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Even better episode this week. Proper Treky stuff, and nice to see some classic concepts/setups coming into play, like the bridge crew joining away teams which we didn't really see last season outside of Saru.

It also did a good job of weaving the episode into the wider arc whilst still telling an interesting, self-contained story that works on its own merits.

This was good, classic Trek IMO. Kinda wondering how Jacob's gonna explain the lights coming back online tho.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
This was good, classic Trek IMO. Kinda wondering how Jacob's gonna explain the lights coming back online tho.

A gift from the angel?

But yeah, this episode seems to solidly set what the theme is. Seven lights. Could only pin point the location of one. Leads us to a stranded crew about to die and a cool asteroid. Oh, we can pin point a second light now. Leads us to a planet about to die and we needed the asteroid from light #1 to save them. What a coincidence! What are the odds we get to pin point the third light just in time to prevent some disaster there?

Would I miss out on much if I skipped S1 entirely and started watching from S2 onward? I care absolutely nothing for Michael and her origin, if that changes anything.

In terms of the narrative season 2 is running with, there's not a lot of holdover from S1 so far, so a synopsis will probably get you by. There'll be the odd thing that gets referenced that you'll miss, obviously, but probably nothing you won't pick up from dialogue/context clues and recaps.

You are missing out on some great episodes if you skip it, though. Especially the Mirror Universe arc which was absolutely brilliant (though probably does require watching the rest of the previous episodes for context, at which point you're pretty much watching the whole series).

The series is very much the Michael & Co show, so if you don’t care for her it’s probably the wrong show for you to watch.

Well, it looks like they put up the first episode yesterday for free on the cbs all access channel so I watched it. I wasn't particularly impressed as it felt like a two steps forward, two steps back situation compared with last season. I'll just wait until the season is done and rebinge it with a free week.

Wait for the second one.

Whilst I’ve enjoyed all of it so far, those saying this particular episode is very Trekky are spot on. Very very trekky.

Unless they also put the second one up for free on youtube, I'll be skipping it until my free trial week/month season binge. There's still too much I dislike about it for me to pay for it on top of the multiple streaming services I already have.

Fair. We’re lucky enough to get it on Netflix, so it’s not a show I really consider I’m directly paying for.

Jean-Luc would like to point out there are four lights. ;-)

The last two episodes haven’t been awful. Whatever happened between seasons has transformed this show into Star Trek, and enjoyable Star Trek at that! I’m pleasantly surprised.

To be sure the first episode of Discovery is really cringe worthy. It's awful. Atrocious even. The series doesn't start getting good till halfway through season 1 imo, and I say that as someone who on the whole found the whole season to be weak compared to previous' series.

I'd be more cynical about it, but an weak first season is almost a right of passage in Star Trek.

I didn’t think the first episode was bad at all. Not terribly Trekkie, but pretty good sci-fi action.

 AduroT wrote:
The series is very much the Michael & Co show, so if you don’t care for her it’s probably the wrong show for you to watch.

That's the best description of it I've seen. I really like the actress and would love to see her in a different leading role, but I really dislike Michael.

I suspect we’ll see further development of her this season. Whether the changes or softens, even hardens opinions of course remains to be seen.

What I think we need to see is her suffering some kind of crisis of confidence or trauma they can build her back up from as a crew.

And please, ep2 made a start fleshing out the supporting cast. More of that please.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I suspect we’ll see further development of her this season. Whether the changes or softens, even hardens opinions of course remains to be seen.

What I think we need to see is her suffering some kind of crisis of confidence or trauma they can build her back up from as a crew.

And please, ep2 made a start fleshing out the supporting cast. More of that please.

That's the number one difference between Discovery and TNG/DS9/VOY. The latter three actually paid attention to 'secondary' characters. I can't speak to Enterprise, I didn't watch it enough to form a reasonable opinion and TOS was very much the Big 3.

But not immediately so.

Disco has its main four. Michael, Stamets, Saru and Tilly. All are well fleshed out so far. Last episode we found out some cool info about Lt Owosekun, so they seem to have started.

And I think the others will get their moments in coming episodes. After all, Pike just wanting names was in my opinion a tacit admission they’d not established them as characters in the first season. Hell, I even had to google Owosekun’s name.

But a start is a start, and is to be encouraged.

Tilly is irritating as hell, she seems so imature to be even considered for command, but that being said I give her a pass in the same manner I give Wesley a pass, every series had that annoying character at the start.

Stamets I quite like, although I don't think the show will go anywhere meaningful with him.

Michael is terrible and even more annoying than tilly, someone needs to come along and dress her down hard.

Saru should just be made captain already, he/it is my favourite character of the series so far.

Pike.... Meh, not really much to go on yet.

Really?

Tilly is my standout character, and the one with the most development so far. A mere Cadet at the start, and clearly one questioning whether she’s in the right place.

From there she’s grown into a more confident scientist, and shown at least flashes of brilliance. She’s also achieved the rank of Ensign.

She’s ace!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Really?

Tilly is my standout character, and the one with the most development so far. A mere Cadet at the start, and clearly one questioning whether she’s in the right place.

From there she’s grown into a more confident scientist, and shown at least flashes of brilliance. She’s also achieved the rank of Ensign.

She’s ace!

If she was under my command she would never be considered for any leadership role until she got herself in order, she is too rash, emotional and unpredictable, I get thats the point of the story arc for her so i am willing to give it a pass like i said before, I get the feeling they want her to be bloody annoying on purpose though.

but if you like her thats cool, different strokes for different folks eh

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Fair. We’re lucky enough to get it on Netflix, so it’s not a show I really consider I’m directly paying for.

Yeah, if it were on Netflix in the US then I wouldn't care either but it's CBS All Access only. At least in Canada, it's also for "free" on their version of the SYFY channel and if it were here on that channel it also wouldn't be an issue. They unfortunately chose to over-monetize their single biggest market with a mediocre at best show. Obviously YMMV.

Formosa wrote:Tilly is irritating as hell, she seems so imature to be even considered for command, but that being said I give her a pass in the same manner I give Wesley a pass, every series had that annoying character at the start.

Tilly was part of the quartet of characters last season whose actors I think did a good job (the others being Lorca until he became a political cartoon villain, Culber, and Saru). That said... her awkwardness was *WAY* overdone in that episode especially in Pike's bridge DNA scan scene and even I found her irritating at that point. Again, YMMV.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Really?

Tilly is my standout character, and the one with the most development so far. A mere Cadet at the start, and clearly one questioning whether she’s in the right place.

From there she’s grown into a more confident scientist, and shown at least flashes of brilliance. She’s also achieved the rank of Ensign.

She’s ace!

Tilly comes across as being written specifically for the Tumblr crowd. Now, I'll admit I may be a bit prejudiced against her for reasons that I may not be fully comprehend, but on the other hand if I compare her to Miles O'Brien, who I consider to be a very similar character in that both are goofy engineering wizards, she doesn't come across as bad. She's still lacking in depth relative to Miles, but it took years for him to develop.

I may have to rewatch S1 to gauge just how emotional she is actually.

Michael needs to be wrong sometimes and be called out for it and have others do stuff that suprises or shocks her. She is hugely overused at the moment.

The first episode did have some nice bits wth the other cast - need to carry on with that - espeically the rather cute Keyla Detmer, Conn officer - also most of them do seem to have fun

Tilly was def VERY annoying at the start of the show but shedoes work quite well but command material is reaching......

Also be nice to have bit more ont he wierd robot lady?

I did think sneezing bug alien was weak - especailly since it did not get out of the lift when the senior staff and visiting command staff walked in talking shop.....

I dunno.

Mirror Cap. Killy shows she’s got the know-wots inside her. To take a raw recruit and have their journey through the ranks followed works for me, especially if we get to see the person beneath the uniform mature.

Certainly better than The Eternal Ensign, Harry Kim :p

Tilly fits in with Discovery's trio of characters who represent the classic Trek/Starfleet ideals, but from the perspective of people who aren't the absolute pinnacle of their respective roles that previous series have had (Kirk and Picard both peerless captains, Spock the quintessential scientist, LaForge or Scotty genius engineers). I think it's a key thrust of the show; this is Starfleet as done by regular mortals.

You have Saru, the Captain-in-waiting who is overshadowed both by his predecessors in Georgiou and Lorca and now by his 'replacement' in Pike. He's clearly got the skills to step up to the plate when it counts, but the obstacles are always there and you kind of get the feeling that he'd struggle in the shadow of the other captains were he to get the role full-time. As great a leader as he might be, he also strikes me as someone who's almost too compassionate to make hard calls, while at the same time lacking the level of bravado or diplomatic skill that got Kirk and Picard respectively through so many situations like that.

Then you have Stamets. He's a genius at what he does, but locked in a constant battle with the ramifications of his work, and now with his own psyche and what it's cost him as well. Frankly, go back a few decades and he's exactly the sort of character who might appear as the 'villain' in a TNG episode, Picard and co. coming in to shut down his unethical science and refusing to hear his arguments that it's necessary to allow Discovery to do its job. Now, though, he's having that battle with himself instead, and in many ways that's a lot more interesting way of looking at a 'greater good' narrative over a longer period.

And then Tilly, the idealist, the dreamer, the one who could, in time, become one of Starfleet's brightest and best but who is grappling with an insecurity, almost a sense of impostor syndrome which I imagine will only get worse as she progresses through the command training program and is constantly being reminded how young and inexperienced she is. Not to mention that on any ship other than Discovery, she'd be shut down in seconds if she tried bursting onto the bridge with a crazy, untested and dangerous plan. Her arc will be learning to stand on her own two feet and trust in her own abilities, while also being a little less immature.

I think all of this is captured in the moment in series one where you have this exchange, on reworking the spore drive with the Tardigrade (I think):

Tilly: That's really ing cool! Oops, sorry!
Stamets: No, you're right. It is really ing cool.

Because that's the contrast Discovery runs on. The contrast between the high-minded, Utopian future of Treks past and the regular, fallible, 'human' people who actually make that future work. Throughout the series, they've broken convention, they've screwed up, they've risked losing the very things that make them Starfleet. Unlike TOS or TNG, they do make mistakes and they don't always find the right answers to the quandary of the week, and then they have to struggle with that going forward. Burnham fits this mould to a certain extent, but it's in Tilly, Stamets and Saru that I think it's most clearly distilled.

I’d agree with that.

The people we’re seeing are all flawed in some way. Michael is caught between literal human nature, and her Vulcan upbringing. Tilly, as you said, impostor Syndrome and youthful verve that needs tempering. Stamets is a bucket of Weasels in the mental health department, because of his dedication. Saru? He’s got the experience and the knowledge, but perhaps not the temperament to be a truly effective Captain.

These are all things which they can overcome, and I look forward to that being explored.

I like your breakdown paradigm but you are assigning all of that to the series, it hasn't been shown, show me don't tell me is a good way of putting it, we have had an entire season for that kind of development and even through a war, the thing that forces maturity and change the fastest, none of those characters, bar stamets and saru, had ANY real change, even then it's a stretch.

I am hoping this series helps address these issues though.

The ongoig issue does seem to remain that they keep giving Michael multiple roles

So she is the consciounce of the ship and the only one who speaks up
She is apparently the only one who does the science stuff on the bridge and on away teams
She often takes command of everyone else - so the first episode has her barking commands to the actual engineering commander how to get the transporter working and Pike just moves the odd steel pipe and does notthing else.
She is the one that figures out that you could look for a chunck of asteroid
She is the best pilot (of course) and at the same time a better scientist and anyone who questions her dies to show how awesome and right she is..
etc etc
Its quite annoying.

Hopefully they will let other characters actually carry out thier own tasks

 Mr Morden wrote:
The ongoig issue does seem to remain that they keep giving Michael multiple roles

So she is the consciounce of the ship and the only one who speaks up
She is apparently the only one who does the science stuff on the bridge and on away teams
She often takes command of everyone else - so the first episode has her barking commands to the actual engineering commander how to get the transporter working and Pike just moves the odd steel pipe and does notthing else.
She is the one that figures out that you could look for a chunck of asteroid
She is the best pilot (of course) and at the same time a better scientist and anyone who questions her dies to show how awesome and right she is..
etc etc
Its quite annoying.

Hopefully they will let other characters actually carry out thier own tasks

Throw in her bizarre background suddenly relating her in a contrived way to a previous canon character and how everyone respects and likes her who doesn't die and you have a classic Mary Sue, which is almost funny since this is Star Trek.

It's the biggest drag on the series by far.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
The ongoig issue does seem to remain that they keep giving Michael multiple roles

So she is the consciounce of the ship and the only one who speaks up
She is apparently the only one who does the science stuff on the bridge and on away teams
She often takes command of everyone else - so the first episode has her barking commands to the actual engineering commander how to get the transporter working and Pike just moves the odd steel pipe and does notthing else.
She is the one that figures out that you could look for a chunck of asteroid
She is the best pilot (of course) and at the same time a better scientist and anyone who questions her dies to show how awesome and right she is..
etc etc
Its quite annoying.

Hopefully they will let other characters actually carry out thier own tasks

Throw in her bizarre background suddenly relating her in a contrived way to a previous canon character and how everyone respects and likes her who doesn't die and you have a classic Mary Sue, which is almost funny since this is Star Trek.

It's the biggest drag on the series by far.

I know right