While having Burnham as a prisoner may seem problematic, and maybe it still is, I do find it interesting with the context of the whole season and the context of the political time the show exists inside that the show is flipping the standard expectation of the Captain as the hero and the prisoner as the villain and making the opposite true. Inviting us to empathize with those behind bars and to realize that those in power are not always the good ones. Granted that message may not fully come through until the later revelations with Lorca.
Love the way that Tilly in this episode makes such big point of apologising to Burnham for how she treated her earlier in the episode, reiterating that "no it's not okay". Tilly still holds onto that spark of idealism even when everyone around her becomes jaded by the war and when peer pressure makes her slip into that kind of mindset she makes sure to correct herself.
This episode really gave me TNG Genesis vibes; the Cronenberged bodies on the Glenn were the most disgusting practical effects on Trek since spider Barclay and the Tardigrade scenes were as intense and scary as crab Worf.
I've been rewatching it with you and for me the uncomfortable atmosphere on the ship isn't just from the fact that three's a war going on, but also that this is a Starfleet crew that's been under the command of an authoritarian mirror-universe captain. They don't know he's from the mirror universe, but they can sense that something is off and this puts everyone on edge and makes otherwise kind people like Stammets act harsh and rude.
I did a rewatch a few months ago and I am happy to see someone putting my thoughts about it into words. I think especially this episode was so great at shaking the Trek world in its fundaments, while showing "yes, this is Star Trek too."
Watching this episode, I thought it was a great beginning to a season that would explore what it meant for Starfleet & the Federation to have their principles questioned (and even subverted) from within for the sake of victory - a sort of Win Now, Have Principles Later situation. The fact that Lorca was from the Mirror Universe just kinda swept all that away with a convenient "Oh he was an outside influence, Starfleet won't have these kinds of problems until Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country."
Lorca was a great Captain... until he wasn't. He inspired and empowered those under his command, and it says *a lot* (especially given his backstory) that he made a Kelpien his XO. I *hated* the reveal that he was using everyone and _even more_ that his character had romantic feelings for Burnham (though I feel like Jason Isaacs got that note and said, "Nope, not gonna do it. That's skeevy as 💩"). Ultimately, I think an arc that explored the lure of a charming and *effective* authoritarian figure where the crew had to, on their own, realize that they could no longer follow a man who had done so much to inspire them, would have been far more compelling than just having Lorca turn into a cartoonish villain at the drop of a hat.
Yeah, Lorca is a frustrating character. He was significantly more interesting when we just thought he was a morally compromised starfleet captain. Especially since he was the kind of guy you could easily find yourself liking in that way that people worship military generals and "hard men". But no, he's just hardwired to be bad and you don't have to worry about it.
I didn't think Lorca's reveal as being from the Mirror Universe undermined the theme of Starfleet being ever more willing to sacrifice its principles for victory as much as others have due to the fact that the Admiralty was quite willing to allow Lorca's morally compromising acts. Lorca keeps showing subtle to not so subtle fascist and warmongering tendencies and the Admiralty seems to at best give a minor scolding or let him off the hook for something because he brought them the victories they desperately wanted.
Star Trek Merchandise is severely lacking, I very much agree there, always. Star Trek (or Paramount) needs to hire a team of people to come up with merchandise ideas. I'll gladly be part of that, mainly because I want desperately to move on from just pumping TOS for merchandise products, there are several other series to pump from.
I love the little touch of Lorca's first line being "no matter how far out in space you are, I always feel like you can see home." hinting at just how far away his home may actually is and what his actual goal may be.
What I wrote at the time: If you like DS9 episodes The Adversary and Empok Nor, and you like the ENT episode Impulse, then you'll like Context is for Kings. I kind of liked the pop culture references, particularly the book that was read to Michael Burnham as a child. It's the perfect choice to show the limits to logic. The characters are mysterious, edgy, and hang by their fingernails on the precipice of Roddenberry's idea of humanity of the 23rd century. There's a delicious tension that makes me desperate to see how this show threads that needle of Trekkian optimism. I can't wait to find out why the Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry!
i just heard that you'll be doing voice work on the audiobook version of 'we have engaged the borg'..i am so happy for you and excited to hear it when it comes out..congratulations.. peace always..rocky
Another fantastic analysis Jessie! You really capture an aspect I love from Disco (and evidently Trek-bros hated) is how the characters grow. Since I came to the series so much later I missed out on a lot of disparaging thoughts on Disco (minus a coworker I had who only barely hide his racist and misogynistic thoughts on the show and in general). But what I love is how the Disco characters grow, the relationship between Saru and Burnham is my favorite as their bond slowly grows to the point the series made me cry and believe that they had grow to platonically love each other when Saru thought he’d die. I just love the characters in Disco and that should be credited to so many, especially the actors and writers. Anyways I can’t wait to see your next analysis! 💜🖖
Man I just really wish they ejected all the Mirror Universe stuff especially with Lorca because he plays so much better in this half of the season when we view him as this "ends justifies the means" officer that is traumatized by his past failures that influence his actions. We've seen officers like this in one-off episodes like Maxwell in "The Wounded" or Eddington in DS9, but never as part of the main cast so it would've been so much more interesting seeing a character like that go through a journey of "recovering" from that mindset to someone who could live again in a egalitarian Federation again.
I think Lorca would have been better if he'd been some sort of Section 31 Augment who was in charge to make sure the Klingons were defeated. Except they got his eyes wrong and that's why he needs low light.
I didn't watch Discovery until the fourth season finished and was disappointed that Ripper was barely in the show. The tardigrade was in so many memes that I thought it was a continuing thing and practically the series mascot. Also I was super excited to see Rekha Sharma. Finally Trek was getting a South Asian character... oh. Oh, hey then we get Rachael Ancheril. Er, she was conveniently written out because she would have been the perfect first officer for Saru and that meant she was in the way of Tilly. Can't have that. Hey, SNW has a descendant of Khan, maybe now - nope. It's pretty discouraging when a friend of Indian descent said she wanted to get into Trek because I'm a fan but the franchise doesn't seem inclusive to an entire group of people. Er, didn't mean to go in that direction. It was a good episode and really set the tone for Disco s1, which is a lot better than people give it credit for. Hope we see Ripper again.
Realizing that Black Alert was not a signal for a weapon but activation of the spore drive to teleport disco was a big mindblow for me. Then I thought, where the hell is sporedrive in TNG and beyond?
@@localhearthian2387 I was just looking back at what i thought at the time. we already know that Stamets is able to use himself an alternate to the tardigrade by incorporating its DNA, and also that disco was launched to 900 years into the future so Control will not get its "hands" on the sphere data.
@@BaldAndCurious Yeah, my take is the explanation we get is because the ship was sent 900 years into the future, with it went all of Stamets research into the spore drive technology. That and everyone who didn't go to the future was sworn to secrecy and disavowed all knowledge of it or its crew. It's not an air-tight explanation, but it's not the worst explanation, either.
The in-show explanation is that everything about the Spore Drive was deleted or kept secret because Control (which doesn't really make sense). My headcanon is that without Stamets, the idea was simply unworkable.
I just love the first time Burnham goes into Lorca's quarters/ready room and the lights are so low. I instantly knew that either Lorca or someone else on the bridge crew was from the mirror universe. Why put that obvious give-away in there otherwise right? As for the episode overall, I've always liked Discovery. As a lifelong Trekkie, I've liked and enjoyed nearly all Trek (I had to come around a bit with Voyager and especially the newer animated shows) so of course I liked Discovery right off the bat. Yes, it was "darker" and different but I understood what the writers were going for - which you touch on several times in the video. It works so well, but SO MANY people just wrote it off before it even aired as "woke" and "SJW" crap etc. Because of course they did. And yes, that speech Lorca gives Burnham at the end was terrific, and especially terrific knowing what and where his character is actually from lol
honestly knowing that this was the first episode at one point really does contextualize it a lot more for me. I do have to give some credit to Star Trek Online here, sure they're not the best writers out there but their Landry content really did turn her from a random goon into a proper character (even if they did the Bury Your Gays tropes in the process).
my favorite thing about this episode is the title. a lot of modern trek episodes have titles that dont quite feel right. this episode has a title that fits perfectly with old trek. that provocative, twilight zone-esque contextless line of poetry that was all over the TOS title cards. i just really enjoy this episodes title and how it relates to the story told. you can tell from this episode (and just its title) that they were actually trying to still BE star trek
Thanks for this review, Jesse. After your review of the pilot I also set out to re-watch the series, which I had been thinking of doing, but not gotten to. Yes, this one does seem more like a propper pilot, amazing that the hero ship/ name of the show didn't appear until episode 3. I'd forgotten how much mystery they had imbuded into this episode. Why are these people acting SO out of character for Starfleet personel from what we had seen on other series? I think if the 1st 2 episodes had been cut up and used as flashbacks scattered throughout the 1st season, it would have been much more confusing trying to resolve what and why Burnam committed mutany. I get the feeling from the scenes with Saru, that the writers hadn't worked out EXACTLY what happened until they fleashed out the 2 part pilot. BTW, I got so impatient waiting for this review I'm currently on episode 5. LOL
You are great. This channel is awesome. Trying to redeem Discovery is a waste of your time and talents. Everything on this show relating to LGBTQ was contrived, forced, and unnecessarily tragic. DIS was very underwhelming from a lifelong, gay Trek fan.
I don't know if you play Star Trek Fleet Command. But they brought in Enterprise characters to the game and i thought about you. I know you love the show. One thing I have to tell you. They had a trivia for rewards for the game. One of the questions was, "What was Trip's real name?" The game got it wrong. They said it was Carl....😵💫
I had the impression that everyone watching was so clear that Burnham was a hero for trying to make a pre-emptive attack on the Kingon psychopaths and that her incarceration was completely wrong that her redemption would be considered by most of us to be completely expected and very overdue. The worst episode was 'Will You Take My Hand' in which many of us were denied our needed catharsis that the destruction of Chronos would provide.
I agree with all of this, AND I'm so glad to get to watch this since I FINALLY got to watch Discovery last year! I started watching Picard S2 today after finishing Echo (the middle of the last episode made me cry so hard for reasons that probably wouldn't apply to most people, but I really love it for so many reasons, and Alaqua Cox is amazing).
Thank you for this video, Ms. Jessie. It's making me appreciate Discovery a little more. Maybe I will go back and do a rewatch, but starting with episode 3, just to see what happens. 😃
LOVE the shirt! When I first saw them jogging around the ship I thought "I need that shirt" but didn't find it for the first few months after the ep dropped, so I stopped looking.
I really loved this episode on my first watch. The pilot I didn’t love as much, mostly around the Klingon stuff, but the suspense here was fantastic. The baseline dread was unlike anything else I’d seen, and it convinced me that I really wanted to keep watching.
Interesting review, Jessie! I have a problem with Discovery, even though I do like the series. It's the changing narrative of the series from season to season. It's one thing one season, then it's changed to another thing in the next season.
It interesting that the pilot was shot later. I agree about the disconnect. It made me think that Context is for Kings should have been the start point and the pilot episodes should have been intercut as flashbacks. Naturally, that can fail, if not done well, but I think they could have enhanced each other as the there is some mystery to Michael coming in as a mutineer, where we don't know, or wouldn't know exactly what happened. The tone stuff, you highlight with the prisoners and the Landry's attitude is off putting. I guess I get your point about Star Fleet having a harder edge because of the war. It just makes me wonder. Because, that makes perfect sense today, where most people would react that way. But, we haven't benefitted from generations of living in the society of Star Treks Earth. Meaning, I think people in this context are more resilient. So, it could still happen, that the war wore down the resolve of ST officers, making them more edgy. But, it would at least be recognized as outside the norm. I also agree, the early episodes do work better than I remember. Same will Tilly, and she does just get more goofy, later. It works sometimes, and others, it gets to the point I wonder what they are thinking. I do actually appreciate the Alice in Wonder land allegory, more now. It didn't come off as well on my first viewing, striking me as something more infantilizing of the characters. More digs at Picard S3. I won't deny it is nostalgic, but the most egregious is in the first episode. From there on I feel like it was used to better effect. Though, Moriarty appearing was useless. The tardigrade plushy probably couldn't happen due to the lawsuit over the IP. That whole debacle of the idea being stolen from a game and I think some writing of other creators. I don't remember where all that went, but the tardigrade never appears again, after its arc is completed. I agree with what you said about the spore drive, but it is sad that is largely is only used for such mundane things like the war. Very little actual exploration and discovery is done with the unique drive. Lorca, does play them like a fiddle though. Good review. I feel like I enjoyed season 1 more than I did on my first and second viewing. Season, two, has the highlights of Pike, Spock and Number One, but, its is where things start to go off more off the rails, in my opinion. Keep up the good work. Cheers.
A super silly point I want to pull out here: Star Trek episode titles have always tended to be a bit pretentious and often nonsensical; but nothing else in the franchise comes close to early Discovery for terrible episode titles and "Context is for Kings" is nowhere near the worst the series would get, but it's a sign of things to come.
The problem with the take on “Starfleet has to be better than all this violence and war” is that the blind naïveté of Starfleet is precisely what caused the war with the Klingons to begin with. Burnham was right to advise her captain that the Klingons needed to see strength, something that the writers explicitly show when they showcase Tkuvma’s “Remain Klingon” rhetoric. And then later this season, peace with the Klingons doesn’t come from some philosophical argument, but from holding Quonos hostage with a massive bomb at the center of the planet. Burnham made the right choice, but the series pretends like the real character arc was learning tolerance and forgiveness. Which just isn’t the case for anyone (except Mirror Georgiou, who got an amazing send-off in my favorite episode of the whole show).
New favourite word: “flanderization.” ❤️ Finally I get on board Discovery! I’m so totally hooked! 🌟 Definitely new and exciting. Yes it’s “dark.” But it’s still optimistic. There are still huge challenges but we will overcome if we stay true to ourselves as Burnham does. And I believe even TOS or TNG were “dark” too, it’s just that it didn’t feel it because of the bright décor and lighting. TOS and TNG didn’t/couldn’t show what now we can see, both visually and narratively. Love Saru. I probably identify with him the most. Tilly would be my best friend too (though we should not be roommates!). Isaac’s Lorca is interesting but he is unfortunately from the mumble and grunt school of acting. Rather difficult for someone like me who is autistic and hard of hearing. It’s not bad it’s just a pity… Landry is gratuitously insulting, so I think it’s over the top. But it’s ironic (disingenuous actually) that the show was criticized for this behaviour by outrage merchants. Haters really should get jobs in movie houses: they’re experts in projection. 😜
Fearing giving SMG anything actually substantive with her role as a prisoner and pariah status is one of the failures of DISCO. She was fantastic as a science officer and commander but they made her a captain because they wanted her to be like the other captains. Which undermined her character arc.
All I really remember is not liking the purple Klingons. I also felt that characters in Star Trek using the word "fu(#!ng" in excitement was out of place and unnecessary.
One minor change from Season 1 to Season 2 that I hate is the Black Alert. IDK, I like how it's not just the alarm sound effect, but also the computer saying "Black Alert!" it's cool. But in Season 2, it's just the alarm, but no voice over. IDK, it makes no difference, but I don't like the change, it feels off without hearing the computer saying "Black Alert".
One of my favorite Trek quotes is in this episode(aside from Q's end speech in TNG, or his "obtuse piece of flotsam" insult) and that is "universal law is for lackeys, but context is for kings". I consider the first 2 episodes and this to be a full prelude to the Discovery story. As I said last week, given the cynicism of the later parts of the Berman era(late ds9 and season 3 of ENT), and the post 9/11 reaction in the Kelvin films, hope in the future has been....diminished. And I feel the tonal shift reflects that attitude(to say NOTHING of the discourse in 2016). First time I saw Issacs in film was in 1998's Armageddon(he played a NASA scientist). Next film I saw him in was The Patriot, where he played a British Colonel. Every time I see him as a villian he ALWAYS kills it. Speaking of Lorca, I don't think it comes out of left field. Within the last number of months, I've been doing a chronological watch through. I may be off base but rewatching Mirror Mirror, the ISS Enterprise, seemed darker. And given that ds9 was the main Mirror Universe provider up until Enterprises for the season I have a feeling that the inherent Darkness within that show made it so that it was somewhat subconscious whenever they made the switch over to the prime universe( in fact if my memory serves me correctly aside from the away team in Mirror Mirror the only other people who have crossed over was smiley, the Mirror Bariel, Jennifer and I think there was one more in the emperor's new cloak). Every other moment of convergence has been people from our side Crossing into the Mirror Universe.
Some of us were reluctant about a new Trek after the movie reboots and we're drawn in by Jason Isaacs and Michelle Yeoh were pretty disappointed. Lol. It was like, the producers didn't get what they had? 🤷♀️
Didn't think of this until I was watching this review, but is it possible Saru was brought to Discovery by Lorca because his species are a delicacy in the mirror universe?
i'm sure it's been discussed plenty, but it's so funny that S31, which is this secret org has black badges that anybody could obviously identify as being different from every other badge? "hey why's yours black like that?" "NO REASON." Maybe a nice effects touch would be when an agent went "in the field" it would go dark.
I think it’s kinda sad how Discovery optimistically assumed some fans trusted them to explain the seeming canon gaff of the spore drive in time and just got met with complaints. It’s hyper experimental starfleet technology, this shit gets written out all the time. Phase-cloak, Genesis, Transwarp, transwarp again. The list goes on
First and foremost, we must say "Hello" to Jason Isaacs (perhaps only the British movie fans get that). He his a brilliant actor, and a nice bloke apparently. It would have been good if they turned his photophobia into something about Charon's big glowing energy thing to tie things together. Everyone wants a moopsy, until the moopsy sniffs your bones. (I'm not a plushy fan, but I would love a big cuddable moopsy, I would call him George and hug him and pet him and squeeze him). I haven't rewatched Discovery since it launched, I remember enjoying it at the time (I have a thing called SDAM recalling emotional states is hard). I remember we thought it might be a bit problematic (kill your gays etc), and had a darker feeling than what I want from Trek (shush DS9, we know you were dark, but TV dark, not real dark), but I enjoyed the journey.
I often find that good dudes play great villains, so it's nice to know Jason Isaacs is a good guy. I love seeing him in anything tbh, like how once he showed up in Death of Stalin he basically stole the whole movie, his screen presence was so huge.
By the time we learned the Captain's true origin, the show lost me with the dark themes and not-Starfleet of it all. In hindsight, the twist makes sense, but as a fan in the moment, this episode (plus the nerve pinch from e1) lost my interest.
Hm, I didn't see any muderous tardigrades at all. 😬I did see a tardigrade who killed its enslavers who were imprisoning and torturing it, and using it as a piece of tech, on Lorca's USS DiscOmelas... (I could improve that pun, if I could just remember the name of the Samuel Delany story where FTL depends on enslaved sentients used as tech. Maybe Babel-17?) In less hot-button news: Thanks for doing this catch-up series! I just rewatched Disco, to bide my time & reassess, and it's nice having more to chew on while we await Season 5's reveal that Una (Mystique) and Destiny (possibly Pelia) are behind everything. And why they've spent hundreds of years making sure Ni'Var happens. (PS For proof, see Star Trek VI and Immortal X-Men #8, then Una & Pike in Disco and SNW. For foreshadowing, see the photograph of Destiny in "Elementary, Dear Data".)
I do agree with the decision to tone down the violence and swearing after season 1. While yes, part of me would love a "prestige TV" style Trek show with all the sex and sexuality that would come with it, I also feel like Trek should always be the kind of show you can watch with your kids lol. Trek should by default be enjoyable by all ages, and I think the decision to cut back on some of the more adult elements was smart.
I actually didn't mind Burnham, the black woman, being brought forwards as a character "in chains" at the start specifically because we were given the current pilot of seeing her exceptional originating service. I realize it may feel a bit "oof" to our current day, but more than that I do feel like it leans into something Star Trek likes to do... take a current issue, and not just talk about it but show the most optimistic possible outcome... and from all the hate Burnham received, I have no doubt that we achieved that bc only well-done and humanized woman leads draw this much controversy
Not to be a lore "gotcha" kinda person, but I kinda assumed the bizzare prisoner stuff in this episode was a call back to how TOS was also a bit more, uh, punitive in its prison system. As far as I recall. This could also be heavily influenced by Khan being left on a moon.
Yeah, people get mad at Discovery characters for sometimes being acerbic or the Federation having primitive-seeming laws, but they should go back and watch TOS and see how people were in that show. Sure, Kirk is a cool dude but if a crewmember crossed him, he'd not be afraid to raise his voice and put them in their place.
Cuz u r doing these, I'm rewatching, too Almost gave up cuz the Klingon stuff is off-putting, mostly cuz reading all those captions while vision impaired is more homework than entertainment. ♥️🍉💯🕊️💪🏾🔥🖖🏽
Sorry, but they did give a specific reference to events during the Battle of the Binaries... they revealed the name of that battle to Burnham who didn't know it. They also gave specific reference to the loss of the Europa and the number of Star Fleet personnel who had been lost so far.
My apologies for commenting before watching the whole video. I'm not African-American, so I get that my opinion doesn't mean much here, but the first Black woman starship captain in Star Trek started the series as an improsoned felon. Did NO ONE consider the optics of that? I mean, what the actual [bad word]. Having said that, I love modern Star Trek. The worst thing about old Star Trek is that the subtext is no longer referencing things in the headline of current newspapers. The subtext is so outdated that it's actual work to piece together what the subtext is even commenting on, and this has the effect of making those older Star Trek episodes feel a bit stale. Looking back, I now realize that this is why I loved the TNG-era Star Trek shows, but never cared for the Original Series. By the time I saw TOS in reruns, I was a child in the 1970s, and I had very little idea what was in the headlines of newspapers in the 1960s other than the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War (so I did understand some of the subtext, but not enough for it to be interesting). When TNG, DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise hit, everything felt fresh and new because the subtext was about things going on in the world at the time. Now, we have reached the point where those TNG-era shows feel stale and no longer relevant, just like TOS felt to me in the 1970s-80s. Whatever warts the modern Star Trek shows have, it once again feels fresh and relevant, and I love the new Star Trek shows for that. On top of that, the characters are all excellent with distinct personalities. I cannot get enough of all of them.
Personally l, as I commented in the previous retro review, I think this episode with certain scenes used in the pilot episodes as flashbacks, would have worked well as a pilot. The "everybody hates everyone" criticism I never got, but if we view the episode (as we do) through Burnham's perspective and temporarily forget what we know of her from the pilot, and only go by what's said of her in this episode - Michael is a mutineer responsible for the war with the Klingons. Everyone of the discovery says so. So why should they be nice to her? It's not that everyone hates everyone, it's more that everyone hates Michael, and it's reflective ve in her conversations with saru, stamits and Tilly. Saru, as mentioned, starts out cold but at least tried to build a bridge whilst admiring that he thinks that she's dangerous. Stamits is an ass, yet you can see why he's an ass to Michael during his speech about physics as biology - he referees to the war as "you war" addressing Michael, reiterating the belief that had Michael not started this war his research would not have been co opted for military uses (a thematic link to wrath of kahn and Michael's fear that Starfleet would coop genesis as a weapon). Tilly, meeting Michael for the first time is cheery and smiley, and it's only when she finds out who Michael is that she moves away and moves into the "everyone hates" camp (only to come back by episodes end). Also, part of me wonders if Lorca (before the big mirror darkly reveal) was originally written to be Captain Garth from the TOS episode "Whom God's Destroy" before someone else came into thenwriters room and said "booking. Do you know what the kids really love nowadays - evil versions of characters".
I will say you've sort of ruined Discovery for me now that I know that originally first two episodes were meant to be told in flashback, because now I feel like that would have been such a better way to go overall. Sure, you'd have missed out on some character development and those episodes are good, but having the show start here would have had much greater impact and helped make Michael a more sympathetic character right off the bat. Because no, she didn't start the Klingon war and her mutiny is an overstatement of harm to what she actually did, but even when you've seen it, later on when everyone is telling her (and therefore, the audience) that she did these things, it causes you to misremember and think maybe she did those things, too. On my rewatch I made just a couple weeks ago, I was paying extra attention and even took notes so I'd remember perfectly the things that she did and whether her actions really were so bad, and no. They weren't. She didn't start the war and while she did mutiny, she did also get something of a pardon, but no one knows that because Georgiou died on the Klingon ship. (btw, no you didn't ruin Discovery for me, that's hyperbole, I just mean this is something I didn't realize and now I'll never not notice it and it's kind of a bummer).
I think the change in the way prisoners are presented is because of the times we live in. Today's progressive writers might be far more woke on plenty of topics but are often also much more reactionary. It feels like less people today believe in restorative justice than they used to. For example, TNG episode The Neutral Zone, Data and Worf wake up people from the past who were frozen or whatever. Well one of them is this rich white guy who is constantly being an entitled prat and nearly causes several issues. But in the end there is this heartfelt scene with him and Picard. He is a selfish dick, but he is shown patience and compassion. I can picture that same scene in Disco ends with somebody sucker punching him and knocking him out cold on the bridge of the ship, if not worse. And I don't mean Lorca, I mean "the good guys" would even do that.
Yeah, it's weird how Section 31 soldiers are on Discovery in this episode implying some connection between Discovery and Section 31, but then that's basically removed from canon going forward. For real, the weird thing about Discovery is how much you can tell in that first season they were trying to figure out on the fly what the show was even about. Which for the record, I don't necessarily have a problem with, TNG had similar growing pains. Most Trek shows go through this. I think Discovery gets there within just a few episodes of this season.
The main problem that broke Disco for me was Micheal Burnam. I felt like a force feed christmas Goose. For the love of love itself, show me Someone else. Anyone. I remember it like a drowning person remembers fresh air when two persons where on screen without Burnam anywhere in sight. Side note. Never thought that Sisko not being a cpt. could be a hatching their bets moment of the show runners. I just liked that it was not just another cpt. and it feelt like World building for me("Of course a remote Space Station does not need a Cpt. I mean they have Comanders for that, or?")
@@T.E.S.S. Yeah, as i said, that broke the show for me. Micheal is ok in small portions, but not that. I mean i love worf, but if every plotpoint for a season would revolve around him, i would be sick of him too.
I wouldn't say the Federation treats its prisoners kindly in other Star Trek shows, i'd even argue it's the point where Star Trek feels more dystopian. Tom Paris at the begin of voy should never have been in that prison in the first place, he might have even been doing forced labor there. Also look at the brigs on the ships and stations. People get detained there all the time with no privacy, the lights being on all the time, not having a restroom anywhere near. That is literal torture, even by todays standards. Tom Paris in the brig on Voyager is an especially inhumane situation where, he again never should have been in the brig in the first place. Also commanding officers seemingly being able to throw people into the brig for weeks doesn't shine much good light on it either. So i'd say Discovery was very in line with the rest of Star Trek.
While having Burnham as a prisoner may seem problematic, and maybe it still is, I do find it interesting with the context of the whole season and the context of the political time the show exists inside that the show is flipping the standard expectation of the Captain as the hero and the prisoner as the villain and making the opposite true. Inviting us to empathize with those behind bars and to realize that those in power are not always the good ones. Granted that message may not fully come through until the later revelations with Lorca.
Context is key. From the tardigrade's perspective, it's just having a weird day
"Universal law is for lackeys, Context is for kings"
@bemasaberwyn55 top of the food chain is for Tardigrades
😅
Love it!
Love the way that Tilly in this episode makes such big point of apologising to Burnham for how she treated her earlier in the episode, reiterating that "no it's not okay". Tilly still holds onto that spark of idealism even when everyone around her becomes jaded by the war and when peer pressure makes her slip into that kind of mindset she makes sure to correct herself.
This episode really gave me TNG Genesis vibes; the Cronenberged bodies on the Glenn were the most disgusting practical effects on Trek since spider Barclay and the Tardigrade scenes were as intense and scary as crab Worf.
Or the body horror effects in Conspiracy. Truly, TNG has some body horror.
Cronenberg you say? I love how Disco got him for a recurring guest role starting in season three.
Whaaaaaaaaat!!!!?!
I looked up who he was, and that character is weird and amazing! @@smwillia
I've been rewatching it with you and for me the uncomfortable atmosphere on the ship isn't just from the fact that three's a war going on, but also that this is a Starfleet crew that's been under the command of an authoritarian mirror-universe captain. They don't know he's from the mirror universe, but they can sense that something is off and this puts everyone on edge and makes otherwise kind people like Stammets act harsh and rude.
I did a rewatch a few months ago and I am happy to see someone putting my thoughts about it into words. I think especially this episode was so great at shaking the Trek world in its fundaments, while showing "yes, this is Star Trek too."
Watching this episode, I thought it was a great beginning to a season that would explore what it meant for Starfleet & the Federation to have their principles questioned (and even subverted) from within for the sake of victory - a sort of Win Now, Have Principles Later situation. The fact that Lorca was from the Mirror Universe just kinda swept all that away with a convenient "Oh he was an outside influence, Starfleet won't have these kinds of problems until Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country."
Lorca was a great Captain... until he wasn't. He inspired and empowered those under his command, and it says *a lot* (especially given his backstory) that he made a Kelpien his XO.
I *hated* the reveal that he was using everyone and _even more_ that his character had romantic feelings for Burnham (though I feel like Jason Isaacs got that note and said, "Nope, not gonna do it. That's skeevy as 💩").
Ultimately, I think an arc that explored the lure of a charming and *effective* authoritarian figure where the crew had to, on their own, realize that they could no longer follow a man who had done so much to inspire them, would have been far more compelling than just having Lorca turn into a cartoonish villain at the drop of a hat.
Yeah, Lorca is a frustrating character. He was significantly more interesting when we just thought he was a morally compromised starfleet captain. Especially since he was the kind of guy you could easily find yourself liking in that way that people worship military generals and "hard men". But no, he's just hardwired to be bad and you don't have to worry about it.
I didn't think Lorca's reveal as being from the Mirror Universe undermined the theme of Starfleet being ever more willing to sacrifice its principles for victory as much as others have due to the fact that the Admiralty was quite willing to allow Lorca's morally compromising acts. Lorca keeps showing subtle to not so subtle fascist and warmongering tendencies and the Admiralty seems to at best give a minor scolding or let him off the hook for something because he brought them the victories they desperately wanted.
@@NXPhoenix3 agree, Discovery already felt unique and kind of fitting for his character to get in
Star Trek Merchandise is severely lacking, I very much agree there, always. Star Trek (or Paramount) needs to hire a team of people to come up with merchandise ideas. I'll gladly be part of that, mainly because I want desperately to move on from just pumping TOS for merchandise products, there are several other series to pump from.
I love the little touch of Lorca's first line being "no matter how far out in space you are, I always feel like you can see home." hinting at just how far away his home may actually is and what his actual goal may be.
What I wrote at the time:
If you like DS9 episodes The Adversary and Empok Nor, and you like the ENT episode Impulse, then you'll like Context is for Kings.
I kind of liked the pop culture references, particularly the book that was read to Michael Burnham as a child. It's the perfect choice to show the limits to logic.
The characters are mysterious, edgy, and hang by their fingernails on the precipice of Roddenberry's idea of humanity of the 23rd century. There's a delicious tension that makes me desperate to see how this show threads that needle of Trekkian optimism.
I can't wait to find out why the Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry!
i just heard that you'll be doing voice work on the audiobook version of 'we have engaged the borg'..i am so happy for you and excited to hear it when it comes out..congratulations..
peace always..rocky
Another fantastic analysis Jessie! You really capture an aspect I love from Disco (and evidently Trek-bros hated) is how the characters grow. Since I came to the series so much later I missed out on a lot of disparaging thoughts on Disco (minus a coworker I had who only barely hide his racist and misogynistic thoughts on the show and in general). But what I love is how the Disco characters grow, the relationship between Saru and Burnham is my favorite as their bond slowly grows to the point the series made me cry and believe that they had grow to platonically love each other when Saru thought he’d die. I just love the characters in Disco and that should be credited to so many, especially the actors and writers. Anyways I can’t wait to see your next analysis! 💜🖖
Man I just really wish they ejected all the Mirror Universe stuff especially with Lorca because he plays so much better in this half of the season when we view him as this "ends justifies the means" officer that is traumatized by his past failures that influence his actions. We've seen officers like this in one-off episodes like Maxwell in "The Wounded" or Eddington in DS9, but never as part of the main cast so it would've been so much more interesting seeing a character like that go through a journey of "recovering" from that mindset to someone who could live again in a egalitarian Federation again.
Agreed
I think Lorca would have been better if he'd been some sort of Section 31 Augment who was in charge to make sure the Klingons were defeated. Except they got his eyes wrong and that's why he needs low light.
I love this episode so much. It built such an atmosphere for the whole season and when you look back on it so many things made sense!
I didn't watch Discovery until the fourth season finished and was disappointed that Ripper was barely in the show. The tardigrade was in so many memes that I thought it was a continuing thing and practically the series mascot.
Also I was super excited to see Rekha Sharma. Finally Trek was getting a South Asian character... oh. Oh, hey then we get Rachael Ancheril. Er, she was conveniently written out because she would have been the perfect first officer for Saru and that meant she was in the way of Tilly. Can't have that. Hey, SNW has a descendant of Khan, maybe now - nope. It's pretty discouraging when a friend of Indian descent said she wanted to get into Trek because I'm a fan but the franchise doesn't seem inclusive to an entire group of people.
Er, didn't mean to go in that direction. It was a good episode and really set the tone for Disco s1, which is a lot better than people give it credit for. Hope we see Ripper again.
Realizing that Black Alert was not a signal for a weapon but activation of the spore drive to teleport disco was a big mindblow for me. Then I thought, where the hell is sporedrive in TNG and beyond?
They probably ditched it due to safety concerns and the animal cruelty needed to get it to work.
@@localhearthian2387 I was just looking back at what i thought at the time. we already know that Stamets is able to use himself an alternate to the tardigrade by incorporating its DNA, and also that disco was launched to 900 years into the future so Control will not get its "hands" on the sphere data.
@@BaldAndCurious Yeah, my take is the explanation we get is because the ship was sent 900 years into the future, with it went all of Stamets research into the spore drive technology. That and everyone who didn't go to the future was sworn to secrecy and disavowed all knowledge of it or its crew. It's not an air-tight explanation, but it's not the worst explanation, either.
@@muticere plausible for the universe at least
The in-show explanation is that everything about the Spore Drive was deleted or kept secret because Control (which doesn't really make sense). My headcanon is that without Stamets, the idea was simply unworkable.
I just love the first time Burnham goes into Lorca's quarters/ready room and the lights are so low. I instantly knew that either Lorca or someone else on the bridge crew was from the mirror universe. Why put that obvious give-away in there otherwise right? As for the episode overall, I've always liked Discovery. As a lifelong Trekkie, I've liked and enjoyed nearly all Trek (I had to come around a bit with Voyager and especially the newer animated shows) so of course I liked Discovery right off the bat. Yes, it was "darker" and different but I understood what the writers were going for - which you touch on several times in the video. It works so well, but SO MANY people just wrote it off before it even aired as "woke" and "SJW" crap etc. Because of course they did. And yes, that speech Lorca gives Burnham at the end was terrific, and especially terrific knowing what and where his character is actually from lol
I absolutely agree with the captain thing. Sisko not being a captain was awful.
honestly knowing that this was the first episode at one point really does contextualize it a lot more for me.
I do have to give some credit to Star Trek Online here, sure they're not the best writers out there but their Landry content really did turn her from a random goon into a proper character (even if they did the Bury Your Gays tropes in the process).
my favorite thing about this episode is the title. a lot of modern trek episodes have titles that dont quite feel right. this episode has a title that fits perfectly with old trek. that provocative, twilight zone-esque contextless line of poetry that was all over the TOS title cards. i just really enjoy this episodes title and how it relates to the story told. you can tell from this episode (and just its title) that they were actually trying to still BE star trek
Thanks for this review, Jesse. After your review of the pilot I also set out to re-watch the series, which I had been thinking of doing, but not gotten to. Yes, this one does seem more like a propper pilot, amazing that the hero ship/ name of the show didn't appear until episode 3. I'd forgotten how much mystery they had imbuded into this episode. Why are these people acting SO out of character for Starfleet personel from what we had seen on other series? I think if the 1st 2 episodes had been cut up and used as flashbacks scattered throughout the 1st season, it would have been much more confusing trying to resolve what and why Burnam committed mutany. I get the feeling from the scenes with Saru, that the writers hadn't worked out EXACTLY what happened until they fleashed out the 2 part pilot. BTW, I got so impatient waiting for this review I'm currently on episode 5. LOL
I've tried re-watching Disco and I just couldn't muster the willpower to do it until you came along Jessie. Goddamn/bless you, lol
You are great. This channel is awesome. Trying to redeem Discovery is a waste of your time and talents. Everything on this show relating to LGBTQ was contrived, forced, and unnecessarily tragic. DIS was very underwhelming from a lifelong, gay Trek fan.
I don't know if you play Star Trek Fleet Command. But they brought in Enterprise characters to the game and i thought about you. I know you love the show. One thing I have to tell you. They had a trivia for rewards for the game. One of the questions was, "What was Trip's real name?" The game got it wrong. They said it was Carl....😵💫
I like Discovery already. I still like it, and perhaps more now.
I had the impression that everyone watching was so clear that Burnham was a hero for trying to make a pre-emptive attack on the Kingon psychopaths and that her incarceration was completely wrong that her redemption would be considered by most of us to be completely expected and very overdue. The worst episode was 'Will You Take My Hand' in which many of us were denied our needed catharsis that the destruction of Chronos would provide.
I agree with all of this, AND I'm so glad to get to watch this since I FINALLY got to watch Discovery last year! I started watching Picard S2 today after finishing Echo (the middle of the last episode made me cry so hard for reasons that probably wouldn't apply to most people, but I really love it for so many reasons, and Alaqua Cox is amazing).
Thank you for this video, Ms. Jessie. It's making me appreciate Discovery a little more. Maybe I will go back and do a rewatch, but starting with episode 3, just to see what happens. 😃
LOVE the shirt! When I first saw them jogging around the ship I thought "I need that shirt" but didn't find it for the first few months after the ep dropped, so I stopped looking.
I really loved this episode on my first watch. The pilot I didn’t love as much, mostly around the Klingon stuff, but the suspense here was fantastic. The baseline dread was unlike anything else I’d seen, and it convinced me that I really wanted to keep watching.
Wait, is that the same waterbear? I always thought Ripper and Ephraim were two separate characters.
Interesting review, Jessie! I have a problem with Discovery, even though I do like the series. It's the changing narrative of
the series from season to season. It's one thing one season, then it's changed to another thing in the next season.
It interesting that the pilot was shot later. I agree about the disconnect. It made me think that Context is for Kings should have been the start point and the pilot episodes should have been intercut as flashbacks. Naturally, that can fail, if not done well, but I think they could have enhanced each other as the there is some mystery to Michael coming in as a mutineer, where we don't know, or wouldn't know exactly what happened.
The tone stuff, you highlight with the prisoners and the Landry's attitude is off putting. I guess I get your point about Star Fleet having a harder edge because of the war. It just makes me wonder. Because, that makes perfect sense today, where most people would react that way. But, we haven't benefitted from generations of living in the society of Star Treks Earth. Meaning, I think people in this context are more resilient. So, it could still happen, that the war wore down the resolve of ST officers, making them more edgy. But, it would at least be recognized as outside the norm.
I also agree, the early episodes do work better than I remember. Same will Tilly, and she does just get more goofy, later. It works sometimes, and others, it gets to the point I wonder what they are thinking.
I do actually appreciate the Alice in Wonder land allegory, more now. It didn't come off as well on my first viewing, striking me as something more infantilizing of the characters.
More digs at Picard S3. I won't deny it is nostalgic, but the most egregious is in the first episode. From there on I feel like it was used to better effect. Though, Moriarty appearing was useless. The tardigrade plushy probably couldn't happen due to the lawsuit over the IP. That whole debacle of the idea being stolen from a game and I think some writing of other creators. I don't remember where all that went, but the tardigrade never appears again, after its arc is completed.
I agree with what you said about the spore drive, but it is sad that is largely is only used for such mundane things like the war. Very little actual exploration and discovery is done with the unique drive. Lorca, does play them like a fiddle though.
Good review. I feel like I enjoyed season 1 more than I did on my first and second viewing. Season, two, has the highlights of Pike, Spock and Number One, but, its is where things start to go off more off the rails, in my opinion.
Keep up the good work. Cheers.
A super silly point I want to pull out here: Star Trek episode titles have always tended to be a bit pretentious and often nonsensical; but nothing else in the franchise comes close to early Discovery for terrible episode titles and "Context is for Kings" is nowhere near the worst the series would get, but it's a sign of things to come.
I second the tardigrade plushie idea!
The problem with the take on “Starfleet has to be better than all this violence and war” is that the blind naïveté of Starfleet is precisely what caused the war with the Klingons to begin with.
Burnham was right to advise her captain that the Klingons needed to see strength, something that the writers explicitly show when they showcase Tkuvma’s “Remain Klingon” rhetoric.
And then later this season, peace with the Klingons doesn’t come from some philosophical argument, but from holding Quonos hostage with a massive bomb at the center of the planet.
Burnham made the right choice, but the series pretends like the real character arc was learning tolerance and forgiveness. Which just isn’t the case for anyone (except Mirror Georgiou, who got an amazing send-off in my favorite episode of the whole show).
New favourite word: “flanderization.” ❤️
Finally I get on board Discovery! I’m so totally hooked! 🌟
Definitely new and exciting. Yes it’s “dark.” But it’s still optimistic. There are still huge challenges but we will overcome if we stay true to ourselves as Burnham does.
And I believe even TOS or TNG were “dark” too, it’s just that it didn’t feel it because of the bright décor and lighting.
TOS and TNG didn’t/couldn’t show what now we can see, both visually and narratively.
Love Saru. I probably identify with him the most.
Tilly would be my best friend too (though we should not be roommates!).
Isaac’s Lorca is interesting but he is unfortunately from the mumble and grunt school of acting. Rather difficult for someone like me who is autistic and hard of hearing. It’s not bad it’s just a pity…
Landry is gratuitously insulting, so I think it’s over the top.
But it’s ironic (disingenuous actually) that the show was criticized for this behaviour by outrage merchants.
Haters really should get jobs in movie houses: they’re experts in projection. 😜
Fearing giving SMG anything actually substantive with her role as a prisoner and pariah status is one of the failures of DISCO. She was fantastic as a science officer and commander but they made her a captain because they wanted her to be like the other captains. Which undermined her character arc.
All I really remember is not liking the purple Klingons. I also felt that characters in Star Trek using the word "fu(#!ng" in excitement was out of place and unnecessary.
Did someone say “Spore-lers”?
One minor change from Season 1 to Season 2 that I hate is the Black Alert. IDK, I like how it's not just the alarm sound effect, but also the computer saying "Black Alert!" it's cool. But in Season 2, it's just the alarm, but no voice over. IDK, it makes no difference, but I don't like the change, it feels off without hearing the computer saying "Black Alert".
I always say it even when they don't. Black. Alert.
One of my favorite Trek quotes is in this episode(aside from Q's end speech in TNG, or his "obtuse piece of flotsam" insult) and that is "universal law is for lackeys, but context is for kings". I consider the first 2 episodes and this to be a full prelude to the Discovery story. As I said last week, given the cynicism of the later parts of the Berman era(late ds9 and season 3 of ENT), and the post 9/11 reaction in the Kelvin films, hope in the future has been....diminished. And I feel the tonal shift reflects that attitude(to say NOTHING of the discourse in 2016). First time I saw Issacs in film was in 1998's Armageddon(he played a NASA scientist). Next film I saw him in was The Patriot, where he played a British Colonel. Every time I see him as a villian he ALWAYS kills it. Speaking of Lorca, I don't think it comes out of left field. Within the last number of months, I've been doing a chronological watch through. I may be off base but rewatching Mirror Mirror, the ISS Enterprise, seemed darker. And given that ds9 was the main Mirror Universe provider up until Enterprises for the season I have a feeling that the inherent Darkness within that show made it so that it was somewhat subconscious whenever they made the switch over to the prime universe( in fact if my memory serves me correctly aside from the away team in Mirror Mirror the only other people who have crossed over was smiley, the Mirror Bariel, Jennifer and I think there was one more in the emperor's new cloak). Every other moment of convergence has been people from our side Crossing into the Mirror Universe.
Some of us were reluctant about a new Trek after the movie reboots and we're drawn in by Jason Isaacs and Michelle Yeoh were pretty disappointed. Lol. It was like, the producers didn't get what they had? 🤷♀️
Didn't think of this until I was watching this review, but is it possible Saru was brought to Discovery by Lorca because his species are a delicacy in the mirror universe?
i'm sure it's been discussed plenty, but it's so funny that S31, which is this secret org has black badges that anybody could obviously identify as being different from every other badge? "hey why's yours black like that?" "NO REASON." Maybe a nice effects touch would be when an agent went "in the field" it would go dark.
I know I've seen this but have absolutely no recollection of it. I really need a rewatch.
I think it’s kinda sad how Discovery optimistically assumed some fans trusted them to explain the seeming canon gaff of the spore drive in time and just got met with complaints.
It’s hyper experimental starfleet technology, this shit gets written out all the time. Phase-cloak, Genesis, Transwarp, transwarp again. The list goes on
First and foremost, we must say "Hello" to Jason Isaacs (perhaps only the British movie fans get that). He his a brilliant actor, and a nice bloke apparently. It would have been good if they turned his photophobia into something about Charon's big glowing energy thing to tie things together. Everyone wants a moopsy, until the moopsy sniffs your bones. (I'm not a plushy fan, but I would love a big cuddable moopsy, I would call him George and hug him and pet him and squeeze him).
I haven't rewatched Discovery since it launched, I remember enjoying it at the time (I have a thing called SDAM recalling emotional states is hard). I remember we thought it might be a bit problematic (kill your gays etc), and had a darker feeling than what I want from Trek (shush DS9, we know you were dark, but TV dark, not real dark), but I enjoyed the journey.
And pat him and pet him.
I often find that good dudes play great villains, so it's nice to know Jason Isaacs is a good guy. I love seeing him in anything tbh, like how once he showed up in Death of Stalin he basically stole the whole movie, his screen presence was so huge.
By the time we learned the Captain's true origin, the show lost me with the dark themes and not-Starfleet of it all.
In hindsight, the twist makes sense, but as a fan in the moment, this episode (plus the nerve pinch from e1) lost my interest.
Hm, I didn't see any muderous tardigrades at all. 😬I did see a tardigrade who killed its enslavers who were imprisoning and torturing it, and using it as a piece of tech, on Lorca's USS DiscOmelas... (I could improve that pun, if I could just remember the name of the Samuel Delany story where FTL depends on enslaved sentients used as tech. Maybe Babel-17?)
In less hot-button news: Thanks for doing this catch-up series! I just rewatched Disco, to bide my time & reassess, and it's nice having more to chew on while we await Season 5's reveal that Una (Mystique) and Destiny (possibly Pelia) are behind everything. And why they've spent hundreds of years making sure Ni'Var happens. (PS For proof, see Star Trek VI and Immortal X-Men #8, then Una & Pike in Disco and SNW. For foreshadowing, see the photograph of Destiny in "Elementary, Dear Data".)
I do agree with the decision to tone down the violence and swearing after season 1. While yes, part of me would love a "prestige TV" style Trek show with all the sex and sexuality that would come with it, I also feel like Trek should always be the kind of show you can watch with your kids lol. Trek should by default be enjoyable by all ages, and I think the decision to cut back on some of the more adult elements was smart.
I miss Grumpy Stammetts. I wish he'd hung around a little longer
S1 was very strong, S2 was good but after that it crumbled away.
I actually didn't mind Burnham, the black woman, being brought forwards as a character "in chains" at the start specifically because we were given the current pilot of seeing her exceptional originating service. I realize it may feel a bit "oof" to our current day, but more than that I do feel like it leans into something Star Trek likes to do... take a current issue, and not just talk about it but show the most optimistic possible outcome... and from all the hate Burnham received, I have no doubt that we achieved that bc only well-done and humanized woman leads draw this much controversy
Not to be a lore "gotcha" kinda person, but I kinda assumed the bizzare prisoner stuff in this episode was a call back to how TOS was also a bit more, uh, punitive in its prison system. As far as I recall. This could also be heavily influenced by Khan being left on a moon.
Yeah, people get mad at Discovery characters for sometimes being acerbic or the Federation having primitive-seeming laws, but they should go back and watch TOS and see how people were in that show. Sure, Kirk is a cool dude but if a crewmember crossed him, he'd not be afraid to raise his voice and put them in their place.
Thanks Jessie ❤️
Cuz u r doing these, I'm rewatching, too
Almost gave up cuz the Klingon stuff is off-putting, mostly cuz reading all those captions while vision impaired is more homework than entertainment.
♥️🍉💯🕊️💪🏾🔥🖖🏽
Sorry, but they did give a specific reference to events during the Battle of the Binaries... they revealed the name of that battle to Burnham who didn't know it. They also gave specific reference to the loss of the Europa and the number of Star Fleet personnel who had been lost so far.
Loving these ❤️
Engagement for the engagement god.
My apologies for commenting before watching the whole video.
I'm not African-American, so I get that my opinion doesn't mean much here, but the first Black woman starship captain in Star Trek started the series as an improsoned felon. Did NO ONE consider the optics of that? I mean, what the actual [bad word].
Having said that, I love modern Star Trek.
The worst thing about old Star Trek is that the subtext is no longer referencing things in the headline of current newspapers. The subtext is so outdated that it's actual work to piece together what the subtext is even commenting on, and this has the effect of making those older Star Trek episodes feel a bit stale. Looking back, I now realize that this is why I loved the TNG-era Star Trek shows, but never cared for the Original Series. By the time I saw TOS in reruns, I was a child in the 1970s, and I had very little idea what was in the headlines of newspapers in the 1960s other than the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War (so I did understand some of the subtext, but not enough for it to be interesting).
When TNG, DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise hit, everything felt fresh and new because the subtext was about things going on in the world at the time.
Now, we have reached the point where those TNG-era shows feel stale and no longer relevant, just like TOS felt to me in the 1970s-80s.
Whatever warts the modern Star Trek shows have, it once again feels fresh and relevant, and I love the new Star Trek shows for that.
On top of that, the characters are all excellent with distinct personalities. I cannot get enough of all of them.
Hello to Jason Isaacs
07.54 Both is right.
Personally l, as I commented in the previous retro review, I think this episode with certain scenes used in the pilot episodes as flashbacks, would have worked well as a pilot.
The "everybody hates everyone" criticism I never got, but if we view the episode (as we do) through Burnham's perspective and temporarily forget what we know of her from the pilot, and only go by what's said of her in this episode - Michael is a mutineer responsible for the war with the Klingons. Everyone of the discovery says so. So why should they be nice to her? It's not that everyone hates everyone, it's more that everyone hates Michael, and it's reflective ve in her conversations with saru, stamits and Tilly. Saru, as mentioned, starts out cold but at least tried to build a bridge whilst admiring that he thinks that she's dangerous. Stamits is an ass, yet you can see why he's an ass to Michael during his speech about physics as biology - he referees to the war as "you war" addressing Michael, reiterating the belief that had Michael not started this war his research would not have been co opted for military uses (a thematic link to wrath of kahn and Michael's fear that Starfleet would coop genesis as a weapon). Tilly, meeting Michael for the first time is cheery and smiley, and it's only when she finds out who Michael is that she moves away and moves into the "everyone hates" camp (only to come back by episodes end).
Also, part of me wonders if Lorca (before the big mirror darkly reveal) was originally written to be Captain Garth from the TOS episode "Whom God's Destroy" before someone else came into thenwriters room and said "booking. Do you know what the kids really love nowadays - evil versions of characters".
I will say you've sort of ruined Discovery for me now that I know that originally first two episodes were meant to be told in flashback, because now I feel like that would have been such a better way to go overall. Sure, you'd have missed out on some character development and those episodes are good, but having the show start here would have had much greater impact and helped make Michael a more sympathetic character right off the bat. Because no, she didn't start the Klingon war and her mutiny is an overstatement of harm to what she actually did, but even when you've seen it, later on when everyone is telling her (and therefore, the audience) that she did these things, it causes you to misremember and think maybe she did those things, too. On my rewatch I made just a couple weeks ago, I was paying extra attention and even took notes so I'd remember perfectly the things that she did and whether her actions really were so bad, and no. They weren't. She didn't start the war and while she did mutiny, she did also get something of a pardon, but no one knows that because Georgiou died on the Klingon ship.
(btw, no you didn't ruin Discovery for me, that's hyperbole, I just mean this is something I didn't realize and now I'll never not notice it and it's kind of a bummer).
I think the change in the way prisoners are presented is because of the times we live in. Today's progressive writers might be far more woke on plenty of topics but are often also much more reactionary. It feels like less people today believe in restorative justice than they used to.
For example, TNG episode The Neutral Zone, Data and Worf wake up people from the past who were frozen or whatever. Well one of them is this rich white guy who is constantly being an entitled prat and nearly causes several issues. But in the end there is this heartfelt scene with him and Picard. He is a selfish dick, but he is shown patience and compassion.
I can picture that same scene in Disco ends with somebody sucker punching him and knocking him out cold on the bridge of the ship, if not worse. And I don't mean Lorca, I mean "the good guys" would even do that.
I don't know why they had Battle of the Binary Stars. Terrible decision.
Why must we live in the no plushie universe? So sad.
...Jessie, calling this retro made me feel old like a progenitor species...
You are a wonderful and beautiful person.
🖖💞
Yeah, it's weird how Section 31 soldiers are on Discovery in this episode implying some connection between Discovery and Section 31, but then that's basically removed from canon going forward. For real, the weird thing about Discovery is how much you can tell in that first season they were trying to figure out on the fly what the show was even about. Which for the record, I don't necessarily have a problem with, TNG had similar growing pains. Most Trek shows go through this. I think Discovery gets there within just a few episodes of this season.
You looked so cute for whatever reason in the lighting today. Not that you don’t normally, but it was more so!
1 minute ago? thanks youtube! I needed that!
discovery is retro? 🥴
‘:D
The main problem that broke Disco for me was Micheal Burnam. I felt like a force feed christmas Goose. For the love of love itself, show me Someone else. Anyone. I remember it like a drowning person remembers fresh air when two persons where on screen without Burnam anywhere in sight.
Side note. Never thought that Sisko not being a cpt. could be a hatching their bets moment of the show runners. I just liked that it was not just another cpt. and it feelt like World building for me("Of course a remote Space Station does not need a Cpt. I mean they have Comanders for that, or?")
sorry if the literal main character was in the show too much for you
@@T.E.S.S. Yeah, as i said, that broke the show for me. Micheal is ok in small portions, but not that. I mean i love worf, but if every plotpoint for a season would revolve around him, i would be sick of him too.
I'm still have mixed feelings of this episode.
I wouldn't say the Federation treats its prisoners kindly in other Star Trek shows, i'd even argue it's the point where Star Trek feels more dystopian. Tom Paris at the begin of voy should never have been in that prison in the first place, he might have even been doing forced labor there. Also look at the brigs on the ships and stations. People get detained there all the time with no privacy, the lights being on all the time, not having a restroom anywhere near. That is literal torture, even by todays standards. Tom Paris in the brig on Voyager is an especially inhumane situation where, he again never should have been in the brig in the first place.
Also commanding officers seemingly being able to throw people into the brig for weeks doesn't shine much good light on it either. So i'd say Discovery was very in line with the rest of Star Trek.