Knights & Knaves Alehouse

Spoilers…

So I’m finding this series interesting to follow. At the end of the day it is episodic like most Star Treks, but there are a few metaplots going on—

Captain Gabriel Lorca - It appears that Lorca from the Mirror Universe. He is militaristic; he can’t remember events of his past with Admiral Katrina Cornwell; he is trigger-happy like no one else aboard other than Tyler. The last episode ends with him looking at his reflection.

Lieutenant Ash Tyler - This guy is blatantly a Cylon, I mean a Klingon, namely the albino Voq from the first few episodes, somehow in disguise as a human (having “sacrificed all”). I’m glad for this development, because at least we don’t have to stare at a rubber head slowly choking out syllables anymore. Sort of interesting to see what his endgame is, and what sort of relationships he forms with the crew in the meantime.

Relationship to TOS - As the series goes on, there are a lot of visual and audio and script nods to TOS. Obviously the above two items point to “Mirror, Mirror” and “The Trouble with Tribbles.” It is interesting to find out which of the apparent discrepancies with TOS are mere “updates” vs. “who cares you weren’t supposed to notice” vs. things that will actually be resolved to reconcile with TOS. Sarek is a kind of cool bridging device, though the actor is no Mark Lenard.

I'm watching it now and I like it.

- Both Lorca and Stamets have foreshadowing reflection incidents
- So far no one has mentioned Garth of Axanar
- Lorca will have to be talked out of committing a horrific war-crime at some point
- Rainn Wilson's Harry Mudd is great and seems like he was having the time of his life
- There has to be some point when the mushroom-drive becomes untenable, and disastrously so - possibly for the Klingons
- Space monsters. Star Trek episodes with space-monsters rock.
- Different versions of disintegrating people - phaser porn for the Trekker.
- The spinning saucer-hull section when they do a dark alert is pretty dumb.
- They brought back the 'cunt' in Klingons. I'm not sure the radical head prosthetics are really necessary. I think it would be more powerful to have more human-like Klingons and play up the Cylon angle
- Why would the crew of a starship in 2255 be partying exclusively to late 20th and 21st century English pop music? That bothers me.
- The tribble on the desk. Yeah...kind of takes away from the original premise of 'we don't know shit about what these fucking things are.' It also implies at some point the tribble may go apeshit around Tyler.

I'm not a Trekkie by any stretch of the imagination.

I watched the first two episodes, which came off like a prologue for the rest of the series.

I thought it was pretty good. I thought the production values were dynamite. But I have to question whether they can keep them up long term.

Badass finale last night.

I liked it - the finale and the show in general. It moved a bit too fast IMO, there seems to be a lot of shorthand involved in regard to character development and I wish that was not the case. Overall though, I did end up liking it. Not a die-hard Trekkie, so maybe it was easier for me to approach it without requiring canon adherence.

I understand that the first season is divided into two "chapters" and that the next of these starts early next year. Looking forward to it.

Looks like the whole Klingon war is over, and now they are stuck in another universe or something.

Yup, it’s definitely the mirror universe. Surprised to see it’s rather directly following the mirror universe storyline as last featured in Enterprise. Especially since it involves a Constitution-class heavy cruiser starship, I’m fine with it.

They killed off the all-wise gay black doctor. I can’t say I’ll miss him sassing off to the captain, but at least he was a non-evil character on the show, and we’re fast running out of those. I guarantee we’ll get to meet his mirror counterpart.

Still wondering if we’ll meet a “good” Lorca. That will be kind of tricky, as by now we’ve built up something of a rapport with the asshole we know.

I’m ready for the Klingon subplot to die. We get it. Gross.

That was a very well done episode (The Wolf Inside).

I may be on the slow side, but the execution of Ash -> means to transfer intelligence to Discovery was a total surprise to me.

I get annoyed with the science babble re: spore/biology hoohaw, but it's not killing my buzz too much. Otherwise, I've been waiting for some of the balls in the air to get caught and this episode was particularly satisfying in that regard. And was glad to see that the Emperor was Burnham's previous captain.

I like it, it’s just starting to feel like a cross between Reimagined BSG and Once Upon a Time.

Falconer wrote:I like it, it’s just starting to feel like a cross between Reimagined BSG and Once Upon a Time.

You can never unsay this...Google will cache it forevvvvvverrrrrrrrrrr!

Dramatic reveal, but unfortunately no surprise. Glad they didn’t drag the suspense out longer, at least. And from here on I don’t have any big predictions, so, at least we’re heading into uncharted territory. I’m trying to let go of any notions of this turning into a normal Trek show, but, it’s hard to avoid just going towards the simple questions, like, “Who is going to end up as Discovery’s captain when this is all over and they get on with normal Star Trek exploration missions?” Burnham, after all? Or the ‘good’ Lorca? Or just the ‘bad’ Lorca after all?

Well, shit, that was a fun as hell little arc.

Too bad we never made it aboard the Defiant. I am starting to wonder if this production is for some reason forbidden from using TOS uniforms and ships—maybe to avoid “confusion” with the movie series?

Too bad they killed off the only character I really liked. Oh, I’m sorry, was I not supposed to root for him because he was evil? I was supposed to root for the two women who killed him even though they are actually also totally evil?

Kind of hard to give a damn when all the characters are either unlikable or just completely blank slates. Like all the “dramatic” scenes when you see all the bridge officers looking around giving each other “meaningful glances,” and you’re like, who?? are all these people?????