[Sul-Matuul]

Tis' all subjective anyway.

Some people liked it, others hated it. That's all people's opinions.

It wasn't the best for sure and was not as good as the last couple for sure, which was a pity as they were on a winning streak there it seemed.

We'll see what next week brings.....

[Rellimie]

Sorry Heyallo, but I have to agree with Three here. This episode was infuriating! The 'cliffhanger' was weak at best, and realistically, it was just bad writing that resulted in this plotline. I'm sad for the state that Discovery is in.

I'd like everyone to take the same level of critique and apply it to TOS, TNG, DS9, and VOY.

I just got done rewatching seasons 1 and 2 of TNG and this episode was better than half of them....and TNG is my favorite Trek.

Its odd to me that as bad as Trek has been in the past, and there has been some real dud episodes....DSC is expected to be perfect.

[Sul-Matuul]

I'd like everyone to take the same level of critique and apply it to TOS, TNG, DS9, and VOY.

I just got done rewatching seasons 1 and 2 of TNG and this episode was better than half of them....and TNG is my favorite Trek.

Its odd to me that as bad as Trek has been in the past, and there has been some real dud episodes....DSC is expected to be perfect.

I had toyed with the idea of starting a full rewatch thread for TNG seeing as it's all on Netflix here in the UK. It's easy to look on DSC with rose-tinted glasses and think everything that came before was awesome and DSC is an insult to its greatness. But in reality all the other shows were dire in their first seasons too, i'm of the opinion DSC has improved far quicker than they did considering they had more episodes in one season than DSC will get in nearly 3 seasons!

[Strathkin]

It was a good episode...to an extent. I'll echo what Tilly said in the engineering lab....

OK What Just Happened?!?

The engine room banter was great. Giorgio was & is fantastic! You can tell Michelle Yeoh is built for Star Trek.

Time Crystals? I'm sorry, but wut?

Leland getting punched in the face was satisfying.(Yes, Burnham should've gotten s*** for it, but the look on Leeland's face said it all. 'Yep, I deserved that.')

All in all, it was ok.

Yea, I certainly agree with you, as you took the words out of my mouth. I think Leeland really got what was coming to him, as the look on his face said exactly that, he even admitted it formerly.

I admit I didn't like the way Burnham handled the situation with him, yet he still had managed to cause a lot of pain to her family; and to her as well. I mean I think many may empathize, but most will 'think' one thing, yet temper it with something else. She really needs to try to overcome this flaw, or temper her emotions more, even Riker struggled with it at times--but handled it far better.

Perhaps this flaw is in part, being raised from, a emotionless Vulcan Father. Still I think many people would warm-up to her, if she could only learn to overcome it.

[Morris]

I'd like everyone to take the same level of critique and apply it to TOS, TNG, DS9, and VOY.

I just got done rewatching seasons 1 and 2 of TNG and this episode was better than half of them....and TNG is my favorite Trek.

Its odd to me that as bad as Trek has been in the past, and there has been some real dud episodes....DSC is expected to be perfect.

I think that Discovery is easier to bash because of two reasons...they decided to focus on one character, and make her a Mary Sue on top of that, and they chose lazy writers, who more often than not come up with weak, adolescent level plotlines, designed more for the manufactured drama of it all, over telling a good story. Additionally, the science of Discovery also seems rather plot-driven rather than science-driven, which gets irritating sometimes.

For all of the faults of previous Star Trek 1st and 2nd seasons, they never focused on one 'supercharged' character, and though the stories might have been bad, they didn't feel like they were written by an angst-filled teenager! Older Star Treks felt more mature.

These are just my opinions though. I respect that you feel differently.

Cheers!!!

[Shadowmeph]

Sorry Heyallo, but I have to agree with Three here. This episode was infuriating! The 'cliffhanger' was weak at best, and realistically, it was just bad writing that resulted in this plotline. I'm sad for the state that Discovery is in.

hehe I am wondering also maybe a slightly mild surprise but even that was weak

[Three of Seven]

I'd like everyone to take the same level of critique and apply it to TOS, TNG, DS9, and VOY.

I really hate this argument, it also holds no water for me, TNG, DS9 and VOY were all better than DIS in the first 2 series, TOS I don't know, I haven't done a full watch of it from start to finish, because I'm lazy and haven' gotten round to it. I prefered ENT to DIS as well, none of it is a fair comparison because DIS is a different formula.

Morris really sums it up nicly.

I think that Discovery is easier to bash because of two reasons...they decided to focus on one character, and make her a Mary Sue on top of that, and they chose lazy writers, who more often than not come up with weak, adolescent level plotlines, designed more for the manufactured drama of it all, over telling a good story.

[Petrarch]

TOS I don't know, I haven't done a full watch of it from start to finish, because I'm lazy and haven' gotten round to it.

TOS, despite being in danger of cancellation from which it was saved, ironically went the other way from what TNG etc did. Series 1 and 2 are both very good, with gems including "Balance of Terror" (my personal favourite episode of TOS), "Space Seed", "The City on the Edge of Forever", "Mirror, Mirror", "The Doomsday Machine" and of course, "The Trouble with Tribbles".

Season 3 took a dip in quality. While it still had great episodes like "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" (Kirk was willing to destroy the Enterprise itself in this episode) and "The Tholian Web" (touched upon by Discovery and Enterprise) it's generally considered not to be up to par with the first 2 seasons. "Spock's Brain" which was the first episode of the season is generally considered as one of if not the worst episode of TOS.

[Arno12]

Granted the last 2 Episodes weren't great, I'm still gonna give the show a chance. Though I must say they really dropped the ball on these recent episodes after doing so well with the prior ones. I kinda hope when the next season comes its more independent from the main series in regards to adventures for the crew and ship. I feel trying to form a link to tos really hamstrung it and limited its potential for creating its own unique story.

[Heyallo]

To be fair, I watched the episode after being awake for 27 hours (yay anxiety and sleep issues), so I may have been more hype than I should have been =P

[Mack]

You know, even in ENT I had a hard and rather bad time digesting the fact time travel was accessible to the Federation of that era (the whole Daniels plot). It took quite sometime for me to get over that, pretty much after cancellation. It was headed in the right direction for season 4 but unfortunately they pulled the plug.

The fact that in DISC the federation has already the tech and knowledge to build wormholes and time travel is too much for me to accept. In this episode, I did enjoy a couple of character interactions, but yea. That’s about it.

Morris has hit the nail for me, however derpy season 1 were in previous Trek, they were science driven, respecting the technological leaps and advancements in a sensible manner and respecting already set technological precedence. If anything, the derpiness just came from the crew getting that chemistry up with each other and the script. Also, I personally found season 2 onwards drastic improvements in previous Trek.

I also don’t see DiSC on the same benchmark bar as other Trek. As Three said, it’s a completely different formula.

I think that Discovery is easier to bash because of two reasons...they decided to focus on one character, and make her a Mary Sue on top of that, and they chose lazy writers, who more often than not come up with weak, adolescent level plotlines, designed more for the manufactured drama of it all, over telling a good story. Additionally, the science of Discovery also seems rather plot-driven rather than science-driven, which gets irritating sometimes.

For all of the faults of previous Star Trek 1st and 2nd seasons, they never focused on one 'supercharged' character, and though the stories might have been bad, they didn't feel like they were written by an angst-filled teenager! Older Star Treks felt more mature.

These are just my opinions though. I respect that you feel differently.

Cheers!!!

[Sul-Matuul]

The thing with the tech being out of place for me is that we are clearly in the middle of a plot arc where a massive amount of technology in use in that era is firstly of a questionable nature and secondly may be getting used by a murderous AI intent on galactic genocide.
I think until the current plot if finished with we cannot really say that the tech break with canon or whatever, because there could clearly be a reason why we never see such tech again. Having the threat posed by Control playing out the way it seems to probably changes how Starfleet views many of it's technical achievements and abilities.
It makes sense for cybernetics like Ariam to be extremely rare from TOS onwards, and for Data to be so groundbreaking. Likewise the whole time-crystal thing is probably going to be something buried deep in Starfleet's archives after all this, the same way Genesis was classified.

[Three of Seven]

The thing with the tech being out of place for me is that we are clearly in the middle of a plot arc where a massive amount of technology in use in that era is firstly of a questionable nature and secondly may be getting used by a murderous AI intent on galactic genocide.

I mean, yeah, but it's a very predictable plot line, we already know what exists after Discovery, which is the real problem with prequels. Enterprise was set so far back that they could get away with a little more, but also, it did well to show a less developed Starfleet than TOS. The ENT ship was very rustic, not polished, it was functional, and the uniforms were boilersuits, the internals were kind of how navy vessles are shown on TV, not flashy or modern. Discovery however set itself not far between itself and TOS, which gives limited room.

How it gets to the TOS technology? Yes, it seems obvious, because of the AI of Control, getting, out of control (bu-dum-tish), Starfleet will have to abandon a lot of this technology and go backwards. This will no doubt be the storyline, it's not a huge twist, and it's not unexpected, since we know what comes after Discovery. Which is one of my big issues with Discovery, doing something post Nemesis would have given them so much more room to explore crazy technologies, and expand a story.

Anyway, that aside, I have been thinking about this episode, if they didn't work backwards in connecting Burnham to the Red Angel, they could have come up with something much more gripping. The big problem with the episode for me is that we had a lot of wasted scenes, because Burnham was never at risk of dying. How do you fix that? Easy, don't make Burnham the character being put at risk. We saw Airiams' replacement later in that scene, why not instead introduce her character as the bait for the Red Angel? And then just change who the Red Angel is, suddenly, you are introducing a character no one knows, thus adding an implied risk to the audiance, and you are developing that character at the same time.

Who would the Red Angel be at that point though? Hard to say, to do that, you would have to rewrite a lot of the previous episodes, because the conclusion was created before the main story, it was already written around Burnham, so you have to unpick that. But it would make it a better story.

Although, then the story is no longer focused around Burnham, and we can't have that, because she is such a role model...

[Sul-Matuul]

Anyway, that aside, I have been thinking about this episode, if they didn't work backwards in connecting Burnham to the Red Angel, they could have come up with something much more gripping. The big problem with the episode for me is that we had a lot of wasted scenes, because Burnham was never at risk of dying. How do you fix that? Easy, don't make Burnham the character being put at risk. We saw Airiams' replacement later in that scene, why not instead introduce her character as the bait for the Red Angel? And then just change who the Red Angel is, suddenly, you are introducing a character no one knows, thus adding an implied risk to the audiance, and you are developing that character at the same time.

Who would the Red Angel be at that point though? Hard to say, to do that, you would have to rewrite a lot of the previous episodes, because the conclusion was created before the main story, it was already written around Burnham, so you have to unpick that. But it would make it a better story.

Although, then the story is no longer focused around Burnham, and we can't have that, because she is such a role model...

I think using some random new crew member as the bait would make even less sense. It has to be someone the crew care about or the danger from the plan is not the same. Would they be so concerned about random redshirt #21 being killed as bait, or would they be more concerned with one of the long term officers dying.
Plus the fact that they all thought they knew what the RA was strongly affected the plan to catch it in the first place.

Anyway it's all moot because the actual reality of the RA was totally different to what many people thought it was; i've barely seen anyone online say prior to this episode they thought it was her mother or another family member. Everyone was either convinced it was her or was wracking their brains to think of some other Trek figure we could possible have dropped in.

I know some people don't like her character, but Burnham is the central character here and so the plot is obviously going to focus around her a fair bit. But I do think the episode also showed how flawed she is too in that she believes a lot of the past was he fault so she feels responsible a lot. She thinks she caused her parent's to be killed, she thinks she put Spock at risk as a child, she knows she started the Klingon War even though at the time she thought she was doing the right thing.
I think unlike in many shows where someone messes up and the "system" just handles it, in DSC we see a single character have to deal with not always being right and handling the consequences. Voyager tried that with Tom Paris being promoted and demoted all over the place but it didn't really work properly.

[Bridger]

You know, even in ENT I had a hard and rather bad time digesting the fact time travel was accessible to the Federation of that era (the whole Daniels plot).

Daniels was from 31st Century he was not a 22nd Starfleet Officer.