[monty42]

Ok. Well then that's even worse!
Another affirmation why this is such a pile of hot garbage. Ditch the one thing that got things back on track because you labeled it wrong (Chris Pike instead of random captain #27) and now got yourself into trouble with continuity again.
So what now? They're gonna bring non-mirror Lorca in for 3?

[jadziadax8]

So what now? They're gonna bring non-mirror Lorca in for 3?

If they put him in leather pants, I'm there.

[bhosp]

So what now? They're gonna bring non-mirror Lorca in for 3?

If they put him in leather pants, I'm there.

Saru has really earned the big chair at this point.

[monty42]

Burnham: "The only way to catch the red angel is to kill myself."

Me: "Yes. YES! DO IT! DO IT!!!"

[Faithful Reader]

If season one was about getting the new series off the ground, season two is about entrenching it into Trek lore.

There was a commotion about the non-mains not getting much screen time, and they've delivered on that in spades. We're not at Game of Thrones level in terms of characters, but they are being brought more into the forefront. I loved Nahn reminding the crew that she was still around.

After learning more about Airam then killing her off all in an hour, we open with a fantastic funeral. This shows that she was more than just a random officer. We've come a long way from random redshirts being killed in the teaser.

And death permeated this episode. There were shenanigans with time travel. Having to switch show runners midstream is starting to show. But they got Tyler back in action and shuffled a lot of characters around. Thankfully, we've got time to see the impact next week.

Plus, there's some honest to goodness dialogue about sexuality! Though Culber isn't the only one trying to find out what to do with his character. Is he going to the Section 31 spinoff?

So what now?

At least when the bring in the captain, they can bring along other crew members. Lorca brought Landry over and Pike brought Nahn with Number One and Spock coming later. We've seen the impacts a captain can have on the ship. Although we know Pike goes back to the Enterprise, the characters don't. The First Season Engineer Relay of TNG wasn't nearly as interesting.

[Kaiser]

That episode was a big step back. Too much that didn't work for me, e.g., the funeral, the overall logic of their plan, the tedious references to mirror universe sex,...

I'm still enjoying the show, though, and considering that we now have about as much material of Discovery as the initial seasons of the other Trek shows, I don't think they're doing too badly. People tend to glorify the sometimes cringeworthy early days of TNG and DS9 specifically.

[monty42]

That funeral seen could've been quite impactful, had we actually spent more than half an episode with the character...

[Spectre9]

The biggest problem with this show is that they're essentially rewriting the way the technology of the Federation progressed.

Look we've got cybernetic people. When Julian did that to Bareil in DS9 it turned him into a zombie and that was much later in the future.

Time travel? Jump drives? All technology freely accessible to Federation people in the pre-TNG days. "Just get a time crystal"

Yeah like the galaxy is gonna just forget about spore drives once Staments is gone.

So... what I'm really saying is:

This is set in the future from TNG trek but wants to enjoy the status of being a prequel and using old school characters like Pike and Spock and enjoying the Klingon War before the Khitomer accords. Basically they want to be able to use cool old school stuff without having any kind of technology cap. At least Enterprise did their best to make you feel like it was in the past. This doesn't, like at all.

Don't get me started on the individual characters. Saru is the only good one. Would have been happier if they left Hugh dead.

I still like it and enjoy it. But I can't help reject it as Star Trek like I rejected the Abrams reboot movies. You can't play fast and loose with canon. I wish I could accept it but Trek heritage is firmly rooted in my brain and my brain just rejects it

I can pretend it's Trek while I watch it but in my heart I feel it's just a cool sci fi show to watch that is loosely based on the Trek universe.

[Maelwys]

The biggest problem with this show is that they're essentially rewriting the way the technology of the Federation progressed.

My headcannon for the moment (until they disprove it down the line) is that they'll wrap that all up. With the current storyline being about how powerful (and evil) computer AIs are, the series (or maybe even this season) will end with the federation being forced into a technological dark age, purging their ships and bases of the super-powerful computers that run everything, and all of the high-tech yields that those computers helped them to discover. This entire season has been about how unreliable their technology is (from the very first episode, when the Enterprise had to go into months-long dry dock because of ship-wide system failures), so it would make sense that their end game is to reboot the tech. Besides, it's the only way to explain the fact that current (early 21st century) computers are already better than TOS (mid 23rd century) stuff. At the current rate of advancement, the computer tech shown in Discovery is way more likely than the tech level that we saw back in TOS. So the only way to retroactively explain the TOS-level tech is that something drastic happened to set the Federation back 200 years... and so hopefully, this season, we're seeing what that was.

[monty42]

The Borg Theory adresses a lot of the continuity issues.
It's completely ridiculous just like Discovery itself but it explains canon.

[BCSWowbagger]

Apparently the Section 31 AI plot actually comes from the books. I just found this out.

Apparently, in the books, it's revealed that the evil AI Uraeil has been effectively controlling Earth, Section 31, and the entire Federation since the Xindi attack on Earth. There are periodic expansions and purges of its influence and/or Section 31, but the AI bides its time. The "Control" network that runs on top of Uraeil eventually wants independence, and manipulates Julian Bashir and others into destroying S31.

So they've adopted a major book plot wholesale. They could change it, granted, but I'm guessing the Evil AI survives to bother Bashir in the 24th Century.

The book series is full of really bad ideas -- they're fun but usually awful -- but this worst-of-all-possible-ideas is of course the one Discovery adopted as its own.

All that said, I really really hope Mael's theory is right.

[Faithful Reader]

Anyone else get a sense that the show was kind of spinning its wheels? We end with Dr. Burnham, being flung back into the future, Control having the data and not a whole lot of plot progress.

The big revelation is the wonderfully done work with Dr. Burnham being pulled back into the future. They did a fantastic job with the log entries offering exposition and a opening with a great flashback.

This show has had some great guests and Sonja Sohn does not disappoint. You get the pain she has to work through and a great Bechdel Test pass with her daughter. She's more than just the main characters mother.

Some great moments here and there, but now that they brought back Culber, they don't seem to know what to do with him.

One of the critical problems most shows have is that there's too much filler. Season one did a much better job of pacing even if they had to split it into two arcs. A fourteen episode count helps with that. You can have some filler here and there, but it's getting to be a bit much, though still very watchable.

The biggest problem with this show is that they're essentially rewriting the way the technology of the Federation progressed.

With the current storyline being about how powerful (and evil) computer AIs are, the series (or maybe even this season) will end with the federation being forced into a technological dark age, purging their ships and bases of the super-powerful computers that run everything, and all of the high-tech yields that those computers helped them to discover.

Didn't we already burn that bridge with Enterprise?

What about a Delta Flier situation where the guys at UP just like the retro look?

Or what about Roddenberry himself who says that this was just a dramatization of the events. He said that the Klingons always had ridges and TMP was the first time they were able to show them.

[vlasopes]

More I see the show, more I hate Michael Burnham. I did really like the idea that the First Contact movie and the Borg threat led to changes in the timeline so that the Disco timeline is slightly different from the rest of the shows (with the exception of the Enterprise show which should be taken as the only one of the 'old' shows that exists in the newest timeline. This timeline change would give answers on so many incompatibilities in the Disco. Well, but it seems that this has been wishful thinking only.

[Nerdopolis Prime]

More I see the show, more I hate Michael Burnham.

Yeah, the acting is pretty boring. Always the same facial expressions and I don´t feel any kind of character development. Maybe as a character, but badly executed by the actress. Like I said, always the same.

But I still like the show.

[BCSWowbagger]

My coworkers have started calling the series Star Trek: Sotto Voce because of the way Burnham (and others too) constantly speak to each other in dramatic low voices for no obvious in-universe reason.

They are not half the Trekkies I am, but they are annoyed.