Star Trek: Discovery

[John Albert]

This 3rd episode ratcheted up the drama quite a lot, in part by introducing some extremely heavyhanded characters and hamfisted villain types. Also, it appears to be scrambling to establish backstory by means of some really clumsy exposition. I guess that's to be expected with such a narrative gear-shift in a TV series.

In short it feels like it's lost its footing a bit, but still shows a lot of promise. I do really like the overall darker, yet still high concept sci-fi feel. I'll continue watching.

Not so keen on the rather hokey Alice and Wonderland references, but I did enjoy noticing the tribble on the Captain's desk.

[Morvis13]

I did enjoy noticing the tribble on the Captain's desk.

That pissed me off. Tribbles are THE dumbest thing EVAH. Plus, Kirk and the TOS Enterprise seemed to have first encounter with them so it should not be in this trek.

[Eternally Learning]

You could come up with dozens of reasonable explanations for that Tribble being there and not causing a problem with the time line, but what got me about the Tribble is that it is way too dangerous to keep as a pet.  You shouldn't be seeing just one, they should be filling the ship up.

[Morvis13]

Captain Lorca also kept the giant Targ. Final shot kinda made me think he was collecting for a zoo. Clearly he is a very dangerous man.

[tralfaz]

Ham fisted villains became a standard Star Trek trope long ago for the convenience of lazy storytelling.  Maybe this villain will become morally ambiguous.  At least that is more interesting.  And as for the tribble, maaaaybe we are seeing the birth of the TOS era tribble  , the result of some top secret fertility experiment gone awry.

[SkeptiQueer]

Ham fisted villains became a standard Star Trek trope long ago for the convenience of lazy storytelling.  Maybe this villain will become morally ambiguous.  At least that is more interesting.  And as for the tribble, maaaaybe we are seeing the birth of the TOS era tribble  , the result of some top secret fertility experiment gone awry.

WHAT IF THE TRIBBLES ARE A SECRET BIOWEAPON THAT MAKES THE KLINGONS LOOL LIKE TOS KLINGONS

[PANTS!]

That pissed me off. Tribbles are THE dumbest thing EVAH. Plus, Kirk and the TOS Enterprise seemed to have first encounter with them so it should not be in this trek.

For better or worse, they were on Enterprise.

You could come up with dozens of reasonable explanations for that Tribble being there and not causing a problem with the time line, but what got me about the Tribble is that it is way too dangerous to keep as a pet.  You shouldn't be seeing just one, they should be filling the ship up.

Is it alive?

Captain Lorca also kept the giant Targ. Final shot kinda made me think he was collecting for a zoo. Clearly he is a very dangerous man.

He also has that Gorn? skeleton

[Eternally Learning]

You could come up with dozens of reasonable explanations for that Tribble being there and not causing a problem with the time line, but what got me about the Tribble is that it is way too dangerous to keep as a pet.  You shouldn't be seeing just one, they should be filling the ship up.

Is it alive?

I thought it made a noise and puffed up, but I'm not sure.

On another note, he also had a dead Cardassian Vole on his desk.

Oh, and did anyone else think the spore monster looked like a Tardigrade?

[tralfaz]

For better or worse, they were on Enterprise.
 

I forgot about that.  I just watched the only sighting on Amazulu.  It only mentions that they breed prolifically, but not just HOW prolifically.  It still could fit into my grand conspiracy theory about them being bred as a biological weapon.  One that affects the cranial ridges of Klingons.

[John Albert]

That pissed me off. Tribbles are THE dumbest thing EVAH. Plus, Kirk and the TOS Enterprise seemed to have first encounter with them so it should not be in this trek.

Yeah, that's a good point. They were supposed to be a newly-discovered species weren't they?

Captain Lorca also kept the giant Targ. Final shot kinda made me think he was collecting for a zoo. Clearly he is a very dangerous man.

That third ep positively reeked of Alien, with maybe a little Half Life thrown in.

[Eternally Learning]

Here's an interesting theory on Discovery's Spore Drive.  Actually is kinda neat if he's right about his guess:

[mikeym]

Here's an interesting theory on Discovery's Spore Drive.  Actually is kinda neat if he's right about his guess:

No. No it's not. It's Hammer of the Gods meets what every hippy who's ever taken magic mushrooms has "discovered" in a field at 2 am in the morning. And the Quantum crap is Deepak Chopra grade nonsense.   

[Eternally Learning]

Here's an interesting theory on Discovery's Spore Drive.  Actually is kinda neat if he's right about his guess:

No. No it's not. It's Hammer of the Gods meets what every hippy who's ever taken magic mushrooms has "discovered" in a field at 2 am in the morning. And the Quantum crap is Deepak Chopra grade nonsense.

I'm not sure how.  This isn't saying that we're all connected via quantum energy and then we can harness that energy via shrooms.  It's saying that Quantum Entanglement is a thing and that this fictional spore somehow evolved to procreate using it, leading to some sort of web of quantumly entangled spores that react predictably, and since they react predictably it's possible to send large amounts of data instantly across great distances and thus transport things.  I'm not saying it makes sense as a real world technology or anything, but it really doesn't sound like spiritual nonsense except for the fact that modern woo peddlers like to use the word 'quantum' because it's mysterious.  At any rate, it's no less ridiculous than inertial dampeners, artificial gravity, or Heisenberg compensators.

[mikeym]

I'm not sure how.  This isn't saying that we're all connected via quantum energy and then we can harness that energy via shrooms.

That's kinda exactly what it's saying.

Quantum entanglement just doesn't work like that, it doesn't travel faster than light, the entangled particles have to have become entangled together then be separated - not be part of the same species or organism - and it can't be used to communicate information FTL. Also entanglement is just some BS pulled out of the arse of whoever made this video. From what we've had from the show so far it looks like a case of "Quantum" ergo "magic".

Also as of the 3rd episode I'm 50-50 on whether they are saying this Quantum magic extends to all living things..

The nice thing about inertial dampeners and the rest was that it just supposed physics we don't know about yet.

Not that old Trek was above having a plot line like intragalactic space mushrooms on some of its sillier episodes, but the combination of the grimdark tone and magic space mushrooms has me reaching for my vomit bag.

[tyy]

Sorry to say, but I am disappointed after episode 3. This scientifish, naive approach...

Well, might enjoy it as a pure fairy-tale as well. Why should I expect anything else.