Saints of imperfection

The most important unanswered question of this episode: Who picked up Georgiou’s apple‽

I have one thing to say: Wow!

And since you've mentioned it, I've been thinking a lot about Treknobabble, which I think of as those things which have been invented by the writers, and tecnobabble, which refers to real scientific concepts.

I spent some time trying to figure out exactly how the fungal mycelial network was supposed to work, how exactly did it enable the ship to travel faster than the speed of light when spores were injected into a living thing, be it the tardigrade or Stamets. Frankly, I gave up, deciding that it all was just a fiction and not worth wasting brain cells on. I accepted it for what it was worth and moved on. After all, the fungal drive was not destined to part of the narrative for long. I fell in love with TOS without knowing how the warp drive or transporter worked, but then again the characters did not spend a lot of time discussing it either.

But then in the last couple of episodes the mycelial network is back with us in all its glory. I was curious to discover that the ship could land half in and half out of it, and that it was possible for humans to enter it for a short time, though they had to very careful, of course. Amongst the oddities was the yeel tree whose bark excreted poisonous sap. That was the point at which I sat back and sighed. A tree growing inside a fungus. Hmmmm. Leave it.

It's what you call the technobabble that I really object to. A few short examples:

Stamets says: "Yesterday's solar panels are today's fungi."

Problem: Solar panels gather the sun's radiation for us to use as energy. Fungi, not being plants, do not photosynthesize, so they do not use the sun's light to produce energy in the form of food.

Reno says: "If our oxygen ignites, we'll cook like french fries."

Problem: Oxygen itself does not burn, so it can not be ignited, They were in no danger of becoming fried potatoes. P.S. The process by which things burn is oxidation; oxygen or another oxidizer is required, but as we are all aware of, air does not burn.

Burnham says: "It's not logical for a virus to kill its host." Except that any number of people die from viral diseases from the flu to cholera.

It's statements like these that take me out of the story. I wish the writers would resist the urge to include them and devote more time to what I really miss . . .

. . . the moral of the story. That's what I really loved about Trek.

P,S. Alex Kurtzman was heavily involved in the first two Kelvin movies. One thing I do like very much is the experimentation with different lengths and formats. Fundamentally, though, I want to see Discovery continue to be the flagship, and to be the very best it can be. This can be Trek's heyday and we're lucky to be experiencing it firsthand.

I do get your point about the false conflict, though I didn’t think it was *bad* but it didn’t hang together well. I do hope it gets enough seasons to relax a bit. I do think that they are fighting a fan base, fighting a 13 or so episode season and still wanting to tell the story they want to tell. I also wonder if we’ll See a change with shoes under the new show runner.

Karen, you've brilliantly articulated my own feelings. There was a lot that I liked in this episode, but I still just felt that it was bad -- the first episode of Discovery I've felt that way about. For me, as I discovered in conversation with Valerie, it really was the false conflicts. In general something I find exhausting about contemporary writing (screen and page) is the notion that every scene has to have a conflict. This is something that is being taught in writing programs everywhere now and I think it's awful advice (as a writer and reader of stories) because it encourages writers to invent these false conflicts that actually get in the way of the emotional core of a scene ... and then also undermine the impact of the real conflicts in the story.

On this note, you are right to point to all the factors that Pike would have to consider in deciding whether to go get Tilly ... but none of that is shown to us. And I would have loved if it had been. This is what I mean when I say that I wish these episodes were split in two: it's so that we could have drawn this scene out more and had a conversation about the stakes. I keep wanting to say: slow down and talk about this, please.

I'm with you in wishing that Discovery would take the TOS approach of just having weird stuff happen because weird stuff happens. I have a pretty fine line between how much Treknobabble is cheesy and how much is annoying, and Discovery is crossing it a lot -- and it's no surprise that this episode was written by someone who started by writing Voyager novels.

I love your reading of Tilly taking charge in this episode. She is getting awesomer and awesomer. Your idea that Section 31 wants Spock and not necessarily whatever the Red Signals are is interesting. I've been operating on the hypothesis that Section 31 arranged for his escape so that they could follow him to the Red Signals because Section 31 has a better idea of what's going on than we or our heroes do.

Can we get a spin-off show about Pike teaching religious studies at Starfleet Academy?

I tend to agree that this was the weakest of Season 2 but I still can’t put my thumb on it because speaking scene wise I loved 80 percent of them quite a lot individually. I think some of the difficulty is too much explaining and I honestly cannot fault the writers for trying because they will get roasted either way. Go the TOS route and really, explain very little (It’s fairly amazing how little actual explanation of technical happenings one gets) or Crazy technobabble Janeway Torres level explaining, which was not a problem for me but many hate it. Here we have an added factor of trying to do something based on a really out there theory of a scientific niche that has it’s own issues. You have to accept that premise or you can’t go with this. But I have my own issues with the whole “science check” thing in Star Trek fandom. I’m sorry but in TOS really very little was known and there were quite a few things that were absolutely made up out of wholecloth and still, people loved it and some of it people made eventually work just because they loved it. Part of it is Discovery *does* tend to go in on the metaphysical aspects of these stories a bit. And they get slaughtered. Which is highly unfair when you consider some of the things dealt with in past shows that are somewhat given a pass. Sparkly beings that have been separated from their bodies to be put in prison can just float into the crew of the TNG Enterprise and take them over but a dying entity setting off Saru’s Vahar’ai is considered weird. Etc. (this is not you guys, but in general complaints I hear.) My point is Disco seems to be held to some different standard for some reason and I just don’t get it.

However, yeah, the way we get Culber back is .... problematic to look at closely. As my non-trekkie friend said though, “I don’t really care though. We get the good guy back”. Lol.

I did want to mention we got more Pike church references so I really do think he’s either a man of faith or grew up that way. Interestingly, I saw a bit of video CBS did with him Ethan and SMG asking for Black History month who would you want to spend an hour with and he chose Dr. King. Apparently his father was a Theologian and journalist and knew King. Mount recalled seeing a pic of his much older sister, as a child, sitting on King’s lap and he always wished he’d been able to. So that was interesting. They kind of infused Pike with a bit of Mount’s history in a way.

BTW, my big takeaway on this ep was “OMG Pike is like the ultimate captain. He’s everything I would want my captain to be.”

I will say I think S31 wants Spock. They seem to have an affinity for snagging people of two worlds. Human/Klingon, Prime u/Mirror u, Burnham is well protected and Georgiou is probably sure she would not even consider it, but maybe Spock is a target for being literally Vulcan/Human? I dunno but it’s a thought.

Re: Georgiou and her over the topness....I don’t know. Yeah, a bit but for me it works and the more we see little glimpses of actual humanity the more it works. Yes, we had the cooing at baby and reverting to tough girl the minute she is caught but I noticed in this ep too, she was pretty serious when she got Johnny on the spot with trying to buy DIscovery more time and facing away from Leland, she seemed *sincerely* happy Discovery was safe. It didn’t seem like a sly or smug smile, just a happy smile. Check that out again if you don’t remember seeing it. It’s right after Disco pulls out of the network. (Also man, I loooooooooooved the doorstop effects. That FWOOMP! As it lodged itself half in was awesome I thought.)

Also I feel like Georgiou is putting on a lot of front because that is how she has always been. That is how she behaved as Emporer. I think her “you brought me to this insufferable place” is no longer an actual complaint. But she’ll use it. And act like it. She’s never going to be one to pass up a dig. Anyway, it does not bother me. It’s a facade she probably used the higher she got in the MU hierarchy and habits die hard. Plus it can be useful for her. Or at least was. We’ll see.

I agree that the rest of the crew didn’t know what Pike was probably talking about , but this is a total TOS call back with the speech. Kirk did it quite a lot really. And it’s just a TOS thing. (Which is why I think the Lower Decks animated show could be SO FUNNY. Ensign McLenney hears announcement and thinks “What the HELL? What are we doing now! Where do I go?“) But I will say I don’t mind the small amount of hesitation here on deciding. It’s technology he has not lived with that long, he must also decide on the lives of his crew and using this plan to get Tilly. I don’t think he’s hesitating over getting Tilly. And I also didn’t feel like this was a long process. He seemed to go in for it pretty quickly. Probably more quickly that putting down shields against the Orb thing.

The JahSepp thing was a problem. Lots because we did have May keep Tilly from being broken down. We don’t know is one mote one JahSepp or are they in units or is it kind of a network society? Can May just affect immediate area JahSepp motes, hence Tilly, Burnham and Stamets were protected? My non-Trekkie friend did say “can’t she just tell them to stop eating the ship?” Well that’s the problem. We don’t know anything about how they work really. OTOH, again I can think of a lot of times we used to just accept that kind of unknown without much fuss In past series. So....¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I do truly believe May is affected by being with Tilly. I don’t for sure know her motivations now, but I do believe she has changed and I wonder how well she can fit back in her society.

THe one thing I haven’t seen anyone, anywhere address and I am so surprised is that the Tilly May story was important for Tilly in the aspect it was a VERY big leadership experience. This was truly first contact in a hostile environment and once she got past her anger (and I will love forever that scene “And when I do I’m not going to work through my anger, I’m going to let it sit and FESTER for eternity!” Because I just loved her delivery and had at least two people I know who absolutely would say that. Lol) after that, she took charge, she led, she did keep May relatively on point. Did we need the gun steal/talk down? Maybe not. But again, Tilly took charge and handled things. This was IMO a huge Tilly Leader Building exercise.

Anyhow, I can’t figure out why I can feel this ep is lacking but still love so many things about it individually. Still, I think it was a super tough story to break and it honestly kept me entertained and interested. to (sorry for the novel again!)

So my non-Trekkie friend came over to watch the episode and I was kind of excited because I knew she had zero idea that Culber was coming back unlike me who reads way too much shit on the Internet and because she is SUPER reactive to this show. Like sometimes having to get up and pace around, yelling at characters etc. and sure enough the first shot of Hugh when they find him she GASPS and throws her arm over her mouth. Her eyes got huge. Needless to say I had a blast watching it with her. But after, I was telling her how I thought this was where the title came from and explaining the sermon and well I honestly was like wow. Yeah. This is definitely where the title comes from because it’s all about how everyone is at different points in their path (word that got used a LOT in this episode.) I didn’t even realize how much it coincided until I was paraphrasing the sermon to tell her about it. Someone in the writers room definitely took some kind of 17th century religions class in college or something. And it is definitely applicable in secular senses as well. But it IS rather fascinating how all these themes coincide across the entire series so far. All of the characters that struggle across two worlds with opposing points of view. Human/Vulcan, Human/Klingon, Prime universe/Mirror Universe and now our universe/mycelial universe. People can make fun of this being an “action show” but I’m telling you there are a LOT of interesting philosophical ideas going on here.

To borrow a line from our still yet-to-appear Spock: fascinating. I hadn't realized this was the title of the next episode, and now I'm really excited. I read sermons for a living (from the fifth and sixth centuries) and I don't think I've encountered this phrase before, so I'd be really interested to read this one from Gurnall if you can link to it.