Discovery 1x09 – "Into the Forest I Go" [** SPOILERS **]

Optimus Prime

Spock did it in the first JJ film when he beams down to Vulcan to try rescue his mother. Not sure if he had a phaser but he gets down like that.

Can’t remeber if they did it later when they beam to Nero’s ship.

Evade

The problem with using transporters in a battle is shields. Transporters aren't supposed to be able to beam things through shields so you'd have to drop yours to make the attack and if the other ship's shields are down* it doesn't take many hits to destroy it anyway so it's a kind of unnecessary.

*and the ship doesn't also have polarised hull plating which doesn't seem to be common on ship with shields

FutureGuy

expectationlost wrote: »

did captain isaacs purposely let the admiral go to that meeting because he suspected it was a trap and would get rid of person who might stop him fighting, (he wasn't thirlled to hear she was alive)

100% he did. He also changed tact the second he heard she had been rescued and stranded the Discovery.

pixelburp

A really strong closing to the first half of the season, and arguably Discovery's best episode yet. Tightly scripted, tense and with some decent characterisation that left enough questions without feeling overly withholding. Hopefully the back 6 episodes can maintain that high watermark, and by the season close we could be looking at the show ending while hitting something resembling a stride. Discovery seems to be growing into itself nicely, the bedding down period finally giving way to something more robust.

Praise too for upending a cliche that I legitimately eye-rolled over when it was telegraphed: I was sure the Admiral was a dead-woman once she reprimanded Lorca and made her big "When I get back from meeting this Klingons, you're in trouble!" speech. It's as bad as being marked for death after saying something like "last day til retirement", yet Discovery was canny enough to subvert the cliche and have her returned, alive and well. Lorca's still potentially in trouble, albeit with the Admiral in his debt for her rescue.

As to the question of Tyler: yeah like others I think there's some kind of weird surgical / memory-implantation going on here; clearly there is / was an actual Ash Tyler otherwise he'd never have got aboard the Discovery (though his presence on the Away Team seemed like a particularly bad case of the Idiot Ball by Lorca), but I suspect those flashbacks are a bluff. Rather than seeing torture, I think we saw flashes of the surgery that ripped Tyler's memories before being planted into Kol. Ditto the sex scene; L'Rell was keen on Kol anyway, so I wonder if that was one of Kol's memories forcing their way to the top. If true, not sure what the end-game is in all this, as clearly one personality needs to manifest. [*]

Only quibble would be that the cliffhanger lacked a stinger of some kind, a line of dialogue or visual clue to leave us on; instead, that cloud of debris was a bit too ambiguous and unclear as to what we were meant to be seeing. Obviously nothing good & given the heavy-handed conversation about parallel universes earlier, I'm guessing they've accidentally jumped to another, but a more definitive clue that something was amiss would have been handy.

[*] Side bar, not that Star Trek should ever be mistaken for so-called hard Sci-Fi, but the flippant approach to surgery in the franchise always annoys me slightly. At the swish of a scalpel you can change race / species without fuss, and sophisticated enough to fool detection (doubly so if the Tyler-as-Kol theory bears fruit) at that. Its use in TNG felt too convenient, too lazy, half the time.

Do you wonder whether the Admiral suspects Lorca sent her there willingly to be captured?

Bacchus

Deleted User wrote: »

Do you wonder whether the Admiral suspects Lorca sent her there willingly to be captured?

She was sent on orders from Starfeet though wasn't she? I thought it just worked out as a convenient result (for Lorca) of Sarek not being able to go.

What he did do though was NOT attempt a rescue. There's a certain irony in that, as whole reason the Admiral was going to take away Discovery was because he was going on reckless missions without permission instead of following orders. It's kinda hard for her to have a go at him so for doing exactly what she had told him he should be doing... but there'll be a resentment there as obviously she knows he could have rescued her if he really wanted.

Bacchus

BTW, fantastic episode. Up there with the most I've enjoyed an episode of Star Trek across all the series. It really put a nice polish on the season, which overall was positive. It took a few episodes to find its feet and for me to adjust to this new look trek but this has potential to be the best trek yet. TOS, TNG and DS9, as fantastic as they are, were "of their time" and for me haven't aged particularly well. This is trek for modern TV and its working IMO. I love that the characters are very much front and center, and that there are these interesting (looking at least) side characters that have the potential to be brought into the spotlight in future seasons.

The characters have been the highlight. Lorca is quickly becoming one of the most interesting captains we've had, and the air of mystery around his motives is something never done before with the title ships captain. Michael is growing on me. That last episode brought her along a good bit and her relationship with Saru is great to watch. Saru himself fills the role of "alien bridge character" very well and is a pleasant move away from a logic-based species (Vulcan, Android) we get in most series (with the exception of DS9). Stamets and Culber (had to Google his name) are one of the highlights of the show. They are the heart in this. Stamets alone is a MVP in my opinion but his relationship with Culber is so well portrayed (nevermind that its a gay relationship) and adds something no other Star Trek show has had. Tilly is probably the weakest of the characters. She's not bad, just a bit one note. Her optimism does help balance some of the darkness of the show though so she's still good to have on screen. Finally, Tyler... he was late to the party so we haven't seen as much of him. Also, he's a bit of a dark horse because he's either Voq or brainwashed. Going to be interesting to see what they do with him when the show returns.

Goodshape

Bacchus wrote: »

She was sent on orders from Starfeet though wasn't she? I thought it just worked out as a convenient result (for Lorca) of Sarek not being able to go.

Lorca was very quick to suggest she goes in place of Sarek. I'm pretty convinced he knew what he was doing.


Also, form this episode, regarding the final jump, it wasn't given enough time to be seen in the episode so I'll spoiler it, but it was there in freeze-frame –

Lorca uses his chair-console to override the final jump at the last moment, right before he says "let's go home".

.

Bacchus

Bacchus wrote: »

Michael is growing on me. That last episode brought her along a good bit and her relationship with Saru is great to watch. Saru himself fills the role of "alien bridge character" very well and is a pleasant move away from a logic-based species (Vulcan, Android) we get in most series (with the exception of DS9).

Michael IS the logic based alien though. She is on the path to discovering her humanity, after being raised on Vulcan

TheIrishGrover

Bacchus wrote: »

....Tilly is probably the weakest of the characters. She's not bad, just a bit one note. Her optimism does help balance some of the darkness of the show though so she's still good to have on screen....

That's 'cos she's a redshirt. They're gonna kill her off in the series 1 finale (My guess)

As for Tyler? Durrrr. I even said it in my previous post that I suspected he was an altered Klingon instead of brainwashed. But I didn't put 2 and 2 together. Yeah, sher didn't the female Klingon tell Voq that his plan would cost him everything? And you haven't seen him since. Stupid Grover

eeguy

So Star Trek is now in the upside-down

Bacchus

Deleted User wrote: »

Michael IS the logic based alien though. She is on the path to discovering her humanity, after being raised on Vulcan

Saru is this shows "alien" character. Like Spock was on TOS, Data and Worf were on TNG, Odo was on DS9, and T'Pol was on ENT (even though by then a Vulcan no longer felt very "alien" on a Trek show).

Come to think of it, VOY manage to avoid that trope to a certain extent. The closest you have is maybe 7of9 and the Doctor, but neither ever felt really "alien" and they grew quite organically. Tuvok barely registered as a character for me. He was just... there.

While Michael has been given the journey Trek loves - find your humanity (Spock, Data, 7of9, The Doctor) - and they have given her an interesting starting point, she is still human. I like the concept and the character is growing on me. However, to me Saru is this shows "alien".

AMKC

Deleted User wrote: »

When you think that Enterprise actually did it, kinda, by beaming tech off ships. Did they not beam a warp core component off of a ship mid battle?

Yes they did but they had to beam a team over to the ship first to disconnect the warp coil they wanted to beam off. I think it was Cardassians or certainly a race that looked like Cardassians that they took it from. They complained to Archer about how he was stranding them 100 light years from home without the use of there warp engines.

Goodshape

Goodshape wrote: »

Lorca was very quick to suggest she goes in place of Sarek. I'm pretty convinced he knew what he was doing.


Also, form this episode, regarding the final jump, it wasn't given enough time to be seen in the episode so I'll spoiler it, but it was there in freeze-frame –

Lorca uses his chair-console to override the final jump at the last moment, right before he says "let's go home".

.

Wow.

Good catch.

AMKC

TheIrishGrover wrote: »

That's 'cos she's a redshirt. They're gonna kill her off in the series 1 finale (My guess)

As for Tyler? Durrrr. I even said it in my previous post that I suspected he was an altered Klingon instead of brainwashed. But I didn't put 2 and 2 together. Yeah, sher didn't the female Klingon tell Voq that his plan would cost him everything? And you haven't seen him since. Stupid Grover

]That's 'cos she's a redshirt. They're gonna kill her off in the series 1 finale (My guess)

But they can't do that she is going to be a captain someday.

Bacchus wrote: »

Saru is this shows "alien" character. Like Spock was on TOS, Data and Worf were on TNG, Odo was on DS9, and T'Pol was on ENT (even though by then a Vulcan no longer felt very "alien" on a Trek show).

Come to think of it, VOY manage to avoid that trope to a certain extent. The closest you have is maybe 7of9 and the Doctor, but neither ever felt really "alien" and they grew quite organically. Tuvok barely registered as a character for me. He was just... there.

While Michael has been given the journey Trek loves - find your humanity (Spock, Data, 7of9, The Doctor) - and they have given her an interesting starting point, she is still human. I like the concept and the character is growing on me. However, to me Saru is this shows "alien".

Come to think of it, VOY manage to avoid that trope to a certain extent. The closest you have is maybe 7of9 and the Doctor, but neither ever felt really "alien" and they grew quite organically. Tuvok barely registered as a character for me. He was just... there.

What about Neelix and I know he was a very annoying character also Kes and Belana Torres they were all alien even if a Klingon had been done before we did not have one in charge of engineering which after the bridge is the second most important part on a Starship.

expectationlost

Goodshape wrote: »

Lorca was very quick to suggest she goes in place of Sarek. I'm pretty convinced he knew what he was doing.


Also, form this episode, regarding the final jump, it wasn't given enough time to be seen in the episode so I'll spoiler it, but it was there in freeze-frame –

Lorca uses his chair-console to override the final jump at the last moment, right before he says "let's go home".

.

stamet was giving off very unsubtle Im going to do something wierd with my 'one last jump' vibes that Lorca must have picked up on that tried to stop it, but it didn't stop stamet?

Bacchus

Bacchus wrote: »

Saru is this shows "alien" character. Like Spock was on TOS, Data and Worf were on TNG, Odo was on DS9, and T'Pol was on ENT (even though by then a Vulcan no longer felt very "alien" on a Trek show).

Come to think of it, VOY manage to avoid that trope to a certain extent. The closest you have is maybe 7of9 and the Doctor, but neither ever felt really "alien" and they grew quite organically. Tuvok barely registered as a character for me. He was just... there.

While Michael has been given the journey Trek loves - find your humanity (Spock, Data, 7of9, The Doctor) - and they have given her an interesting starting point, she is still human. I like the concept and the character is growing on me. However, to me Saru is this shows "alien".

While he is an alien character he is not the "Logic" alien of Spock/Data/Tuvok/Odo-ish/Seven

Or the Data, EMH,Seven and at times Spock/Odo character discovering humanity

Bacchus

AMKC wrote: »

What about Neelix and I know he was a very annoying character also Kes and Belana Torres they were all alien even if a Klingon had been done before we did not have one in charge of engineering which after the bridge is the second most important part on a Starship.

Sure, there are plenty of alien characters you can point to across all of the series (bar TOS which only had Spock) but I'm putting alien in inverted commas on purpose. Star Trek has typically had an "alien" character that stood out as different.
In TOS, Spock as a logical Vulcan with pointy ears was very alien. Tuvoc and T'Pol didn't have the same impact as Vulcans have become fairly 'bread and butter' alien in Star Trek.
In TNG, Data offered another take on a logical being. This time an AI Android with no concept of emotion. You also had Worf, a warrior Klingon.
In DS9, Odo was a shape-shifter, the only of his kind (for a while at least).

VOY and ENT didn't really have a stand-out "alien". VOY had a watered-down Worf that was the designation technobabble dispenser, a Vulcan with zero personality (which probably nailed the brief was soooo dull), Neelix :rolleyes:, and Kes who was basically a human with a short lifespan. 7of9 sort off addressed that failure in VOY but after a couple of episodes (as with everything on VOY) she was pretty much a regular human with the occasional Borg related callback.

To my original point on Discovery, I'm really enjoying Saru as this shows "alien". He is something truly different and unique to this series.

Bacchus

Deleted User wrote: »

While he is an alien character he is not the "Logic" alien of Spock/Data/Tuvok/Odo-ish/Seven

Or the Data, EMH,Seven and at times Spock/Odo character discovering humanity

Yeah, that's exactly what I said in the first place. He's the main "alien" character of a Star Trek show and he is a departure from what we've seen so many times before. It's great

Goodshape

expectationlost wrote: »

stamet was giving off very unsubtle Im going to do something wierd with my 'one last jump' vibes that Lorca must have picked up on that tried to stop it, but it didn't stop stamet?

Oh, I think it's the other way around. Stamets wanted to get home and get some rest and medical attention. Lorca wanted to do that, but then hop back on the spore-drive superhighway and explore dimension. It was Stamets' insistence on only one more jump that pushed Lorca to make a decision.

Goodshape

It's odd that the robotic crewmember (or whatever she is) hasn't got a look in.

Goodshape wrote: »

Oh, I think it's the other way around. Stamets wanted to get home and get some rest and medical attention. Lorca wanted to do that, but then hop back on the spore-drive superhighway and explore dimension. It was Stamets' insistence on only one more jump that pushed Lorca to make a decision.

It's interesting that it it said "unknown". Do you think Lorca's override had effects he wasn't realising or did he do it on purpose?

Bacchus

Bacchus wrote: »

Yeah, that's exactly what I said in the first place. He's the main "alien" character of a Star Trek show and he is a departure from what we've seen so many times before. It's great

Not what I mean, Star Trek has always had a growth character who the audience look at the future humanity through.
Saru, so far for me, is not that character.

Burnham is, ironically, alien to humanity. She identifies as Vulcan (culturally and ideologically) and is starting, only after pilot episode and fallout, to recognise her humanity.

Just because she is human doesn't mean that she's not alien

Bacchus

Deleted User wrote: »

It's odd that the robotic crewmember (or whatever she is) hasn't got a look in.

Yup, robot-head, Nebula-lite and the girl with the metal implants in her head are three bridge crew I'd like to learn more about as the show progresses.

The_Valeyard

Deleted User wrote: »

It's odd that the robotic crewmember (or whatever she is) hasn't got a look in.



It's interesting that it it said "unknown". Do you think Lorca's override had effects he wasn't realising or did he do it on purpose?

Id say there is more than meets the eye with this story, I dont think its as simple as a mirror universe Lorca. Its something to do with his robotic eyes.......

Bacchus

Bacchus wrote: »

Yup, robot-head, Nebula-lite and the girl with the metal implants in her head are three bridge crew I'd like to learn more about as the show progresses.

Who is Nebula-lite?

Something I like about metal implants girl is that we're learning a lot about her through the various shots she's received - of pride, of pain, and of other aspects.

She was on the other ship, right? So the assumption is that the implants are due to injuries she received. What'd be interesting is if she feels some resentment to Michael. Saru does, absolutely, because she got in the way of her progression.

But Michael indirectly was the cause of that girl's injuries.

ezra_

Bacchus wrote: »

Yup, robot-head, Nebula-lite and the girl with the metal implants in her head are three bridge crew I'd like to learn more about as the show progresses.

I wonder was this a consequence of the show runner issues - it looks like they have decent footage of them, but they seem to have been cut.

As the series settles down, hopefully they'll come back more into the fold.

The_Valeyard

The_Valeyard wrote: »

Id say there is more than meets the eye with this story, I dont think its as simple as a mirror universe Lorca. Its something to do with his robotic eyes.......

Does he have robotic eyes or just really damaged?

Goodshape

Deleted User wrote: »

It's interesting that it it said "unknown". Do you think Lorca's override had effects he wasn't realising or did he do it on purpose?

Yup, very interesting. As was the computer reading an "incomplete navigation" (or something to that effect).

Was he just over-eager to explore *somewhere* or did he know exactly where he wanted to end up? And secondly, did they even get to where he'd intended or did the thing short-circuit and spit them out at a random spot.

Looking forward to finding out!

expectationlost

Goodshape wrote: »

Oh, I think it's the other way around. Stamets wanted to get home and get some rest and medical attention. Lorca wanted to do that, but then hop back on the spore-drive superhighway and explore dimension. It was Stamets' insistence on only one more jump that pushed Lorca to make a decision.

stamets volunteered the one last jump even though it seemed like the previous jumps nearly killed him, he was clearly more interested in exploring the universes

Goodshape

Goodshape wrote: »

Yup, very interesting. As was the computer reading an "incomplete navigation" (or something to that effect).

Was he just over-eager to explore *somewhere* or did he know exactly where he wanted to end up? And secondly, did they even get to where he'd intended or did the thing short-circuit and spit them out at a random spot.

Looking forward to finding out!

It could be that something happened with Stammets.

Maybe Lorca overrides the last jump because of Stammets' plea to go home and retire from this.

But the white cells in Stammets caused everything to go haywire. He's essentially the navigator, right? I wonder whether he got confused over all the parallel worlds he was seeing and sent them the wrong place.