Discovery 1x04 – "The Butcher's Knife Cares Not For The Lamb's Cry" [** SPOILERS **]

Johnny Storm

Goodshape wrote: »

That spore drive warp effect is beyond daft,

+ 1

I will be referring to it as the Magic Mushroom Drive from now on

Also why would Captain Kill-or-be-killed want a cautious scaredy-cat like Saru on his crew at all, much less as his number 1?

Optimus Prime

Optimus Prime wrote: »

Really enjoyed this weeks one again. Still hoping that the “everything” the Klingon has to give up turns out to be some of his full on alien Klingon look and they make the look more like the ones from the past shows.

Imagine if he takes the Augment Virus intentionally to make himself stronger than Kor!

Saying that I actually love the new Klingons (barring some over soft masks bending on the armour), they are now real big bads, eating their defeated enemies and relishing it, oh and back to that armour doubling as an environmental suit... lovely

With regards to Elon Musk - we're looking at him in the present. Musk is one of the main people pushing for going to Space again and also for going to Mars. Maybe the advancements that Musk is able to push gets us to Mars in the Star Trek universe now.

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Blazer wrote: »

I’m thinking about the Falcon platform which Musk has revolutionized, well hopefully so tempted to get them a pass on it. At this stage the writing is pretty poor. Maybe they should just hire the Orville writers and remove the jokes.

The idea is that musk will get people to Mars. In which case the future will remember him.

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

With regards to Elon Musk - we're looking at him in the present. Musk is one of the main people pushing for going to Space again and also for going to Mars. Maybe the advancements that Musk is able to push gets us to Mars in the Star Trek universe now.

I liked it but we have seen Earth in 2020's in "Past Tense"(?) on DS9?
They have established the 1990's to WW3 as a bad place to be, should leave it at that.

TBH it's going to be very awkward not to mention contemporary situations in Trek though. It's why we had the likes of Past Tense and the excellent episode where Sisko dreams that he's a writer - it mirrored that present situation. There's always going to be issues with that - because the world always changes.

DMcL1971

Johnny Storm wrote: »

I will be referring to it as the Magic Mushroom Drive from now on

It reminds me of the Infinite Improbability Drive from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. It allows you to pass through every point in the galaxy simultaneously. They even said this week that the spore drive was probabilistic.

Or the Blink Drive from Dark Matter that allowed you to instantaneously jump your ship to a point and then jump out again, in the blink of an eye.

DMcL1971

Josey Wales wrote: »

Is the woman at the helm of the ship with the tech around her eye from the pilot? Was she on the original ship but injured now?

Yes, same character. Presumably she got injured in the Klingon battle.

degrassinoel

DMcL1971 wrote: »

It reminds me of the Infinite Improbability Drive from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. It allows you to pass through every point in the galaxy simultaneously. They even said this week that the spore drive was probabilistic.

Or the Blink Drive from Dark Matter that allowed you to instantaneously jump your ship to a point and then jump out again, in the blink of an eye.

or..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygE01sOhzz0

think i'm done giving this show a chance, even voyager was better than this

Like we haven't seen propulsion tech researched and abandoned in TOS era
Cough... Transwarp... Cough

Goodshape

degrassinoel wrote: »

think i'm done giving this show a chance

You're done doing what now? I must have missed that part.

:pac:

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

Like we haven't seen propulsion tech researched and abandoned in TOS era
Cough... Transwarp... Cough

Aaannd not forgetting the mega-warp drive which was powered on the bodies of subspace aliens in Voyager.

hal9550

There is a precedent for a magic drive WITHIN THE STAR TREK CANON

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYE3nm9voUk

Cochrane couldnt lift off without Steppenwolfs MAGIC CARPET!!!

meep

This is the first episode that made me question if I really wanted to keep watching thjis.

There are no likeable characters and, worse, no sympathetic characters. It's full of annoying, poorly written people making bad decisions.

The Klingon sequences really anny me. Not becasue of how they look but how tey sound;

In the first instance, they all speak as if their mouth if full of brillo pads or something. There's a distinct tone to their spech that grates and just comes across as poor sound design.

Plus, spekaing in Klingon with subtitles really detracts from the visuals. The series really looks great and the first Klingon scene in this episode had some amazing visuals going on in the background. Could I enjoy them? No, I had to read those stupid subtitles.

Not enjoying it, unfortunately.

Greyjoy

This ep was a mixed bag for me. The core plot of rescuing the mining colony had potential and there was some nice character development for the Discovery crew.

But the tension of the main story was undercut by the distraction of the Klingon 'B' story. If the writers had somehow tied it into the colony attack then it could have worked but it felt like filler. Not wishing to sound like a broken record but the new Klingon designs are making their dialogue a laborious chore to sit through. It stretched credibility that after igniting a war T'kuvma's followers would be left abandoned in the debris field for six months. The other houses would have surely returned for no other reason than to fight over the cloaking tech in T'kuvma's warship.

I liked more focus on Stamet's and the re-iteration that a military mission is not what he joined Starfleet for. But the security chief's death was utterly pointless both from a story point of view and from the character herself. We knew how dangerous the ripper was from the previous ep so killing landry doesn't advance the plot in any way. Landry herself acted like an idiot, if she had not been part of the boarding party on the Glenn then might have excused her underestimating the creature. But she fled from it aboard the Glenn yet somehow thinks some tranquilizer gas and a phaser rifle will be enough to kill it? Maybe if we as an audience had gotten to know Landry for more than 1 episode her death might have carried some impact - are they setting up a vacancy for Burnham to fill?

degrassinoel

Goodshape wrote: »

You're done doing what now? I must have missed that part.

:pac:

explain.

Goodshape

degrassinoel wrote: »

explain.

I was suggesting (half jokingly) that you've never given this show a chance.

seamus

Evade wrote: »

Wright brothers, Zefram Cochrane, and Elon Musk. One of theses things is not like the others.

There were a couple of little nods to modern memes/geekdom that I wasn't crazy about. Musk being one of them; setting aside the timeline/canon issues, will Musk even be remembered alongside Cochrane in the 23rd century? They should have left it out.
The tardigrade thing was another little nod to modern memes, and seemed like an unnecessary parallel, unless their intention is to lead us towards it being a deliberate tardigrade/spore hybrid rather than a space-faring being that tracks the spores.

I hope they're going to delve more into that. It seemed all too convenient that you plug this thing into the technology and it "just works".

Greyjoy wrote: »

I liked more focus on Stamet's and the re-iteration that a military mission is not what he joined Starfleet for. But the security chief's death was utterly pointless both from a story point of view and from the character herself.

These two threads are not exclusive. As we can see from Stamet and Saru's attitude to the Captain, there's a military -v- science tension on the vessel, which presumably is only going to build as Lorca becomes more and more arrogant.

Landry is military and it's a common theme in Star Trek for jarheads to be rash, impulsive, aggressive and arrogant. So while yeah, you'd be thinking, "How stupid are you?!", there is past form in Star Trek for that level of stupidity by military personnel.

seamus

seamus wrote: »

There were a couple of little nods to modern memes/geekdom that I wasn't crazy about. Musk being one of them; setting aside the timeline/canon issues, will Musk even be remembered alongside Cochrane in the 23rd century? They should have left it out.

I don't know. To me, it would be odd for them to not. Whatever about the timeline/cannon issues, Musk has been more or less spearheading the exploration of space with SpaceX and he is, right now, among the only people pushing for Mars.

If he succeeds, then he'll go down in history as the man that got us to Mars.

Greyjoy

seamus wrote: »

Landry is military and it's a common theme in Star Trek for jarheads to be rash, impulsive, aggressive and arrogant. So while yeah, you'd be thinking, "How stupid are you?!", there is past form in Star Trek for that level of stupidity by military personnel.

Landry wasn't some rookie officer where those traits might be more common she was the security chief.If you're going to have a character act in a stupid/rash manner you need to first establish that they're foolish/inexperienced otherwise it's bad writing.

degrassinoel

Goodshape wrote: »

I was suggesting (half jokingly) that you've never given this show a chance.

i've watched all the episodes so far, and given my opinion on them, i had been hoping for this to be oh, so much better, and it's been a disappointment from the start.
Not entirely though, there are some elements they got right, and there was a glimmer of hope after the pilot double bill with some of the crew of the titular ship. But yeah, not enough after 180 minutes or so to keep my attention, plus a lot of what i've seen is how i'd see an insult to Roddenberry's vision of the federation in that era. This would probably have worked as a mirror universe show or ye know, not star trek.

i'll catch the reruns on tv or whenever i get another free month of netflix - or just read the spoilers here, either way.

Evade

Deleted User wrote: »

I don't know. To me, it would be odd for them to not. Whatever about the timeline/cannon issues, Musk has been more or less spearheading the exploration of space with SpaceX and he is, right now, among the only people pushing for Mars.

If he succeeds, then he'll go down in history as the man that got us to Mars.

Space X is boldly going where many cargo vehicles have gone before it's not that groundbreaking. The reusable rockets are cool though.

It's just cool to drop Musk's name into things because he's the tech messiah of today. If STD was made five years ago it would have been Steve Jobs.

pixelburp

Whether or not Musk makes it to Mars is purely speculative, but at the end of the day he & his company ARE the world leaders in space exploration, and the most demonstrably imaginative on that front too. Musk's long term plan for a Martian colony of 200,000 people is pretty incredible; debatable as to its feasibility, but if it comes to pass an amazing feat. Personally I think the privatisation of Space will ultimately be a bad thing & lead to a future of Weyland-Yutanis, but that's another matter entirely.

The original series speculated there were to be eugenics wars in the 1990s, so I think we can cut Discovery a little slack for a playful towards a more realistic potential future.

Goodshape

degrassinoel wrote: »

i'll catch the reruns on tv or whenever i get another free month of netflix

Then I shall miss your fair and grounded criticism each week


(again – no, I'm joking. I won't miss it :pac:. You've seemed hell bent on hating this since before it aired).

s15r330

The whole propulsion thing is a bit sh1te is it?

Evade

pixelburp wrote: »

Whether or not Musk makes it to Mars is purely speculative, but at the end of the day he & his company ARE the world leaders in space exploration

Ahead of the various national space agencies?

Evade

Evade wrote: »

Ahead of the various national space agencies?

Who have had their budgets massively slashed - in the case of America and NASA. And it's only in the last few years that other nations have begun to do their own space missions.

Outside of the International Space Station, we haven't gone near space since. Hell, pretty much since the retiring of all of the space shuttles by NASA.

Musk's SpaceX brought space travel back into people's imaginations -- and is making it "cool" in the process.

It seems foolish and pointless to rubbish just how much Musk and SpaceX has acomplished.

Evade

Deleted User wrote: »

Who have had their budgets massively slashed - in the case of America and NASA. And it's only in the last few years that other nations have begun to do their own space missions.

Outside of the International Space Station, we haven't gone near space since. Hell, pretty much since the retiring of all of the space shuttles by NASA.

Musk's SpaceX brought space travel back into people's imaginations -- and is making it "cool" in the process.

It seems foolish and pointless to rubbish just how much Musk and SpaceX has acomplished.

I'm not rubbishing everything he's done but calling a company who hasn't sent anyone into space a world leader in space exploration is a tad hyperbolic.

Privatising the mundane aspects of spaceflight so national agencies can focus farther afield is a great move in my opinion.

Mickeroo

Thought it was a cracking episode, great to have Star Trek back on TV. I like the clash between the militaristic and explorer/science philosophies on the ship and it's a good way of doing something different to the other shows while staying true to what Star Trek is about.

Though the part where the security chief died was pretty poor writing in fairness, she didn't even check if the sedation had worked before dropping the field! I was suprised she didn't survive as I was fully set for a season long arch where herself and Michael would grudgingly come to respect each other.

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Greyjoy wrote: »

Landry wasn't some rookie officer where those traits might be more common she was the security chief.If you're going to have a character act in a stupid/rash manner you need to first establish that they're foolish/inexperienced otherwise it's bad writing.

So we needed a flashback on her life or something? She was clearly rash enough but on the other hand she did try and sedate the creature. Later on Burnham was equally rash, but she survived.