Hey, I noticed you havent posted in a while, so I just wanted to send you some well wishes and hope everything is ok! 🖖

Yes! I am well, I haven't abandoned this, I've just been struggling to find the time to do it! I appreciate you checking in on me!

A Whovian Watches Star Trek for the First Time: Part 116 - Tilly in the Network

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 2 Episode 5 - Saints of Imperfection

This episode picks up exactly where engineering left off, with May pulling Sylvia Tilly into the Spore Network, and Michael is kinda doing this thing of burying herself into her work to distract from her sadness about the situation. It's very Vulcan of her, and I can't wait to see how it tears her up.

Meanwhile, Discovery has come across Spock's shuttle, however Spock isn't responding, and Discovery are left with no choice but to open fire before the shuttle can enter a nebula through which Discovery can't follow. They successfully immobilise the SHuttle, and bring it aboard, but to everyone's surprise, Spock isn't on Board: Georgiou is.

Now, last season I didn't like a lot of what they did with Georgiou after leaving her universe, they were a few interesting moments towards the end, but I didn't like that she her comeuppance so bringing her into the main universe in the end kinda felt unjustified. I'm still holding out for some villainous downfall this season, and here specifically, putting her right next to Pike who has built up as very much archetype of the paragon Starfleet Captain, when she is very much the prime example of what I imagine most Terran Captains are like (Granted, my sample size is very limited for them), should be a really interesting point of contrast.

Also the music that plays when she enters, is just perfect. I don't feel like I highlight soundtracks enough on these, but I love Evil Georgiou's theme.

Georgiou is still pretending to be our Universe's Georgiou, but Pike apparently has history with her. Georgiou's current mission for Section 31 is to hunt down Spock. Unfortunately Section 31 ties Pike's hands, and Georgiou is allowed to go free.

Last time Section 31 showed up, a few episodes ago, a couple of you pointed out to me they're they shadowy Group Enterprise too, I don't they were given a name back there, but if this is the same group, they seem be at least slightly more publicly known by know, both Michael and Pike recognise the Section 31 Badge that Georgiou has, whereas in Enterprise they seemed to exist entirely outside of Starfleet's knowledge minus a few people. I kinda wanna know what caused that shift.

The Engineering team manage to confirm that Tilly isn't and indeed is in the Spore Network. Sylvia is rightfully pissed at May for bringing her here, however she is willing to listen to her out. Unfortunately she wants her to kill some sort of creature that entered the Spore Network when Discovery started making it's jumps, and is currently destroying the world of the Network.

Meanwhile on Discovery, as Georgiou leaves, Section 31 drops off an official Liaison, in the form of Ash Tyler. Pike confronts Michael about how different Georgiou is acting from how he remembers her, and that conversation gets put off, Michael and Ash have a small catch up, but nothing really happens immediately and Ash leaves to report to the Bridge.

Paul's plan to rescue Tilly is to jump Discovery into the network, essentially use the ship as a gateway between the real world world and mushroom world. There are a few risks involved, it's been previously established that the mycelium in the network eat normal matter, so the crew would only have an hour to find and extract Sylvia, and there is a risk crew members could just end up like the crew of the Glen if they're in the wrong place when the jump happens.

Pike approves of the Plan, and he gives a really good No Man Left Behind speech, and everyone gets ready to go, and the side of the ship sinks into the network, and Paul and Michael get to searching. Sylvia and May board the Discovery too, although she takes a path to the Armoury to deal with the creature, although they quickly meet up, and Tilly explains the situation

I love that the Monster remains completely unseen until just now, when we find out he is Hugh Culbur, somehow corrupted by the something. Which obviously leaves Paul in a state of conflict. He thought he lost his partner, and he's been grieving really hard since midway through last season, and now he has a chance to save him, but May is still desperate to get Sylvia and by extension the others to kill him. Honestly I was expecting the monster somehow be related to the Tartigrade, so the idea that he's Hugh was a shock, and a twist that I love, even if it's undoing the most impactful death of Season 1.

Meanwhile on the bridge, things are going bad, the Mycelium are still eating away at the Hull, and the Bridge is Starting to fall into the Network, meaning the bridge crew have less space to work. Tyler however calls in some assistance from Section 31, with hidden communicator. A section 31 ship, apparently capable of disguising itself as an asteroid appears out of nowhere, and starts physically towing Discovery out of the Network's space

This little sequence with Section 31 is beautiful, it really showcases how much further ahead they are than everyone else tech-wise.

Meanwhile, Paul trying to convince Hugh that he's real is heartbreaking, he pulls through, and Tilly convinces May to stand down. They rush back to the cube and... Heartbreakingly Hugh is unable to crossover. This scene breaks my heart. Paul had so so much hope, and it just got ripped away from him, and AAAA! I am crying. Fortunately, Sylvia manages to think of a plan to use the Cocoon that dragged her in to create a new body for Hugh on the other side. With that, Paul completes the jump out of the Network, and everything is calm. The team spend time watching the cocoon, waiting, until May fufills her side of the promise, and Hugh is saved.

After this Mission, Pike and the Section 31 leader, Leland have a conversation with the Admiral. Who, one forces them to put their differences aside and work together, and two gives us new information about the Signals. The sites with the Signals have something called Tachyon Radiation, which I'm assuming is the Star Trek equivalent of Artron energy because Leland immediately connects it's presence to Time Travel, although Pike also says could indicate a number of other things, namely Cloaking Devices and Transporters. A Mystery to think about, I can think multiple ways all three of these could be involved with whatever the Red Angels are, Spock is still the best lead.

This episode was a fun conclusion to the May and Tilly Arc, I had fun with it, the rescue mission itself was great, and seeing Section 31 in Action. I still have enough to go on to narrow down my theory on the Red Angels are, and the end of this one kinda widened up the possibilities to it could be anything now. This episode was fun!

A Whovian Watches Star Trek for the First Time: Part 115 - Starship of Babel

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 2 Episode 4 - An Obol for Charon

Today's episode opens with not a resolution to any of the immediate ends to what was happening last episode, but with Discovery beaming Pike's First officer on board, "Number One" from the Q&A Short Trek and also went unnamed in the Cage. She still doesn't get an actual name here.

We get a bit of an update about Enterprise's situation, things are still in desperate need of repair, and we find out that Number One has also been doing a bit of digging into Spock's situation, however Pike is drawn away before details can be discussed.

Down in Engineering Paul Stamets and Sylvia Tilly are looking after "May". The creature still seems to be clued into Sylvia's emotions in some way, which is interesting. Sylvia goes on a mini speech about how she wasn't the best friend to the real May as a kid, and the fungal creature reaches out and sort of forms a hand. It's a scene kinda touching and kinda creepy. I'm really interesting in this Fungal creature and what motives are, and how it works.

In the ready room, some of the staff are discussing the Red Angel. No federation known species matches it's appearance. Apparently Saru is suffering a cold. This conversation is a nice bit of recap, but it doesn't really amount to much that we didn't already know about the Red Angel. Pike enters and dismisses everyone except Michael, so can finally talk about Spock stuff. Apparently Number One had retrieved the path that Spock's shuttle took after escaping the psychiatric facility, and Discovery is already on an intercept course. Michael immediately asks to be excused from this mission, due to the unknown trauma she caused him. Pike starts a bit of a pep talk to Michael, but Discovery is then slammed to a hault, and left in front of this giant red swirling ball of something.

And then the intro plays. I've noticed this a lot with Discovery, but it's Cold Opens are really long.

After the Intro, we gather to discuss what this thing is, and then suddenly everyone is speaking different languages! This fun little premise, and I kinda wish the whole no-one can understand eachother bit lasted a bit longer, but after a bit of confusion, Saru is called to the bridge. It's previously established that Saru knows a lot of languages, so he's definetly going to be the MVP here. Of course, he still has a cold, so he's gonna have to fight through that. He gets the Universal translator back online, but the rest of the Bridge's systems are still scrambled through other languages.

Apparently the rest of the ship is unaffected though, Engineering is still perfectly functional. We get a fun little spat between Paul and the more traditional Engineer we picked up in episode 1, which I thought was fun. As everyone scrambles to repair Discovery, the Computer Virus runs through more of the ships systems. Paul, Sylvia and Reno end up trapped in the Spore Drive control room, with the "May" Creature, which latches onto Sylvia. The Bridge is loosing control of everything, and Saru's illness take a turn for the worse. Internal communications are also knocked out

I've said it before with Enterprise, but I love how Star Trek depicts chaotic all hands on deck moments, where everyone is dashing about in the background trying to stabilise things. This is no exception, and I'm absolutely loving how we're seeing this confusion across the entire ship, more than just The Bridge and Engineering, which was often the case for Enterprise.

Down in Sickbay, Saru is really anxious to report any symptoms to the ship's doctor. After a bit of coaxing however, we find out this is more than a simple cold: Apparently it's a unique condition among Kelpiens, and apparently it's going to kill him. This ties into his Short Trek from before we Started Discovery. Apparently, whatever the sphere is, it's causing the same response as that crystal which selected Kelpiens to be slaughtered. This process is called Vahar'ai, and will either kill him, or make him succumb to madness. Saru has an idea on how to fight back against the computer virus, albiet in a very weak way, but it would slow the progress and give the crew a little bit of time to regain control, and Michael moves off to enact this digital antibody plan. Saru accepts that he is dying, and moves out to help Michael out.

While Michael and Saru are working on this, we get a really nice heart to heart between them about the nature of Saru's culture and how he thinks he just isn't built to keep fighting in the way Michael does. This is probably the best time to note that I love what the make-up department have done with him this episode. The way he walks with kind of a weird lean this episode, the perspiration on his face looks just great. This one on one scene was definetly the best part of the episode for me, I love digging into characters like this and Saru's unique relationship with the universe as a member of a species that are basically livestock animals is so fascinating to me.

With the spore-drive gang, May is apparently influencing May's thoughts. Apparently it's pumping a hallucinogen into her to calm her, although Paul and Reno have different ideas of what it's motives are. Michael ends up heading to engineering to ask them reactivate shields, unaware of their current situation. Engineering of course can't do anything at the moment, they're locked out of all systems, and Sylvia is dropping in and out of conciousness. Paul has a great idea. What he's gonna do is rework a part of the spore drive interface to let may hijack Sylvia's nervous system, and this is explained better in the episode and makes more sense there. But it will let us communicate with may, and Michael thinks something similar might be happening with the sphere, and the Virus could be a form of communication.

Michael shares this theory with Saru, and he deduces that the Sphere is trying to communicate the fact that it was dying, and wants to be remembered. Pike accepts this, and lowers the shields to accept the transmission, but I love that he still has a back-up plan in place.

Meanwhile with May, the process isn't working, and they start proposing makeshift surgery to make the communication process easier, and the whole trepanning thing felt like unnecessary trauma for my poor Neurodivergent girl, but the episode goes thankfully is quick with it. Once communication is established, May reveals her motives. Apparently she views the Discovery's use of the Mycelium network as invasive, and plans to kill Paul, and is now effectively holding Sylvia hostage to that end.

Unfortunately, Saru is still suffering symptoms, and I actually thought they fully kill him here and I was crying, him reminiscing about his sister while asking Michael to sever his Ganglia, and paralleling his relationship to his sister with Michael's relationship to Spock broke my heart. I don't particularly like death fake outs, but I love Saru, so I'm kinda happy that happened here. Also, it means were might be able explore a new side of Saru soon, because apparently without his Ganglia fear is no longer his primary drive, so I'm excited to see where they take him. Also on a side note, I love the design of his quarters.

At the end of the episode we're left with Sylvia being taken into the spore network by May as our cliffhanger.

This has been my favourite episode of Season 2 so far, it had a lot of fun moments, I loved parallel situations between the Bridge crew and the Engineering crew. The many touching scenes with Saru here were great. I loved this one.

A Whovian Watches Star Trek for the First Time: Part 114 - Spock is on the Run

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 2 Episode 3 - Point of Light

With Christmas over, I can get back to doing this properly.

This time, we're still on the lookout for Red Angel Signals and for any clues about Spock's situation. Sylvia Tilly is still seeing the ghost of her childhood friend May. Discovery stumbles across Sarek's ship, who requests to transport someone over. Everyone expects it to be Sarek, but it turns out to actually be his wife.

After the Intro we cut to the Klingon Empire, and things seem to be going well under L'Rell's rule. The Klingon houses are all together, even if there it a bit of tension about Tyler/Voq's presence.

Back on Discovery, we find out that Amanda tried to visit Spock in his psychiatric ward, but they wouldn't let her see him, and apparently any info about his situation is being kept secret, even from Family. So, she stole his medical file, and hands it off to Michael who in turn takes it to Captain Pike.

After a bit of Convincing, Pike calls up the Facility, but tactfully doesn't mention Amanda or the Stolen File, he simply words his request as a simple check from a captain, and we find out that apparently Spock escaped and is wanted for murder. This call convinces Pike to allow Michael to crack open the medical file.

We get this really good scene with Amanda opening up about how she regrets raising Spock in the way she did, and wishing he would have been allowed to express his emotion more, but this is interrupted by drawings of the Red Angel flickering through in the medical file, and then further interrupted by a call from Ash Tyler, which Michael needs to take. Michael's call with Ash is just a general catch up, and a nice heart to heart, but nothing immediately pressing. Later, we do find out that L'Rell and Voq had a child together, a complete surprise to Ash. L'Rell didn't tell Ash because she wanted him to be able to return to a human life without any need to return to Chronos. L'Rell knows that Ash called Michael and basically has seen the writing on the wall from Day 1. The way she wants to protect Ash/Voq's happiness is really sweet. Ash says he wishes to remain committed to staying on Klingon though, and agrees to raise the child. As to go to meet him however, they find the child has been kidnapped by one of rogue noble houses. We get a pretty good action scene out of it, although I wish it was a lit a bit better, it fell into the trap of thinking Visually Dark = Good. L'Rell and Ash lose their fight however, but are rescued by none other than Georgiou, who for some reason has a vested interest in L'Rell remaining the Chancellor of the Klingon empire

On Discovery's Bridge, where the Command Training Program people are beginning their "Shadow Exercises" which is a lot less badass than it sounds. Basically, they're studying directly under another officer. Sylvia, still her ghost, is studying under Captain Pike himself, which is definitely a golden opportunity. They have built him to be considered one of the best captains in the fleet, after all.

Apparently May's ghost is urgent to talk to a Captain, but not Pike, and not Saru because what she described sounds Human. I really wonder where this ghost falls on the Malice vs Incompetence Spectrum, throughout this sequence it does seem like she's pushing to block Sylvia from command. Pike notices something is up, but it's too late because May pushes Sylvia into an open outburst, which, because only she can see may, everyone on bridge thinks is directed towards Pike. I really like the idea of this ghost as kind of a metaphor stress or pushing yourself too hard or something, she did first appear in a scene where Saru gave her a little pep-talk about that.

Elsewhere, Michael's conversation with Amanda continues, and we learn a bit more about the Red Angel. Apparently the first time it appeared for Spock was during an incident where Michael ran away from home, and it told Spock exactly where she was. Additionally, we find out a bit more about what happened to damage Spock and Michael's relationship so much. Apparently, Michael Traumatised him to protect him from the logic extremists, because he kept following her around everywhere. We don't find out exactly what.

After both Michael and Sylvia's emotional moments, they both meet up in their bunks, and Sylvia finally opens up about how she's seeing a ghost. Michael manages to build Sylvia up a bit, which was really nice to see. And also, she manages to throw down a bit of logic about her situation: May isn't a hallucination, and whatever she is, she isn't the real Ghost of May. Additionally, because Michael has held a rock from the Asteroid and not suffered this effect, it must be connected to the Spores, and they agree to visit Paul Stamets.

Paul and Saru, now informed on Sylvia's situation get work and find out that May is a spore from the Terran Universe, but they make quick work of Extracting her. The fungal organism is huge however, and ends up contained.

I enjoyed this episode, especially Sylvia and May stuff, although I do wish we could have got a few more episodes of weird ghost stuff before it was resolved, I guess. The Klingon stuff was also great here. Apparently Georgiou is part of a black-ops unit called Section 31, I'm really interested to see where that goes now that she's back in play. Overall a pretty good episode.

A Whovian Watches Star Trek for the First Time: Part 113 - Followers of the Red Angel

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 2 Episode 2 - New Eden

Sorry it's been a few days, haven't had time to watch because my Partner's been sick, and I've been looking after him. He's doing better now, so I'm back!

We open this episode with Michael showing Pike the audio recording that Spock left behind at the end of last episode. It's very clear that these signals are related to whatever visions Spock has been having. Apparently, Spock has also been booked into a psychiatric facility, through his own choice.

Discussion about Spock are interrupted however by another Signal appearing. It is extremely far away though, hundreds of year's at Discovery's Top Speed. Pike give's the order to reactivate the Spore Drive. Paul Stamets here is great, I love how the episode is cutting through his grief and his philosophy over life, death and how it relates to him seeing Hugh in the Spore network.

Meanwhile on the bridge, we meet a mystery: There are humans on this planet! Humans who have apparently been here since before the Earth Achieved Warp capabilities. Enterprise did a similar episode, and it was a fun excuse for a western, so that immediately got my hopes up to see if we were gonna Genre shift here too, which we didn't particularly, but this pre-industrial world was still a fun setting

Apparently, these humans arrival on this planet happened during Earth's WW3, which a bit about in Enterprise, but ENT never really went into detail about WW3, so I'm hoping this is a chance to explore that. Unfortunately that didn't pan out. I am still hoping information about WW3 is something we'll get eventually, it seems like a pretty big part of Star Trek Earth's history to leave entirely vague.

We get a little bit of debate between Pike and Michael's different perspectives on what the signals are, Michael taking a more hardline Scientific approach, where as Pike takes a more philosophical approach, assuming these Red Angel signals are some kind of really advanced species and modifies the Sufficiently Advance Technology adage to apply to deities. Kinda reminded me T'Pol's and Archer's "The Vulcan Science Directorate has determined that time travel is impossible" conversations in a way. I find Pike brining up the idea of a god interesting, Enterprise did briefly touch on Religion, but from experience would the first time anything like that has been brought up in relation to a crew member, and I'm curious to see how that's explored.

Over in the hanger bay, Sylvia is working on her Dark matter project, I love her enthusiasm, and just devotion to use it to make a new Spore navigation system so Paul can retire. She's perfect. Unfortunately, it goes wrong and she's knocked unconscious. I love Saru's little speech about how she needs to not overwork herself.

Discovery sends down a ground crew to the planet, and they explore it's church, which apparently has amalgamated a lot Earth's religions together. The worldbuilding of their society is actually really interesting. Apparently, these humans were taken here by Spock's Red Angel, Michael of course wants a more rational explanation, but isn't getting one. We do find out a Soldier's camera recorded this transfer. Our team ask to take shelter in the town's church, as a ruse to find this Camera, but meanwhile on the bridge, one of the planet's radioactive rings is about to collapse and cause the planet's extinction. Saru gives the order to start the rescue of the planet's populace.

Unaware of the impending disaster, we then a little debate between Pike and Michael about whether or not these humans should be reintegrated into Earth Society or if they should be left to develop on their own. They're discovered though, and they're tech is taken so that their captors can prove they're from earth. From here on out, the ground crew get to do some pretty clever low tech solutions to problems, which I loved.

In Medbay, Sylvia starts thinking through a plan to pull the debris away from the planet using the Dark Matter Meteor, and it works! Our ground crew get their tech back, and are extracted back to Enterprise while maintaining their cover. We're then left with a reveal that Sylvia has been seeing a ghost!

Pike returns to the planet to trade a power cell for the Soldier's helmet cam, to find out more info on the Red Angels, and after repairing it aboard discovery, we see that the angel is indeed real, however the feed cuts out shortly after it appears.

I really liked this episode, and I'm loving the build up of the mystery around whatever the Red Angels are, and the various moral and philosophical debates here great. Sylvia Tilly as always was a highlight

A Whovian Watches Star Trek for the First Time: Part 112 - Search and Extraction

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 2 Episode 1 - Brother

On to Season 2! When last we left off, Discovery had just answered a distress call from the Enterprise! Still Captained by Christopher Pike from the Original Series Pilot.

We open with a retelling of the story from the first Short Trek I watched before season 1, followed by a new flashback to Michael's adoption by Sarek, and we also get to see her meet Spock as a child for the first time as a child.

It feels really weird to have the entire crew of Discovery just be in awe at the Enterprise when by all means the Discovery's experimental tech should make it the impressive ship. I know the Enterprise, this specific Enterprise, is like behind the scenes important, it is the Original Series ship, but I guess I was under the impression that in-universe Enterprise is just a normal ship, tech-wise.

A small team from Enterprise beam aboard Discovery, including Pike himself, and it appears they're here to take command of Discovery under some sort of emergency regulation. Michael was expecting Spock to be the Science officer who beamed aboard, but it's some other guy.

Pike here seems a lot more upbeat than he did in The Cage, but I'm here for it. I like that he takes the time to learn the Discovery Crew's names, and also takes time to listen to his crew's suggestions. Pike's mission is to investigate some unknown signals, but Enterprise's systems failed for unknown reasons en-route.

We get to catch up with are own crew for a while, and my heart is going out for Paul Stamets, and his absolute grief for Dr Culber. Apparently, he's been offered a teaching position at the Vulcan Academy, which means we'll be without an engineer for a while. It also seems like all the Spore Drive tech has been shut down, which is sad, they set up a lot of possibilities with it. I suppose a scientific block ops research ship doesn't have much purpose without the war though, so it makes sense.

Discovery arrives at the signal's coordinates, and some weird happenings are occurring. There is a huge gravity well, a huge asteroid field, and in the middle of it: A Starfleet ship, a medical ship that was supposed to have been destroyed in the war. Also, apparently the remaining spores have been reacting weird near the signal position.

The small enterprise squad are joined by Michael as they go down to investigate the ship's wreckage. The team's flight through the asteroid field was a pretty fun sequence. Unfortunately Pike's Non-Spock Science Officer doesn't make it to the wreckage, Michael and the Captain do manage to touch down even if Pike's pod isn't in one piece.

On the asteroid's surface, the ground crew find a set of small drones in the ship's wreckage. The drones lead the trio to their creator. She's an engineer who's been keeping the wreckage of the medical ship barely functional, and apparently isn't aware that the war is over. From here, the episode becomes an extraction mission for this engineer and her patients.

Unfortunately during the extraction, Discovery starts to take damage from the Asteroids, but the patients and most of the ground crew do manage to get transported out safely. Michael is initially left behind, and winds up impaled through the leg during the escape, but she very very briefly catches sight of a red shadowy figure, presumably related to the anomalous signal, before she's pulled out by discovery.

This episode was a fun season opener, a relatively unimportant side mission, but it established a fun new mystery around the 7 mysterious signals, and I'm glad the series seems to be taking on a tone more akin to Enterprise season 1, 2 and 4, now that the Klingon War is over. Pike was great, not particularly stand out, but it's nice to have a more standard captain around after both Lorca and Emperor Georgiou's brief command of the ship. I'm looking forward to this season, and I'm happy Pike seems to be sticking around to help train up Saru into a more Captain like role.

A Whovian Watches Star Trek for the First Time: Part 111 - Short Treks Speed Round 2

Okay, the guide I'm following puts two of these Short Treks between seasons, so before moving on to Season 2 of Discovery, we've gotta make this small detour. I quite liked these Short Treks as a format last time they popped up, so this'll hopefully be a nice pause.

Star Trek: Short Treks - Season 1 Episode 1 - Runaway

So, Runaway opens with the Discovery, presumably after the bulk of last episode but before the Cliffhanger. We have some sort of invisible humanoid alien, called a Xahean that's snuck on board, and Sylvia Tilly dealing with a very judgmental mother over her wanting to accept the offer for the Command Training program.

The short is mostly about Sylvia being socially awkward and once again literally me while trying to figure out the Xahean's situation. It's a cute short, although I don't have much to say about it. Po, the Xahean, was fun.

Big win for my Sylvia is Neurodivergent headcanon too!

Star Trek: Short Treks - Season 1 Episode 4 - Escape Artist

Our second Short Trek for today is a Mudd focussed Short, which I wasn't expecting. He's just as fun here as he was in his two discovery episodes. Here he stands accused of stealing something, and is being handed over to Starfleet for punishment, and the Short is about him trying to bullshit his way out of it. Throughout we get flashbacks to his various other times in custody, and there are a few fun gags. My favourite one was the aside with the short Klingon bounty hunter. All his tricks fail him however, as his Tellurite captor outsmarts his every move, until the end however, where we find out this Mudd is a duplicate.

Again, a lot of fun, not much to say about it. I hope this isn't the end for Harry Mudd, I love him as Villain.

A Whovian Watches Star Trek for the First Time: Part 110 - Under the Command of Evil Georgiou

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 1 Episode 15 - Will You Take My Hand?

Okay, We're now onto the Season 1 Finale of Discovery! I'm excited to see how we end this season out!

We open aboard Discovery with making quoting something about the nature of feart, and unfortunately I don't recognise it, so I'm just left with the Foreboding nature of the passage.

This Georgiou's command style is immediately noticeably Terran. I loved how tense the Bridge was during the opening sequence. Her absolute disdain for the Klingons, Saru, and later in the episode Ash Tyler, pushes all of the right buttons in my head, and I can't wait for her to get her comeuppance. She makes a few veiled references to how she eats Kelpians towards Saru, and it just made my skin crawl, and so did her calling Ash an "it" later on. Unfortunately however, there is not much the crew can do for now, as she's the only one who fully knows the plan.

After the intro Georgiou and Michael interrogate L'Rell about which landing site would be best for discovery. Of Course L'Rell doesn't talk, which launches Georgiou into a much more brutal method of getting the information out of her. That doesn't work either, and Michael calls that to a stop. I'm really glad that Michael is starting to realise that maybe this isn't the way to go. Michael then takes Georgiou to Ash, and since he has Voq's memories, he willingly gives over the information they want. We also get a bit of worldbuilding about Klingon history, just a bit about Kahless and how he defeated someone called Molor, who the Klingons seemed to have worshipped in a similar way to how they worship Kahless now. I really want to know more this, and I'm trying to piece together their culture from the little scraps I'm being given.

This episode from the get go is clearly about the clear difference between Imperial tactics and Federation Tactics, and whether or not the ends justify the means when it comes to Georgiou's brutality.

This episode is putting in a lot of work to undo the mistakes of the last few episodes surrounding Georgiou, and I am 100% here for it. The last couple episodes tried to make her too sympathetic, when she is a fascist dictator, but here she is written and portrayed in such a creepy slimey way, and it's definetly what they should have been doing from the get go. I've already mentioned her racism, but also in the way she interacts with the human crew. Her various threats towards Michael, and just general attitude towards Sylvia Tilly gives me shivers, and in this episode alone I think she's earned a spot among my favourite villains so far.

Discovery Makes it's jump into the caves of Kronos, and the ground crew, made up of Michael, Ash Sylvia and Georgiou exit into an Orion market to try and get the location of this shrine.

On a side note, the more even split among male and female Orion slaves makes the whole idea feel a lot less behind-the-scenes slimy than the Orions did in Enterprise, thankfully. Here it feels slimy in a way where it feels like it's supposed to feel slimy, and not just... whatever Enterprise was doing in it's Orion focus episode. Also I'm not going to pretend like the eye-candy isn't appreciated in my bisexual brain, it feels a lot less uncomfortable when it doesn't feel like exploitation.

Amongst the chaos of the market, we get a few good downtime scenes, particularly of Sylvia being an absolute fish out of water, and a really well written heart to heart between Ash and Michael, where we finally get the full details of what happened to Michael's Bio-parents. Her survivor's guilt over this trauma is an interesting angle, and the detail of her memory over her trauma is something I really want to see explored in the future, and it really adds a interesting layer with her relationship with Ash.

Tilly finds out that the Drone she's guarding isn't a drone, but a planet cracking bomb designed to make the planet uninhabitable, and unfortunately Georgiou has moved too fast for Discovery to do anything.

Thankfully, Discovery manages to talk Starfleet out of the plan, and fromt here it's just a matter of sending in Michael to convince Georgiou to stop, which turned out easier than expected. Discovery hands the Detonator over to L'Rell, and convinces her to step up as the Klingons leader, and end the war. Ash choses to go with him, meaning we'll need a new chief of Security again. His goodbye to Michael . Georgiou is then let free, and I'm hoping we'll see her again sooner rather than later, because she still has a lot fascisty stuff to answer for.

Michael's speech at the end as she obtains her official pardon, and the crew get their official commendations, was also a fantastic way to cap off the season. We're also given an absolute shocker of a cliffhanger, as Discovery picks up a distress call from the Enterprise, so I can't wait to see what that's about!

I really liked this finale. I was shaky going into it with how the previous episodes were treating Georgiou, but this more than made up for it. It really capped of the whole methods vs results theme the season was going for, and it was just generally fun. I enjoyed myself here.

I have a couple Short Treks which I'll cover in one post tomorrow, and then immediately onto Season 2!

A Whovian Watches Star Trek for the First Time: Part 109 - Out of the Frying Pan, into the Fire.

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 1 Episode 14 - The War Without, The War Within

Approaching the end of Discovery Season 1!

We pick up within moments of where we left off, with Saru coming to meet Michael at the Transporter, only top be greeted with a death threat from Georgiou, and I'm glad Saru realises how fucked it is that Michael saved a Fascist Dictator just because she happened to be the counterpart to a person she knew in the main universe.

Post surgery, Ash's Klingon identity seems to be gone, although he can access Voq's memories. Ash in his current state is really interesting, and I cant wait to see how he reconciles the two sets of memories. He did say Voq was the first test for this kind of Sleeper agent procedure, but it has been 9 months since Discovery was in this universe, so I imagine there are more of them by now. I love that Sylvia was the first to bridge the awkward silence between him and the rest of the crew. Emotional Support Human for the win!

Back on the bridge, some Federation Soldiers beam aboard, including Sarek and Admiral Cornwell, and Sarek performs a quick mind meld to confirm that the Discovery's crew is the real Discovery's Crew, and to avoid lengthy recaps of the last few episodes.

Conveniently, the Terran version of Discovery was destroyed, so we wont be needing to deal with it. Also, apparently the Klingons are not above hitting civilian planets or burning out a planets atmosphere. In the last 9 months, things have gotten brutal.

The Admiral orders Discovery back to Star Base 1, only to find it had been attacked by Klingons. As one would assume from the name, this Star Base contained a majority of the Federation's leadership. They start to Scan Discovery, but Saru gives the order to warp out, before anything bad can happen.

Michael visits Georgiou for advice on how to find the war, and as much as I don't like that Georgiou was saved, the Federation using the Empire's tactics against the Klingons is on the whole interesting in a fighting fire with fire way. I'm not sure giving her the captaincy at the end of the episode was a good writing choice or not though. The Plan is to launch a direct attack on Kronos. The Federation leadership is rightfully sceptical of the plan. Discovery is going to map Kronos by Spore-Jumping underneath the planet's surface, and make a map for the rest of the Federation fleet to use.

After a great conversation with Tilly, we get a reunion between Ash and Michael at the end of the episode, and I'm loving the writing between them at the moment, and this heart to heart was just fantastic.

This episode had some great character writing with Ash, Sylvia and Sarek, as well as some nice prep for the finale. I enjoyed myself, but overall I don't have much to say. I'm excited to see how the season ends though!

A Whovian Watches Star Trek for the First Time: Part 108 - Lorca's Betrayal

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 1 Episode 13 - What's Past is Prologue

We don't have cold open today, the episode just recaps then goes straight into the intro. I don't think any episode of Trek has done that for me yet.

This episode starts out with Lorca as our Focus character, liberating his followers from the Imperial Prisons, and then they make moves to capture this universe's Paul. Seeing Evil Paul's spore weapon in use was a good horror shot. Chemical and Biological weapons are terrifying. Meanwhile, Discovery is flying into what is soon to become a battlefield, and Emperor Georgiou wont let Michael warn them.

As of this episode, it's very clear to me that Lorca is just a run of the mill Fascist now. Before last episode's twist I really really liked the idea of a captain struggling to maintain Star Fleet's ideals through his own trauma and an ongoing war forcing him to become more and more Ends Justify the Means, I really don't like that this arc has just turned round to say "No, he's always been like this, he's just from the Fascism Universe." Maybe it would have been salvageable if his pre-established revolution against the Emperor was in the name of something good that played into the Ends Justify the Means outlook he showed before, it would have been more interesting, but nope, just more Fascism. If I wanted to watch fascists wearing gold fight fascists wearing black, I would have put on Remembrance of the Daleks. It certainly did the whole Fascism inevitably ends up eating itself message better.

After a struggle with a few of of the Emperor's soldiers, Michael manages to slip away to Contact Discovery, and they exchange revelations about Lorca and Evil Paul's Spore Experiments. Discovery refuses to leave Michael behind, so they all make a plan to blow up the emperor's ship and sever it from the network.

Lorca and his loyalists make their way to the Emperor's throne room, and Michael's call to Discovery is detected, and Lorca takes a moment to try and convert Michael, but of course that doesn't work.

Meanwhile on discovery, the crew are finding a number of flaws with the plan. Firstly, the shot to break the Charon's spore drive would use up all of Discovery's spore supply, leaving them stranded in the Mirror universe, and that's even if Discovery can survive the shockwave from the blast, which is unlikely in itself though. Despite these odds however, Saru delivers a actually really good speech to the crew, and everyone is down to give it their all, and Sylvia Tilly finds a way to counter both of their problems, and they can ride out on the Network's shockwave like a surfboard, which is a great solution. They initiate the plan, we really cool fight scene, then Michael and Georgiou are beamed aboard discovery to make the jump back home. Seeing Paul use the memory of Culbur to help him navigate home made me cry, I really liked the ending. Discovery ends up in the right universe, but 9 months, and the Federation has fallen to the Klingons, and that's our Cliffhanger.

My misgivings about the Lorca Twist aside, I did enjoy the episode. The action was fun, the final fight in the wreckage of the Throne Room was great, and the manoeuvres Discovery's crew pulled to get out of their situation were fantastic, I just wish Lorca didn't feel like a completely different character post-twist. Also I found it really weird that the Episode was trying to get me to root for Emperor Georgiou, when she's every bit a fascist as Lorca is here and didn't even really show signs of a redemption arc, it was just her goals happened to align with Michael's in that moment. One of you did tell me that this universe pops up in one of the Older Treks, so I'm interested to see how it's handled there

A Whovian Watches Star Trek for the First Time: Part 107 - The Emperor's Palace-Ship

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 1 Episode 12 - Vaulting Ambition

We open with Michael and Lorca being shuttled over to Emperor Georgiou. Unfortunately, the Shenzhou's information on the Defiant is heavily redacted, but it's likely that the full information is in the Imperial Palace, a ship called the Charon. I love the Charon's design, I love the scale of it, and how beautiful it is. Also, apparently Michael was raised by Emperor Georgiou, which makes sense given that she couldn't have been raised by Sarek here, and how Georgiou was her main mentor in Starfleet

Meanwhile on Discovery, Sylvia is resuming her treatment of Paul, who is once again interacting with his Empire Counterpart in the spore network. The Interactions with his other self are really fun, and the wild dreamscape of the spore network made for some nice visuals. Weird fucky dreamscapes are always fun, and this served a pretty good farewell between Paul and Dr Culbur. Our Paul however, wakes up at the same time as the other Paul. Unfortunately, the Empire's Paul has been doing his own experiments on the Spore Network, except he's actively killing it.

I wasn't to sure about Georgiou as the Emperor last episode, but her actress really sells it here. There is definitely a really creepy vibe in her dinner scene with Michael, where we also find out Kelpians are considered a delicacy in the Empire's Universe. That certainly brings a new layer to Saru's personal curiosity asking about them a while back. The scene really highlights the constant paranoia of this universe, with Georgiou being perfectly willing to execute her daughter on the mere suspicion of a plot to overthrow her.

Michael plays a really interesting gamble over telling Georgiou about the whole parallel universe situation, and uses Our Georgiou's rank badge as proof. This results in the immediate execution of everyone in the room except Georgiou, Michael and one shocked terrified assistant, which actually got a giggle out of me.

As all of this is going on, Ash is currently physically tearing himself apart over the conflict between the Human and Klingon parts of his Psyche. Discovery's Doctors do not know what to do with him, so we get a few scenes of Saru pleading with the Klingon Torturer to help, as she is the only one who understands the process that did this to him. At first she is reluctant, but after seeing the suffering in person, she finally admits there is one way to undo it. She begins the procedure, under armed watch

Apparently the way the Defiant moved between universes drove the entire crew mad to the point where they all killed eachother, meaning as a way back it's useless. Michael and the Emperor come to an uneasy bargain that she can go free in exchange for the schematics for Discovery's Spore Engine. No amount of negotiation however can convince the Emperor to let Lorca go.

In a scene where Lorca is being tortured, we get to see another absolutely brutal method that the Terran Empire has to execute people, as Lorca's loyalists are executed in front of him, the first one being an injection that burns away then explodes the victim.

Our final cliffhanger for the episode is the reveal that our Lorca and the Empire's Lorca are in fact one and the same, a twist I really didn't see coming, but kinda felt like it came a bit out of nowhere. We get flashbacks to certain "hints", but really they're just random details. I'm still interested to see where this goes though. It was an alright episode, with some great moments, but I wish we could do a bit more world. Maybe with a bit of fleshing out beyond this twist for me to accept it, but this definitely made Lorca a much less fascinating character for me, but we'll see if he can recapture it.

A Whovian Watches Star Trek for the First Time: Part 106 - Deep Cover within a Deep Cover

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 1 Episode 11 - The Wolf Inside

We open this episode with a monologue from Michael about her time so far in the Empire universe, and how the constant need to watch her back is effecting her. Additionally, we find out that this universe's Saru is a slave, which is sad to see, but for this universe's standards should have been expected. Also the use of a transporter as a method of execution is absolutely brutal to see.

Michael has managed to obtain the information on the Defiant, however cracking the firewall from the Shenzhou is difficult, and sending it to Discovery would be noticed.

Unfortunately back on Discovery, our crew has discovered the death of Colbert, and their immediate assumption is that in his current state, Paul did it. Sylvia has an idea to cure Paul's condition however, and takes him down to the engineering lab. Her theory is that the Spore Network is simply using all of Paul's physical resources to keep the portal between the universes open, and that a fresh dose of spores might wake him up, and she puts this hypothesis to the test.

On the Shenzhou, Michael has been given the location of the leader of the Klingon rebellion, someone called "The Firewolf" and is ordered to kill him.

In a private conversation with Lorca, Michael reveals that she is really hopeful that this rebellion could lead to a Federation like entity if it wins. It's even made up of the same mix of species as the Federation founders, just substituting Klingons for Humans. She is reluctant to go through with her orders. Her plan is to beam into the Firewolf's camp with Ash to negotiate. The pair are captured immediately after appearing, and are taken to the firewolf.

Apparently Sarek is among the firewolf's camp, and they refer to him as "The Prophet". Sarek performs a mindmeld with Michael, and sees the memories from the Federation Universe, and he clears any doubt about Michael's intentions. Michael, looking for advice on how to help with the war in the Federation universe starts asking the Firewolf questions, however a lot of the Firewolf's answers start to trigger Ash's sleeper programming, and a sword fight ensues. Sarek manages to break it up however, and continues to vouch for Michael.

Meanwhile on Discovery, Sylvia's experiment is having a positive effect on Paul, and moving the stress on his brain to some of his other organs, however it then goes wrong, and medical staff have to step in to stabilise him, but he goes braindead, albiet only temporarily. Once Tilly is alone with him, we get to see Paul's perspective inside the spore network, and we're teased with him encountering his empire universe counterpart.

Back on Shenzhou, Ash finally confesses as much as he can about his current state to Michael, and he starts to remember his true past. Apparently, he is a Klingong that was molded into a human and given false memories to infiltrate discovery. More specifically, he is the Federation Universe's counterpart to the Firewolf. He attacks Michael to avenge T'Kuvma, but the Shenzhou crew apprehend him, and Michael orders to have him Transporter Executed. As he sufficates in Space though, Discovery transport him aboard, and turns out this was partially a ruse to get the Data on the Defiant to Discovery. We're then hit with a final blow of another ship appearing to destroy the Rebels themselves, and we're hit with another surprise that apparently the Emperor is Georgiou, something which I really wasn't expecting.

I'm liking this whole corruption arc for Michael, and I thought the Ash twist was fun. It was nice seeing more of this universe, but I wish we could have spent a bit more time fleshing out the Rebels. Good episode, but I think the previous one was a bit better. Still excited to see where this goes now that the Emperor is directly involved though.

A Whovian Watches Star Trek for the First Time: Part 105 - Deep Cover In An Alternate Dimension

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 1 Episode 10 - Despite Yourself

I return from my brief day of rest, for the continuation of Star Trek Discovery.

Picking up from where we left off, with the bridge trying to figure out where we are. They are at the right co-ordinates, but nothing else is where it should be. We run across a Vulcan cruiser, who respond to Discovery's hails by immediately opening fire.

According to another Federation ship, the Cooper, these Vulcans are rebels, and after a bit of good old technobabble, our crew comes to the conclusion that we're in a parallel universe, and the ready room discussion last episode set up.

I'm interested to see exactly how this universe differs from the main, I have a lot of questions, not least of which is why is starfleet fighting against Vulcan Rebels?

Well, after the intro, it's up for our crew to get a lay of the land, as Paul is still very much out of commission with whatever he has going on at the moment. I'm liking the writing going on between Lorca and Dr Culber, and the clash between Lorca's more cold objective outlook and Culber's relationship with Paul.

Discovery sends out Ash to survey the wreckage field to get information about this universe, but her starts having flashbacks behind the wheel. While these ships are klingon, there are also Vulcans and Andorians inside among the dead, and it's not just a stolen ship either, the data chips in the ship are Vulcan components.

Ash returns to Discovery, and tires to convince the Torturer to explain what happened to him, but she activates his sleeper agent programming. He manages to snap out of it however, and puts her back in her cell.

I love how the episode slowly builds the pieces on this new universe, and how I'm left to put the pieces together with the crew, and every new piece of information has me eager to see how it all fits in place, until around halfway through when Michael and Tilly manage to crack into the data from the Klingon-Vulcan ship

Apparently, the Federation doesn't exist here, and in it's place is human centric government called the Terran Empire. The dead Klingons, Vulcans and Andorians we encountered form an inter-species rebellion against this Empire. Additionally, Saru concludes that this Universe's discovery has made it's way into the main universe, and apparently Sylvia is it's captain.

The Cooper tries to hail discovery, so Sylvia has to push through her anxieties to pretend to be a Fascistic captain, and the scene is hilarious. Sylvia is just literally me, she is precious and I love her. Also I'm Scottish, so hearing Lorca jump to a Scottish Accent when told to conceal his voice just filled me with glee!

Lorca decides to prepare to train Discovery and her crew to blend in with this new Universe, so they can survive until they find a way home. Federation badges and uniforms are switched out for Empire ones, and everyone . I'm actually really interested to see where this plotline goes. Deep cover mission like this absolutely effect people, and I'm really excited to see our crew's morality put to the test in a universe that just doesn't have the same moral compass and values are our crew.

I'm also really curious to know more about this Terran Empire universe. The whole Evil-Parallel universe is a really common thing when stories go the multiverse route, and rightfully so, there are a lot of ways you can the concept of an evil parallel universe. Doctor Who, my main Sci-Fi fandom, did it in a 1970 Third Doctor Serial called Inferno, which is a really interesting study of Nature vs Nurture, and my favourite part of Inferno is that the Inferno-Earth characters are deep down the same people as their original N-Space counterparts, just buried deep under and twisted by shitty fascist upbringings. I'm really curious to see where Star Trek's take on the evil-parallel universe falls on a similar nature vs nurture spectrum.

Apparently, Michael's counterpart is dead, and Lorca's counterpart murdered her. Apparently, Lorca's counterpart also led a coup against the Emperor, which really caught my attention. I really want to know more about Lorca's counterpart. Was he leading a coup for his own gain in a similar way to how Sylvia's counterpart gained the captaincy after murdering the previous captain, or was he genuinely trying to overthrow this facist empire? I want to know more! Point is, Lorca's Counterpart is still out there in this universe, as he's a fugitive and wouldn't be on the other-Discovery, which if the principle of Chekov's Gun applies, mean we're probably gonna run into him, and I'm excited for that!

Also, one more thing, while searching through the data core, Lorca finds that Discovery isn't the first ship to make it's way to this universe. A ship called the USS Defiant, apparently will, at some point in the Federation Universe's future, will end up in the Empire Universe's past. Wibbly Wobbly, Timey Wimey. And Lorca believes that this information could be the Discovery's path back home. The Plan is to sneak onto the ISS Shenzhou to retrieve information on the Defiant.

Michael's prep speech to tilly about how the Terran Empire's strength as all a smokescreen to hide their constant fear of both the outside and within was great, and after the prep Mary Wiseman really got to show off her acting chops here, switching from our lovable normal tilly to the projection of the evil captain tilly was fantastic.

Meanwhile in medbay, Ash's status as a sleeper is detected by the Doctor, and in response, he cracks, then snaps the doctor's neck. Michael, Ash and Lorca beam over to the ISS Shenzhou, and their cover mission is played perfectly, and the insights we get into Terran society are fantastic. I loved the fight in the elevator, and Michael having to mask her near breakdown over killing someone who has the face of someone knows. Unfortunately, Michael is unable to get the information on the Defiant because the entire crew is either trying to kill her, like Connor, or is playing up a entirely Sycophantic angle to catch her favour.

I'm really excited to see where this arc goes. I've kinda already covered all the stuff I would normally put in my conclusion, but I'm hoping we get some deconstruction on the Terran Empire's Fascism, we kind of already did with the aforementioned prep speech between Michael and Sylvia, but I want more of that. It's all to common for fictional evil empires to use the aesthetic of Fascism without really doing anything to deconstruct it or show it's failings (Cough, Star Wars, Cough). On the whole I am optomistic for this though, it's definitely falling more in line with the kind of Multiverse story that I like, and fingers crossed it stays that way.

Didn't have time to watch my Star Trek episode today. Oh Well. I went 104 days without missing a post, I'm allowed a break

Responding to some tags from hmantegazzi , I probably should have the guide I'm following somewhere so people can check against it. I was under the impression was in my pinned post, but checking it now, I guess I forgot to put in there and didn't realise until now. I've edited it in, and included it in my blog's bio now.

The guide has me continuing with Discovery until the end of Season 2 for now, with the only deviations from that being a couple more Short Treks between the two seasons.

A Whovian Watches Star Trek for the First Time: Part 104 - Battle of Pahvo

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 1 Episode 9 - Into the Forest I Go

We pick up exactly where we we left off. Command is recalling Discovery back to Federation controlled Space, and abandon the Pavhan's defence. Lorca however, disagrees, and has a clever plan to take down the Ship of the Dead. Trouble is, we only have 3 hours to figure out how to defeat the cloaking device, because that is the time that Command expects Discovery to Warp to safety by.

To create a paper trail about why Discovery is travelling by warp and not by spore drive, however, Lorca orders Paul to have every medical test done, which will inevitably reveal to his Doctor BF about the genetic nature of his connection to the spore drive.

The actual plan is simple, however it requires Discovery to make hundreds of consecutive spore jumps to 3d image the ship but would almost certainly fry Paul's brain. We're then given the idea that the Mycelium network can extend beyond just the galaxy into the rest of the universe and even into parallel realities, and this really motives the scientist inside Paul, seems to be hinting that this the direction we're going in once this war arc is done and dusted.

In recent years has kinda become saturated with multiverses, but it's an idea that I love. If we do end up going in that direction, I hope it's handled well. Doctor Who has kinda dabbled in parallel universes before, Most Notibly Inferno and the overarching story of Series 2 of the Revived Series, and has kinda set my taste for how I like Parralel World storylines. Point is, if we do go in that direction, I hope Star Trek handles it's multiverse more akin to how Doctor Who does, and less like how Comic Book movies handle their multiverses. Basically, I want it to use a multiverse to tell interesting stories with the characters we have, I don't want it to become cameo-city

Paul get's into position to make the jumps, the Ship of the dead uncloaks. Ash and Michael beam aboard and the battle begins.

While aboard, Michael finds Admiral Cornwell and Ash starts having PTSD flashbacks after encountering the Klingon Torturer. Since The Admiral is unable to walk, and the Ash is out of commission, Michael is alone in placing he sensors. Luckily she successfully does it, and Discovery does it's jumps. As predicted, the Ship of the Dead goes back into cloak, but Discovery completed it's scans and now can bypass the cloaking!

The scenes with the doctor watching Paul suffering to make all those jumps was heartbreaking, and the episode had be at least convinced that Paul would die in the process. I also loved Michael's confrontation with Commander Kol, over his lack of honour, and her reclaiming Captain Georgiou's rank badge, which allowed her to kind of redeem herself in her own head.

With Kol defeated, and the Klingon Ship of the Dead destroyed, and command decides to decorate Lorca with something, presumably a medal, called the Legion of Honour, however Lorca decides to pass that honour onto Paul, which I'm really happy to see. This man deserves everything for going through that drive. However, Paul decides that the jump home will be the last jump and he'll reture to earth afterwards, which makes me wonder who'll take that spot going forward.

We get an interesting scene where Ash opens up about what happened while he was in klingon prison, and his survivors guilt and how that affected him. My heart goes out for the guy. But we also get the revelation that the Torturer made him some kind of sleeper agent or something, and that programming is starting to awake.

We're then left with the Cliffhanger of something going very wrong during that jump. The Bridge is in chaos, and no one knows where they are.

This was a very nice conclusion to the whole Klingon War arc, and I'm excited to see where we're going next. Whatever is happening with Paul, and Ash, as well as where the ship ended up jumping to. I'm a bit worried about the multiverse direction the first half of the episode hinted at, but we'll see where this goes

A Whovian Watches Star Trek for the First Time: Part 104 - Battle of Pahvo

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 1 Episode 9 - Into the Forest I Go

We pick up exactly where we we left off. Command is recalling Discovery back to Federation controlled Space, and abandon the Pavhan's defence. Lorca however, disagrees, and has a clever plan to take down the Ship of the Dead. Trouble is, we only have 3 hours to figure out how to defeat the cloaking device, because that is the time that Command expects Discovery to Warp to safety by.

To create a paper trail about why Discovery is travelling by warp and not by spore drive, however, Lorca orders Paul to have every medical test done, which will inevitably reveal to his Doctor BF about the genetic nature of his connection to the spore drive.

The actual plan is simple, however it requires Discovery to make hundreds of consecutive spore jumps to 3d image the ship but would almost certainly fry Paul's brain. We're then given the idea that the Mycelium network can extend beyond just the galaxy into the rest of the universe and even into parallel realities, and this really motives the scientist inside Paul, seems to be hinting that this the direction we're going in once this war arc is done and dusted.

In recent years has kinda become saturated with multiverses, but it's an idea that I love. If we do end up going in that direction, I hope it's handled well. Doctor Who has kinda dabbled in parallel universes before, Most Notibly Inferno and the overarching story of Series 2 of the Revived Series, and has kinda set my taste for how I like Parralel World storylines. Point is, if we do go in that direction, I hope Star Trek handles it's multiverse more akin to how Doctor Who does, and less like how Comic Book movies handle their multiverses. Basically, I want it to use a multiverse to tell interesting stories with the characters we have, I don't want it to become cameo-city

Paul get's into position to make the jumps, the Ship of the dead uncloaks. Ash and Michael beam aboard and the battle begins.

While aboard, Michael finds Admiral Cornwell and Ash starts having PTSD flashbacks after encountering the Klingon Torturer. Since The Admiral is unable to walk, and the Ash is out of commission, Michael is alone in placing he sensors. Luckily she successfully does it, and Discovery does it's jumps. As predicted, the Ship of the Dead goes back into cloak, but Discovery completed it's scans and now can bypass the cloaking!

The scenes with the doctor watching Paul suffering to make all those jumps was heartbreaking, and the episode had be at least convinced that Paul would die in the process. I also loved Michael's confrontation with Commander Kol, over his lack of honour, and her reclaiming Captain Georgiou's rank badge, which allowed her to kind of redeem herself in her own head.

With Kol defeated, and the Klingon Ship of the Dead destroyed, and command decides to decorate Lorca with something, presumably a medal, called the Legion of Honour, however Lorca decides to pass that honour onto Paul, which I'm really happy to see. This man deserves everything for going through that drive. However, Paul decides that the jump home will be the last jump and he'll reture to earth afterwards, which makes me wonder who'll take that spot going forward.

We get an interesting scene where Ash opens up about what happened while he was in klingon prison, and his survivors guilt and how that affected him. My heart goes out for the guy. But we also get the revelation that the Torturer made him some kind of sleeper agent or something, and that programming is starting to awake.

We're then left with the Cliffhanger of something going very wrong during that jump. The Bridge is in chaos, and no one knows where they are.

This was a very nice conclusion to the whole Klingon War arc, and I'm excited to see where we're going next. Whatever is happening with Paul, and Ash, as well as where the ship ended up jumping to. I'm a bit worried about the multiverse direction the first half of the episode hinted at, but we'll see where this goes

A Whovian Watches Star Trek for the First Time: Part 103 - Spirits of the Blue Forests

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 1 Episode 8 - Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum

Oooh, Latin title! Running it through translate, it appears to mean "IF you want peace, prepare for war" which is a bit ominous!

We open with the Discovery launching a surprise rescue mission of another Starfleet ship under Klingon Attack. The Mission is however a failure. The other ship is lost, and Discovery has to Spore Jump out of there. Despite the Spore Drive's great speed abilities, the Klingon invisibility ships are just impossible to target until they make themselves visible, which is an difficult problem that I can't wait to see how they think around.

Meanwhile, Paul seems to be having some after effects from being plugged into the Spore drive. We know from last episode that Ripper's DNA had some weird time effect on him, and now he appears to have a bit of confusion, and accidentally refers to Sylvia Tilly as Captain. A hint at the future perhaps? Well, later in the episode we get some more details about what he's experiencing, but I can't figure out if it's time related, or multiverse related or just entirely in his head. I need more to go on.

After the aforementioned battle, we find out that Starfleet Command has asked discovery to go to a planet called Pahvo. Saru, Michael, Ash make up this the ground team, and the plan is to study the planet's unique vibrations to make a SONAR system for detecting the cloaked Klingon ships. I'm not 100% sure how a Sonar System is supposed to work in the vacuum of Space, surely the vibrations would need matter to be carried across. Either way, the planet is absolutely gorgeous. I love the blues.

I actually really enjoy this trio working together. Now that Michael and Saru have made up, they bounce off each other pretty well, they have some fun banter with eachother across the scenes of them exploring the planet, and have a really nice balance of personalities. They encounter some Ethereal creatures, and now the team are required to make official first Contact. Michael mentions that there is an official protocol for that now, which is certainly going to make things a lot easier than in the days of Archer making it up as he went along. While Saru is off trying to communicate with the creatures, Ash and Michael have a moment of bonding by the fire. They want to be together, but as long as there is a war, they'll be kept busy and as soon as the war is over, Michael is going back to prison. It's a very important problem for Michael's future, and we get an interesting look into both her Ash's moralities in this scene. And also a kiss, which is also nice.

The Pahvans initiate a telepathic communication with Saru, who then crushes Michael and Ash's communicators and goes mad at trying to keep the team on the planet. Ash takes command and decides to distract Saru while Michael tries to contact Discovery.

Also, throughout the episode we keeping cutting back to the Klingons. The Klingon leaders are trying to torture Admiral Cornwell, but apparently the Torturer has other plans. The Torturer wants to defect to the Federation, and launches a plan to escape with the Admiral. They move to assassinate the leadership as they escape, but are caught in the process and end up in a faux fight with eachother to avoid recapture. The torturer knocks Cornwell unconscious, and uses it to feign her death, and dumps her unconscious body in with a bunch of real Klingon bodies. I'm not sure where their arc is going, but I will say it's first time in Discovery that the Klingon side of things has properly held my attention enough to fully work through my difficulties with subtitles.

We're left on a cliffhanger of the Pahvans summoning the Klingon Flagship, because they don't understand the reality of war and want to bring harmony, and Discovery is left to protect them.

I really liked this episode. The Pahvo stuff was really nice, I love delving into these characters. It was a lovely episode for Saru, and how he's entirely motivated by keeping the Pahvans out of the war is beautiful. Apparently, this was the first time he had lived without fear, and his reaction to having that taken away is heartbreaking. The character development on Michael and Ash was amazing too. I love this kind of character focus episode.