Star Trek: Discovery 1.05 and 1.06
1.05: In which the first TOS character other than Sarek shows up, the spotlight of the episode is shared by Saru and Lorca, and we finally get on screen canon m/m which is not limited to a few silent seconds.
Mind you, I was never a Harry Mudd fan, not least because the whole 60s "con man with robot girls" premise aged badly. Otoh, I thought Discovery did a neat job of updating the "versatile con man" part of said premise, and brought out the amorality via Mudd being willing to sell out his fellow prisoners rather than via Mudd offering Stepford Wives. (Incidentally, his whole rigmarole about his wife Stella was, if you've seen his two TOS episodes, either another lie or something deeply sad, if you assume he said the truth and once upon a time there was a Stella whom he loved when they were young before he turned her into a robot caricature Kirk later turned against him.) Not sure whether his whole "Starfleet doesn't care about the little guy" dig against Lorca re: the war was meant to be a case of "villain's got a point", because, well, a) the show has so far presented the Klingons as so aggressive and war-bent that peace making really isn't an option, and b) Mudd himself isn't shown to care about anyone . Otoh, the episode definitely uses Mudd to point out Lorca's own shadiness in other ways - first by bringing out Lorca's backstory (more on this later), and then by the fact Lorca leaves him behind on the Klingon vessel when they make their escape.
Sadly, this episode's Klingons go straight back to old stereotypes again. Look, the Durla sisters (TNG, and one DS9 episode) weren't any deeper, characterisation wise, but at least those actresses weren't burdened by prosthetics rendering them near immobile. BTW, other reviews I've read seem to assume that the female Klingon here was supposed to be the same one (L'rell) who last was seen with Volq on the wreck of Philippa Georgiu's ship? I didn't have that impression, though I admit it's hard to tell with that damm make-up. Anyway. TNG's "Chain of Command" spoiled me once and for all as far as episodes with a "the Captain gets tortured" content are concerned (to wit: everyone breaks under torture was its point, and Patrick Stewart was awesome as usual in the acting department), but then again, this episode didn't want to present Lorca as heroically unbreakable a la TOS, it just wanted to highlight some of the nature of his backstory and current day messed up ness, to wit, that he once killed his crew on the rationale that this was better than torture by Klingons. (Yet himself does definitely does not commit suicide when captured by Klingons.) I'm currently trying to decide whether Ash Tyler works better for me as being just what he seems to be, i.e. a human prisoner who survived months of torture and whom Lorca immediately adopts, because given Tyler's very existence demonstrates that even by his own rationale, Lorca made the wrong call re: his old crew, that's so interestingly messed up.... or it would be more interesting if Tyler turns out to be a double agent, and the whole escape engineered. Which would make more sense of why the Klingons kept him alive than "the Captain needed someone to rape", especially after the big deal this and the subsequent episode made about the Discovery as the Federation's secret weapon.
Meanwhile, on Discovery, Saru thinks his temporary command means he has to be ruthless to get everyone out alive, which would work better for me if the ethical dilemma they present him with (it's the old Omelas one yet again, i.e. do I torture another being for the sake of the community?) wouldn't come with, not ethical, but logical flaws (never mind morals, if the Tardigrade is already in terrible condition and as far as Saru knows there's no other way to use the Spore Drive, it does not make sense to risk killing the Tardigrade by subjecting it to another session if that strands the entire ship in Klingon space). Still, it overall works out ethically, proving Michael isn't the only one on board Discovery who sees this is wrong, and gives us the chance to get to know Stamets and the Doctor a bit better. It's a good episode for Stamets in particular, from his utter scientific glee to his sympathy for the Tardigrade to his unhesitating willingness to use himself in its place in order to save everyone's lives (as opposed to making or letting anyone else do it). And then we find out he and the Doctor he bantered with in the previous episode are indeed an item and in an established relationships. Much as I like well done getting-together-stories, in terms of finally giving Trek an on screen m/m relationship this is, I think, the better choice, because it immediately makes it clear there won't be a Very Special Episode, after which the couple is forgotten, that nobody sees anything extraordinary about two men being together in this society, and that they're a long term couple, not a Will They/Won't They tease.
(No opinion on the mirror bit yet. )
Back to Saru: he judges himself for what he's done in the final scene, and I continue to find his relationship with Michael Burnham compelling, complete with the searing honesty with which Saru confesses that it's the might-have-been of becoming Captain Georgiou's first officer hat he holds against Michael emotionally.
The Tardigrade recovering and making away in a burst of light once Michael has freed it was one of those predictable and yet just incredibly endearing ST moments.
1.06: In which it's time for another round of everyone's favourite dysfunctional Vulcan family saga. Luckily for me, since I eat this stuff up with a spoon.
You know, if the Michael Burnham/Sylvia Tilly friendship gave me the impression it started because Fuller wanted genderswapped Paris/Kim from Voyager, this episode's scenes between Michael and Sarek make me suspect they - and Michael's entire Vulcan related backstory - owe their existence to some of the other writers having written lots of Spock and Sarek tales in their youth after having watched Sarek's introduction episode in TOS, and wanting a genderswapped Spock version, too. I don't mind a bit, because the execution of all the tropes was, I thought, well done. In order to give Michael her own dysfunctional parent/child relationship with Sarek, they created something which manages to be both different and similar. (While still being ic for Sarek.) (Otoh, it did continue the post TNG (meaning: DS9 was the first show to do this, in the baseball episode) tradition of presenting Vulcans as racist via not just the extremist who tried to kill Sarek but via the academy guy who told him Sarek would have to choose between Spock and Michael in terms of who'd get admitted. Sigh.) (Otoh, great facial acting from James Frain when it sinks in with Sarek that he's been given the milder version of a Vulcan Sophie's Choice scenario.) So you have Michael who tried to be more Vulcan than Vulcan and succeeded with flying colours, only to be sabotaged by the a) racist academy guy who told Sarek only one of his "not quite Vulcan" kids would be accepted and made him choose, and b) Sarek not telling her the truth but letting her believe she didn't pass the tests.
(While we're at comparing to fictional precedents, the reveal that the reason why Sarek's mind kept returning to this particular memory wasn't that he thought Michael had failed him but his shame that he failed Michael that day reminded me of what JKR did with "Snape's Worst Memory", i.e. the readers and Harry at first assume the reason why this is Snape's most awful memory is that he got bullied by the Marauders in front of everyone in it, until the Deathly Hallows reveal that for Snape, the reason why this was the worst was that he called trying-to-help-him Lily "Mudblood" and thus lost her for good that day.)
The icing on the dysfunctional family cake was of course that once he's up and mending, Sarek refuses to talk about the whole event, which is pure Journey To Babel style again, and ensures continuing tension, with Michael taking the whole thing differently from Spock in that she neither lets Sarek off the hook for what he's done nor pretends it didn't happen nor cuts him off on her part but lays out her terms. Mind you, I could have done without Tyler telling her and us that her contradictory emotions are "human", because I always thought the way most (not all) ST shows presented being human and the human way of dealing with emotion at the non plus ultra annoyed me, but there we are. Otoh the flashbacks also had Amanda in them (who's the actress, btw? She seems vaguely familiar), encouraging Michael to explore her humanity because she can be human and Vulcan at the same time, and that, I'm on board with.
Meanwile, in the "Lorca is the shadiest Captain" arc: his friend the Admiral comes on board to check up on him in person on the sound reasoning that Lorca more than likely faked those psych evaluations, pushes his crew in ways that aren't good for them and probably should not be in command (btw: hooray for turning the "interfering admiral bothers our good Captain" ST cliché in use since TOS upside down!), he tries to distract her with sex, and when it doesn't work first suggests her for replacing Sarek as negotiator with the Klingons and then, when the Klingons capture her, doesn't rush to her rescue but leaves it up to ST Command. Note that if the episode had him refuse to rescue her or let him signal to the Klingons to capture her, it would have marked him as irredeemable evil, but apparently the show wants to keep its options open for Lorca-as-ambigous and thus lets him make the suggestion she should do the negotiating without knowing whether or not the Klingon offer to talk was straightforward, at this point apparantly simply hoping a week or two postponing might get her to change her mind, and then leave the "rescue or not" question up to Starfleet, again probably gambling they won't order the rescue but not knowing for sure. That he does this towards a woman who cares for him and whom he claims to care for in order to keep his command still makes it revolting, of course.
It also makes it neatly ironic that in the same episode where she sees Sarek has let her down and decides not to strive for his approval anymore, Michael essentially replaces him with, of all the people, Lorca, as the parent figure who, as Tilly helpfully spells out for us, "adopted" her. And yet the episode doesn't present her as stupid for doing so; she has no idea about all the shadiness, and as far as she knows, Lorca went out of his way to give her another chance in general and in this episode in particular allowed her to rescue her foster father against the odds while also making sure she herself would be cared for and saved.
As for Tyler: way to empathic and functional for someone who got tortured and raped for seven months, if you ask me. I'm still holding out for "double agent".
Lastly: this katra sharing between Sarek and Michael makes it look somewhat ridiculous that everyone is so surprised McCoy ended up with Spock's katra in ST III, instead of assuming that to be the case at once, but then Sarek at first there thought that Kirk, not McCoy, was the last person to touch Spock. Also, does that mean Picard and Michael (if she's still alive in TNG times) are mindlinked as well?
This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1255870.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
Mind you, I was never a Harry Mudd fan, not least because the whole 60s "con man with robot girls" premise aged badly. Otoh, I thought Discovery did a neat job of updating the "versatile con man" part of said premise, and brought out the amorality via Mudd being willing to sell out his fellow prisoners rather than via Mudd offering Stepford Wives. (Incidentally, his whole rigmarole about his wife Stella was, if you've seen his two TOS episodes, either another lie or something deeply sad, if you assume he said the truth and once upon a time there was a Stella whom he loved when they were young before he turned her into a robot caricature Kirk later turned against him.) Not sure whether his whole "Starfleet doesn't care about the little guy" dig against Lorca re: the war was meant to be a case of "villain's got a point", because, well, a) the show has so far presented the Klingons as so aggressive and war-bent that peace making really isn't an option, and b) Mudd himself isn't shown to care about anyone . Otoh, the episode definitely uses Mudd to point out Lorca's own shadiness in other ways - first by bringing out Lorca's backstory (more on this later), and then by the fact Lorca leaves him behind on the Klingon vessel when they make their escape.
Sadly, this episode's Klingons go straight back to old stereotypes again. Look, the Durla sisters (TNG, and one DS9 episode) weren't any deeper, characterisation wise, but at least those actresses weren't burdened by prosthetics rendering them near immobile. BTW, other reviews I've read seem to assume that the female Klingon here was supposed to be the same one (L'rell) who last was seen with Volq on the wreck of Philippa Georgiu's ship? I didn't have that impression, though I admit it's hard to tell with that damm make-up. Anyway. TNG's "Chain of Command" spoiled me once and for all as far as episodes with a "the Captain gets tortured" content are concerned (to wit: everyone breaks under torture was its point, and Patrick Stewart was awesome as usual in the acting department), but then again, this episode didn't want to present Lorca as heroically unbreakable a la TOS, it just wanted to highlight some of the nature of his backstory and current day messed up ness, to wit, that he once killed his crew on the rationale that this was better than torture by Klingons. (Yet himself does definitely does not commit suicide when captured by Klingons.) I'm currently trying to decide whether Ash Tyler works better for me as being just what he seems to be, i.e. a human prisoner who survived months of torture and whom Lorca immediately adopts, because given Tyler's very existence demonstrates that even by his own rationale, Lorca made the wrong call re: his old crew, that's so interestingly messed up.... or it would be more interesting if Tyler turns out to be a double agent, and the whole escape engineered. Which would make more sense of why the Klingons kept him alive than "the Captain needed someone to rape", especially after the big deal this and the subsequent episode made about the Discovery as the Federation's secret weapon.
Meanwhile, on Discovery, Saru thinks his temporary command means he has to be ruthless to get everyone out alive, which would work better for me if the ethical dilemma they present him with (it's the old Omelas one yet again, i.e. do I torture another being for the sake of the community?) wouldn't come with, not ethical, but logical flaws (never mind morals, if the Tardigrade is already in terrible condition and as far as Saru knows there's no other way to use the Spore Drive, it does not make sense to risk killing the Tardigrade by subjecting it to another session if that strands the entire ship in Klingon space). Still, it overall works out ethically, proving Michael isn't the only one on board Discovery who sees this is wrong, and gives us the chance to get to know Stamets and the Doctor a bit better. It's a good episode for Stamets in particular, from his utter scientific glee to his sympathy for the Tardigrade to his unhesitating willingness to use himself in its place in order to save everyone's lives (as opposed to making or letting anyone else do it). And then we find out he and the Doctor he bantered with in the previous episode are indeed an item and in an established relationships. Much as I like well done getting-together-stories, in terms of finally giving Trek an on screen m/m relationship this is, I think, the better choice, because it immediately makes it clear there won't be a Very Special Episode, after which the couple is forgotten, that nobody sees anything extraordinary about two men being together in this society, and that they're a long term couple, not a Will They/Won't They tease.
(No opinion on the mirror bit yet. )
Back to Saru: he judges himself for what he's done in the final scene, and I continue to find his relationship with Michael Burnham compelling, complete with the searing honesty with which Saru confesses that it's the might-have-been of becoming Captain Georgiou's first officer hat he holds against Michael emotionally.
The Tardigrade recovering and making away in a burst of light once Michael has freed it was one of those predictable and yet just incredibly endearing ST moments.
1.06: In which it's time for another round of everyone's favourite dysfunctional Vulcan family saga. Luckily for me, since I eat this stuff up with a spoon.
You know, if the Michael Burnham/Sylvia Tilly friendship gave me the impression it started because Fuller wanted genderswapped Paris/Kim from Voyager, this episode's scenes between Michael and Sarek make me suspect they - and Michael's entire Vulcan related backstory - owe their existence to some of the other writers having written lots of Spock and Sarek tales in their youth after having watched Sarek's introduction episode in TOS, and wanting a genderswapped Spock version, too. I don't mind a bit, because the execution of all the tropes was, I thought, well done. In order to give Michael her own dysfunctional parent/child relationship with Sarek, they created something which manages to be both different and similar. (While still being ic for Sarek.) (Otoh, it did continue the post TNG (meaning: DS9 was the first show to do this, in the baseball episode) tradition of presenting Vulcans as racist via not just the extremist who tried to kill Sarek but via the academy guy who told him Sarek would have to choose between Spock and Michael in terms of who'd get admitted. Sigh.) (Otoh, great facial acting from James Frain when it sinks in with Sarek that he's been given the milder version of a Vulcan Sophie's Choice scenario.) So you have Michael who tried to be more Vulcan than Vulcan and succeeded with flying colours, only to be sabotaged by the a) racist academy guy who told Sarek only one of his "not quite Vulcan" kids would be accepted and made him choose, and b) Sarek not telling her the truth but letting her believe she didn't pass the tests.
(While we're at comparing to fictional precedents, the reveal that the reason why Sarek's mind kept returning to this particular memory wasn't that he thought Michael had failed him but his shame that he failed Michael that day reminded me of what JKR did with "Snape's Worst Memory", i.e. the readers and Harry at first assume the reason why this is Snape's most awful memory is that he got bullied by the Marauders in front of everyone in it, until the Deathly Hallows reveal that for Snape, the reason why this was the worst was that he called trying-to-help-him Lily "Mudblood" and thus lost her for good that day.)
The icing on the dysfunctional family cake was of course that once he's up and mending, Sarek refuses to talk about the whole event, which is pure Journey To Babel style again, and ensures continuing tension, with Michael taking the whole thing differently from Spock in that she neither lets Sarek off the hook for what he's done nor pretends it didn't happen nor cuts him off on her part but lays out her terms. Mind you, I could have done without Tyler telling her and us that her contradictory emotions are "human", because I always thought the way most (not all) ST shows presented being human and the human way of dealing with emotion at the non plus ultra annoyed me, but there we are. Otoh the flashbacks also had Amanda in them (who's the actress, btw? She seems vaguely familiar), encouraging Michael to explore her humanity because she can be human and Vulcan at the same time, and that, I'm on board with.
Meanwile, in the "Lorca is the shadiest Captain" arc: his friend the Admiral comes on board to check up on him in person on the sound reasoning that Lorca more than likely faked those psych evaluations, pushes his crew in ways that aren't good for them and probably should not be in command (btw: hooray for turning the "interfering admiral bothers our good Captain" ST cliché in use since TOS upside down!), he tries to distract her with sex, and when it doesn't work first suggests her for replacing Sarek as negotiator with the Klingons and then, when the Klingons capture her, doesn't rush to her rescue but leaves it up to ST Command. Note that if the episode had him refuse to rescue her or let him signal to the Klingons to capture her, it would have marked him as irredeemable evil, but apparently the show wants to keep its options open for Lorca-as-ambigous and thus lets him make the suggestion she should do the negotiating without knowing whether or not the Klingon offer to talk was straightforward, at this point apparantly simply hoping a week or two postponing might get her to change her mind, and then leave the "rescue or not" question up to Starfleet, again probably gambling they won't order the rescue but not knowing for sure. That he does this towards a woman who cares for him and whom he claims to care for in order to keep his command still makes it revolting, of course.
It also makes it neatly ironic that in the same episode where she sees Sarek has let her down and decides not to strive for his approval anymore, Michael essentially replaces him with, of all the people, Lorca, as the parent figure who, as Tilly helpfully spells out for us, "adopted" her. And yet the episode doesn't present her as stupid for doing so; she has no idea about all the shadiness, and as far as she knows, Lorca went out of his way to give her another chance in general and in this episode in particular allowed her to rescue her foster father against the odds while also making sure she herself would be cared for and saved.
As for Tyler: way to empathic and functional for someone who got tortured and raped for seven months, if you ask me. I'm still holding out for "double agent".
Lastly: this katra sharing between Sarek and Michael makes it look somewhat ridiculous that everyone is so surprised McCoy ended up with Spock's katra in ST III, instead of assuming that to be the case at once, but then Sarek at first there thought that Kirk, not McCoy, was the last person to touch Spock. Also, does that mean Picard and Michael (if she's still alive in TNG times) are mindlinked as well?
This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1255870.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.