Star Trek Discovery, finally a trailer

[Lvl 2 Expert]

TNG - "Warp 14"
Voyager "Warp 10 makes you a lizard and is a blink drive."

That one is official (not the lizard bit but the "10 became infinitely fast at some point" bit), and TNG supposedly only used warp factors over 10 in alternative timelines as a self-referential thing about it having been changed. Enterprise and Discovery supposedly use the old scale, because it has been set up as an advancement somewhere between TOS and TNG rather than a retcon. Star Trek Online apparently uses its own scale altogether.

[Kitten Champion]

The new bird of prey's look like Gu'oald fighters to me (Possible stargate)

Oh you're right, come to think of it. They reduced the wingspan and made it much thicker - with it going into attack dives and shooting from the wings it's very reminiscent.

All Discovery-Klingon tech looks much weightier and larger usual, whereas Federation tech is of the paper mache variety.

As to Janeway's Batmobile technology, I'm willing to assume - given they do have laws regarding time travel - that they intentionally purged it to preserve the timeline the best they could.

They could have - with some insight as to where they were going with Trek - done something interesting with that and tied it into the Temporal Cold War for Enterprise. As in Janeway and thus unfortunately Star Fleet has unintentionally fired a first salvo by opening up a scenario wherein time travel is used to start a new type of backwards-facing arms race where you're outfitting your side with the best weapons their future innovations have to offer at which point where does it end? That kind of unintended consequence for mucking about with the timeline for your own benefit as with the Voyager finale would've been neat to tie everything together.

[Cikomyr]

Just finished watching (finally!) The pilot 2-parter.

I have to say, this is by far the best 2-parter series opener Star Trek ever had.

[Hopeless]

When will this be released over here in the UK?

Spoiler

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As best as I can understand a Science vessel stumbles across a star system being used as a Klingon Cemetery.
Discovered the Klingons attempt to intimidate the Federation into leaving including summoning a honour guard of ships to protect this consecrated area but the First Officer suffers a psychotic breakdown the result of reliving the death of a family member in a Klingon attack?
The Captain manages to stop her attacking but one of the caretakers attacks one of the arriving Federation reinforcements forcing members of the science vessel to board the Klingon ship resulting in the apparent death of the captain and the First Officer charged with mutiny even though it's clear she's suffering from a mental breakdown.
Is that accurate?

[JadedDM]

When will this be released over here in the UK?

It's already on Netflix there.

Spoiler

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As best as I can understand a Science vessel stumbles across a star system being used as a Klingon Cemetery.
Discovered the Klingons attempt to intimidate the Federation into leaving including summoning a honour guard of ships to protect this consecrated area but the First Officer suffers a psychotic breakdown the result of reliving the death of a family member in a Klingon attack?
The Captain manages to stop her attacking but one of the caretakers attacks one of the arriving Federation reinforcements forcing members of the science vessel to board the Klingon ship resulting in the apparent death of the captain and the First Officer charged with mutiny even though it's clear she's suffering from a mental breakdown.
Is that accurate?

Somewhat.

Spoiler

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The star system in question is in Federation space. The Federation ship is there to repair a broken satellite. The Klingons intentionally damaged it, knowing a Fed ship would come to investigate. Their plan all along was to cause a war against the Federation as a way to unite the warring Klingon Great Houses under a single cause.

The first officer doesn't have a psychotic break. She confers with her Vulcan teacher (Sarek) who admits that when Vulcans had first contact with the Klingons, they quickly learned to always fire first. Klingons would respect that, and that allowed them to eventually open up peace talks between the two races. This led the first officer to believe that firing first would earn the Klingons' respect.

Whether she was right or not is rather moot, as the Klingons were looking for a fight anyway. The captain stopped the first officer from firing first. Reinforcements on both sides showed up. The Federation offered peace, so the Klingons attacked first.

The reason the captain and first officer boarded the Klingon ship was to take their leader captive. They hoped this would give them leverage to sue for peace. But the Klingon leader killed the captain, and in a fit of rage, the first officer killed him, as well, making him a martyr in the process.

[Darth Ultron]

When will this be released over here in the UK?

I though it was on Netflix for the whole world....except America.

As best as I can understand

Spoiler: Well...

Show

The USS Doomed shows up at the edge of Federation space to fix a sub space station. They find a hidden beacon and Klingon ship...and everyone just sits around. The Klingon's light the beacon...and, um, the starfleet captain gets paranoid and, um, summons all of Starfleet for no reason.

So this is where First Officer gets the crazy idea of ''Wez Must attacksz first and blowz them awayz!" And the typical Starfleet capatain does not want to do that. So first officer knocks out the captain and tries to attack, but captain wakes up and stops her just in time...and charges her with mutiny. Then the Klingon fleet pops in. Then Starfleet pops in. Again, two big fleets just sit around for no reason. Starfleet asks for ''peace'', and the Klingon's attack. The fight is a draw, with lots of damaged ships.

Now the wimpy Peace captain is all like ''Letz putz a bomb on a dead Klingon body so when they colletez their deadz they blowz up! Hahahaha!" (Guess the Geneva Space Convention has no rule about booby trapping the dead). This works, and the Klingons ship is damaged. Then the captain forgives the first officer and the captqin and first officer bean onboard, with no combat team or big weapons or anything. They do the typical ''lets act like fools'' while on a hostile ship full of evil, combative blood thirsty Klingons. Big bad Klingon guy kills the captain (as sure she is a great captain or whatever but she is not a great warrior) then first officer gets mad and kills the Klingon guy.

So...now the war starts. With the poor captain dead the ''mutiny'' charge stands. Oh, and the ''science ship'' aka USS Discovery shows up in episode 3. And enter the space fold trippy mushrooms...

[Cikomyr]

I though it was on Netflix for the whole world....except America.

Spoiler: Well...

Show

The USS Doomed shows up at the edge of Federation space to fix a sub space station. They find a hidden beacon and Klingon ship...and everyone just sits around. The Klingon's light the beacon...and, um, the starfleet captain gets paranoid and, um, summons all of Starfleet for no reason.

So this is where First Officer gets the crazy idea of ''Wez Must attacksz first and blowz them awayz!" And the typical Starfleet capatain does not want to do that. So first officer knocks out the captain and tries to attack, but captain wakes up and stops her just in time...and charges her with mutiny. Then the Klingon fleet pops in. Then Starfleet pops in. Again, two big fleets just sit around for no reason. Starfleet asks for ''peace'', and the Klingon's attack. The fight is a draw, with lots of damaged ships.

Now the wimpy Peace captain is all like ''Letz putz a bomb on a dead Klingon body so when they colletez their deadz they blowz up! Hahahaha!" (Guess the Geneva Space Convention has no rule about booby trapping the dead). This works, and the Klingons ship is damaged. Then the captain forgives the first officer and the captqin and first officer bean onboard, with no combat team or big weapons or anything. They do the typical ''lets act like fools'' while on a hostile ship full of evil, combative blood thirsty Klingons. Big bad Klingon guy kills the captain (as sure she is a great captain or whatever but she is not a great warrior) then first officer gets mad and kills the Klingon guy.

So...now the war starts. With the poor captain dead the ''mutiny'' charge stands. Oh, and the ''science ship'' aka USS Discovery shows up in episode 3. And enter the space fold trippy mushrooms...

Thats a horribly unfair, dishonest and biased way of describing the events of the first two episodes.

[SuperPanda]

Thats a horribly unfair, dishonest and biased way of describing the events of the first two episodes.

Ultron doesn't like Discovery too much - some parts seem to be winning the sith android over but on the whole the opinions expressed have been negative.

It's likely best to just know that and accept it.

Compared to other shows, Discovery has had he most exciting and visually stunning openers. A lot of people don't want to wait and see what kind of beast it will be and there seems to be a vocal group of Trek fans dead set on hating anything new (I saw this with ENT, JJ-Trek, and now DSC).

Now I complain a lot about JJ-Trek - but mostly because it was good enough when it could have been absolutely amazing. (Into Darkness was godaweful though - and it gets worse the more I think about it). I remember hearing alot of similar complaints with ENT which honestly wasn't that bad - it just took too long to find its feat (season 4 was really good).

I've found DSC is so scared of that problem that it's rushing a bit. If the opening was slowed and padded a bit more into 3 episodes exploring more of the characters it might have been better (it was already good) - mostly I just want more of Yeoh's Captain - I loved that character for what little we got.

[The Glyphstone]

Was Into Darkness really bad on its own merits, or just because it did an awful job of remaking one of the best things to ever come out of Old Trek?

[Darth Ultron]

Ultron doesn't like Discovery too much - some parts seem to be winning the sith android over but on the whole the opinions expressed have been negative.

I'm just saying what I saw, maybe others have rose colored glasses?

Spoiler: Like

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Ok, we all watched the same show right? So WHY did the Battle at the Binary Stars take place?

1.USS ShihTzu finds one Klingon ship that did nothing(or maybe they broke a alliterate) ...but might maybe do something someday.
2.They quickly call and have all of Starfleet sent out!
3.The Klingons call their fleet with the beacon.
4.Lots of waiting around to pad the episodes.
5.Finally the humans say ''peace'' and the Klingons attack!
6.Wow! The Pointless Battle Beyond the Stars! Wow!

And really there is no excuse for murderhobo captain of ''lets hide a bomb in the dead body''.

Really the creators could have done better.

Like why not have the Klingons attack and murder death kill? I know the show only has a small budget and they wasted a million on ''lets have our hero zoom zoom in a space suit just like they did in In To Darkness, pew, pew!" But they still could have done that ''dialogue'' stuff...like where they just ''say'' something like ''oh, no, the Klingons blew up seven planets and killed 20 trillion people!" , but don't show anything on screen that would cost a billion dollars.

[Cikomyr]

Apparently we havent watched the same show.

Starfleet sends a task force because the Shenzhou (try to actually spell right this historical name) is outgunned against a very large Klingon vessel.

The Klingons come because they are summoned due to an artifact of a religious significance.

Starfleet does NOT attack because they refuse to fire first by principle. You probably missed that part; it was only a point of discussion for 10 minutes

The Klingons do NOT attack the (lone) Starfleet vessel, because they dont care about it. They are all sorrounded by their civil war rivals and want to know who the hell lit the Beacon. Then, when Starfleet did arrive in force, they had to let T'Kumva say what he had to say and use the Federation's message as a rallying point of hate to unify the Houses.

It was pretty well laid out.

[SuperPanda]

I'm just saying what I saw, maybe others have rose colored glasses?

Spoiler: Like

Show

Ok, we all watched the same show right? So WHY did the Battle at the Binary Stars take place?

1.USS ShihTzu finds one Klingon ship that did nothing(or maybe they broke a alliterate) ...but might maybe do something someday.
2.They quickly call and have all of Starfleet sent out!
3.The Klingons call their fleet with the beacon.
4.Lots of waiting around to pad the episodes.
5.Finally the humans say ''peace'' and the Klingons attack!
6.Wow! The Pointless Battle Beyond the Stars! Wow!

And really there is no excuse for murderhobo captain of ''lets hide a bomb in the dead body''.

Really the creators could have done better.

Like why not have the Klingons attack and murder death kill? I know the show only has a small budget and they wasted a million on ''lets have our hero zoom zoom in a space suit just like they did in In To Darkness, pew, pew!" But they still could have done that ''dialogue'' stuff...like where they just ''say'' something like ''oh, no, the Klingons blew up seven planets and killed 20 trillion people!" , but don't show anything on screen that would cost a billion dollars.

Spoiler

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1. Never expressly confirmed but it is clear that the Klingons damaged the coms Sat to lure a Federstion ship to the area knowing how they will react.
2. The Feds have had no formal contact since their last war - in which the Klingons were a very dangerous enemy. Since then contact with Klingons has been in the form of terrorism. ShenZhou is old, it has no chance against a Klingon attack on its own - there are colonies near by that need defending - they call for backup. The fleet decides a show of force might deter an attack and open dialogue - the Admiral calls in the fleet.
3 - The Klingons planned for everything in step 2 to happen and called their fleet - the goal is to convince the great houses to unite against Federation "Peace" in a holy war.
4 - The Klingons have not fired because they are playing politics with their own kind - the goal is to get everyone listening to T'Kuvma and to agree Fed Peace is a fate worse than death - only then will he answer their hails - The Feds are not going to fire first, they never Fire first.
5 - T'Kuvma had successfully convinced the others that peace with the Federation means loosing their identity as Klingon - he wins the argument and they attack.
6 - and so starts the battle at the binary stars.

Did we watch the same show - yes we did. Did I have "rose colored glasses"? It is possible. It is equally possible you had the glasses (though not rose colored). Most likely we both had them with varying levels of tint. We both have bias's. I see no disrespect in pointing that out.

Some of your criticism has been solid and I've agreed with it. Some of it I find less so but rather than argue that your opinion is wrong I respect that it is your opinion and agree to disagree. I was recommending others do that too though I apologize for not doing so clearly enough.

Was Into Darkness really bad on its own merits, or just because it did an awful job of remaking one of the best things to ever come out of Old Trek?

For me it was bad on its own merits - the fact it was dead-set on trying to show up Wrath of Khan was just the icing on the cake (and honestly the Kirk sacrifice parallel was the best part of it outside of stunning set pieces). I can make a long review/rant later if you like but the short points are:
Numerous scenes that don't logically connect and exist as set pieces for the desired visual - example: Kirk follows love interest into shuttle where she starts stripping out of her uniform to prepare for the urgent mission. Next scene she's on a moon with McCoy in a spacesuit over her uniform - meaning that not only did she not need to change clothes st all, she didn't need to do it in a shuttle with Kirk. Second example: "My name, is Khan." - huge dramatic pause - only no one in universe knows that name or has any connection to it yet. It's a huge dramatic reveal for the audience but makes no sense in the scene.

There are a lot of things like this throughout.

It has wonderful visuals and the set pieces themselves are fun and gorgeous. The plot doesn't make a lick of sense on its own within its own context.

[Kitten Champion]

Was Into Darkness really bad on its own merits, or just because it did an awful job of remaking one of the best things to ever come out of Old Trek?

Going into nuTrek with Star Trek '09 there was this "we're in an alternate timeline now where anything can happen!"-deal implicit to this universe which the movie-makers were offering to us out there in the general audiences. That, for those willing, we'd give up some of our ingrained nostalgia and concern about continuity to be open minded about this whole reboot thing, and in exchange they would do something with it in the future which would make their new direction worth it.

Instead we got the worst sort of sequel, one that's just spinning its wheels while living off the success of its predecessor(s) rather than even trying and failing at actually attempting something ambitious. It wasn't just disappointing in itself, but it weakens Star Trek '09 in retrospect and soured the hope that Star Trek was to be anything but another iconic cultural work swirling the drain of bankable IPs which studios will reboot and remake until the last of its blood is drained from the stone.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by The Glyphstone
Was Into Darkness really bad on its own merits, or just because it did an awful job of remaking one of the best things to ever come out of Old Trek?

Yes.

Originally Posted by Kitten Champion
Instead we got the worst sort of sequel, one that's just spinning its wheels while living off the success of its predecessor(s) rather than even trying and failing at actually attempting something ambitious. It wasn't just disappointing in itself, but it weakens Star Trek '09 in retrospect and soured the hope that Star Trek was to be anything but another iconic cultural work swirling the drain of bankable IPs which studios will reboot and remake until the last of its blood is drained from the stone.

Also this, in titanium spades.

[SuperPanda]

Warning: somewhat Off Topic
Trying to be objective on Star Trek Into Darkness

I have strong views on the film but I started by looking at what others have said to make sure I was being objective. I was surprised to see its Tomato scores at 86% - Critics and 90% - Audience. Its Metacritic score is also a robust 72 with 36/43 reviews being positive.

The New Yorker is scathing in its description of the plot, openly praising the visuals while savagely blasting the pacing, story telling, characterization, and directing.

NPR damns with faint praise, basically saying the film is visually stunning and good mindless fun - but it was clearly written to appeal to a teenage boy - with all the good and bad that comes with that. Visually stunning, a mile wide and an inch deep.

Ebert's positive review spends most of it complaining about how Into Darkness just flat misses the mark on story telling. How the plot is a mess. But praises great visuals and a fun character dynamic between the actors which makes it fun. He says the movie had more heart and potential than most summer films but ultimately lacked vision or focus.

The Guardian's very positive review (80% according to meta-critic) mentions only how good looking the film is and gives a brief review of the plot. It also mentions that it lacks the optimism and "bounce" of 2009. Where Ebert called the drama "playground" suggesting it was very childish - The Guardian says its more "grown up." (because its less "bouncy" and more dark).

Critical Critics Gives an extremely glowing review, praising its aesthetics and the inter-character dynamic while saying the film is paced in such a way as to be extremely fun. The plot is summarized with glowing adjectives throughout.

The New York Post Is brutal in its review attacking everything from the plot to the camera angles and even the effects. Its opens with a question from the film "Why would starfleet wake up a 200 year old frozen man to make help their weapons tech" - and point out that no really satisfactory answer is given in the film (when that is the inciting incident for everything that follows).

Indiewire manages to praise the 2009 film while expressing how hollow Into Darkness was in the end. Most specifically it points out that too much of the story relies on knowledge of other Trek stories (which are not canon to this film universe) to flesh out.

The Hollywood Reporter Is generally positive though its comments about the plot seem to be damning with faint praise - saying that it provides marginally interesting things for the actors to do between the regular bouts of "Action" which look good but lack real tension.

The Washington Post points out how Into Darkness makes a show of having a topical theme but is good specifically because its a turn-off-your-brain action flick that doesn't encourage thinking. Its pure escapism and an action film which isn't ashamed to be fun.

New York Movies alternates between blasting the film and praising it, calling it muddled to the point of non-sense and very fun. The review likens Into Darkness to a drug - "digital MSG."

Variety Gives a very positive review only really summarizing the plot and gushing about the visuals.

Entertainment Weekly Gives it an extremely positive review both saying "Its everything you could want in a Star Trek film" and calling it a "witty popcorn morality play."

All of these reviews were written when the film was fresh / in theaters.

The positive reviews treat the film as a flashy summer blockbuster with no need for any more depth than a couple hours of pleasant escapism. If that is what you expect from the film it will certainly provide that.

Even the positive reviews that seemed to want more came off as disappointed at the plot, characterization, and pacing.

Basically, the reviews when taken together seem to be saying that Into Darkness was a Michael Bay film: Visually stunning with lots of action pieces, an incredibly bland story but no one was paying attention to, random eye candy for teenage boys, lots of explosions, only unlike Transformers the actors were all giving 110%.

That's my take on Into Darkness as well. The Actors all do fantastic work. The visuals are stunning throughout. The plot doesn't make any sense and its paced so that you never have a chance to realize that during the film. The "topical" themes of the film are, like the characters, paper thin and only exist to justify the aesthetics they come with. The film is sprinkled with Trek nostalgia to keep the fans too busy to complain.

It is a fun film. It is a successful film. It was a great escapist summer blockbuster. It is not good story telling. It was not a good film (as art).

[Darth Ultron]

Apparently we havent watched the same show.

Starfleet sends a task force because the Shenzhou (try to actually spell right this historical name) is outgunned against a very large Klingon vessel.

The Klingons come because they are summoned due to an artifact of a religious significance.

Starfleet does NOT attack because they refuse to fire first by principle. You probably missed that part; it was only a point of discussion for 10 minutes

The Klingons do NOT attack the (lone) Starfleet vessel, because they dont care about it. They are all sorrounded by their civil war rivals and want to know who the hell lit the Beacon. Then, when Starfleet did arrive in force, they had to let T'Kumva say what he had to say and use the Federation's message as a rallying point of hate to unify the Houses.

It was pretty well laid out.

Right....the Shenzhou sees a Klingon ship, and is outgunned, sure. So they send the message ''send a fleet help there is one Klingon ship just sitting here and not doing anything..send a fleet for back up.

Really the whole set up is just bad writing. ''They'' want to start the ''cool war'' and want Michael to be a traitor mutineer, so then some poor person has to write all that out.

A)Start the war...really this is easy, just have T'Warma attack first. Take federation world Peace V, and he kills everyone there. And by ''everyone'' make it seven trillion, not like ''oh no 802 people!" See now Starfleet can be like ''woah send all of Starfleet out!"

OF COURSE and even better Star Trek way would be to have Planet Armagidean, a world in ''neutral space'' but has human and Klingons living on it...more or less in peace. And now the Planet wants to join a space nation...and is split between the Federation and the Empire. THIS is where T'covma is from....and he on the Federation is cool side. THEN you have the USS Shenzhou on ''Stardate 00000234, we are at Planet Armagidean to oversee it's admission to the Federation." And, the Federation types, like Ambassador Dumbledumb are all excited about having Klingons in the Federation and how the Klingons will ''enhance the Federation and make it even more diverse and beautiful". T'covma falls for it all, Right up until the evil Federation is like ''well to join us you have to radical change your way of life, abandon all your old ways and NOT be Klingon". Then ''T'' wakes up and sees ''the Federation way is wrong''.

The Captain is (wrong) and is all like ''oh, we just need to talk to ''T'', again, for the 117th time because ''talking all ways works'' and ''peace is lots of talking''. For bonus points to make the poor captain really, really, really wrong she can be one of those ''lets just give the Klingons everything they want and then they will like us'' types. Of course Commander Michael is the same (right) one and will say ''you can't talk to these monsters..maybe someday they might be ready to join the Federation, but not this day (and really, the Vulcan Hello story even works here..showing the only way to ''deal'' with the Kligions is by being mean and aggressive...even the whimpy Vulcans did it ). So then you have the whole traitor mutiny bit and then ''T'' is all like ''balk blah black to domaoth roth do blah/ The-federation-way-is-wrong" and kills Ambassador Dumbledumb, end episode 1 with a to black fade out and drums....

Episode 2 is the captain trying to stop the starting war (''if we could all just sit down and talk''), and Mike is all like attack! Now ''T'' sets off his beacon, and summons more Klingons and starts his crusade...attacking like a whole solar system of like six planets, and killing 70 trillion people! So, now, Starfleet sends Starfllet to...well, you know, be targets for the Klingons and ''ask for peace''(again). The Klingons are all like ''Murder death kill! Ragh!" Enter the Big Space Battle. Then get to the part where captain and commander team up to ''end this'' by capturing ''T'', and they beam over with a ton of heavily armed and armored combat types. It's a tough fight...and captain and ''t'' are killed....fade to black...




[/SPOILER]

[Cikomyr]

I am not bothering to answer to Ultron because all of his points were already addressed in previous post. Clearly not interested in dialogue exchange, so I'll just ignore.

That's my take on Into Darkness as well. The Actors all do fantastic work. The visuals are stunning throughout. The plot doesn't make any sense and its paced so that you never have a chance to realize that during the film. The "topical" themes of the film are, like the characters, paper thin and only exist to justify the aesthetics they come with. The film is sprinkled with Trek nostalgia to keep the fans too busy to complain.

It is a fun film. It is a successful film. It was a great escapist summer blockbuster. It is not good story telling. It was not a good film (as art).

It is not 100% unfair there. I think our cultural subgroup (geekdom) holds the same level of unadulterated hate for Into Darkness as for the Transformers.

Id say Into Darkness is probably on par with Dark Side of Moon, quality wise (its both sad and funny how convenient the Transformers Movies as a benchmark for badness). Its definetly better than Revenge or the Fallen tho.

Now, i think people mostly assume how bad Into Darkness is *because* of how good Star Trek (2009) was. Sure, 2009 wasnt stellar storytelling, but it held itself together and was more pleasant overall. The quality dip between 2009 and IntoDarkness probably accounts for a lot ot disapointing sentiments.

Compare Dark Side of the Moon, which followed Revenge of the Fallen. It felt like washing a mouth full of **** with piss. It HAD to feel better, no matter what.

Anyway, just watched Episode 3 and 4. Its still awsome.

Spoiler

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I am a bit sad about Commander Chief of Security. I liked her drive and attitude, disliked her stupidity.

People claiming that "its not Trek!!!" Clearly were asleep while an entite episode's plot revolves around getting to understand and stop fearing a creature. There's nothing more Trek than that.

Also, am I the only one who saw a plot reference to Gene's idea of having Whales and Dolphins on the TNG Enterprise to help the ship navigate in 3D? I was laughing the whole time

Btw. I totally 100% did not get the fancy manoeuver the Discovery made at the end of Episode 4 to beat the Klingons. What was that?!

[SuperPanda]

Anyway, just watched Episode 3 and 4. Its still awsome.

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I am a bit sad about Commander Chief of Security. I liked her drive and attitude, disliked her stupidity.

People claiming that "its not Trek!!!" Clearly were asleep while an entite episode's plot revolves around getting to understand and stop fearing a creature. There's nothing more Trek than that.

Also, am I the only one who saw a plot reference to Gene's idea of having Whales and Dolphins on the TNG Enterprise to help the ship navigate in 3D? I was laughing the whole time

Btw. I totally 100% did not get the fancy manoeuver the Discovery made at the end of Episode 4 to beat the Klingons. What was that?!

Responses first:

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1. Re: Landry - I was completely off-guard with her death. I was sure she'd be badly injured and recover some how. After seeing episode 5 I am much happier with the move to do things as they did for many many reasons. I know a lot of people give her final actions alot of flak -
and I think they paced the sequence a bit poorly - but it works as a good shock to the expectations for future episodes.

2. Each episode gets a little more Trek than the last and re watching old episodes helps you catch things too. If the show can keep building the way it has been it will be amazing. I'm worried it won't be able to stick the landing on many things its trying to juggle right now and -
like my metaphor - will wind up confused and disappointing in the end. That said I've been routinely surprised so far and am happy to continue to be.

3. I didn't realize Gene wanted that. I know that David Brin had dolphin pilots outmaneuvering bipedal aliens in his uplift novels. I did hear rumors that the showruners had wanted Ripper as a bridge officer but couldn't find a way to make it work without it looking dumb/being way to expensive.

4. The Lorca manuver was a bit dumb. Basically he held perfectly still until klingons on all sides came in for attack runs, not firing so that they would put all their power to their weapons and weaken their shields. Then he waited until they all got as close as possible before teleporting away and leaving a few anti-mater bombs behind - wiping out the klingons. There are a number of reasons why this was an incredibly stupid tactic which only worked because the plot says so, but it was also a nice visual and pay-off to the real drama of the moment and gave us a very Trek "hero" moment for our crew.

Just saw episode 5 and in my humble opinion it was the best one yet. There were visual nods to Discovery's own tech style as well as nods to TOS SFX - Transporters and Disruptors in particular. I have a wild guess from the episode which I am eager to see how right/wrong I am as the show goes forward.

The "Devil in the Dark" moment you identified from Episode 4 returns as a plot point here (like the previews said it would) and it is handled beautifully. The episode focuses on Stamets, Saru and Lorca with Michael getting to be part of Saru and Stamet's plots rather than "the star." There was an amazing payoff to one relationship in the show at the end of the episode which leaves me hungry for more. I'm fresh off of watching episode 5 but I really can't think of anything to complain about.

Heck even Lorca's conscripting Michael got brought up with an Admiral flat out saying it was a bad idea and him pulling the "my ship, my rules" card - with obligatory star-fleet rules-lawyer references to show he's right.

Spoiler: If I had to complain - very much with spoilers

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There is a three week time skip durring which Discovery has been doing all kinds of cool heroic things which we didn't get to see, even in montage - and Michael has been stressing about Ripper's plight the whole time. That could have been a really good episode to itself.
It still worked great as it is.

Starfleet wanted to find more Rippers for their other ships... which, okay - because Michael hasn't filed reports they don't yet know about the damage its causing. Still - the knowledge of the research being in starfleet causes a plot-hole for voyager (not that voyager didn't have plenty of its own).

I could also complain, if I wanted to, that Mudd's speech about Starfleet elites came off just as on-the-nose as political commentary as T'Kuvma's "Remain Klingon" did. But personally I think this made things better since it shows they're taking shots at both sides of that issue.

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Starfleet ship interior felt like a hybrid of TMP and ENT (with a more current futuristic look thrown in) - more so than before it was really feeling Trek this episode).

Everything Saru did this episode - he was a very Starfleet Captian. Even the part where he allows his desire to complete his mission at all cost get the better of him is played with enough nuance and depth to be believably and sympathetic.

Stamets has a heart, and a good one. He was nothing but a jerk in episode 3, showed signs of his soft side in 4 and goes full Starfleet hero in this one.

"Choose your pain" was wickedly Klingon. Crafty without being romulan, brutally effective without being Cardassian.

Lorca's torture. There are four lights! (Okay, I only saw three but that's all I could think when I saw them).

Very Trek fist-fight.

Michael and Saru's scene at the end was perfect - as was Michael and Tilly's scene with Ripper at the end. Stamet's stinger was cute until it was creepy.

The single phrase of dialogue about the spores living and growing and subspace spawned my new headcanon that they are part of the ecosystem for species 8472.

[ImperiousLeader]

Choose Your Pain finally starts really giving the other characters a bit more spotlight. There's a lot to like in this episode:

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1. The admiral more or less admits that Starfleet threw the book at Burnham for political reasons. I had assumed as much, but I liked the confirmation.
2. The plight of the Tardegrade was very well represented. I liked how each character responded to it.
3. Gay characters, the first F-bomb -- not your old school Trek. But where was the kiss, I want my vicarious smoochies.
4. I was not keen on having Mudd appear on Discovery. And I was wrong, I thought Rainn Wilson did a good job, he certainly felt like a younger Mudd.
5. I like Ash, but I don't know if I trust Ash. The escape felt too easy to me.
6. I like how Discovery is really exploring the Trek political universe. Mudd's rant about Starfleet was interesting.

That said, a few nits:

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1. Really? Jonathan Archer? I get that his list of accomplishments is impressive, but I've seen Enterprise, and he doesn't crack the list of best captains. Captain Tuesday from Generations
2. On that note ... Georgiou is the only Captain not to be Captain of an Enterprise. I'd have added a random name or two to the list.
3. While I liked Mudd, he did talk a lot in exposition dump. There was some clunky dialogue.

[Hands_Of_Blue]

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1. Really? Jonathan Archer? I get that his list of accomplishments is impressive, but I've seen Enterprise, and he doesn't crack the list of best captains. Captain Tuesday from Generations
2. On that note ... Georgiou is the only Captain not to be Captain of an Enterprise. I'd have added a random name or two to the list.
3. While I liked Mudd, he did talk a lot in exposition dump. There was some clunky dialogue.

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While I think that Archer deserves to be on that list, playing devil's advocate here, it could be like how Americans view the founding fathers, Archer helped create their society so they put him on a pedestal. Matt Decker isn't Captain Tuesday from Generations. Tuesday's name was Harrimon, I think. Matt Decker is from the TOS episode The Doomsday Machine, he is also the father of Will Decker, the captain in Star Trek The Motion Picture. Will was the guy who merged with the bald chick and V'ger, for some reason. I do agree that the list should have been more extensive. If Georgiou hadn't died everyone on that list, except Archer, would be currently serving on starships right now. So for a hundred years after Archer not a single captain did anything of note? And then there is the fact that they are all humans, which seems odd for the Federation. Put Shran's name in there or something. He was notable enough to have a ship named after him, so give him a spot on the list.

[Mando Knight]

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1. Really? Jonathan Archer? I get that his list of accomplishments is impressive, but I've seen Enterprise, and he doesn't crack the list of best captains. Captain Tuesday from Generations

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Archer was the man that made the Vulcans and Andorians set aside their differences, and even brought the Tellarites around on top of it. It's not an exaggeration to say that he's the reason the Federation exists, and the historians of Discovery's era considered him to be "the greatest explorer of the 22nd century".

[Legato Endless]

Spoiler: To be fair... (Ep 5)

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Archer certainly wouldn't be the first 'Great Man' who was also embarrassingly bad at parts of his job. Nor the first whose accomplishments came to overshadow these flaws.

[ImperiousLeader]

So, an interesting theory is floating around, and yeah, I agree

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that Ash is likely Voq, or another Klingon agent. Which is too bad, I quite like him and would rather he be on the level.

As for Archer, fine, I'm not knocking his accomplishments. Well, honestly, sometimes I think Enterprise succeeded despite him. I just don't think he's a Captain anyone should try to emulate.

[Legato Endless]

As for Archer, fine, I'm not knocking his accomplishments. Well, honestly, sometimes I think Enterprise succeeded despite him. I just don't think he's a Captain anyone should try to emulate.

Oh this is definitely true. The entire plot of 'A Night in Sickbay' only occurs because Archer is the worst diplomat (and pet owner I guess) of any regular officer we've seen. Barclay would've done better. And this is assuming he passes out from fear of infection halfway through the Away mission.

[SuperPanda]

Regarding Archer - I somehow get the feeling that "A night in sickbay" was purged from his final record either by himself or after his death. He certainly had a lot of finding his feet - ENT suffered a lot from wanting to make sure the show felt very TNG even though it was set before the Federation (they obey the prime directive before it exists and such).

Honestly though a lot of that makes sense to me - Archer wasn't a trained diplomat - or diplomatic at all - at the start of the show. I think his background was technical, but he certainly starts off somewhat xenophobic (or at least anti-Vulcan). Despite this he forges a peace between Vulcans and their traditional allies, bringing them together with him as a common ally. He did it all without a guide, without any real training, and most importantly he did it while his culture's tech was laughable compared to the others. Vulcan and Andoria had fleets with more advanced warp and energy shields, and at least similarly strong weapons. Earth has Enterprise. They still agreed to a full alliance with him.

I have a feeling Starfleet drummed up his accomplishments and downplayed his faults. Seeing Ent is like meeting your hero - usually disappointing because they are ultimately only human. (For all its flaws I enjoyed ENT for what it was - he defiantly earned a name on that list but there really should have been more than 5 names).

Regarding the wild guess

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That was my guess too. I think the augment virus'd him. Ash's timeline doesn't line up - the Klingon Captain, L'Rell was stuck on Voq's ship for 6 of the last seven months. I think Lorca's Tribble will be key to confirming this theory - though I don't think anyone on Discovery will know why it is being cranky.

[Cikomyr]

The couple at the end of Episode 5 were so damn cute, and put the entire episode in perspective

"Show me how you convince him. He never listens to me" :-D

[Hands_Of_Blue]

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I know Lorca is a little cuckoo for cocoa puffs, but Ash being a Klingon agent would make it easier for me to accept why they both decided it was ok to leave a Federation citizen behind to be brutally tortured just because he's kind of a massive ****.

[Cikomyr]

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I know Lorca is a little cuckoo for cocoa puffs, but Ash being a Klingon agent would make it easier for me to accept why they both decided it was ok to leave a Federation citizen behind to be brutally tortured just because he's kind of a massive ****.

He is not a massive ****

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he is a collaborator. A.k.a. an outrigth traitor

[Cikomyr]

By the way. Currently rewatching Episode 4. Its waaaaay better once you saw Episode 5

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- All the interactions between the Engineer and his boyfriend

- the Engineer whining that he always wanted to communicate with his.mushrooms

Its hilarious

[SuperPanda]

I man certain this is a series that will be very rewarding to rewatch later. I get the added fun of watching it with my wife who isn't a Trek or even really a sci-if fan in general.
Some of her reactions

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In episode 3 she was legit scared of Ripper.

In episode 4 she decided letting Ripper out was effectively suicide and got nervous - then confused when Michael did it and Ripper really was peaceful.

In episode 5 she got legit worried for Ripper's well being. She went from hating the scary monster to caring for the innocent creature - she got to experience "Devil in the Dark" and I get to watch her learn what Trek is.

Also she's convinced Ash is a Klingon spy - and I explained my guess that Ash is Voq but augmented. She then said I knew too much about Klingons, I must be a Klingon spy and she was going to tell the Captain. My inner nerd was very happy.