“Stormy Weather”

GREAT episode. Loved (nearly) every bit of it.

But first, the elephant in the room:

Sonar doesn't work in a vacuum, Discovery. I wish I believed the writers were smart enough, or cared enough, or were smart enough and cared enough to not make a mistake like this, and that I could believe they instead knew exactly what they were doing when they decided to use sonar as the signal that allowed them to find the exit to the area of subspace they were trapped in, and were using it to give us a clue about the anomaly or information about the nature of subspace on purpose. I wish I believed that. But I do not.

But. Fine. I will make excuses for you, Discovery.

We don't actually KNOW that subspace is a vacuum. We don't actually know much about the nature of subspace at all. Okay, so they made it clear that there was "nothing" out there. Nothing at all. Very clear, in those bridge scenes. But I guess they could have meant "nothing except the normal subspace particles that fill subspace, and that are completely silent and have no properties whatsoever except that they're totally there--absolutely, totally there!--and I don' t have to mention them to my captain when I stress there's 'nothing whatsoever' on sensors because she will of course assume that when I say 'nothing whatsoever' I mean that THOSE are still present."

What's that? That guy got sucked out into subspace when the hull breached? Well that just means there's a significant pressure differential between inside and outside the ship. Pretty damn significant by the rate of decompression--but surely it doesn't mean those totally real subspace particles aren't absolutely totally there! Because they totally still could be.

Okay. There. It COULD happen the way they said it did on screen. See?

Moving on . . .

. . .

A bottle episode with no new sets and few special effects, and consequently we get nearly the entire recurring cast--high, Dr. Pollard!--in a single episode with all of the regulars, and what's more, nearly all of them get a lot of substantial things to do and say, and some character development. And it was great. Wasn't it great? We got to see them working together like competent professionals to solve a rapidly unfolding crisis. Yes please. More please.

. . .

Adira and Gray got to contribute in a natural way. Like any other member of the crew. No special focus on their "identity" stories or relationship. No message. No special pat on the head with a "you're special!" Nothing you could even twist to construe that way. I wonder what the haters will find to complain about with them this week. I'm sure it will be something. Come on. Don't disappoint me.

. . .

Boy I sure didn't miss Tilly. It's just . . . better when she's gone, isn't it? The show has a better rhythm. It comes off more mature. No awkward tripping over lines, bumbling to get information out, or inappropriately timed social interactions that miss social cues. I didn't realize how irksome she was until she isn't there. It's like a light fixture that hums just slightly above the audible range. You hardly even notice it. And yet, when it's gone, your stress level goes down, doesn't it?

. . .

This would have been an excellent moment to slot the "Calypso" short into continuity. I thought for sure things were going that way. The entire crew was going to be in the pattern buffers, Zora was going to damaged escaping and forget, she would hide in a nebula from the trauma of exiting the subspace pocket until she repaired enough to remember, and Calypso would happen, and then she'd pop the crew out of the pattern buffers. I mean it just seemed so much like the setup for that. And I was excited. But the writers have probably forgotten about Calypso, or don't care.

. . .

The future Enterprise got a mention! Will we ever see it? No! Because we're not allowed to have nice things. Nevermind that if it had a super cool design, it would break the internet . . .

. . .

David Ajala keeps kicking some serious ass in the acting department. Wonder where exactly this is going.

. . .

Saru would be such a better captain. I was starkly reminded of that when he took the chair.

. . .

Still, I respect Burnham for not going into the pattern buffer. A captain goes down with her ship. Kirk would have done it. Picard would have done it. Janeway would have done it.

. . .

The Ba'ku got a mention. I think that's only the second in-canon reference to Star Trek Insurrection since Insurrection came out (if memory serves, Weyoun namechecked the So'naa in a single DS9 episode that indicated they were fighting on the sided of the Dominion. Still, that's two more references than Star Trek V has gotten, no?

. . .

Just put the bridge crew in the opening titles already. It's four seasons in, they've earned it. You can stack them up four names at a time, whatever. Listen, they're all more substantial characters and more substantial players than Travis Mayweather or Harry Kim, okay? Acting's better, too.

. . .

I said a few weeks ago that Discovery will be going to Andromeda next season. I might have been wrong. They might be going to Andromeda THIS season!

Maybe spoilers...
I liked this episode. They had a problem and they solved it. Sonar? Well yeah sound doesn't in a vacuum and we don't know what subspace actually is. I assume it's just the frequency of "sonar" but there must be "pressure" of some kind and maybe its just dark matter particles that doesn't register on sensors? I don't know. And as they said, there's no such thing as "nothing".
Yes, a lot more contribution by the crew in this episode. Very much like Void in Voyager. Was that the episode?
From a different galaxy eh? Excited for next episode

"From out of this galaxy" is intriguing. However:

1) Tarka indicated he may have known who was controlling the DMA in the last episode. If it is "extra-galactic"/universal, that would not be possible, right?

2) This screams of "power creep" to me. It's not necessarily a problem if done well, but as a counter I am liking the "low stakes" of the Marvel TV shows right now (Hawkeye for instance) where the major issues are not world ending threats (Loki notwithstanding).

I don't watch Disco given the meh recommendation, but I do lurk the reviews and comments. When I saw that Anne Cofell Saunders wrote this episode I thought "oh she wrote Pegasus on BSG! Maybe this will be a good one!" and the early comments suggest it is. I don't think I've seen her credited on Disco before, and I don't think she was a regular writer on BSG. Anyone know what else she's done (Apparently I hate google) recently?

Just viewed today’s ST:DISCO episode, “Stormy Weather”.

This was a 5 star ep. 👍👍

Directed by Jonathan Frakes, it was the closest thing yet to “Classic” Star Trek. Even the cinematography was reminiscent of Classic Trek. This was pure science fiction, but with a little human pathos mixed in. Oh, and you haven’t lived until you’ve heard a computer sing “Stormy Weather”!!

I liked this episode, but I didn't love it as much as many seem to have.

There was a lot to like here, I admit. I was surprised that the main character of this particular episode was Zora! She is the only character in this episode who has an identifiable character arc from the beginning of the episode to the end, turning into a changed...computer...by the end of the run time. I liked that Gray actually had purpose in the story beyond just hanging out with Adira for once (they seem to be foreshadowing his leaving the ship, with his feelings of uselessness, and his continued discussion about wanting to be a Guardian on the Trill homeworld. The third strong character element was of course Book, and David Ajala again hit it out of the park here.

I was also happy with how effective this was as a bottle episode. Standing sets only, and (aside from hallucinations/visions of Book's father) no one but the core Discovery crew, with everyone playing an important story role. I thought the tension in the episode was very well communicated. I'm also happy that some forward movement was made on the seasonal plot arc - and it was at least a bit unexpected to me.

So what didn't I like? I continue to find the "family tree" thing carried over from last week lame, but that is a minor quibble. My big issue is - more than any other episode this season - this felt like a gross failure of one of the most basic elements of storytelling - show not tell. This episode was extremely talky, and when the well-composed emotional scenes are taken out of consideration, the remainder was laden with technobabble exposition, with the main cast telling us - over and over and over again - exactly what the issue at hand was. I think some of this in Trek episodes is inevitable - even part of the core concept of universe, where people for some reason narrate out loud whatever they are actually doing on a computer interface. But there was just so, so much of this - particularly in the first half of the episode - that it felt like I was watching someone dictate a plot synopsis rather than actually seeing a story onscreen. Lots of the scenes - from the destruction of the probe to the dude getting sucked out the airlock - would have been so much more effective with less interjections from the bridge crew. I just really wish the writers could find a way to actually develop the crisis of the week without having the main cast explain to us the crisis, and then troubleshoot the solution out loud.

Another good episode, akin to a mashup of The Next Generation's 'Where Silence Has Lease' (or Voyager's 'The Void') and 'Emergence.'

I think what is preventing me from effusing as much praise as others have for the episode is that although the story fairly successfully weaved together the issues created by the subspace void and Zora's emerging consciousness, I might have liked both subplots more individually. The episode, as it was, left me wanting: I might have liked to have seen a bit more problem-solving from the crew (cf. The Next Generation's 'Booby Trap'), or more about Zora (cf. Short Trek's 'Calypso').

Nevertheless, more here to like than not, and I found myself intrigued by the anomaly originating from outside the galaxy (a new doomsday machine?).

Did we watch the same episode? It had a nice flow, Frakes did his usual bang up job and told the story without overly relying on flashy camera moves, sometimes less really is more. But comparing this to classic Trek? Come now!

This was Discovery at its Discovery'est: acknowledging the computer's feelings to help it gain enough emotional stability so it feels secure and validated enough to do its job? My gawd.

Just like the cringy notion they were sure the D.O.T. screamed as it disintegrated. Really? What's next, we can't fire torpedoes because it's asking them to die? It's been over a 1000 years since the Exo-comps episode of TNG and the question of machine sentience still hasn't been sorted out? The way this is going, Starfleet soon can't even use ships any more because it would be wrong to force them to do our bidding.

Another hearty laugh: watching the entire crew go into the buffer except for Burnham. It's like the show is mocking itself: "Who needs anyone else when Michael's here?" I know "captains go down with the ship" might sound brave and Starfleet, but this is choosing a preventable death. Janeway and Archer willingly went into suspended animation too. Sisko didn't go down with the first Defiant. It's all about Michael being a control freak... again.

Besides, wasn't Gray the best person to stay behind? His android body can survive without life support and he already had the emotional connection to Zora. They could have continued their chess match during the escape. Burnham claimed Zora never needed that game, but isn't making the computer sing you a song exactly the same kind of low level distraction that helped her focus?

This season Discovery's bridge crew seem to do exposition/origin dumps in the middle of a crisis. Last week Rhys delayed a crucial rescue mission to talk about how Starfleet rescued his family from a hurricane and now we got Owosekun explaining to Saru why she did what she did.

Who can miss Tilly when Tal is essentially filling her slot as the nervous, socially awkward ensign with the brilliant scientific insights?

Book interacting with a vision that may or may not be his dead father is another tiresome Discovery trope. Can we have a season without people talking to not-quite-ghosts?

All in all, we now know the DMA is from 'outside our galaxy'. That's a pretty big place... Next week, another piece of the puzzle, I'm sure.

Pretty good episode. Last week I started thinking something I had no evidence for. This week, however, it's looking like I might be right.

Nagilum

Since nobody died this episode, the evidence is weak, but the DMA has murdered so many people already that's not really an issue. That void reminded me of the hole in space in TNG's "Where Silence Has Lease."

It also could be any of the other races from beyond the barrier such as the ones that gave Barkley the upgrade (although they didn't seem hostile enough to unleash the DMA) or those aliens from TOS that turned people into dried cuboctahedron tofu.

The Nacene from Voyager are also an extra-galactic species (though not in the same way) from some region of subspace.

That void in "Where Silence Has Lease" wasn't referred to as a subspace rupture, though, at least I don't think it was. One thing to note is the DMA has massive power requirements. Omega molecules are massive power sources that cause subspace ruptures. Whoever it is that caused the DMA could simply be experimenting with Omega molecules and not even aware of the havoc and destruction they're causing.

@Jeffrey's Tube

The only elephant in the room is that you didn't pay attention to Lt. Cmdr. Bryce's explanation. They hit the galactic barrier particles of greatest density with electromagnetic energy at the frequency of sonar. Then turned the reflected electromagnetic energy into an audible ping that they all could listen to. This is similar to a laser microphone converting vibrations on a windowpane into light fluctuations and then into audible sound. Stop manufacturing things to complain about.

@Norvo

Gray's synth body was modeled after Picard's body. It was specifically stated he didn't want some superhuman body capable of superhuman feats. It had no augmentations, no "superpowers." I don't recall them mentioning Gray's body as any different. They specifically state that it's modeled on the Picard model.

@ Quincy

Okay. I'll credit that. I mean, it makes a lot more sense that way. They talked really fast and it's not like I paused it and went back over it. But why did they keep calling it sonar, then, if it's not actually sonar and the likeness to sonar is only what made Bryce think of the idea? Didn't Michael say "prepare to send a sonar pulse?" Was she not listening either? Did they just decide on the spot to nickname what they were doing "sonar?" Because that's confusing! I'm sure I wasn't the only one.

At any rate I vastly prefer it your way, so let's go with that.

I figure Gray's android body is just like a human cylon's body. Except for that one time Boomer stuck a wire up her arm to neutralize a computer virus (hey, it was the early days of the show still), you can't really tell them apart from regular human bodies. Unless you have them hooked up a biobed or that detector machine Baltar built from a nuke, that is.

Well, I'm just gonna call it, although I was pissed off at the whole "Choose To Live" dealy a while back, Season 4 is the best Season of DISCO so far. This episode is 4 stars, to me. This is Star Trek, and there is no doubt about it.

That's it, mic drop. You should watch it.

And Zuora getting the ability to feel emotion is touching, but also worries me. See: "The Offspring."

This show is at the point where a small core fan base loves it an almost everyone else has given up. AV Club stopped reviewing this week which is a bad sign since they’ve been especially positive of the show. It’s time for Kurtzman only trek to end. We’ve had most of a season where have the crew has no lines (some haven’t done anything in years,) very predictable suspense and now Zora the anxiety ridden ship computer playing trill space checkers with Gray. There are still very good moments of this show but I’d be happy if they cancelled it and focused on other Strange New Worlds. Or maybe let Kurtzman run this into the ground quietly so he doesn’t ruin SNW. Last week’s was decent but this was as close to a zero as this show could be.

For the most part this is a good episode but DSC tends to saddle its shows with overly emotional scenes / dialog which just weighs things down and is not my cup of tea at all. Ultimately the episode's plot/premise is pretty basic -- go into the rift, get stuck, figure a way out while getting all emotional. The first part of just exploring the void when entering the rift -- this is on par with any pure sci-fi exploration in classic Trek. You have the bridge crew trying to solve problems logically and I thought it was intriguing. I think the bridge crew all pretty much had at least a couple of lines of decent dialog.

But the whole idea of the damn AI computer Zora needing its proverbial hand held, to be told by Burnham "You can do this" was just more of this overly emotional baggage -- why does DSC always feel the need to have one character comforting and encouraging another especially when the problem they have is so arbitrary? Like why is Zora so emotional and who the fuck cares?? I think part of the theme is focus/awareness but that's a weird theme. Saru also tells Book something about not letting his anger (to destroy who ever from another galaxy made the DMA) ruin his focus.

I did think Gray was actually put to good use here, playing the game with Zora -- in kind of weird way it reminded me of 2001: A Space Odyssey with Hal interacting with Dave.

Another bridge crew member got some forced action as Owosekun talks back to Saru and then apologizes -- this is just throwing the character a bone and actually worked against what the show wants to accomplish IMHO as far as organic character development.

As for Book seeing his dad and dealing with the guilt trip his dad is putting him on -- ultimately I don't think this matters one bit. This is again just forced background for Book's character. But the belief that the DMA came from outside the galaxy and is ruining space in our galaxy is a new twist.

2.5 stars for "Stormy Weather" -- I liked how there was basically just 1 plot and we have a standalone episode (pretty much). I liked the sci-fi / problem solving angle and having a slightly original feel to it. The plot mechanics made Trek sense. But DSC will always have its Maudlin moments and it just depends how much they weigh down the material -- with Zora it's all arbitrary. Nevertheless, I remain interested in the story and DSC S4 has put together a run of 3 good/very good episodes after 2 mediocre/poor ones.

There were a lot of things to like about this episode. The investigation of the void/rift was classic Star Trek. It didn't really advance the season arc that much, but that's fine - or it would have been fine if it had anything else to offer intellectually. Basically the whole bridge crew got enough to say so that you got an impression of their importance. Unfortunately, as is typical with the writing here, they stopped the action to dump in backstory which could have been handled much more gracefully. There was some heavy foreshadowing of Booker leaving for at least a while, and though I love having him there, he obviously doesn't really fit in Starfleet and is starting to seem as uncomfortable as Tilly was.

I adore the introduction of Zora as a sentient ship, a concept Star Trek hasn't explored much at all, but after the "Cool" of it I have to wonder, do we need yet another character? And how can she be so incompetent with her emotions? She has access to all that Sphere information, which surely goes way beyond Data's emotion chip. Certainly I think her needing the captain's advice is absolutely the wrong way to go with her.

For me, the highlight was Zora singing Burnham through the barrier and then the screen fading to black - very well done. If only Burnham could have died . . .

For the person who asked about Anne Cofell Saunders, this is her fifth Discovery script. She had two last season and two earlier this season.

Star Trek: Discovery

Season 4 episode 6
Stormy Weather


"Captain, sensors show nothing out there. Absolutely nothing.”

"Sure is a damned ugly nothing.”

- Data & LaForge in “Where Silence Has Lease”


2 stars (out of 4)


Well it has finally happened, Discovery ran out of money, and we are stuck with a boring bottle episode.

The Powers that Be must have been so scared about the drop in quality, that they pulled Jonathan Frakes out of mothballs to direct, and added a co-script writing credit for Co-Executive Producer Anne Cofell Saunders (@Occuprice, there is none of the panache of Pegasus here).

If the final result is so damn prosaic - with all these folks on board - I can only imagine how bad things were before.

So far this season, Discovery has had a lot of success with a highly structured A/B/C plot form. So of course they throw all that out the window in what @AMA very correctly calls, "a mashup of The Next Generation's 'Where Silence Has Lease' (or Voyager's 'The Void') and 'Emergence.’ “

The plot is so boring you can summarize it in one sentence: the ship is stuck in a void, while The Ship goes through therapy, and the guy who is jumping the ship confronts visions of his dead dad. Paging Dr. Freud. But at least, as @Rahul says, therapy gave Gray something useful to do.

There is even time for Owo to tell Saru about some traumatic story from her childhood.

So much of the problem here is, as @Jeffrey's Tube says, because “Saru would be such a better captain. I was starkly reminded of that when he took the chair.” Saru spoke for so many of us when he told Owo, “This is not a debate.” These people are unprofessional.

TPTB try to salvage the episode by throwing in a few lines about the DMA. Like “Doomsday Machine”, the DMA comes from another galaxy. Anyone surprised by this hasn’t spent a lot of time with The Original Series.

So who is this mediocrity of an episode meant for? @Karl Zimmerman hints at an answer, when he writes, "I just really wish the writers could find a way to actually develop the crisis of the week without having the main cast explain to us the crisis, and then troubleshoot the solution out loud.”

This is Star Trek for dummies.

Just look at the people who enjoy this episode. Like @Quincy, who says, "Since nobody died this episode...” Ok, so the entire scene were we watch a crewman blasted out into the vacuum of space didn’t happen??

@NoHo Trek said, "AV Club stopped reviewing this week which is a bad sign.” Wow, this is Andromeda second season level failure,

"Due to low readership, this is will be the last regular Discovery review–there’ll be a write-up of the finale, and maybe a pre-air when the next season drops, but that’s it. Thank you to everyone who stuck it out for the past few years of what must’ve seemed like increasingly repetitive reviews."

Given that they have now decided to split Season 4 into two halves (after the new episode next week, we go on a break), I suspect they will wrap up the show with the second half of season 4.

No point dragging this shit out any longer.

Michael was a failed series lead, and this was a failed show. Another reboot into another galaxy won’t change that.

@Jeffrey's Tube "But why did they keep calling it sonar, then, if it's not actually sonar..."


I don't know what you're talking about. I heard them call it a "pulse." It was indeed a pulse. No one called it a sonar beyond the initial explanation. Bryce was the only one who referred to sonar because that's what gave him the idea. Adira simply asked what a sonar was. They did refer to the audible ping, because the computer was indeed creating an audible ping from the reflection of the pulse. Burnham referred to it initially as simply a "pulse" and later as the "signal." It was indeed both a pulse and a signal.

I don't understand your confusion. You've literally inserted something into the episode that never even occurred. Is this your "Beam me up, Scotty"?

In any case, I witnessed them listen AND respond to Bryce's explanation, so I know unequivocally that they knew what he was talking about whatever they decided to call their navigational tactic. It seems to me they settled on the name, "pulse," to describe its intended function. Why this should be odd or strange to you when you see it absolutely every single day of your life is both odd and strange to me. Why do we often tell people to "go google it." Google is a company. Did somebody have a brain fart and instantly believe google was a verb? Do people get confused mid sentence when they say this?

Why did Starfleet refer to a living alien spaceship with the code-name "Tin Man"? Did they have a brain fart and think they were living in the Wizard of Oz? Does Starfleet believe in magic?

Why did La Forge and crew keep referring to that alien space creature as "the baby." It wasn't a baby. Animals have their own names for their offspring such as calf, puppy, kitten, etc. If you find a new animal, you make up a new name scientifically. They're not babies. Did they all have brain farts on TNG? Why did they refer to souring the milk? There was no milk being consumed, only energy being absorbed. Did they get confused mid sentence?

What is a metaphor? Why do we use them? Do we get confused mid sentence when we do?

Pretending normal human behavior is either odd or strange or that you've magically never seen it in Star Trek before is both odd and strange in and of itself.

@NoHoTrek
" Or maybe let Kurtzman run this into the ground quietly so he doesn’t ruin SNW."
Well, Kurtzman is still the showrunner and executive producer of SNW and is credited as writer for all 10 episodes. This show is written and produced by the same people who made Discovery and Picard. I will not watch it.

If you look up the cast on imdb, you see stuff like La'an Noonien Singh. It appears creativity and originality is not high on their list... It all seems very desperate. I also hate it that they cast Romijn, not a good choice. Her wikipedia picture is like a warning about plastic surgery.

Ah, this is the kind of episode I've been hoping for and finally DSC delivers.

Just the crew, plus the splendid David AJala as Book, working together to solve a problem, plenty of technobabble (I don't have to understand all of it, as Jammer said before in his reviews, it needs to be sold well, and here they did), and the episode tuned into one main bottle plot, with some reference to the overall arc. This is the first 4-star episode of Season 4 in my book (not this season had been bad to begin with).

Every crew member had some role in the final solution and Gray, for the first time, had a worthy slot to fill in the narrative other than being Adira's sidekick.

Jonathan Frakes' directorship helps, but it was the plot that kept me glued to the screen as well as some of the acting performances by the crew. If only Jett Reno was also present but I already know about the COvid-19 filming complications, so maybe next time Tig!

Well done Discovery!!

Y’all complaining so much do realize that this show was one of the first to come back to production post pandemic with some extremely stringent and limiting restrictions. They were trying to figure out how to possibly do this show in a post pandemic world. I imagine most of the complaints (and ironically some of the compliments, such as more extended deeper scenes) are a direct result of the realities of COVID protocol. They were forced to do production “pods” to limit who interacted with who to isolate and protect various aspects of the production and probably dictated longer scenes with fewer and specific people together (also probably why they stuck Gray and Adira in rooms together or by themselves for so long).

And to the loser who made the comment on Rebecca Romjin being a “warning about plastic surgery”… please rethink your comments and maybe refrain from commenting on a show before it’s release based solely on an actress’s appearance. Pretty low.

@Scott
"And to the loser who made the comment on Rebecca Romjin being a “warning about plastic surgery”… please rethink your comments and maybe refrain from commenting on a show before it’s release based solely on an actress’s appearance. Pretty low."
Thanks Scott. I often need a man to explain what is right and what is wrong. It's all just so complicated, you know. Me, I think that the Hollywood machine forcing women into this humiliating and self destructive rat race is bad. Plastic surgery, eating disorders and so on. It also decreases the quality of female acting, at least if you think it important that an actress can use her facial muscles. But you cleared it all up. Thanks again, honey! Plastic surgery and Botox are great, got it. I'll start saving!

"Thanks Scott. I often need a man to explain what is right and what is wrong."

Scott might be a trans woman. They'll teach you what womanhood is all about.

"If you look up the cast on imdb, you see stuff like La'an Noonien Singh. It appears creativity and originality is not high on their list... It all seems very desperate."

Haha a female Khan of course. My theory is that Kurtzman's writing team have one of those paper fortune teller things we used to play with as kids and a black board with a list of every name and concept ever to exist in Trek. Basically the stories are Trek mad libs except everything they land on gets gender or race swapped. But I'm predicting that to placate the traditionalists in the fanbase who demand a male Khan they'll say that Khan is a trans man. Sort of like how the female lead of their series has a man's name.

lol. I love it when they eat their own. It's like Cannibalism for Dummies and Vegans.

@Jason

Kurtzman said that they heard the fans. This show will be for people like Quincy. Lots of, as they like to say, "heterosexual white men" saving the galaxy. He and his tribe will think "the stories are kind of bad but for some reason I like it". There is even one white guy called Hemmer. I'm waiting for the sentence "It's HEMMER time!"

The Noonien Singh thing is really a red flag in my opinion. I would assume that she is genetically manipulated by her father and has to deal with those issues and because this show is for dummies and people existing in the past her name has to be Noonien Singh. I'm also interested what Shannon Widdis role is. Her name is Bridge Crew. Sounds Swedish.

My problem is really with the people who make it. Sure, there is a possibility that Kurtzman and the doom patrol finally make something watchable but I doubt it.

@Quincy
"lol. I love it when they eat their own."
Really, that kind of comment on the December 24. The day Jesus learnt to fly?

By the way, today the new space telescope is launched!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzGLKQ7_KZQ&ab_channel=JamesWebbSpaceTelescope%28JWST%29

Let's hope for blue skies.

I guess I can see why people liked this episode. Some good old trekkian problem solving in here, even if there is a lot of technobabble nonsense in here (though that is also a good old trekkian problem) and it suffers from the fact we don't really know who does what job. But at least we have the crew gathering to offer solutions and the captain making some logical decisions that follow from what we know established technology can do. Grey and Adira appeared more integrated into the story and I have always though the ship-AI is a good concept. Even SMG's acting wasn't as bad as in the rest of the season so far (still not great, mind you, but more serviceable).

That being said, four stars? An excellent episode? Why? If aired during TNG, this would probably be a 2 or at most 2.5 star outing. Which is good for Discovery standards, but it's still a 2-star TNG episode. As with the previous episodes this season, the setup is good but the payoff is severely lacking, mostly because it is unfocused. What was the core of the episode? I guess it's the ship coming alive and having to reconcile feelings of guilt and friendship with the basic instinct of self preservation shared by all living beings. That is a great theme, and one that seems to be right up Discovery's "let's explore feelings alley". But it is ultimately wasted: As often with this show, the solution seems to boil down to Michael Burnham saying "just close your eyes and listen to my voice, you'll get through it". That is really shoddy psychology and a very poor examination of sentience.

The best moment of the episode is when the ship becomes aware that the anomaly can qute literally "hurt it," whereas before taking physical damage was irrelevant. It would have been great if the dilemma of the episode was that in other to emerge from the void and save everyone the ship needed to be damaged, perhaps irreparably. This would have provided great tension and a character arc for Zora and the crew as a whole: Do they have the right to order the ship to sacrifice itself as they did previously? How does a computer deal with the compulsion for self preservation but also the feeling of loyalty? Instead, this issue isn't really presented as such, with the implication being that if the ship doesn't make it to the exit point it's bad for everyone, and if it makes it it's good for everyone. So there is an obvious solution, of course: "just listen to my voice and don't be afraid." Blegh. As in the previous episde, the tension of an interesting setup is defused from the get-go. I've said so before, but if Season 4 was the first one, there'd be hope that the writers are finding their footing. Now, this simply suggests that they can't bring any concept home due to very limited intellectual capacity.

They mentioned SONAR and used the concept with a radio frequency I think. I'll need to watch it again.

Just popping in to wish everyone here a Merry Christmas!

I just love the transformation of this show from dark and depressing in the first season to a fourth where Burnham consistently asks each crew member to use their strengths and creativity to come up with solutions, and then weighs all solutions seriously. In the endzl, everyone comes together and rallies behind an idea, even if they disagree. The other great part is the very natural development of a sentient and emotional ship...I just love it.

Discovery was my entry point to Trek. I've watched most of the older stuff now. I don't understand the Discovery hate here and elsewhere. This is a world where everyone is welcome and our difference drive us forward rather than hold us back. For me this show is getting better and better.

This Episode was an enjoyable x-mas treat. Parts of it was old fashined trek but in a modern dress. Although I am not really fond oft the introduction of the charater Gray (giving the passive bridge crew more screen time would be my option), the idea of triggering the relaxed zora with a game was ok.

Adira seems to replace the chaotic Tilly. Do we need this? Gray on the other hand is a more facinating Person. I said it earlier, Adira would be more intresing if her symbiants could be more involved.

Conclusion, I liked it but slightly to much emotions.

@Skylar Glad you like it. I assume you are slightly younger than those of us viewing it in out youth. I started to watch TOS 1977 when I was 17.

It made a big impact on us but some episodes where really silly if you judge them with today eys.

Gereally the story telling has changed. I liked these free standing episodes.
Even if Voyager had a main theme the corresponding episode "The Void" can more easily be watched alone. This episode if much more embedded in the main theme.

So even if I am irritated I try to watch discovery with positive eyes and enjyoy the things that I like.

I have no problem with all female characters taking place. I find it good and refreshing.
I am modern enough to accept the homolsexuality.
I am still very pussled regarding the indrect gender theme. I'm not sure that it should take so much part. On the same time, perhaps I need to be educated.

So Skylar ... feel free to enjoy Discovery independet of what we other think.

@Booming "Blah, blah... December 24. The day Jesus learnt to fly..."

Jesus flew?!? Who knew?!?

Did he fly to Themyscira to witness perfect civilization with nary a penis in sight?

By the way, Merry X-mas! Has anyone misgendered you today? For awhile there, people were screwing up your chromosomes left and right. You had like three X's one day. (You felt so superior. You smiled so wide you almost unzipped your head!) Then I swear I saw somebody slide a double Y in there. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) But we won't discuss that any further, since I'm all out of eye bleach.

But anyway, how they hanging out there in the Alt-Left?

Have you harassed a sister about her immaculate braids today, while simultaneously ignoring a fellow white woman's rat's nest standing right beside her? If not, you better hop to it! Otherwise, you're not going to have that very Caucasian Christmas!


Merry Christmas everybody! I hope to high heaven you're all pregnant by now with 20lbs of turkey baby! Unless you're vegan, in which case, enjoy your tofurkey!

@Quincy
"Did he fly to Themyscira to witness perfect civilization with nary a penis in sight?
Yes.

"Merry Christmas everybody!"
Nothing says merry christmas like a crazy rant.

"in which case, enjoy your tofurkey! "
I don't think anybody eats turkey in Continental Europe.
In France they eat capon which is a male chicken that was castrated. It makes the meat taste better, they say but maybe they just enjoy castration... In Germany sausages are the most common Christmas dinner to counterbalance French penis hate (but also goose).

as always, there are great concepts here that i don't think can actually be done justice by just trying to copy the TNG formula for a modern audience. having the ship computer be a character is such a cool concept - taking the traditional computer we've all seen in the previous shows and adding a real twist on it, making it an actual cast member. that's good shit! but like, this should have been developed since Obol for Charon, or at least since the S3 finale. i still feel like they're treating characterization like crude tools for the plot, where the "significance" of the moment is more important than giving any of the characters a sense of personhood.

I just have a hard time enjoying this, even though it was a well-written and directed episode because I don't think Burnham should be or has earned the Captain's chair.

Owo is hot as hell though.

Maybe they'll go full Mass Effect and give the ship a physical interface platform- AKA a smokin' hot robo-bod.

Another personal feud involving @Booming. I just looked it up: Booming has made 2,480 comments on this site. Insults, lecturing others on what to think, why they are wrong, why they are stupid. The only way to not have this person ruin this site for everyone and to leave a tiny bit of air in the room, is to ignore this person. Do not engage. Polite conversation directed at Booming incurs Booming’s wrath. Polite conversation directed at others incurs sarcastic and hateful remarks. Booming believes Booming is being speech-suppressed (2480 comments). That shows the level of good faith this person brings to the conversation.

I will ignore Booming. I will not mention Booming directly or indirectly, by name or otherwise. I will no longer talk about Booming, engage in conversation with Booming, or engage in a thread in which Booming is a participant.

Starve the cancer of nutrients and it will no longer spread. I hope some folks would consider joining me.

@aottrik
Hmm is that you Rahul? Trying the same with a new name. Interesting.
You might not have realized it but most of the time I'm reacting to people tagging me.

@Booming

Any chance on taking a hike or just getting a different hobby so I can enjoy reading this forum again? Rebecca Romijn is a gorgeous actress & maybe you should discuss her acting instead of insulting her physical appearance. It’s classless behavior, and an adult should know better. But I have a feeling you cannot do better, so better yet, just get lost.

Sorry Mr. Torpedo. I must refuse. The fact that you find Romijn gorgeous, probably ignoring that women are often forced into certain procedures like surgery by the industry to please people like you, is telling.

Let's look at one of the next comments of the last guy (Scott) who criticized me for voicing displeasure about Romijn's plastic surgery.
" Jeri Ryan's breasts were perfect in this episode. She really did have an A+++++ body in her prime."
You are certainly in stellar company.

I also don't think that Romijn is a good actress. Good looking women are put in these movies and shows because there is a certain part of the audience who think it more important that a women is physically pleasing than a good actress. People like you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANZOzbVEVFI&ab_channel=Solidus360

Folks, I hate to break it to you, but I fear that, until such time as there is finally some boom boom in her room, there is zero chance of ridding ourselves of what the Sheliak might call this "human infestation."

https://youtu.be/VNcR4ccvwcw?t=59

And given the scintillating personality on display in "2,480 comments" here, there is slim chance of that happening - even in a place like Germany, where you can just pay for it.

https://youtu.be/Lp6DCmntbPI?t=17

So the growing frustrations will continue to spill onto these pages. Like lashing out at the looks of an obviously beautiful and successful woman who is also the mother of two children.

https://youtu.be/MrkWcogA_9Y

The jealously must be unbearable.

https://youtu.be/llyiQ4I-mcQ

I find it interesting how these white knights are all talking in annihilation fantasies like cancer or infestation. I am amused by your weakness.

Bring it on guys. Let's make it 5000 comments before 2022.

Yeah, I agree with a few commenters above, unfortunately Booming ain't the only one either. There are 3 or 4 (and all of them hate the show anyway) that have been hijacking these boards for a couple of years now and they've made commenting unbearable for most others. The funny thing is they used to pat each other on the back when they had a common purpose (blast new Trek) but when they become targets of each other then it's all cry and whine.

Tomalak is still missing. Then the old hate group would be reunited, assuming that my count is right, and if we learned anything from movies and shows then it is always the group of guys ganging up on somebody who are the heroes. :)

So what's it going to be ?

"group of guys"
Terrific pre-assumption
It's your show
Carry on

Sorry Defor, I didn't see your comment and did not mean you. There is half a dozen guys who I clash with once or twice a year.

For the record, I don't hate Discovery, even defended it quite a few times. I think it is mediocre. If you like it then I have no problem with that and I understand your displeasure with these fights but if somebody attacks me then I will defend myself.

The only thing I recall Romjin being in was X1/2/3 as Mystique. She was perfectly cast for that role, in contrast with Jennifer Lawrence, who is a far better actress than Romjin but perfectly miscast for the role. It is the perfect illustration of how sometimes casting can beat talent.

Romjin is almost 50, so the idea that she is being cast as some kind of cheap ploy for sex appeal is ridiculous. The irony here is that it's almost certainly her acting talent that was relevant here - I guess that isn't a very progressive thing for me to say, or is it?! Mwaha I really can't tell.

It doesn't much matter because if casting trumps talent, then writing trumps casting - and we already know what the writing is going to be like here.

@Jason
She was a supermodel for the first 10 years of her career but there is always the possibility that Romijn's acting has improved. Still, if you compare her with women who are actually good actresses like Laura Linney for example then I just wonder why they cast her. Linney in Ozark has wrinkles and everything and it looks great. Hopefully more women are allowed to age gracefully and still get roles.

"Romjin is almost 50, so the idea that she is being cast as some kind of cheap ploy for sex appeal is ridiculous."
Why is that ridiculous? SNW is aimed at older Trek fans, quite a few probably still remember her as the naked blue lady from X Men.

"Why is that ridiculous? SNW is aimed at older Trek fans, quite a few probably still remember her as the naked blue lady from X Men."

Sure I guess. She was good as Mystique but let's face it she was a secondary character. Glancing at her IMDb she hasn't done much lately.

Just saying if sex appeal was the goal any 20 something beauty would have done the job far better. My guess is someone thinks her acting is worthwhile.

But since I will never watch the show I imagine I will have to read reviews from others.

Again, another DSC comment stream hijacked by the usual troll -- worth re-posting this bit of sound advice from @aottorik who I strongly agree with and I believe many others who just want to talk Trek do too:

"Another personal feud involving @Booming. I just looked it up: Booming has made 2,480 comments on this site. Insults, lecturing others on what to think, why they are wrong, why they are stupid. The only way to not have this person ruin this site for everyone and to leave a tiny bit of air in the room, is to ignore this person. Do not engage. Polite conversation directed at Booming incurs Booming’s wrath. Polite conversation directed at others incurs sarcastic and hateful remarks. Booming believes Booming is being speech-suppressed (2480 comments). That shows the level of good faith this person brings to the conversation.

I will ignore Booming. I will not mention Booming directly or indirectly, by name or otherwise. I will no longer talk about Booming, engage in conversation with Booming, or engage in a thread in which Booming is a participant.

Starve the cancer of nutrients and it will no longer spread. I hope some folks would consider joining me."

Talking with your own fake identity. That's rich. You are doing this for two years now. 20% of your 1219 posts are you trying to convince other people to not talk to me. 20% is insulting other people and most of the rest is bitching about this show. You must be very unhappy. :(

And just to confirm for this board -- @aottorik is definitely not me posting under another pseudonym. Jammer could probably verify that. The only person I know of who has posted under more than 1 pseudonym is Trent.

I know enough well-intentioned people here can see through Boomer's lies, how he's likely not of sound mind, and his victim act despite frequently attacking others, posting offensive comments and trolling people he doesn't agree with, as @aottorik and others have put quite well.

https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1472152698443091970?s=20

I'm again reminded of this little cartoon about trolling, not taking responsibility for their actions/words and then claiming to be oppressed, being the victim. Can only feel pity for these types.

As tontje sonar debate, yea they justbused sonar as a metapbir but WAIT HOW CAN ZORA FOLLOW AN AUDIBLE OING IF THEY ARE IN A VOID? In a void siund doesnt travel so there is nothing audible..sonthis is a technical flaw..or am I missing something? And NO SO the whole outside tje galaxy thong is not original?? That depresses me..I thought that idea made this episode more original...

... I feel like I just beamed down to a planet where the Borg have recently scooped a city out of the ground.

"Confirmed these are the correct coordinates. You're in the center of town."

So, because Jammer (like almost all humans in the English Speaking World) wants to take this last week of the year to I dunno, spend time with family possibly friends, who knows, who cares, it's none of my business, some people decide that "hehehe, the teacher's out of the classroom, now's our chance to be bad"

Stay classy, Internet

@Leif

It's amazing. Bryce gave the simplest dumbed down explanation possible and people still are deliberately confused. Zora isn't following sound in a void. She sent out an electromagnetic pulse, basically radio waves at the frequency of sonar. She's following the radio waves reflected back from the high density galactic barrier particles. Then SHE is converting those reflected radio waves into an audible ping so the crew (and us, the audience) can hear the radio waves she "hears."

@Rahul
You also declared that you do not read my posts. Obviously a lie. Maybe find another hobby than warn the world of the dangers of Booming. Again, you are doing this for years now.

To quote from Anne with an E quoting Jane Eyre:"Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs." Words to live by.

"So, because Jammer (like almost all humans in the English Speaking World) wants to take this last week of the year to I dunno, spend time with family possibly friends, who knows, who cares, it's none of my business, some people decide that "hehehe, the teacher's out of the classroom, now's our chance to be bad"

Jammer is pretty resolute about not getting involved in these petty tifs.

Jeez louise some people are such drama queens.

Has this thread degenerated into an invective-filled squabble? Reader, it has.

Rebecca Romijn is age-appropriate casting for the part and she looks the part. We haven't seen her as Number One much yet but her acting has been fine enough in other projects. I have no concerns.

Jolene Blalock had a lot more obvious work done than Romjin and she was only what, 24? That's neither a defense nor an excuse; merely an observation. And men do it too. That's Hollywood. Tom Cruise is 60. Is that what a 60 year old man looks like without any work?

It's unfair to categorize her as a "bimbo" (not in so many words, but still) for doing what all her peers are doing, to greater or lesser extents of visibility. I personally don't think she looks egregiously fake. Like I said, Blalock was more obvious and a worse actress to boot (okay, so maybe it IS a defense, sue me!).

@Jeffrey's Tube
"It's unfair to categorize her as a "bimbo""
I never called her a bimbo. Maybe she is smart and nice. I mentioned that she was model because the switch from model to actress normally does not produce good actresses.

" And men do it too"
Sure and that's bad, too. Still there is no argument that beauty standards are far more destructive and unfair for women than they are for men. Once I hoped that female casting would become more like male casting meaning acting ability trumping looks but it seems that it is going in the other direction. Male casting is becoming more like female casting. Hunks are everywhere now. That's why everybody likes Adam Driver. He is not great looking but what an actor!

" That's Hollywood."
All hail the soul crushing machine. :)

@rahul
I can verify that I am not you, Rahul. Jammer can confirm my real name, were he inclined to do so. I suspect he has a life and does not care to. That is a good thing. His enthusiasm for Star Trek is what has made me a loyal reader for so many years.

@aottorik

That's reassuring -- not that I ever had any doubt!

I wholeheartedly endorse your prior comment and I've said as much before. It should not be hard for someone of sound mind to realize that 2 different people can come up with similar solutions to an obvious problem.

Anyhow, I've always enjoyed Jammer's reviews as well, but also the people who add insightful and well-written comments on the various Trek episodes.

@Rahul
Thanks! I appreciate the vote of confidence! Some of the comments really make me think, or view an episode in a different light, or make me notice something I did not notice (and never would noticed) previously. I am rewatching Enterprise now and it’s interesting to see how the tenor of the comments can change over time. A number of the comments made 2021 seem more forgiving of the show than many made when the show first aired.

@aottorik

I've watched ENT a number of times and found that, at first, I thought it was quite poor but after a 2nd and 3rd time through the series I really started to appreciate it quite a bit. It's like the theme song -- initially I thought it was inappropriate for a Trek series, but then I came to like it a lot (I know I'm in the minority on this one!).

In general, I think that is the way it is with all the classic Trek series, actually. The more you watch them, the more you appreciate them. But I've also tried to watch them a couple of times with a pretty critical eye for the purposes of my own reviews/ratings. Now I can just watch them as something like comfort food.

But what I really like about ENT is its cast -- I truly think it is one of the best casts in terms of overall acting talent among all the Trek series - for me, there's only 1 subpar actor. I would have liked to see a 5th season so it could fulfill what must have been its original objective -- to take us through to the founding of the Federation. So many good geopolitical stories could have been told...

You guys are very unpleasant towards each other and it's not fun to read.

"Get a life."

Just for the record @aottorik, @Rahul,

I am he
As you are he
As you are me
And we are all together

https://youtu.be/TKuvJLTeJYY

- The Eggman

@ Booming

It seems to be inescapable on American TV. I've noticed non-American TV seems to have more . . . regular? believable? . . . looking people as leads and in prominent parts in shows.

Except you, Canada. But you're just following our lead. Your ultimate goal is to sell whatever show you're making down here, anyway, because $$$$.

@Jeffrey's Tube
German actors and actresses look like they live under a bridge. Still, I think the number of people who want the immortals on TV/in movies to be beautiful is far bigger than the ones who want good acting. Hollywood might be superficial and destructive but, as you say, it is also making a lot of money and in the world we live in that is all that counts.

As Michael Eisner, who turned Disney into the media giant it is today, once so famously said:"We have no obligation to make history. We have no obligation to make art. We have no obligation to make a statement. To make money is our only objective.”

Chiming in to join the several early reviews in the message board for this episode. I.E. one of the best episodes of the series. I'd add that this is also the best season of Disco, so far!

"Stormy Weather" is my favorite kind of Trek hour. Single-minded, science-related main micro-plotline, involving the crew preoccupied with solving a single, but complex, problem. Everyone contributed, each crew member had a role. They had ideas, they expressed them, those ideas led somewhere, and the ship worked together to tackle the problem. Four stars from me too.

@Jammer, amazing how similar your take on Discovery’s 48th episode is to your take on DS9’s 48th episode, “The Search part II”, which was also directed by Jonathan Frakes.

Here’s what you said about DS9,

"The wrap-up of one of the most ambitious action/adventure and character development episodes on DS9 seems to be working okay for its first four acts but then jettisons all plausibility and respectability… there's only one word for it—botched.”

It’s a classic fifth act problem.

Here’s how you put for DISC,

"a mysterious, focused, and claustrophobic sci-fi yarn that works pretty well ... up until it doesn’t… Unfortunately, the episode started to fall apart….”

Very similar problem.

I wonder how much Jonathan Frakes is to blame for botching both 48th episodes? Or is it rather that he is brought in to patch up a botched script?

Or maybe 48th episodes are just cursed?

TNG’s 48th episode was “Shades of Gray.” Wait, Shades of Gray was a Riker-focused episode! And say what you will about "Stormy Weather”, it certainly had more for Gray to do than anything before it....

Well, that’s your numerology lesson for today folks :-)

Wow. I take a break for a few days, and *this* happens...

@Rahul
" It should not be hard for someone of sound mind to realize that 2 different people can come up with similar solutions to an obvious problem."

Right now, you two are a far bigger problem on this thread than Booming ever was. Do you realize that 90% of the cr*p on this thread is your fault? Not only you're goading Booming to respond (you *know* she has a problem with that) but you're also ruining the thread for everybody else.

The crazy thing is that Booming didn't even say anything particularly trollish this time. You've created this huge mess out of absolutely nothing. Shame on you two.

@MadshipmanNorris
"So, because Jammer (like almost all humans in the English Speaking World) wants to take this last week of the year to I dunno, spend time with family possibly friends, who knows, who cares, it's none of my business, some people decide that 'hehehe, the teacher's out of the classroom, now's our chance to be bad'."

Nah. They'd do it anyway, because they know Jammer won't do zilch about it.

It's sad, really, to see so many regulars abusing this space and ruining it for everyone else. Sadder to see this happening on Christmas, no less. What a way to get into the holiday spirit...

Yech.

@Rahul
That is exactly how I feel about Enterprise - it is "comfort food." Not necessarily great, but nourishing in its own way, and generally maintaining a basic competence. Seasons 1 and 2 were lackluster. Apparently Rick Berman implored Paramount to take a year off after Voyager before putting Star Trek back on the air. Enterprise did not even attempt to delve into its mission statement as a "prequel" until it was halfway over - until it was ALMOST cancelled at the end of season 3. The latter half of Season 3 of ENT was the last time I was so hooked on a Trek TV show that I *had* to see each episode as it aired. I appreciated Season 4 more in terms of what it was trying to do, rather than for what it accomplished. The three-parters for the most part failed to stick the landing. The writers, it seemed, were figuring out how to balance fanservice and creating a genuine pre-Kirk universe right up to the last episode (well, the second-to-last one, anyway). The cast was, for the most part, pretty up to the task. I think Scott Bakula gets a bad rap (Futurama, George Takei: "Thanks for ruining the franchise, Bakula!") for having been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

@OmicronThetaDeltaPhi
I do not know if by "you two," you are referring to Rahul and to me, or to Rahul and someone else, but strike the name Booming for yours and we have what I hope is a New Year's resolution for others:

"Another personal feud involving @Omicron. I just looked it up: Omicron has made 1,125 comments on this site. Insults, lecturing others on what to think, why they are wrong, why they are stupid. The only way to not have this person ruin this site for everyone and to leave a tiny bit of air in the room, is to ignore this person. Do not engage. Polite conversation directed at this person incurs this person's wrath. Polite conversation directed at others incurs sarcastic and hateful remarks. When Omicron takes a break for a few days, what actually happens is that other people whose name isn't Booming get a chance to talk."

I will ignore Omicron. I will not mention Omicron directly or indirectly, by name or otherwise. I will no longer talk about Omicron engage in conversation with Omicron, or engage in a thread in which Omicron is a participant.

By frequency and length of comments, Omicron and Booming are the two individuals most responsible for polluting this site with accusations, projecting, hate, presuming to speak for others, sententiousness, tendentiousness, and overall huffing and puffing.

Neither needs to be goaded. Both individuals instigate; both listen with their mouths instead of their ears; and both think other posters should apologize for these posters' speaking while Omicron and Booming are interrupting them.

Nothing's wrong with judging by words; no holiday season is ruined and no shame is properly cast.

2022: The Year The Volume Was Turned Down

@aottrik
"or engage in a thread in which Omicron is a participant."
You wrote the same about me in your very first post and you broke that promise in your second.

Here a few things your new best buddy Rahul wrote during the last 30 days:

"Here you have a black woman humiliating a white man. That's like one of the tenets of DSC. " ; "I remember thinking when Tilly got her team of cadets together that there was 1 white human male among them (presumably heterosexual). He might as well been wearing a TOS-style red shirt. If there was 1 person to get killed, who else on woke DSC would it be??" ; "If a person is born as a heterosexual man one day decides he's going to be a lesbian, are we supposed to support that kind of behavior?" ; "But he was a straight white male playing a straight white male character -- on woke DSC, you can't have a straight white male be anything but evil or eventually killed off."

mhhhhh that's the stuff...

Booming, I have a general rule which you might also find useful:

People need to show an ounce of goodwill and maturity before I give a hoot about their opinions. It doesn't take much and I'm willing to give almost anybody a fair chance, but there needs to be some kind of effort.

So if a random guy comes from nowhere and starts picking fights from his very first post, that's his very own problem. I guess I can get your urge to goad the guy into digging a deeper hole for himself, but please don't do that either. Come on, Booming, have some class.

"Come on, Booming, have some class."
Sorry, I'm fighting for a classless society. :)

In more ways then one, apparently.

@Booming
The phrase "new best buddy" is rather puerile language. You don't know who I am or what I believe. I have been following Jammer's site for over 25 years, as he could attest (not that I would ever ask that; he has a life). I rarely comment. Sometimes I have commented under a different name. I try to make my comments about Star Trek, not about me. I am not a "random guy," and perhaps you and Omicron do not understand that commenting on other people's inability to maintain civility is not the same as incivility.

It seems to me that you, Omicron, and Trent, and others have disagreements over the nature of transgenderism, whether gender is a construct, and other related topics.

I am not versed in any of these subjects. I have no "side." As Data said in "Where Silence Has Lease," Captain, the most elementary and valuable statement in science, the beginning of wisdom, is I do not know." It is unfortunate that you cannot discuss these subject logically and rationally.

Perhaps what Rahul or Omicron has said is indeed offensive (the language Rahul used that you quoted to me sounds nasty and petty, to be dismissed out of hand like a Vulcan schoolgirl's dancing - not something to attempt to refute point by point. Attempts to refute only serve to give the comments a respect the comments have not earned - to put them on the same level of the chessboard. This is like trying to refute the argument of a five-year-old by going into the sandbox and throwing dirt at him or her. What is to be gained? The five-year-old will continue to misbehave and the captive witnesses to each successive sandbox fight will only shake their heads in vain). That does not require that you offer a response registering your disapproval. Leaving no slight, no matter how small, unaddressed, in a public space, is not necessarily the morally superior act you seem to believe it to be. (If Rahul exhibits the same tit-for-tat pettiness toward you, then he is not acting any better.) Some people do not believe in the belief that discretion is the better part of valor, which to me is unfortunate-we aren't getting any younger. If I were to come back from the dead to find an inscription on my tombstone that read, "He may or may not have accomplished anything in life, but one thing he did was that he always responded pettily to every petty argument everyone made against him," I would retch.

I comment on you and Omicron specifically based on the volume and frequency of comments the two of you make (the frequency with which one posts under a given name does not give the speaker any greater or lesser right to speak; it is the quality of one's comments, and not that person's Jammers' Reviews "pedigree," that should count) and also, the degree to which you both instigate. An example of an instigation is: having to have the last word on a subject, waiting days or weeks to re-start a previous argument, and making broad characterizations about the tastes, predilections, and beliefs of individuals who are not parties to your arguments. There are other examples. I would readily offer them to someone whom I believed capable of self-reflection. You and Omicron seem to believe what you have to say is inherently more important than what anyone else has to say - how else to explain belittling someone who tries to get a word in by calling that person "random" and similar such language? If I were to exceed 2,500 posts, would I then have a right to speak? Is that what is required? Strength in shellshocking? Your arguing with Omicron is demonstration of "proof of goodwill and maturity"? Your need to respond to what I said in near-real-time is proof that you are uninterested in what I am saying?

When two people fundamentally disagree on a topic, they can choose to rehash their disagreements for any number of reasons. One side may still hold out hope that he or she can convince the other of the "correctness" of his or her position. The tenor of your comments suggests you do not *really* believe that you will "convince" Rahul that you are "correct." Following the "whatever remains, however improbable" thought tree, if you do not hope to convince, what do you hope to do? Educate? If that is the case, I think you have failed. That does not mean you cannot continue to argue with Rahul over and over again; it is just an inference based on my reading of your exchanges. If you intend to educate people who are not parties to your conversation, perhaps consider the notion that they may not wish to be educated, or that they already agree with you, or that they do not. There is a lot of "presuming to speak for others" on this site. Too many self-anointed morals czarists.

If you do not intend to convince or to educate, there can only be so many other reasons why you argue with others on this topic. Perhaps you do so to declare that you are morally superior to them, or to declare that you are vastly more intelligent to them. If the former, you might ask yourself, how many times must such a declaration be made, at the expense of living life? If the latter, I submit that the need to demonstrate one's being the intellectual king or queen of a group of morons can (and should) only be so satisfying.

Perhaps you just like to argue. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. The forum in which you choose to make your arguments is not a private forum, however. It is public. There are no limitations on who can post on Jammer's site, a far as I know (Jammer has removed certain individuals' comments in the past; this practice, regrettably, does not seem to have raised anyone's level of self-awareness). Other people who wish to express ideas or opinions unrelated to what you wish to discuss have a right to be heard. Some of your writings are so long that others who wish to follow threads not involving you, must spend an insane amount of time scrolling and reading to figure out what is and is not part of your argument, so they can just skip it and move on. You can write what you wish, but with that privilege comes the right of others to express their disapproval of the manner in which you express your comments. If some people have stopped reading this site because they became fed up with the comments section being monopolized by a few individuals, that would be regrettable, given that the purpose of the site is to experience Star Trek fandom in a group setting - something some people actually enjoy doing). This is distinctly not Jammer's responsibility, but I believe ideally that the comment section for each episode should be split into sub-comments - "episode comments," "Star Trek comments," and "non-Trek-related comments." Those who wish to indulge in argument for argument's sake can put their comments in the "non-Trek-related comments" thread, and others will know, based on the name of that thread, that they enter that thread at their own peril. Someone may deliberately mis-classify a comment that properly belongs in the non-Trek thread by putting it into the episode or Star Trek thread; such is life. Over time, though, the right of people who are not you to express themselves could be more easily exercised with such a system.

It is the hiding behind the anonymous walls of the Internet that is most irritating. In true "A Taste of Armageddon" fashion, some people on this site have made war - their war - relatively painless, cloaking themselves in screen name anonymity, not having to actually see what their opponent in an argument looks like or sounds like. A useful rule of thumb for me is that I try to not say anything online to someone that I would not be prepared to say to a person's face. I have precisely zero qualm about making my comments to you while we are in the same room together, looking at each other. I wonder, of the various people on this site, whose statements, if uttered aloud in the company of other posters, would be tolerated, and whose would make one run for the exit, the earplug, or the bathroom.

Nothing I or anyone else can say or do will change your behavior and belief that you are a victim who is constantly besieged by the forces of stupidity and hate (I think the same can be said of Omicron). How many more tens of thousands of words you will write to repeat the assertion is up to you; if others simply ignored you, I suspect the number would decline, and commenting on this site would become enjoyable again, instead of stressful.

I

I don't have the first idea what's happening in this comment section, so I hope I don't disturb by writing an opinion about the actual episode, ok with you guys?

So... First half, I must say, I really liked. Look, an ensemble cast ! Look, a classic sci-fi problem! Look, no pew pew bang bang bang all the time. Nice! So nice in fact that I will overlook that in past times, whenever a newer trek show would do such an obvious rip-off of previous trek plots (very much like this is almost quoting voys the void or tngs remember me), we would tear it to pieces for just that.

That's how low we have sunk, but I will take it. More of the please.

But then, that second half... Oh my... I'm starting to feel trolled. So now even the ship needs a therapist. Or words of encouragement. You can do it, ship! I believe in you!

Combined with a super poor wannabe 2001 clone. Ugh. And of course, at the end, who needs a crew, when we can have burnam. That there's absolutely no reason for her to stay in the bridge (hint, it's burning, you can cuddle the insecure ship computer from the next room too, and God forbid, you could agree with the ship that you stay until it's endangering your life and then go to transport buffer Town like everyone else).

So, who would have thought, burnam single handedly saves the day. By listening to the computer singing a song.

My Amazon echo can do that too btw.

Now, as to the rest of this comment section, maybe jammer should install private hang out rooms so that all these love letters don't clutter up the comment section all the time? Just a thought.

You can do it! I believe in you!

Thanks for mansplaining that one to me, Mosley. Perhaps you would be happier if the women and POC in your life knew our place?

I did not make that comment.

@aottrik
Ok, interesting. So you have used other names in your 25 years here. I only skimmed through your fairly long text and I must say that there is just too much stuff in there I would have to comment on. I will only pick three and leave the rest.

"" Captain, the most elementary and valuable statement in science, the beginning of wisdom, is I do not know.""
The thing is we already know quite a bit about transgenderism and group behavior and while transgenderism is a mild interest of mine, group behavior is one of my areas of expertise. I have read hundreds of scientific studies, written papers and done field research in that area. That makes it somewhat difficult to say I do not know.

"the language Rahul used that you quoted to me sounds nasty and petty, to be dismissed out of hand like a Vulcan schoolgirl's dancing - not something to attempt to refute point by point."
Nobody here refutes Rahul anymore. People just accept his white male genocide(?) or whatever it is narrative. I wasn't aware that you are a long time participant so I thought that I might show you his opinions and then you can make a decision on how to deal with him.

"If you do not intend to convince or to educate, there can only be so many other reasons why you argue with others on this topic."
I try to convince and to educate people, sometimes not the ones I'm addressing but the silent majority who reads it. ST Discovery deals with topics of identity and transgenderism quite frequently, it therefore attracts transphobic individuals. When people write stuff like "all transsexuals are mentally ill" why do you think they do that? Because they hope that they convince others that they are right and what happens if they convince enough? I'm living in a city where the police estimates that there are around 10000 crimes committed against LGBT people per year (victims orgs estimate around 20000). So this is not some theoretical discussion about what negative consequences these opinions might have.

Booming, I am really shocked you work in academia given your attitude to others' ideas - although perhaps I shouldn't be. You come across as obviously infuriated by other people's views and the least likely person to want to explore and play around with ideas in any kind of intellectually honest and serious way. Just above you link thousands of violent crimes to the mere idea that something is a mental illness. What field do you work in? Maybe I am just overestimating academia.

Also, don't you worry about the opportunity cost of flooding a Star Trek site with irrelevant ideological posts that are one sensible policy change by Jammer away from being deleted en masse in some big burn that leaves only Star Trek related content behind? No papers you could be writing perhaps? I don't expect a serious answer to these questions but you never know.

Not sure whether I am replying to Boomer or an impostor now, but either way, I again don't have the slightest idea how that would be what you got out a review of a star trek episode 😄

@mosley
Yeah, there is a Booming imposter on the loose. :D

@tomalak
Phew, I was a little worried when Rahul and his posse attacked and you didn't chime in. Nice to see that you are alright and kicking.

"violent crimes to the mere idea that something is a mental illness"
Yes, how could portraying an oppressed minority as mentally ill lead to violence? It is a mystery.

"What field do you work in?"
mostly political science. Populism and framing research to be precise.

I just love it when a guy barges in here and bombasticly states:

"I will ignore persons X and Y. I will not mention them directly or indirectly, by name or otherwise. I will no longer talk about them, engage in conversation with them, or engage in a thread in which X and Y participate."

And then this same guy proceeds to focus exclusively about persons X and Y.

So predictable. So charmingly immature. Never change, internet. :-)

@Quincy, At first I thought that but you have to admot the way he said it made it seem like the sound was projefted OUTSIDE THE SHIP..After all hiw could the ship and helmswoman follow a sound out of the ship fi the sound doesnt have a trail..if they have an EM songla then whybjave the sound analogy at qll..it extraneous..just convert it to a visible signal the shipa sensors can "see" or not even tjat the the computer can follo2..wouldn't you agree?

@Tomalak

Sat, Jan 1, 2022, 6:23am (UTC -6)
"Booming, I am really shocked you work in academia given your attitude to others' ideas..."


Not going to get into whatever debate this is that's raging, but this gave me a chuckle. Have you met "academia" lately?



@Leif

No, I don't have to admit to something that's blatantly false.

What was very clearly said was:

Bryce: "Basically, we hit the particles with electromagnetic energy at that frequency. Translate the response into an audible ping."
Adira: "And then follow that sound out."

Nothing in there says the audible ping "is projefted OUTSIDE THE SHIP." That's an @$$ pull on your part. Common sense says that if the electromagnetic pulse is being "translated" then it can only be translated INSIDE the ship's computer. There's no apparatus floating outside the ship to do any translating. There's also no people floating outside the ship to project the audible ping towards and it wouldn't be audible in space anyway. We literally hear the ping and then see the people react to the ping. Clearly, the ping is for the people inside the ship and nothing else. That's common f'ing sense. Why should that have to be stated out loud?

If you are following a metal detector, what are you following? The electromagnetic waves coming from the detector or the audible alert coming from the detector? If the metal detector has a virtual assistant named Zora then Zora is translating the electromagnetic waves into audible sounds for YOUR benefit, not it's own. It's already detected the electromagnetic response. Now it's alerting YOU to what it's detected.

No, I don't agree with you at all. The ship doesn't need any conversion whatsoever. Zora's sensors can already "see" the electromagnetic pulse. Yes the ping is extraneous (aside from the fact that it's a easy way of representing to the audience what's going on), just as any visual signal would also be extraneous. The ping was for the people inside the ship. At this point in the season they are still thinking of Zora as a ship's computer that will need to be directed by a human, instead of a fully autonomous individual. Zora is the one who ends up following and executing all the necessary functions without crew input except for momentary moral encouragement from Captain Burnham.

And I know that my spell-checker's junk is clearly bigger than your spell-checker's junk, but for the love of all you hold holy, could you at least TRY to use the mother lover? **Read in Samuel L. Jackson voice**

Filler episode. Pretty rote and unremarkable.

- Aww @ Grey's sad neglected puppy face. The somewhat contrived way they found a use for him will be forgiven if I don't ever have to see that face again.

- The ship's computer is now casually chatting with its civilian passengers, relaying what would likely be private or classified information in Classic Trek. The computer is also not just a computer but also your empathic girl-friend who needs your love and support. I don't know what to say about this except that it's a sign of the times. And times sure have changed.

- For a moment there I thought Book was gonna forcibly plonk Burnham into the transporter buffer and take over sacrificial savior duties for the day.

- So the internal temperature of the ship reached temperatures well above the tolerance of the EVA suit and all their furniture and knickknacks still look completely spotless?

- "Allowing [rage] to be our focus only prevents us from achieving those things which serve the greater good". Well said, Saru.

- OMG enough with the family holo-tree already...

- Have these hour-long episodes felt like they were dragging a bit? I had always wished that some of the best TNG episodes had run a bit longer, whereas DISC often squanders the more flexible durations. 45 minutes feels about right though.

Geez this is a boring episode, 2 stars at most. I’m glad Jammer is finally giving a lower rating to this one, but I hope he relates the last ones downward as well at the end of this nowhere season.

1. This feels like the third or fourth episode in a row that’s confined to a few sets without much special effects or action. Did the producers slash the budget ala TOS season 3? It really feels that way.

2. After the epic constant buildup of the first 2 1/2 seasons, it feels like this show has settled into being a routine retreat of TNG era Trek. More specifically it feels like a mix of TNG style soap opera antics with Voyager style technobabble challenges that are tired plot devices rather than dramatically engaging puzzles. And maybe that would work for season one of a new Trek sequel, but the whiplash here from a sometime-prequel is strong.

3. To paraphrase James Wood from a Clint Eastwood movie 20 years ago, I can’t fart loud enough to express how bored I felt during this episode. Time to cancel this series if it can’t come up with more original stories. I am so tired of seeing the same crap from Star Trek.

*routine retread, not retreat

This was one of the most cringy episodes of tv that I have seen in years. It has gone from a show where the lead cries or is preposterously overemotional at every little thing to having a computer AI being emotional and fragile. The writing on all of these treks have been bad, but it hit a new level of tragically poor writing.

The emotional hand holding in every scene is getting on my nerves. It's a staple of this show, I know, but I had hoped it would have matured by now. They are truly to emulate some version of older Trek where the characters have deep, philosophical conversations, except that in the DISC version it's shallow conversations with an emotionally intense veneer. It rings hollow.

The only person who seems to remain coherent in a professional way is the President of the Federation. Everyone else, despite their high rank and starship experience, seem to be emotionally needy imbeciles. It's very typical of modern script writing though. The woke left think that emotions are reality, so anything that doesn't express every person's emotional state at all times is oppressive.

I personally would like to see less emotionality and more rational explorations. The interpersonal dramas are still coming off as pretty weak. There is nothing transcendent about the conversations, no barriers broken, no heights reached. It's just simpering, cyclical garbage from people who are GALACTIC EXPLORERS (not to mention survived the Burn and time travel) and are supposed to be made of sterner stuff than this.

Please get rid of Gray. Please please please. The most annoying, useless character on the show. Can't stand him/her/it/whatever. Is only there to check a box and nothing else.

0.5 stars from me. This is a season low. Having the Enterprise procreate is one thing, but now the ship needs a counselor too? This is really the dumbest plot and I really think it was to give Gray more to do. Biggest problem with that idea? Gray is a 2-dimensionally written character portrayed by a terrible actor. After he diagnosis the ship, I have expect him to ask it to subscribe to his YouTube channel.

I’d rather watch space lizards.

Wow this comment thread is something else.

About the episode, I watched it this evening. I haven't watched an episode of Discovery since season 1. I had a look at the list of episodes on Paramount+ and this one looked interesting from the synopsis - "Seeking answers, the U.S.S Discovery ventures into a subspace rift created by the 'Dark Matter Anomaly'."

I have not watched any new Trek since the first season of Discovery. This sounded interesting, so I watched it. It's about as neutral a viewer can be, I think.

So here's some observations. Paramount+ warns that the episode contains "strong violence, moderate sexual references and injury details". I don't understand that, I didn't observe any of those.

I found it quite difficult to pay attention to the episode. This is odd, I usually can pay attention to what I am watching. My favourite episodes of Trek tend to be slower ones, bottle episodes, etc.

The holographic "family tree" was weird. Have none of the artists ever actually seen a family tree before? It's shown as a literal tree but of course the branching structure represents the ancestry of an individual. So the person themself is not shown at the tip, but at the trunk. I get that they want to include non-blood relatives, I have that on my own tree, it still doesn't mean that the end result looks like an actual plant.

The dialogue is cringey. "Book" compliments the captain on her holographic creation calling it impressive. How is it impressive? Book then says "we need to jump outside _the_ Federation space" (my emphasis). Did the writer not watch any other Trek past or present? The definite article is not used ever. Really jarring, like watching fan-fic.

Why does the captain refer to the rift as "a crime scene"? Seems really odd. There's also an assertion that the anomaly must have left evidence in the subspace rift about where it came from. I don't see why this is so. If I steal your car, looking at a vacant parking space may yield clues but just as easily it might not.

The references to Voyager and Enterprise didn't feel natural. If they entered a rift and found it was similar to an anomaly that those vessels had charted that would felt more natural. I appreciate that Saru may have investigated reports of similar rifts from other missions but as it turns out the rift is actually unlike anything previously observed, which raises the question how did Saru choose what reports to read? Why pick two from ships known to the viewer but not as far as I am aware to the captain? Just feels like very cheap fan service.

Going into the rift the captain is warned that both the primary drives will be unusable. What does she plan to use to leave the rift? Wouldn't it make more sense to launch a probe into the rift than to risk the ship and crew?

The dialogue feels very stilted and unnatural. There's an emphasis on the crew being in good spirits, I don't know why that is but perhaps they have been through a lot recently. But there's no dialogue to indicate that. Then Saru asserts he believes that they will soon know more about the origin of the dark matter anomaly. But why? A science mission doesn't always result in usable information. But wouldn't you know it, by the end of the episode they do know more. It feels weird, the dialogue is written backwards. Shouldn't they be emphasizing the unknown, the mystery, what they're hoping to find, or speculating on what would be useful data? Instead they simply assert that they will succeed.

The hints about the ships sentience are interesting but haven't we done this to death? TNG had this stuff 30+ years ago, and we had fulsome follow-ups in Voyager. I also don't like the whispery, breathless voice acting for the computer / Zora(?). While Majel Barratt perhaps came across overly robotic at times, her dialogue was crystal clear. I did find it slightly inadvertently amusing that the captain ordered the computer to "carry on": what else was it going to do, go on shore leave?

Once they enter the rift / void there's a lot of time spent establishing that the sensors aren't receiving data but that they are undamaged. I disagree with the assertion that it is scientifically impossible for there to be nothing. Cosmologists tell us that before the big bang there was nothing. Whether they are right is up for debate but why should it be impossible for there to have been nothing in this rift / void? Past tense as they are now in it, their vessel should be emitted some radiation so it would be trivial to establish that the sensors are working still, yet the computer says they aren't receiving input. All a bit confused.

Now they decide to launch a probe. Pity they didn't do that before plunging into an unknown subspace rift. The "dot" probe seems ludicrous, why would a Federation ship design probes that look like this? The screaming is also dumb, it's a probe. Even if the ship is becoming sentient obviously you wouldn't design probes that can be sentient, otherwise you might as well just send out a crew member in a spacesuit.

The ensign is nought for two now by suggesting that the "nothingness" has become toxic. Completely meaningless, if it genuinely is nothing it cannot have properties. Toxic also has a specific meaning, a chemical nature that is harmful to life. It has no meaning for machines. Corrosive might work if they hadn't spent ages establishing that there's nothing there.

This is getting very lengthy so I will just say that I found the anomaly inside the rift very prosaic. It isn't established what it is, but that's fine. Lots of other Trek anomalies of the week are unexplained but they are interesting because of their effects. This one simply exists as an abstract threat. Due to stupidity they don't deploy a navigation beacon immediately upon realising they're in uncharted space without anything to reference, and by the time they realise it is already too late. I found the sonar thing foolish too, the engineer clearly says he will use the frequencies used for sonar which specification means he is using frequencies that do not propagate through space or in a void. It seems like they want to have their cake and eat it, they want a mysterious void that cannot be scanned but through which RF apparently propagates normally.

The ships anxiety and playing a game did nothing for me, I am afraid. The concept did not seem to relate to what was happening with the anomaly. If the game were explained and part of the game was using inductive reasoning or some other leap of logic perhaps it could have been related to the plot by the ship realising that it was stuck in some kind of subspace filament or such, maybe because they were pushing through the barrier and actually just needed to drift through passively or be pulled through by the laws of physics in that other dimension. My point is that they surely could have come up with something a bit more creative than this.

I did like Saru taking command of the bridge crew, and his discussion with Book at the end of the episode but otherwise this episode did very little for me and my attention started wandering.

The anonymity of the internet is the problem. When the reputation of flesh-and-blood is on the line, they usually speak or write differently. When no one knows who you actually are, you can say anything. And the irony is, your bullshit is ultimately lost, like tears in the digital rain.

People

Dirty Dancer, if that was a reply to my comment, I suppose it is too much to hope for some specific refutations of the points I raised as problems, rather than just being dismissed as "bullshit"? Otherwise, I would submit that the purveyor of bullshit is in fact yourself.

Alex, my point is not directed to you. It is directed to the polemical discussion above you.

My apologies. Internet discourse truly has degenerated to a point where bad faith is automatically assumed. I can only apologize for being intemperate.

Not a problem at all, Alex. Cheers.