very vague and going for it. And that's the writing. But it's got to be Jay Adam Brown. He's really going. And then ah Callum Keith Rennian under the Twin Moons. He's He's good, but I'm just saying he's really going for it, especially in the scene with Tilly and Adira. He's like, don't think, think like your enemy. Don't look at me. I don't know the answers. I'm just here to help, help by yelling at you.
01:22:37
Speaker
And then later on it's like, thanks for the help. I'm here to answer your questions. Literally. I'm here to point to the quest, but I cannot do the quest for you. And then he's just like, later on, she's just like, thanks so much for your help. You didn't have to, but you did. And I'm like, did he save the day? Did he just come and yell at them and be like, think like you're a thousand years old? I guess that was really helpful. That was the, that was the key they needed. That's all they needed to unlock. They couldn't have asked the supercomputer, so it's good he was there.
01:23:01
Speaker
I mean, and Tilly and Adira are like already themselves like extremely intelligent. and They're like the smartest people in the galaxy, but you know, can't know everything. Shoot to thrill, most exciting image or sequence. This is ah this is very clearly a grade we've tailor made for Discovery, but I think it actually is really good for Discovery.
01:23:23
Speaker
So I have five. The first one, it's not exciting. I just loved it. It was the Romulan mummy. I mummy? I don't know. I was just so thrilled. But and it' still in the Romulan uniform, I just love that they had that scene. I didn't see it coming. I was totally surprised and just delighted and thrilled. So that was my top one. um And then the hallway firefight loved it.
01:23:46
Speaker
was just cool. And then when they like exploded the bottom and she like drops through into space and then she gets the Tony Stark suit on and while she's falling through space, I was like, oh, that was cool. That was and she magnetizes onto a decloaking ship. That whole sequence was very exciting and very pretty. It's one of those scenes. It's one of those scenes you could watch on mute and it's the exact same scene. Right. Like they're saying everything visually that you need to understand what's going on. I love that. And then um I liked when Dr. Kovich was on that planet with all the trees and space and stuff, but it turned out to be a hologram in his room. I love the fact that they have holodecks in their room. Like I want that. And then the the giant stone statue hand, which again, that wasn't exciting, but just.
01:24:31
Speaker
this the hand itself was literally stunning. Like I was like, Oh, when I saw it, I was like, that's so and it had like all these swirls and prints on it and stuff. And it was just and like the the ah pose that the hand was making, you know, like it was a grabbing something I was like, good pose. And that's when I thought, Oh, what if what That's when I started going, and what if this is a Titan? What if it's buried under the earth? What if they wake it up and this is the security system and it you know it pulls off the you know it's uprooting trees and starts stomping around? I still wish they did that. I probably would have complained to be like, that's not Star Trek, but it probably would have been so cool that it would have been like, but I don't care. We're already doing that. so I don't care with this whole quest. Yeah, so that's my shoot to throw. What about you? ah The Kumal Desert Chase, the bike riding sand sequence, like the whole time I'm watching it, I'm I'm.
Cinematic Action: Desert Chase Sequence
01:25:20
Speaker
I'm like, is this, wait, is this actually a great scene? I'm, this is really thrilling and exciting. And, and, but you point out the, the dialogue, the, the the race seems, I don't know. It just, it looks amazing. And I think it's the main thing. And so it just, it looks incredible. It's very thrilling, very summer movie. It does its job. And then.
01:25:43
Speaker
I get, I could have very easily put the arsenal of freedom sequence. yeah You've got Saru running and Burnham fighting them. And then even, and then Saru's darts shoot out randomly. Even in the bike sequence with the shields just randomly coming, like this is all like video game junk. ah But it's like in, arsenen that but in Twin Moons, you've got the arsenal of freedom sequence. I could have put that because that was the obvious answer. Why did you not put that? Because.
01:26:12
Speaker
I have to give a shout out. It is when Book and Colbert are going over Malin Locke's backgrounds and Booker realizes that they're crazy in love and through his face, his performance, and the framing, the shot, the way it's directed, the way it's just visualized on the screen, the acting is so amazing that The framing is also conveying what's in the scriptures. Like he's thinking about him and Burnham. Right. And that is them. And he you can see a whole history play out on his face. You can get a whole history of understanding our villains and how it humanizes them. It's a really nice bit of directing ah that ah happens in TV. It's not like it's it's foreign to television.
01:26:59
Speaker
Happens in movies and it's just I think that's why I appreciate it about under the twin moons versus red directive They're doing different things red directors trying to set up a season that's trying to be exciting. Hey, you haven't watched discovery in a while. We're back, baby Here's the big mystery and it's gonna be fun exciting the space sequence that you liked in the desert sequence Those are like heavily previous because they had more time and obviously the arsenal sequence through running through the forest does not look as good as Let's be clear, it's not as... But he's very fast. So maybe take him on all your way missions. But what I'm saying is like, so this episode had to slow down and like build out why we care at all. And we we highlighted, well, we don't totally care. We still don't. Yeah. But I still think in this moment we do, there's an inkling of humanity or like a real emotions. And I think that's the visuals that are doing that. It's not the dialogue. So I'm like, hey, right that's thrilling to me that you can do this in the midst of all this cool action and beautiful vistas. Yeah, it's the visuals and the dialogue because to your point, it's like what he's saying as he's saying it, he's coming to realizations about him and Burnham as he's saying it. So it's the dialogue and the visuals. And I think this is so necessary because we were talking about like show don't tell. But like I think this is really necessary because had he not explained that I would not have gotten that about mall and lock.
01:28:08
Speaker
Like I get their partners, but like, you know, criminals never stick together. They always backstab each other at some point. So I didn't, I just thought they're partners. He's in love with her. She's along for the ride. And at some point this is going to fall apart, but as long as they get rich, they don't care. So I needed him to say like, it's love and that's what it is. And so later on when we see Malin lock and they're like, all we need is each other. You're right. It was like, okay, cool. I think what takes away from it though, to your point of like the writers being a little too on the nose is after this amazing scene, right?
01:28:35
Speaker
Wow, it's really important to be together with people, isn't it? And book is like, I'm not talking about me and Michael, I'm talking about them. Like, I think if we didn't have that, and we just had more subtext. Well, that's why I just put it here. I didn't put it as a scene. I just put it as the visual because to your, what you said, the dialogue is very setting up what the plot is. This is what our villains have this relationship that we figured out, but it's what the actor and the directing is bringing to like, but this has a bigger, yeah, emotional, uh,
01:29:07
Speaker
palette to play on. And I think that's a neat trick. It's as neat a trick as on a TV budget, a very big TV budget, conveying this cool desert chase and all the visuals, yeah the Iron Man sequence and all that stuff. So cool. This is this is cheap, but it's so like it's but but it's so effective. What part of this will you teach at Starfleet Academy? I left this blank.
01:29:29
Speaker
So for Red Directive, I put how to play well with others, question mark, because these two captains don't get along, but they like the need to.
Red Directive: Themes of Collaboration
01:29:37
Speaker
And Raynor comes, like he plays along eventually, every time, but like grudgingly. And if he doesn't play along, like all will be lost. So I thought maybe that, although I will say,
01:29:50
Speaker
As cool as the spaceships coming down and like coming at a 45 degree angle and making their shields and stuff was which was super cool. um The whole premise of that was super dumb, because they were like, Oh, we can't do this. We can't do that. We couldn't possibly do shield. Maybe if we had two ships, because our one ship couldn't possibly do okay, we couldn't transport anybody because sand or whatever. And then they're like,
01:30:10
Speaker
But we have to transport, but the only way for it to work is if we both show up in the planet at the exact same moment and you're like, why would you need to be at the exact same moment? Then they show up at the exact same moment. It's another 30 seconds before they like maneuver to get down into the sand. So we didn't have to be here at the same moment, right? We could have just been here before the sand got here and just, we didn't need to like go down at the 45 degree angle at the same time either. We could have just done that at any point. So I felt like as cool as the scene was, like,
01:30:35
Speaker
it still was just kind of dumb. Like there were still parts of it that were dumb that took away from it just being cool. Like it would have been cool if they were like, Oh, I know if we can get this to the, Oh, we got to go now. Cause there's like three seconds left. Go, go, go, go. And then they did it. That would have been cooler. And then like the guy and his kid trapped on their sand racer and the sand racer won't work. That was totally unnecessary. Like what was the point of any of that? So stop you gotta have stakes. Yeah. Like it just feels yeah So anyway, so that's what I thought, how to play well with others because that was kind of a theme. I don't know if they did it well, but that was a theme. And then for Twin Moons, I put something about away missions needing some kind of ah security retraining. That should be in Starfleet Academy. That's what I put. All of Starfleet, all of Starfleet of all time, past and present and future needs to do some retraining on how away missions should be handled by Starfleet crew.
01:31:25
Speaker
This is the the part that I another thing that I'm crestfallen over is that they've brought this old timey ship way into the future. And so the way the crew does things either hasn't changed or it immediately ah conform to whatever the standards are now in the 87th century or wherever they are. And I thought, you know, to what you said, the sequence you just described, you know,
01:31:53
Speaker
It would have been funny if they were to be like, this is why we carry shuttles. right and like And only Discovery has shuttles, but not the Antares. And so they can't do it. Like you could have done that to always like, there's never, once the ship got retrofit, there's like never any sense of like, remember how we used to do things? This is an old trick from a thousand years ago. you just want people coming but If the Tamarians can, or Karelian or whatever, the the the If this old burial site can still have a working defense, then surely tactics and facts and turns of phrase or way of relating to people, there could be a trick in their arsenal for how to deal with things in the future. And we never see that. It's always future, future, future, sci-fi gimmick. and and To what part of will they teach at Starfleet Academy?
Teaching Struggles: Tilly's Challenges
01:32:40
Speaker
What was Tilly talking about?
01:32:42
Speaker
She's like, I don't know what to teach my students. She was talking about how she was telling them she was she was like a shitty instructor. She was telling a dearer she can teach them the logic. And the cadets get that but they never get the heart of the mission. They never get the why they don't understand the big picture. And this is juxtaposed with Kovach not telling them the big picture or the why for why they're doing this. And it's juxtaposed with the ah the writers not telling us the audience but why they're doing any of this and what the point of this is. But in the writing, they're saying, I just can't get them to understand the big picture. And Adira goes, well, I'm sure you'll figure it out.
01:33:18
Speaker
That scene was so frustrating because it was like literally an ellipsis. It was a half thought for both characters. I don't, I don't have blue anymore and I feel kind of good about it and you don't know how you feel. Yeah. Do you mean gray? Yeah, gray. Sorry. I don't know why I call them blue. Is that the actual name? Maybe because the trail color is blue. Thank you. Like the color. I'm so sorry, everyone. I don't know why I've always said blue versus gray. Well, you know it was a color. You know there was a color in there. I can see it was a color.
01:33:43
Speaker
ah Oh, because it's Blue Del Barrio is the actor who plays Adira. So that's what it is. i The names are all mushed in my brain. Anyway, ah could this episode have been, could these episodes have been hornier and would that have made them better? Yes, yes, yes, and yes. I think in both episodes they could have been hornier and in both cases it would have made them better. Do you disagree?
01:34:07
Speaker
No, I agree. Like, I mean, for Red Directive, I was like, well, Tilley had that hot guy walk her to your room and then awkwardly shuttled him out. What was even the point of that scene? There was no point. And then, but like I like, I think I would rather, instead of having them make the episodes hornier, make the stories they already told better.
Improving Story Quality with Existing Elements
01:34:27
Speaker
Like, just make this, make what, instead of adding more. Therese, you're arguing against the point. You're saying stories shouldn't be hornier. They should just be better.
01:34:37
Speaker
Yeah, well, I'm saying these two stories, these two stories had so much going on in each episode, but so little at the same time. And so that's why I'm like, just like with what you already have, just like, if nothing else, give us stakes for this super powerful device, and just do that, just do that. So put everything put everything in context, that alone would I think have elevated these episodes.
01:34:57
Speaker
I don't know what Hugh Culber is doing if it's like HGH and he's like super cut and worked out. But whenever he walks into a room, it's like, I'm here to fuck. So every scene with him is automatically slightly hornier. And the fact that they never play on that for some reason is strange. And also like they're just, again, everyone's hot, but nobody's horny is a weird thing that's going on. That does define discovery, like pretty well. Yeah.
01:35:26
Speaker
All right, so Trek, Merry, or Kill, we can take each episode as they come. So let's say, what do you have for Red Directive? I put Merry because I liked it. You got a Merry Red Directive? Okay. Yeah, because I liked it. Well, that's not the measure for a Merry.
01:35:44
Speaker
Oh, what's the measure? Mary is the best. That's like, this is a great episode of Star Trek. I thought Trek was the best. Trek is like, that's a great episode. That's a good to great episode of Star Trek or fine even. Mary is like great Star Trek. Oh, no, no, no, no. I didn't mean that one. I meant Trek. I said Trek. Let me change. I'm going to delete it in my notes and make it see Trek. Yeah, I liked it. I liked it. I thought it was a good episode of Star Trek. um I think it was a good set up for the for the season. I'm bummed that we're talking about the chase, but so be it.
01:36:13
Speaker
If that's what we're talking about, that's what we're talking about. We were talking about, I love that you never let that go. I never let that go because I'm like, I'm just like 10 episodes of this, one episode, I didn't like the first time, but I did think it was really good. And for Twin Moons, or do you want to do Red Directive and then I'll do mine? No, do Twin Moons. Okay, for Twin Moons, I said kill. And that's because As soon as I saw the poem that was a clue to another clue to another clue, I was like, I hate this episode. I hate everything about this episode. And I and I almost hate every episode that comes after this episode. I mean, every other episode that comes after this almost is exactly that. It has to be because the episode ends with, oh, look, we figured out this is key one and we need five other keys. Like at that point, I'm like, so we're going to do this.
01:36:59
Speaker
five additional times plus the sixth time to put the keys together, but the keys won't work or they'll get stolen or something. Like it just, it, that scene and ah the premise, it colored the entire episode. And like I said, all future episodes. Cause I was just like, oh, now it just feels less.
01:37:18
Speaker
interesting, mysterious, important, meaningful. I don't know what I don't know what the word is, but that made me just like dislike everything. So it's kind of to your point of like, if it's a good series finale, you like it uplifts everything. But if it's a bad one, it like craps on everything. So I met your mother. Yeah.
01:37:33
Speaker
All right. So before I get my grades, I got to give a long winded, uh, statement, which will end in a confession, which may not surprise you Cherise, but over the summer, I was finally able to wrap my head around the show. I'm just going to come out and say I'm not a fan of Star Trek discovery. I was not a fan of Star Trek enterprise or Voyager before it. So it's not like I have a specific dislike of discovery, but I want to you know watch it and it's Star Trek. I don't deny any of that, but it's got the same tone as a video game.
01:37:59
Speaker
Hmm. You remember in the the bike chase and they're they're going through the sand and then they're being fired at and they're somehow dodging all that. And then suddenly they have shields. You know, Saru's able to use his darts to shoot down metal technology, blow them up. And it's just and they're constantly looking through their their kit, their inventory to see what tools they have to get to the problem. They're just throwing out random Star Trek references. A lot of the dialogue scenes are just they feel like cut scenes. They're cut scenes. Let me just tell you, I would play this game, though.
01:38:29
Speaker
Fine. i
Discovery's Video Game-Like Structure
01:38:30
Speaker
a video game and I would play it and there are plenty of gamers in the world and it's like I'm not one of them and I don't disparage those who are. But that's to me what the remove like what was bothering you about the show is that the tone of it, the way it's made, the way it's presented is feels like a video game. It feels very unnatural. Like it feels very forced in certain ways. So I had trouble with that.
01:38:53
Speaker
Do you think it's maybe the fact that, like, they have these, like, artificial obstacles that are very, like, we just thought of this obstacle right the second? It's all video game obstacles. Oh, but we also fixed it right the second. So you're kind of like...
01:39:05
Speaker
they don't have to really like yeah okay and it feels like the lot of again the if the dialogue scenes are not cutscenes then they're just really like npc ask the right questions to go down the trail and the next probably not a surprise there's a lot of overlap between tv writers and video game writers i'm sure there's a lot in common there it was a way for them to wrap their head around how to do it michael burnham feels She you know she gets criticized by online trolls and assholes about she's, you know, godlike or never wrong or flawless. But she's ah the lead of a video game character. Like to me, that makes the most sense. That's why every other character is of far less importance. And they're all around supporting her. That makes perfect sense to me. And so that that helps. But then the other part of this, this is my but but I really appreciate how the actors almost to a person
01:39:57
Speaker
almost. wellll just I'm sure we'll get to that later in the season. But I really love the how the actors are committed to the show. So it gives it something that's not surfacey, even if a lot of the other trappings of it are surfacey. This is the opposite of Streams New Worlds, which feels like there's a lot of heart and intention behind the scenes. The actors seem like they are being like,
01:40:20
Speaker
We're in a Star Trek show. You know, can you believe it? Uh, we got to do this or, oh, isn't it fun? We get to do this. But in discovery, it's like every tear you can feel it every hug. They mean it. Every piece of bullshit nonsense they have to deliver. They're given that they're all. And I appreciate that. I fucking respect that. And I get it. And the whole.
01:40:41
Speaker
This is why being an actor is so terrifying. You are trusting that people aren't making you look like either an asshole or an idiot. and you and and the best role you're playing and Unless Unless they roll your plane, right. But all all stuff is made up. Like, if you really think about what a movie is, it's fucking ridiculous. You're recording make believe. You know, it's like you might as well be kids in a sandbox. So the fact that I think the Discovery actors by and large are very committed to portraying a reality helps where everything else kind of lets them down in a way. The spectacle even sometimes distracts, right? Sometimes the the the spectacle is so outsized, it's like this is seems like not even real in any way. Anyway, this is my confession. Because even though I had this video game thing for me that helped my brain like be able to, I couldn't sit through episodes. That's why I've had a hard time rewatching it. Because it's so against, this is my confession. I think I'm just a snob.
01:41:36
Speaker
i think ah I'm gonna read you this quote that I never forgot when it happened. Do you remember the show Sequest, DSV? Yes. I don't remember what year that was on, but Roy Scheider, star of Jaws and other things, was the star of that show for two seasons. Then he left in a huff because he hated the direction of the show. And I remember reading as a kid what he said about the show, and I was able to Google the exact phrase and find the original article I read that stuck with me all this time. Good thing you had Zora.
01:42:06
Speaker
Yes, Roy Scheider was vocal in his anger at the show's new direction. In an interview, given during the second season, Scheider averred, It's childish trash. I am very bitter about it. I feel betrayed. It's the new season, not even good fantasy. I mean, Star Trek does this stuff much better than we can do it. To me, the show is now 21 Jump Street meets Star Trek.
01:42:26
Speaker
Schneider felt the series had strayed too far away from its premise and that he became more of a combat commander than a scientific commander. And I hadn't signed up for that. He added that after moving production to Florida, the show was, this is the line I remember. The show was going to present human beings who had a life on land as well as on the boat. ah We've had one, the other shows are Saturday afternoon, four o'clock junk for children. Just junk, old tired time warp robot crap.
01:42:55
Speaker
I don't do this kind of stuff. I said, if I wanted to do the fourth generation of Star Trek, I would have signed up for it. I wouldn't have done Sea Quest. You guys have changed it from handball into field hockey and never even bothered to talk to me. Scheider's comments left him in trouble with some of the executive producers, including Patrick Hasberg, who actually was a producer on 21 Jump Street, which is exactly why Roy Scheider said that. So in his reply, Hasberg had strong words for Scheider saying, I'm sorry he is such a sad and angry man. Sequest is going to be a terrific show and he is lucky to be a part of it.
01:43:29
Speaker
So I'm a snob because I stopped watching Sea Quest because it turned into Saturday afternoon junkie trash. That's why I didn't like shows like Time Tracks, Xena, Hercules, Stargate, Farscape. I mean, I grew up as a kid racing home to watch Knight Rider after school every day. But Knight Rider, Airwolf, A-Team, that those are all kind of genre shows that preceded the 90s syndication boom, which was created by Star Trek.
01:43:53
Speaker
And then back in the day, Gene Roddenberry wanted he would have rather died than have Star Trek positively compared to Lost in Space, which was at the time the two. So to me, there's always been a fine line between.
01:44:06
Speaker
what is considered genre and what I considered to be better than the average genre. And I think what Discovery and even Strange New Worlds, what those really are is that they're being made by the Flash people and the Arrow and the people who did love Xena and Stargate and Farscape and all that stuff. And you're the sci-fi savage. This is all your bag. yeah and And so to me, it's not.
01:44:32
Speaker
and And it's not and it's not a criticism of that. It's just that's
Preference for Traditional Storytelling
01:44:36
Speaker
the separation. I feel is like this is not stuff I would watch. So if this was the first Star Trek that I came across, I would not like Star Trek. And I have had a tough time the last six or seven years that discoveries, but seven years in the span of discoveries existed, like trying to grapple with that, recognizing is Star Trek, but it's not told in the same way. You know, Mad Men's the best version of a soap opera you'll ever see.
01:45:01
Speaker
You know what I mean? Like Star Trek was like along was in that direction, even if it had chintzy production values a lot of the time. So that's where I am. I'm a snob. I'm admitting it. All that said, we are going to have to put one of these episodes to vote because I think both of them are treks. I thought Red Directive was more like a soft trek.
01:45:20
Speaker
because it's most because the COVID stuff was so ridiculous. Why doesn't he just tell them? Why is he also telling them to put the hammer down? Why do they suddenly have shields? Why are the ships coming out of the sky? It's like a lot of, it's all spec empty spectacle.
01:45:34
Speaker
to your point, the empty spectacle for me just carries over as all this stupid clue shit that I don't care about. But all the book stuff and as much as everyone was saying goodbye, you know, I felt Sonequa Martin-Green saying goodbye to Doug Jones. i I thought, I saw, I felt all that. So like they were able to after all this empty spectacle put some real emotions in there that made sense. Now, where Maul and Locke go in the season is going to suck and it's not going to feel as good as how it does in this moment. But at least in this moment, it's very interesting because of how our characters are conveying their feelings about things. So I felt it was like a stronger trek than Red Directive, but both as treks. So I didn't change your mind.
01:46:18
Speaker
Uh, no, but what's interesting, I do like the video game aspect because if this was a video game, I would play it and I would enjoy it. Um, cause I'd be like, Oh, I get to find five more clues. Like the outline is so clear for a video game. Like the, the outcome, the goal, which is what makes a video game fun. Even an open world game. You need like a point, right? Cause then you're like, Oh, this is my quest. This is my task. Like that's what makes it fun is completing those things.
01:46:42
Speaker
but I don't think I would watch a video game. You know, like if you're gonna turn a video game into a movie or a TV show, now it's a whole different ballgame. You know, you can have some of the coolest special effects or characters, but now what all I care about is a really good story. And I think that's why I love, like I loved Xena and Hercules and all that stuff as a kid. I mean, it's it's, but you're right, it's made for kids. Like, or maybe it wasn't originally made for kids, but it felt like it was made for kids. at The level of like- Yeah, the tones are different and- Like you can understand it as an eight year old. You know what's going on.
01:47:10
Speaker
right? You don't need there's no like, there's not a lot of subtext. There's not a lot of complicated. It's very simple. It's very direct. This is the bad guy because he said I'm the bad guy. Like they fight. You know, I mean, it's very clear. um So it's not as sophisticated, I guess. But what I enjoy now as an adult is great is well told stories. And I enjoy that more than cool special effects, beautiful outfits, gorgeous actors, you know, or whatever. It's like, just give me a good story. Even if the right like, I don't know if you've ever read Hunger Games. um But the writing is okay, the writing is not good. Like it is very not good.
01:47:47
Speaker
Um, but the story first person novels I've yeah discovered and trying to read Hunger Games. I was like, I don't like first person. And that's why most novels are not first person for that reason, because it's very hard to read. I am doing this now. Now I am doing that. Like it's very hard. Um, and the writing itself, I didn't think was great, but the story was very great. And I read all three books, like could not put them down. It was a little hard getting through the the writing itself, like the grammar and all of that, but the story was so good. And I think.
01:48:16
Speaker
For me, that's always like the highest like the highest most important thing is tell me a good story. You don't have to be some master storyteller.
The Power of Strong Storytelling
01:48:25
Speaker
Just paint the good context of what's going on and you know take me through a journey, take me through a transformation. Commercials can do this. like A one-minute commercial can tell a really great story.
01:48:38
Speaker
so I feel like that for me, and you know, there's parts of Discovery that I really like, and there's parts that I just, like, it's not my favorite, it's not my favorite of the tracks, but... um If it had a great story, I would be singing its praises all day long and it's beautiful, but I feel like you don't even, it doesn't even need to be this beautiful. You don't need CGI every single scene. You don't need that. If you have a great story, you could just have, you know, so like the TOS junk, you could just have some old panty hose liners that you found and you spray painted them black and you called it the alien and it's flying around on a string, but the story's really good. And so I'm in, you know what I mean? Yeah.
01:49:13
Speaker
Yeah, and totally. And that's why I'm like, well, this show is going to exist and it's going to be revisited. And we're going to be giving away a box set of Star Trek Discovery, the incomplete series at the end of this run. ah Details to follow on that, but like it's some people's first Star Trek or their favorite Star Trek. And I don't, but it it's going to sit in some sort of context in the future.
01:49:35
Speaker
And I and I guess now I'm like very interested to know, as with all Star Trek, what will that look like? And if I were to sit there in five years from now, even like looking back on it, what would stick out? I mean, I from day one was like, I I know why they cast an equal Martin Green. She's got the juice. You can see it. She's got it. And it's like at least coming back to that, if you have that in your head whenever you're watching it, you're like, yes, she is giving it her all and So it's like, is that going to be its legacy? Sort of like this was a vehicle for this one performer who got like, I don't know if it's the role of a lifetime. I kind of hope not. But like, you know, it's like she where one actor carried the show. It made it cohere in any way. And I know people like other characters and other their favorites, but we you know we know that the rest of them are not.
01:50:26
Speaker
developed nearly as much and and because the season ends the way it does and it it's an accidental series finale we know that there's you know it didn't get where they wanted it to go there this whole storyline that gets introduced in episode one is uh with um Stamets wanting to work on his legacy that does not get paid off at the end because that was like a setup for a longer story if they were to keep going and that doesn't happen. So and who are any of these characters, really? So it's just kind of like vibes. And what's the vibe of this woman? But I don't want to sit there and trash it. I just wanted to get my head around what is this show going for? And I think it is just like video game quality spectacle kind of told in a way where the people think that the people that did Farscape, Stargate, Zena, Babylon Five, whatever, like there was not
01:51:15
Speaker
Ah, genre. Like I watched the magicians for a bit and that's Henry Alonzo Myers, who's the co-show owner of Strange New Worlds. And it's like, there's like a casual disregard of telling a good story and aiming for the joke or the quip or the visual to just fill time. But these other shows that I, the list that you said you liked and I listed, I know Zina and Hercules did not do that. They knew because they had budget limitations. Well, this, the 45 minutes have to be about more than the punching.
01:51:46
Speaker
We're building up to a fight. We need to make sure that the fight matters or that we care about it and that people keep watching after the commercial break. And here it's like, ah they're going to so subscribe. Most people watching are Star Trek fans are going to watch no matter what. And I think there's kind of like a carelessness that you see throughout it. So to me, what really sticks now in this rewatch is, man, these actors, they don't care. They can pick up a script and be like, that's what we're doing.
01:52:10
Speaker
Okay. And then they like, what's the emotion of the scene? It's probably written in the script, but not in the dialogue. Or it's written in the dialogue. Are you sad right now book? I am sad right now. Why are you sad? So then he knows I got a backfill to make it clear. I'm sad. And then because I'm a great actor, you're going to know I'm you'renna You're going to know I'm sad, but then adam I have to also say I'm sad. so That a writer who had been paying attention might have said, we don't need this now. Or if this was an actual movie, a stronger cast might be able to say to the director, I don't need to say this. I can just deliver it in a look. yeah do I can just just do it. Yeah. Well, I think the other thing too about this show and about sci-fi in general, which is why I love the genre of sci-fi and why I think I'm more
01:52:53
Speaker
more okay i'm more i'm a little more flexible to try out lots of different sci-fi's and just like giving them a chance is because of the possibility and this is what sci-fi brings it brings like the hope of a different future sometimes it's a bad future but sometimes it's a great future um and just like things that are possible what if this was possible what if this matter you know thing was possible. What if space travel was possible? What if people could live on Mars? what How would they be different as people? How would that gravity affect their bone density? Like how would the social dynamics be between the people on Mars and the people on the belt and the people on earth? And how would that be different? Like I think that's so, I love the expanse by the way, it's like one of my favorite things, but it's so interesting.
01:53:35
Speaker
And I think that gives me, I'm more flexible to be like, yeah, let me just see what's possible. Like, what did you come up with? What did you think about? What was in your mind? and And that I find interesting is just looking at the writers, the authors, you know, their like concept of what a future could be. I always find that interesting. But at the end of the day, it is story. So like,
01:53:54
Speaker
There's a show on currently on Apple TV, um which is called Foundation. And it's very beautiful. And one of my best friends is like, this is the best show in the world. And I watched it and I was like, oh, this is so slow. It takes forever to get to the point. And the story is not even that good. um But it is beautiful. And she's right about that. It is gorgeous. It is beautiful. like Every scene is just eye candy.
01:54:14
Speaker
But like so many times, she's she's referred me to sci-fi shows based on that recommendation. that they like When I watch them, there's no story. But it is beautiful. There's no character development. But it is beautiful. There's no transformation. There's no emotional depth for me to be like, oh, this made me think of myself differently because of what this character went through. Instead, it's like, that was a really cool spaceship. Or like, ooh, look at the technology. but like So I think I'm more flexible to be like, let me
Sci-Fi's Insights into Human Nature
01:54:38
Speaker
see what you came up with. But at the end of the day,
01:54:40
Speaker
I just want to know more about myself. I just want to be transformed. I want to learn something about the world. You know what I mean? Like, I want to think about, oh, you know, if we did, if we were in the expanse, wouldn't this be horrible if Belters were treated this way? Like, how are we currently treating people that would directly lead to treating people? You know what I mean? Like, I like that. And I think that's much that's a much harder thing to do than just just put something on the screen that people will watch. It's a lot harder to be like, let's think about social issues. Let's think about, you know, how people transform.
01:55:07
Speaker
But I also feel like if you're doing an episodic show or a serial show, you want us to bond with the freaking characters, right? Like, that's why you have so the same characters time after time. I think your Star Trek fan, you'll eat the slot piggy, is doing a lot of heavy lifting to get people to watch. And I'm sorry to put it in such a crude way. But i but that's why I watched Picard season two, because I'm a fan. a i Like I watched it and then I watched the whole thing when I didn't want to.
01:55:35
Speaker
because my friends were like, you got to watch it. And I was like, I felt as a fan obligated, but as a viewer, disappointed, like extremely disappointed. I just want to point out and I'm not saying that these particular ones are doing that. In fact, that would be really it would be irresponsible for me to cast aspersions on anyone making the shows now. I just want people to know that it is true in Hollywood. People will make stuff.
01:56:02
Speaker
where they are saying, fuck the fans or, you know, people will watch it, whatever. They don't care. They know it's bad, but they're in a position where it's going to get made anyway, because it's gonna make money and they know people are going to watch it and they have. Yes. And they don't have the like, well, let's take this opportunity and give it our all. They're like, I went either way. Fuck you. And that is is absolutely true. I'm not saying that's happening here. I'm just saying, but my knowing that sometimes when I watch stuff, I can't help but have it jump up.
01:56:32
Speaker
And I hate when it happens in Star Trek because the emotional, you know, I, I become a 10 year old being like, why are you being mean to me? Like, I take it very personally. ah Again, not saying that's happening here. I think with Discovery, especially, I think the starting point with Discovery was just simply like, we don't want to do your grandpa's Star Trek. We don't want to do the Star Trek we have in our minds of what it is. We want to change, tweak everything, bring it into the modern age. We want to ditch as much canon as we can. And that's what we'll reference it kind of like as a treat. yeah But you know it's not going to be based around that. And Michelle Paradise was very clear, like that's why we jumped to the 120th century.
01:57:10
Speaker
I think that was their very best decision on the show was that was the very best because being a prequel show but you have better technology than the shows that come after your show like was a sticking point for me just visually I was just like yeah if they had this cool stuff why don't they have it later and I get it like but just like don't do a prequel just don't do a prequel like go further in the future they do the jump and they jump right into a burn the reset it's like Again, I think the missed opportunity was, well, now you can just have they're just ah a city on a ship. And because they're so out of time, there are no safe harbors for them. And, you know, I mean, like, so now she is the captain and they are like careers or whatever. And now they're not in Starfleet. You've you've ditched the yoke of the Federation. and star You're right. and They didn't have to rebuild the Federation. They've gone a different direction. completely They they freed themselves and then they didn't. And I think that's that that's what the show is like.
01:58:05
Speaker
Every time they really go too far in a way that's like not Star Trek, that's the times where it's like, we're trying to shake things up. And it's like, will you premise your show in such a way that you could have really shaken things up and then really question what is Star Trek when you're removed from all your organizations? What's the essence of it?
01:58:24
Speaker
And not just say that, that would have been a more interesting show. Like if there was no Federation and they didn't work so hard to rebuild the Federation, to reincorporate the, to like bring it all back, if they were just like, well Federation's gone, that's super sad. And so as everyone we've ever known or loved, super sad. What do we do now? And now they have to survive in a new, because it's kind of like Voyager, except for you don't get to go home. So now what would that look like? If you have to make a life- Or just home and you know for sure, home is the ship.
01:58:48
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah that that been our interesting series of stories and with like immediate drama instantly in there because now it's like well We don't have to follow the old Starfleet rules because there's no Starfleet. We don't have to follow the structures There's no structure and there's all this tension and conflict there and like I don't want to stay on the ship I want to go in my own way that could have been super interesting. Absolutely it wouldn't have been as you're in the wild but It's the Wild West suddenly, you know, like it's right back to being the Wild West and they're the lone ship and They've got a barter for resources with familiar races. And we know they're not like lost. They're just like shoved out. They got nowhere to go. Anyway, that's all. that So that's when I watched Discovery. I've always ever viewed it as a series of confounding decisions that also don't realize like the potential idea that they set up. Yeah, the potential.
01:59:35
Speaker
ah But I again again in the rewatch. I just want to make it very clear an amazing cast So all that said we're going to post a vote now to break the tie on under the twin moons We've got a kill and a trek and we'll let the audience decide if it's a trek or a kill Shreese do you want to let the people know about anything in particular?
01:59:55
Speaker
Yeah, um I am hosting a weekly live stream on my YouTube channel every Wednesday at 6 p.m. Pacific, 9 p.m. Eastern, where I'm just shooting the breeze about Star Trek. And the name of the channel is, you can go to YouTube and search at the Sci-Fi Savage um and get subscribed so you can get notified when I go live. But it's just like a, it's pretty much just like this. It's just a ah live podcast where I'm just talking about different stuff about Star Trek and you can jump in the comments and let me know your thoughts and it's a good time.
02:00:23
Speaker
All right, next week we continue to dance in the disco with ah another season five episode. The next episode is called Janal, which has some trill magic in it. Be sure to rate and review us wherever you listen. Check us out on social media, Trek Mary K Pod, and on the web for all of our standings, trekmarikillpod.com. Until next week, Tim K out. See you next week.