Discovery 3x08 - 'The Sanctuary' ~~ { ** Spoilers Within ** }

I really, really enjoyed that episode. Moving the focus away from Burnham really shows how good this show could be. I also found Adira's story to be a lot more interesting. I think it helps that they removed the stupid twee musical cue from the earlier episodes and had a focus on the character alone, rather than Adira & ghost boyfriend.

It's interesting the number of times that it was mentioned how deceitful the Federation are, I want to see where that goes. I really hope they go follow that distress signal sooner rather than later since there's only five episodes left. I can't hjelp but feel that this episode should have appeared much earlier in the season. The Earth and Trill episodes could easily have been condensed or written into a single episode.

On another note, Saru's attempts to find his "Engage" (or "Make it so") was quitre fun!

Spear wrote: »

A curious note on the whole Tilly being XO thing, her first major ploy as XO goes wrong, and seemingly provokes a war.

It wasn't a particularly bad plan, fairly standard Trek stuff, but you would think that when they go back to the Admiral he would have to say "And this is why we don't make ensigns Executive Officers"!

That was alright.

Well that was a dull episode. So is your one who flew books ship going to be punished now even do her Captain was the one that suggested it?
Also I do not think Osyraa fell for it not been the Federation attacking her ship.
I think they might have just started a war.
The Admiral is nothing to be very happy.
The whole brothers thing with book did not work at all.
The planet was ok but it's no Bajor.
Also the whole thing with Georgia was just boring. There is something wrong with her mind not her body. Just work on the mind.

Yeah the stuff on the planet was the least interesting part. Book has great eyesight to see his ship from the surface.

As for Georgeau, does she ever shut up, apart from being knocked out. She's not as funny as she thinks she is. But think her body going all strange like it was disintegrating or something would suggest it's not all in the mind.

Dear god, it's amazing how much more watchable this show becomes when they tone down the Michael crap. That was ok, not the best episode of Trek ever, but I didn't mind watching it. Can't tell if this was the writers finally figuring out how to write an episode that didn't center around Michael, or if it was the influence of Frakes who directed this one.

The new Orion villianess is ok...although much like Georgio she gives off a bit of a cartoon villianess vibe. With any luck they improve on that.

Loads more focus on the crew, including Helm-Lady who's name I can never remember. One low point of the episode was her attack scene in Book's shuttle. I can't understand why the writers think that it makes sense to have deep conversations in the middle of action scenes. Especially when it involved Helm-lady taking her eyes away from the helm in the middle of fancy flying around the Orion Cruiser. It just looked stupid and disarmed an action scene.

There was a lot of focus on Book, and he's not a bad addition really. I wouldn't mind more of him.

This episode has also made me wonder if they ever really knew how to write Michael as part of an actual crew. Her default setting in most stories appears to be that she'll wander off on her own mission while Discovery go and do something else. This just re-enforces my belief that if they could somehow write her out, this show would be the better for it.

Of course that's not likely to happen.

I was done with this show last week, but this gives me a little hope to want to watch a little further. I'm hoping this episode wasn't an anomoly and that they won't just lean back into Michael-centric nonsense next week.

Definitely better this week, and as usual, it was largely so because we had less Burnham. I'm sick of Giorgio's arc, hoping whatever she has is fatal.

Seems odd that a race that can manage a planetary defence system couldn't deal with a plague of water locusts mind... they didn't look particularly difficult to cull...

Liking the Andorian guy and Saru finding his feet as captain.

Best episode in a while. Detmer got something to do and the other bridge crew actually got a whole sentence each. I found myself not criticising it as I went along, ir at least not being bothered by odd things like the wildly different accents of Book and his brother from another mother.

That was alright, in fairness. Not brilliant, but alright.

They could have done with setting up the brothers back story through prior episodes though - they left themselves a little too much to do. Like, if the brother had been in the junk planet one, they could have established their relationship up front and then got to dig further into it now. As it was, it felt like they were trying to cram in their whole history, and also a whole change in their dynamic, in about 10 minutes of screen time. So none of it really landed emotionally. (the brother is also a horrendous actor, which didn't help).

In general the pacing of Discovery always feels weird... like, in comparison to other Trek, it feels like they spend less time on characters, and somehow still accomplish less storytelling.

Elsewhere, people had things to do, which is a nice change. Detmer's dogfight was weirdly shot, and they gave her some awful dialogue to sermonise over while flying in the middle of a fight, but it was good for them to finally start giving her a bit of the Tom Paris swagger/personality.

I like them approaching the identity subject with Adira - it's the sort of progressive thing Trek has always done... but I wish they had thought a little bit more about how they framed it. As it was, they just had a 'today' Earth conversation happen from a human 1500 years in the future. Which felt a bit lazy... I'd have liked if they put a little thought into how it works as a conversation in their context rather than in ours, with a sense of how conventions are in the future. This was a chance for them to literally 'be the change you want to see', by showing their ideal future version of this situation.

As an episode overall, still generally more overwrought and teenage than it needed to be, but better than most episodes, so that's a plus!

Slydice wrote: »

Episode gave me an idea of the Chain. They don't amount to much without the burn. Seems to be mid TOS - TNG weapons. Shield gave out simple enough. Feels like any of the TNG big players Federation/Klingons/Romulans/Breen/Ferengi could easily put a stop to what they are up to and just using TNG level tech. Just a matter of getting interstellar travel back and stable.

They remind me of the bad guys in Waterworld - they had the fuel, so they had the power. They also have similarly cartoonish villains


<edit>
One minor additional note - I really wish the refit had revamped the layout of the bridge... it's so badly designed for visual storytelling! In the scene with evil-lady, they kept having to cut through a half-dozen single shots of all the bridge crew to get their reactions, because the wide shot of the bridge is so wide you can't see anyone's expression. They're all just spaced miles apart in a very visually unhelpful way. Also, they keep doing this weird thing on the single's of Detmer, where they shoot half the frame through what looks like a prism. No idea why.

<edit 2>
So all the Vulcans/Romulans needed to show that they were not responsible for the burn was 3 of the presumably hundreds of thousands of black boxes floating around the galaxy. Hmm.

TheValeyard wrote: »

Decent enough episode.

Sea locusts looked cool.

Orion ship reminded me of Star Wars vessels.

Are all Andorians gone from the Federation? Strange since they were a founding member.

So, that's Humans, Vulcans and Andorians gone. All the original crew. Whose left???

Her/them/they would make sense for a Trill with so many hosts, not with them trying to be woke.

Tellerites

Burnham has an impressive kill count for a Starfleet officer.

None of that settings phasers to stun malarkey.

breezy1985 wrote: »

Tellerites

You cant get them to leave.... No matter how much you insult them.

AllForIt wrote: »

I have no idea what was going on there as I can't foucs on this at all. The they/them thing threw me in the first quarter than I mentally tuned out. You just can't get away from that stuff these days even in places you thought you could.

If you don't like social commentary then Trek old or new probably isn't for you

Yes but you see if the show was good besides then yes maybe I wouldn't notice it but it's not good besides.

I would wonder why every episode of ST from the original was for me up until Discovery if all this social commentary was always there? Perhaps there is a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it rather than oh it must be my fault for being so narrow minded.

Btw, how can a black man and a white man with a very strong Latino accent be brothers? Or is that some kind of social commentary as well?

And what is it with the ethnic hairstyles or is that social commentary as well?

And what is with the fact that there is not one single stereotypical white heterosexual male part of the crew? Or is that social commentary as well?

And why are the helm crew so out of place i.e they are emotional and weak, hardly the personality types you'd expect to sign up for active duty, or is that social commentary as well?

In fact the whole crew including the weak captain seem out of place for the role they have. Perhaps it has something to do with diversity quotes and is shows how you end up with a crew totally unsuitable for the job. That would make sense. They would seem more suited to running a kindergarten than boldly going. And when I say they I men the whole crew, not one single new member to the crew.

If anyone tells me Star Trek isn't for me there will be a lot more blunt straight talking as above.

NOT that I'm any authority on all things LGBT -- but I thought those scenes between Stamets, Adira, and Culber were pretty awful too to be honest. Just poor writing.

It would have been right at home and forward thinking in a contemporary high-school drama, with the student who's struggling and the teacher who gets it. Lovely moment.

But 1000 years into our bright Star Trek future? "Oh, good for you :-) - we'll update the ships records". "Thanks". DONE.

Stamets this season has just been walking around the ship like some Zen monk dispatching nuggets of warm fuzzy sentiment, and I'm not mad about it.