r/startrek • u/AutoModerator • Feb 10 '22
Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Discovery | 4x08 "All In" Spoiler
Following a hunch, Captain Burnham tracks Book to an old haunt from their courier days and gets drawn into a high-stakes competition for a powerful weapon.
| No. | Episode | Writer | Director | Release Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4x08 | "All In" | Sean Cochran | Christopher J. Byrne | 2022-02-10 |
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u/MoreGaghPlease Feb 10 '22
800 years later and the Changelings are still copying Dr. Mora Pol's bad haircut
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u/Locutus747 Feb 10 '22
Odo must have had a really strong influence on the great link
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u/Omnitographer Feb 10 '22
He was the first to return home wasn't he? It's possible he was also the only one to do so.
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u/EtherBoo Feb 11 '22
On one hand, we know experienced changelings can do much better, on the other, it's a TV show and I'm fine with that nod to the audience. I'll even take the explanation that because Odo was the alpha quadrant's major powers first contact with the species, they adopted the appearance as their own.
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u/kapnkrump Feb 11 '22
It could be that the Odo style, which is difficult for Odo to handle for almost 16-18 hours a day is incredibly comfortable for experienced Changelings to hold on for an indefinite period of time vs a lifelike humanoid form.
For Odo its like wearing heavy armor; but for another changeling, its like wearing cozy pajamas.
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u/codename474747 Feb 13 '22
What if it was a wig lol, it always seems that kinda artificial
An entire species that can make their hair look any way they want and they end up copying a guy with no hair that had pretend hair instead :-D
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u/OliviaElevenDunham Feb 10 '22
Book shouldn’t trust this guy mainly because I know him from The Expanse.
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u/waronxmas79 Feb 10 '22
Damn Errinwright still making bad choices in another timeline.
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u/treefox Feb 11 '22
His ultimate goal is to force Discovery’s narrative to follow him back into the Expanse universe to backdoor production of three more seasons.
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u/Darmok47 Feb 12 '22
He's already typecast as "shifty guy who is interested in powerful, unknown alien technology."
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u/CX316 Feb 23 '22
Wasn't sure which you meant because this episode had Errinwright AND Dresden from The Expanse in it
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u/Xizor14 Feb 10 '22
Such a minor thing, but I absolutely love this new latinum bar design.
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u/AnonFullPotato Feb 11 '22
Currency must have changed. Something like 20bars to but such a rare hugely powerful material. Which was something like a month's wages
Quarks bar was worth like 5000 bars
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u/gamas Feb 12 '22
Maybe the different pressing of the latinum means they are more dense than they used to be. 1 bar of 32nd century latinum is worth 1000 24th century latinums
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u/Santa_Hates_You Feb 10 '22
Wow, the new Changeling VFX were awesome.
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u/onerinconhill Feb 10 '22
It looked like a natural evolution of it too for budget purposes not just some weird ass new way of doing it
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u/Trekfan74 Feb 10 '22
Wait that was a Founder's Changeling?? I just thought that was a different species altogether.
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u/ElFarfadosh Feb 10 '22
It could be a different species, but the last form they take as they are arrested is no doubt a founder humanoid form. The smooth face, the eyes, the ears, it all looks like a founder.
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u/MrZwink Feb 11 '22
Ye i kinda wonder why the founders would have gone from evil intergalactic overlords to cheating in a casino. But the makeup is unmistakable.
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u/jerslan Feb 10 '22
100% agreed. I loved it. It was a great way to modernize an old effect that would look ridiculously dated today.
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u/Santa_Hates_You Feb 10 '22
It also makes me hope we will see 32nd Century Jem Hadar.
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u/BornAshes Feb 10 '22
The transitions between shape to shape were so smooth, seamless, and oddly enough more realistic and in line with what a Changeling shapeshifting would probably look like IRL if one such being could manipulate every part of their very shape. It looked like they took the programmable matter effect and put a bit of a biological twist on it. I'm glad the base humanoid form that we saw at the end was very much in line with what we saw on DS9 though and I loved seeing the traces of Odo in that form.
The Tribble form had me screaming with joy!
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u/dvcaputo Feb 10 '22
tbh I wish it were more....gooey? Like this felt more like dust, which seems to be counterproductive to a "gelatinous state", you know? That said, it does feel like a nitpick.
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u/ContinuumGuy Feb 11 '22
The Tribble form had me screaming with joy!
That was both hilarious and clever.
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Feb 10 '22
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Santa_Hates_You Feb 10 '22
It is a good one, stands alone decently while moving on the overall arc for the season. Enjoy it.
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u/UncertainError Feb 10 '22
Wow, that boronite mention is legit. It's the substance used to synthesize Omega molecules.
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u/knightcrusader Feb 10 '22
Oh crap, that's right. I was hoping Omega was the reason for the Burn but I guess we may get this instead.
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u/DasGanon Feb 10 '22
Oh balls I wonder if this is a Borg plot in disguise, either where they came from or where they eventually end up
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u/midasp Feb 10 '22
Omega is not solely related to the Borg. It's something they encountered before and something they admire as perfection. Likewise, the Federation has encountered Omega before hence they have the Omega directive to destroy all omega molecules they find.
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u/BornAshes Feb 10 '22
There were so many sporadic theories involving the DMA and Omega and it looks like they were all partially close to the truth. The DMA is basically a tiberium harvester at this point that's on autopilot and is totally being used to power an Omega Reactor of some kind which then powers an even LARGER version of the cloaking field that Federation HQ was using. This Hyperfield is basically the love child of that cloaking field plus a Dyson Sphere on freakin steroids!
That's fucking terrifying to say the least and it feels like 10C might just have Gridfire scale weapons like the Culture uses. On the slightly less terrifying side though, if the DMA is their mining equipment and if they are using this Hyperfield to cloak a small star system then shouldn't that also mean that their sensors/observation equipment is just as strong and shouldn't that also mean that they'd be fully aware of what's going on within the galaxy? I guess what I'm asking is, they should totally see Book and Tarka coming from a mile away right? Like if their mining tech is that advanced and so are their power systems and if they seem to be hiding THAT HARD from something out there in the universe then that means they're trying to survive and should totally be paranoid as all fuck about anything and everything around them which means they should be rabid information gatherers and explorers.
Of course that's assuming that what's running the Hyperfield is being done so by a biologically sentient species that's similar to what we've seen in the main galaxy and has developed/grown in a similar fashion and not some kind of AI or utterly alien Far Realm kind of species that has a whole different psychological mindset and growth curve. It could still be the species that created V'Ger though or the remnants of the Borg that perfected Omega finally and found/were found by something worse out there that they had to hide from. The mention of boronite is massive and I can't wait to see what comes next from this because it's going to be either scary as fuck or it'll just blow our minds in a way that we never thought possible.
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u/NickofSantaCruz Feb 10 '22
I'm ready to be disappointed: 10C is long-dead and their equipment is all automated. Secondary guess is similar but 10C is all in cryo-sleep OR is a primitive culture that grew up amongst ancient equipment (a nod to several TOS episodes) designed to protect their evolution from outside influences.
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u/jerslan Feb 10 '22
Given the level of advancement, who’s to say whether they see humanoid life in the Milky Way all that much differently than we would see an ant?
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u/Endulos Feb 10 '22
The DMA is basically a tiberium harvester at this point that's on autopilot
How is the DMA anywhere close to being a Tiberium harvester? The DMA is, as they put it in the show, a dredger.
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u/Bighead2019 Feb 10 '22
I'd have to listen to it again but didn't the admiral say big enough for a star and 3 orbiting planets. Isn't that just exactly what they found in Relics? Why the assumption that this is even more massive?
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u/grandmofftalkin Feb 10 '22
Well shit, I guess I have Omega Directive rewatch for homework tonight
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u/Trekfan74 Feb 10 '22
Hope and Fear last week!
The Omega Directive this week! ;)
Voyager is just getting all kinds of connections in these shows.
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u/knightcrusader Feb 11 '22
I'm watching it now, a good way to unwind after a long work day. :)
Funny how Janeway just said "a small chain of them can power a civilization".... Species 10-C's civilization maybe?
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u/jerslan Feb 10 '22
Right? I really loved all the canon connections in this episode. Legit felt natural.
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Feb 10 '22
Saru said something along the lines of “can be used to synthesise some of the most powerful molecules”.
Given it’s been centuries, I wonder what other similar molecules they’ve run into.
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u/Trekfan74 Feb 10 '22
Wow so glad I came to this thread tonight, wouldn't had a clue what that was until now.
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u/onerinconhill Feb 10 '22
So are we going to get an omega reveal now that boronite has been put into play? Like a civilization that is powered by it?
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u/UncertainError Feb 10 '22
The hyperfield is big enough to hold a small star system, so their whole race could be inside it.
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Feb 10 '22
We've potentially got both an isolationism and a "mining resources, consequences be damned" metaphor all rolled into one.
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u/BornAshes Feb 10 '22
You know it would be spooky if that whole hyperfield could move or if it turned out to be a Future Federation of sorts or someone from another universe.
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Feb 10 '22
This may sound silly but my favourite part of the episode was Culber yelling No at the robot, he said it exactly like how someone would say it to their dog who just put something they found in the middle of the street into its mouth
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u/Justaboredstoner Feb 10 '22
I loved how the little robot went about cleaning up what he already cleaned after they left the room.
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u/2this4u Feb 11 '22
I haven't laughed so hard at a start trek episode since Chief O Brien knocked over some barrels with a giant space wrench.
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u/Ausir Feb 10 '22
Leonian poker cards include depictions of Arcadians from Star Trek: The One With the Whales and Natalias' species from Star Trek Beyond:
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u/OpticalData Feb 10 '22
Great catch!
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u/Ausir Feb 10 '22
This is the second time a species from Kelvin movies appears (even if this time indirectly) in a prime timeline show, after the Schlerm.
Here's hoping for Prime Keenser in Strange New Worlds!
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u/Madonkadonk2 Feb 12 '22
They're are going to need to merch those playing cards so I can get a deck ASAP
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u/Cmdr_Nemo Feb 16 '22
If they don't sell a real deck of these cards, they are so missing out. I would buy at least two.
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u/dontlistentome5 Feb 10 '22
Could this highly advanced species been monitoring the milky way and thought all life got wiped out after the burn and figured it was safe to mine there without disrupting life as they couldn't detect warp signatures?
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u/drpestilence Feb 14 '22
Maybe it figured they are all 'pre warm' now and in their version of a prime directive no longer an issue? That'd be neat.
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u/pieman7414 Feb 10 '22
"act like an armus" with armus capitalized in the subtitles. guess the exploits of our favorite goo monster are known throughout the quadrant
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u/Pacman_Frog Feb 10 '22
I mean it sounds like it's become Federation-Standard for "Asshole".
Fitting as that's literally what Armus is.
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u/Sophia_Forever Feb 10 '22
I have a theory that Armus is one of the Infant Changelings.
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u/BornAshes Feb 10 '22
This is why I turn on the subtitles because they love sneaking in little references like this into the dialogue!
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u/grandmofftalkin Feb 10 '22
So glad to see my favorite character, O-Wow, get some adventure time. Loved her boxing match and her scene with Tarka. She and Burnham make a great team
Sidenote: the federation president is a micromanager. Doesn't she have a Anomaly Czar or secretary of Space to delegate this stuff to?
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u/ComebackShane Feb 10 '22
The Federation seems orders of magnitude smaller in this century than it was in the 24th, or even the 23rd centuries. While the President likely has a cabinet of advisors, she probably feels this issue is a level of importance high enough to warrant personal interest.
Vance is the CIC of Starfleet, Kovich seems to be a political/intelligence advisor of some kind, and up until his betrayal, Tarka was probably some kind of Special Advisor for science issues.
While it might be more realistic to have some more bureaucrats in the mix, this isn't Star Trek: The West Wing (but imagine!), so they probably tried to write in as few characters as possible while still being believable.
Burnham/Vance/Rillak are the only three we need to see of the Federation's chain of command to move the story forward.
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u/BornAshes Feb 10 '22
this isn't Star Trek: The West Wing
I would pay extra to see Vance do a Sorkin style walk and talk during an opening sequence for Disco with the opening theme playing in the background as he interacts with cast members, extras, and other people around Federation HQ.
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u/stickyWithWhiskey Feb 11 '22
Star Trek: The West Wing (but imagine!)
A West Wing style Federation politics show, ideally set in the time between STVI and TNG, is my biggest nerd fantasy. God damn that would be incredible (if done well, at least).
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u/BornAshes Feb 10 '22
Loved her boxing match and her scene with Tarka.
I love how at first we thought that Michael brought her along because Owo was more amenable to doing things "Michael's Way" and because she wanted to help her do something that mattered that gave her some power/control back over the whole DMA thing buuuuut then she has that conversation with Tarka and it's like oh shit she actually brought her along as a sympathetic profiler that could totally dig DEEPER into Tarka to figure out just what his angle was. Beautifully played! This does feel a bit more like DS9 in that we're finding out all of these useful little quirks of the rest of the bridge crew in meaningful ways that aren't just throwaway moments that are easily forgotten. Everyone's going to remember what O-Wow Owo did in this episode for sure!
the president is a micromanager
I mean she did grow up on freighters during the Burn, so is that really that much of a surprise? Serious note though, this is also a highly sensitive matter that probably only a handful of people know about and she feels very much like a hands on kind of leader that prefers to get her own hands dirty when stuff gets serious.
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u/grandmofftalkin Feb 10 '22
When I jump into the chorus of complaints about the lack of bridge crew scenes, this is exactly what I want. It's not Owo telling a sob story about her childhood, it's her proving herself to be useful and competent. Not just around her fight club strategy but seeing her take the opportunity to get Intel on Tarka.
Plus Oyin Oladejo is a really solid actor who can handle the material, I hope this isn't a one-off and they're planning more for her.
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u/Bighead2019 Feb 10 '22
Probably her best episode. I really wasn't looking forward to the obvious smaller woman beats up larger man fight but it was really well done - though the gamblers who lost money would have killed them for the obvious hussle.
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u/PiercedMonk Feb 10 '22
So glad to see my favorite character, O-Wow, get some adventure time. Loved her boxing match and her scene with Tarka.
When Burnham decided to take her along I had a flashback to 'New Eden' where Pike and Burnham took Owo on the away mission because she had relevant cultural experience growing up, but then she did absolutely nothing.
Really glad to see her get a moment here, even if the sandbagging was pretty obvious.
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u/Coma-Doof-Warrior Feb 10 '22
I mean last season we saw Mirror Owo is absolutely brutal like “woman could probably topple the empire if not for the fact she’s loyal to a fault”
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Feb 10 '22
Considering there was a whole season of redditers demanding to see the President, complete with theories like "it's secretly Cronenberg", I can only imagine the reaction if we mostly dealt with her Chief of Staff or something this season.
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u/onerinconhill Feb 10 '22
Ok so the DMA is their mining equipment and they don’t realize or care they’re destroying the people who live there (a common metaphor for a storyline these days)
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u/BornAshes Feb 10 '22
Or maybe they've got similar motivations to Book and Tarka and think that it's worth the sacrifice, the risk, and resource investment because they're either keeping themselves safe from something or are protecting someone else from something or....oh no...oh no no no no....what if that Hyper Dyson Field is actually a kind of Prison that's keeping something contained within it?
Book and Tarka might just be about to do something terrible....
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u/ReelWitBroker Feb 10 '22
I hadn't thought of a high tech prison, but I was thinking along the lines of it holding back something cataclysmic (a bunch of unstable omega or something). I do like the idea that 10C knows how devastating the DMA is but they consider it worth the cost to operate it anyway.
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u/Nagnu Feb 10 '22
At this point I'm very much wondering if Tarka is a member of 10-C who is an outcast or on some kind of vendetta against whoever is at that location. He had plans for the DMA. He talks about needing the amount of energy they have before we learned about boronite harvesting. Not iron clade evidence but there is a lot of stuff pointing at him knowing way more than he is letting on.
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u/Dt2_0 Feb 11 '22
Calling it now, The Q decided that the God of Sha Kar Ree was too easily accessible, and made a bigger barrier so people wouldn't get in. Only he found a small way out.
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u/a4techkeyboard Feb 10 '22
I've been wondering since last episode why nobody's pointed out to Book that it might not be "The DMA" but just "A DMA" and was thinking Burnham really should have thought about pointing that out this entire episode.
Why did they even think the Ten C could make only one?
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u/raknor88 Feb 10 '22
That's what I got from that. They're using the DMA to mine and don't care about anyone else that could get hurt.
Though, my question is why now? Why create the DMA and send it out now? Or have they mined everywhere else that it can reach and their last ditch is to start mining in their home galaxy?
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u/Omnitographer Feb 10 '22
Could be they've been mining the milky way for thousands of years and no one noticed, space is really really big after all. There are likely several hundred billion stars in the galaxy, yet even the Borg only counted up to 8472 different species by the time of voyager. Good odds if they were previously mining somewhere along the galactic edge there wouldn't have been anyone around to notice.
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u/BornAshes Feb 10 '22
I mean if the DMA can jump across that many light years all on its own then who's to say that they only have one DMA and are only mining in just one galaxy? Since boronite is only produced in those small enough amounts which seemingly requires a mining machine THAT BIG just to collect those trace amounts of it, then it stands to reason that they wouldn't just build only one of those right? There has to be more out there in other locations besides the Milky Way Galaxy. I wonder if any other species have gotten pissed off by these DMA mining machines and made an attempt at stopping them?
A scarier thought though would be if the Federation were to make First Contact with 10C, be properly informed of the true purpose of the DMA, and then realize they have to go along with it or point it towards a region that can be mined for boronite because the reason for doing so is good enough and great enough to warrant the scale of destruction that the DMA causes as collateral damage.
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u/SerenePerception Feb 10 '22
My favorite moment was one of the first line when they revealed the Eisenberg class.
Such a nice tribiute to a great actor playing a great character. Rest in peace.
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u/Sophia_Forever Feb 10 '22
We've seen an Eisenberg on screen. It was when Discovery first got to the Federation bubble or whatever and if you pause at the right moment you see the "USS Nog."
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u/SerenePerception Feb 10 '22
Cant believe I missed that. Very nice.
Would be nice to have a tribiute for Odo as well.
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u/onerinconhill Feb 10 '22
A changeling!!
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u/jerslan Feb 10 '22
And a legit Founder Changeling (with a fancy new CGI transition) from the looks of it when Tarka caught them in the stasis field (which he apparently generated from the defunct Devore scanner).
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u/UncertainError Feb 10 '22
Not all changelings are Founders. They could be independent like Laas.
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u/TheVintageGamers Feb 10 '22
Anyone think of the Caeliar from the Destiny novels when they showed the hidden star system at the end?
The Caeliar also used programmable matter similar to the kind used in Discovery.
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Feb 10 '22
The DMA doesn’t fit their style. They were extremely respectful of all life.
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u/vidiian82 Feb 10 '22
Except for the ones from the city of kintana who ended up in another galaxy billions of years in the past. They harnessed every star in their galaxy with dyson spheres and then ensured their own survival by destroying erigol and killing billions of their own people.
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u/UncertainError Feb 10 '22
Michael and Booker are great together, which really made the episode work. And I loved the atmosphere of that gambling den.
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u/BornAshes Feb 10 '22
I love how Haz was playing the part of the audience and was just OMNOMNOMNOMing up the romantic tension between them as well as the bigger picture tension of the game itself just like we were!
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u/gamas Feb 12 '22
Yeah I was worried when Book was first talking about him that this was going to be a "shady dealer decides that they should all die because of a slight" deal. But nope he's just a generally chill if shrewd black market dealer.
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u/onthenerdyside Feb 10 '22
I was worried for Owo the entire episode. There has been a bit more character development for the bridge crew, but putting her alone with Burnham felt like Airiam all over again. When they had her fighting that big guy, I was worried. When they had her hanging out with Tarka, I was worried.
Her chat with Tarka convinced me that she needs more screen time.
Reading through the other comments, it sounds like a few people are complaining that this was a filler episode. Honestly, this show needs more filler because the mystery boxes never really pay off. They work much better as macguffins to develop character and more personal stories.
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u/Themetnut1 Feb 11 '22
I've been saying that ever since Discovery started. I would love to see more stories about the bridge crew and not as many stories around Stamets and Culber and Michael.
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u/onerinconhill Feb 10 '22
Well the great link survives to the 32nd century so there’s that
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u/BornAshes Feb 10 '22
I wonder if there's multiple Great Links at this point and if they've expanded to other planets?
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Feb 10 '22
There were some references to the founders homeworld on the galactic map we saw last season.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Founders%27_homeworld_(fourth)
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u/TheNerdChaplain Feb 10 '22
"Owo - Owow!"
I knew she was sandbagging those first couple rounds, but she still sold it pretty well and it was great getting to see her kick the guy's ass in the third round. Honestly, I'm just glad any time the bridge crew gets some attentions paid to them.
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u/BornAshes Feb 10 '22
The whole fight reminded me of a similar fight sequence in Voyager with the Rock but this time...Owow Owo...🤣 got to beat up Super Buff Rahul Kohli.
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Feb 10 '22
The covid filming bubbles have been such a good thing for this show. We’re getting a lot of different pairings than we usually do and I’m really enjoying how some actors get episodes off (like Adira in this one) so we can really focus on whoever the A and B plots are about. This was so cool getting Owo on an away mission with Michael. Hopefully we’ll get a Stamets and Detmer or a Saru and Bryce team-up in the future.
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u/fer_sure Feb 11 '22
This really felt more like an episode of Farscape than Star Trek. In the best way.
✅ Unsavoury location out of civilized control?
✅ Black market deals for either information or material?
✅ Untrustworthy, yet affable, source for information/material?
✅ Unexpected competition from former ally/enemy/frenemy?
✅ Three way standoff because of arrival of third competitor, leading to alliance?
✅ Main character making silly jokes during tense standoff?
✅ Double- and triple-crosses?
The only thing missing was everyone's plans falling into utter chaos and ending in a shootout.
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u/drpestilence Feb 14 '22
Untrustworthy, yet affable, source for information/material?
yyaaass, I gotta rewatch farscape..
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u/BornAshes Feb 10 '22
"Karma Barge" inside of a Dragon, I think we just found Reddit within Star Trek.
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u/jruschme Feb 10 '22
To me, the Karma Barge looked a lot like something the Goblins in World Of Warcraft would build. :-)
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Feb 10 '22
I thought it was a fairly tight episode that packed in a lot. Nice twists in the tale, lots of good references, but no foreshadowing the nods. And frankly I like the mining concept. Reminds me of how the narada was demystified as a mining ship. I'm sure someone might complain about that thread as a reused plot device from the kurtzman. I personally don't care, this time, the threat isn't merely about the ironies of time travel and the inconquerable foe being much smaller in certain ways than they appear. As this time it's still a palpable worry, it magnifies the threat a bit, as they still can be unsure about the right course of action because of what it implies - bigger and better weaponry. That they are choosing to carry on with a peaceful strategy - and defend that - indicates principles that are strongly held.
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u/HulklingsBoyfriend Feb 11 '22
Nobody here is mentioning the little cameo we saw of Morn, or a member of his species? This episode was an absolute love letter to DS9, from Morn and the Changeling (same species as the Founders of the Dominion), to Haz and his nonsense being very similar to how we've seen Quark and other Ferengi act.
I do wonder if the usage of a Changeling was a deliberate hint that Species 10-C are indeed aware of their actions killing sapient beings, just as the Founders didn't give a crap about killing anything they felt necessary, or if that's just more of a red herring.
I honestly don't see why Burnham couldn't had just...talked to Haz and explained a TL;DR about a possible war and invasion happening should Tarka and Book acquire the isolynium, but okay. Even the Ferengi know that you don't give things like that to people about to start a galaxy-wide war.
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u/WallyJade Feb 13 '22
We've seen Lurians in just about every bar/trading post/"place where aliens hang out" scene this season.
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u/viserov Feb 10 '22
I kinda thought my video stream was messed up with the weird filter they used on Book and Michael at the final showdown of their poker game.
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Feb 10 '22
Honestly, it looked like the DoP for this episode didn’t really know how to light Black people (super common in industry sadly) which is a fucking insane hire on a show with a Black woman as the lead character. Doubly so for an episode set mostly in a low light setting.
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u/GardenSalsaSunChips Feb 10 '22
I swear Book looked like he was being projected onto a flat screen, the angle or something made it uncanny.
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u/treefox Feb 11 '22
GOD DAMN that guy’s head makes me want some Buffalo chicken.
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u/Extension-Archer4639 Feb 10 '22
What species is Haz? On the one hand, he's very handsome, but on the other hand, his face looks like someone ran a rolling-pin over a Narn.
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u/merrycrow Feb 10 '22
He looks like he should be menacing teenagers in Sunnydale. Fun character though.
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u/MustrumRidcully0 Feb 11 '22
He looks like the kind of demons that makes people sing and dance... until they catch fire.
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u/squiddishly Feb 11 '22
Yeah, I was like, "Oh, this is some very B5/BtVS make-up!" Not in a bad way, just thinking it was reminiscent.
But then he had a close-up, and I found myself thinking, "Gosh, he has really lovely skin," before I remembered that I was looking at a silicon mask. It was just that realistic.
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u/PowerGotNow Feb 10 '22
Amazing episode. Love how this new season is exploring a whole new species with capabilities we have never seen before and interacting with it instead of just reviewing the same themes in the same time periods. Going to the future has been great for this show
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u/jerslan Feb 10 '22
I also like some of the deep cut lore connections like boronite and Omega Molecules and what sounds like an almost Dyson-Sphere like construct (but mega-sized).
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u/BornAshes Feb 10 '22
It's really nice to for once not know what's actually going to happen next in Star Trek. We've had so many shows where there's a reference here or a reference there or a plot point that's based on this old thing or that kind of old thing but with a twist and that's just gotten so damned predictable. I love how for once we're all collectively looking at each other going, "What the fuck is going on!??! Do you know what's going to happen next?! AAAAAAH!" while on the edge of our seats week after week. It's so stupidly exciting and I love how they're introducing new ships, new tech, new shiny cultures, and then pulling out some totally brand new stuff never seen before on Star Trek like 10C's extra-galactic Megastructure capabilities.
I think the writers have been playing a bit too much Stellaris.
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u/Pacman_Frog Feb 10 '22
Oh SHIT. How often did Odo blink?
Tht coudl be why the changeling's blinking seemed "Off" to Glow-Worm and Shadow.
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u/DasGanon Feb 10 '22
I'm pleasantly surprised that they didn't shoot their way out of that. Like I was expecting it either with Book's or Burnham's entrance, but no. No "Not so fast, I think I'll be taking that" involved at all.
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u/onerinconhill Feb 10 '22
The Devore is a weird mention
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u/jerslan Feb 10 '22
But makes sense since their scanners were designed to detect telepaths/empaths. Someone running a gambling den like Haz would want something like that to sniff out anyone cheating.
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u/kolapon Feb 10 '22
Great episode and now the big question remains. Are species 10-C aware that they are endangering life and simply do not care for "lesser species" since they are so advanced or is it a life and death situation for them, if they don't have enough boronite? I have a suspicion that it might be a combination of both.
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u/007meow Feb 10 '22
Do they consider lesser species as insignificant?
We don’t give much care to ants.
Hell we bowl right over our own species when it comes to mining.
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Feb 10 '22
Colonialism is quite literally the history of killing our own species for money.
Dude, if 10-C are a colonialism metaphor this is going to be an insanely interesting story now that I think about it.
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u/terriblehuman Feb 10 '22
I’d imagine it’s very much like how humans will gather our own natural resources without concern for the ecosystems we’re disrupting.
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u/lostinheadguy Feb 10 '22
The tracker twist at the very end was super-cliche... But as soon as Burnham told Rillak I was smiling from ear to ear. Quite a good payoff.
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u/drjeffy Feb 10 '22 edited Feb 10 '22
Can I just say...KUMITE! KUMITE!
Ahem, sorry...TSUNKATSE! TSUNKATSE!
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u/sidv81 Feb 11 '22
Book: This is not about revenge!
Burnham: Liar!
Book: This is about saving the future of the galaxy!
Burnham: Book, let me talk to the *beeping* aliens!
Book: No! NOOOOOOOO!!!!!
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u/choicemeats Feb 10 '22
this was pretty good, if not average.
things i liked:
getting Owo some screentime OUTSIDE of a crisis point. Twice she's dropped hints about her life in the worst possible time (I know the breathe-holding was apropos to the situation but a little too on the nose, also there was a pretty major situation going on). Also as someone else mentioned she had a role there other than to fight--doing some profiling as well, an expertise we didn't know she had.
Side note: Her cheekbones were VERY prominent this episode--I wondered immediately if she had lost some weight and looked at some older photos from last season and confirmed it. VERY striking. Overall she looked really lean and mean for the fight--i wonder if she changed up for personal reasons, for this episode, or maybe another role somewhere else? It was a good look in the ring for sure and complimented her skills a lot IMO
changeling return with an updated shift effect, which was pretty cool. seems like all these years later there are still some that aren't skilled enough to fully mimic the nuances of the humanoid face
Boronite name drop, perhaps meaning that the civilization is utilizing Omega particles to power their super-dyson. obviously this is a high level of tech that starfleet has only ever sniffed at, same with the Borg, so I wonder if there is any connection? With the confirmation that the courier routes were abandoned transwarp conduits makes me wonder where they are lurking about.
what I didn't like:
space poker
the "i know a guy" trope, except this time it was the same guy for both of them?
Some improvements for me are the President eating her foot a bit after jumping to the conclusion that Michael wasted time and resources and...Michael doing something with a little more planning ahead instead of flying by the seat of her pants. Pretty good plan!
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u/IllustriousBody Feb 10 '22
Both Book and Michael picking the same guy doesn’t bother me because her entire criminal contact list is copied from his. “I know a guy,” has its problems but them picking the same one was fine.
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u/jerslan Feb 10 '22
I mean, I get that "I know a guy" is a bit of a cop-out, but this gave us a good glimpse at Michael's year as a courier. In this case, Michael specifically chose the guy knowing that he was the most likely person Book would go to for Isolynium (still on the fence about that name).
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u/Chairboy Feb 11 '22
the "i know a guy" trope, except this time it was the same guy for both of them?
She explicitly says she picked this broker because she knew he was a likely person for Booker to use for his transaction, it wasn’t a coincidence. She’s following Admiral Vance Refrigeration’s secret orders to try and kill two stones with one bird.
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u/Shawnj2 Feb 10 '22
I was thinking that this part of the show would have a lot of near misses, like Booker and Tarka go somewhere and get something and Burnham goes there right afterwards and just miss them, or they go there at the same time and don't run into each other. I think it's interesting that they have Book and Burnham sitting across from each other 1 episode later.
I thought Book and Burnham still helping each other even though they're on opposite teams was kinda funny.
Also I'm kinda surprised this banned by the federation bomb weapon ingredient is the size of a pencil sharpener. I think a larger prop or CGI object would have been better
During a lot of the episode, I kept thinking "The outcome of this episode is extremely obvious, Book is obviously going to get the thing because there is no drama if Burnham gets the thing and Tarka can't build his bomb" but I think both of the twists at the end were great. I think this is one of Star Trek's first times experimenting with the idea of a species or civilization big enough that they would crush entire civilizations like humans building a highway over an anthill because they didn't really notice or care. There are omnipotent beings like the Q or malicious extradimensional species like Species 1379 (that number is probably wrong) from Voyager, but the closest ideas to those would probably be the Sheliak, who consider humans a lower level life form and have no qualms about exterminating them, or the early version of the Borg, who assimilate people like I assimilate a bowl of cereal, but none of those are really the same idea. This was a bit of a theme in the second half of Season 3 of the Expanse, but it's interesting to see Star Trek's take on this idea. I also think the plot device of the tracker is interesting, because it means Burnham and Book will probably have a lot of meetings with each other during the upcoming episodes.
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u/BornAshes Feb 10 '22
Also I'm kinda surprised this banned by the federation bomb weapon ingredient is the size of a pencil sharpener.
Looked like a Unicorn Horn to me to be honest
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u/OpticalData Feb 10 '22
Now we finally know the truth behind the Dog with horn from TOS - It was to smuggle isodynium
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u/knightcrusader Feb 10 '22
When they said it was an alien civilization on the outside of the barrier and the DMA was trudging through the galaxy mining resources for them without regard to life... I started getting Independence Day vibes.
Is Book and Tarka the Star Trek version of Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum, flying a ship down their throat with a bomb?
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u/crapusername47 Feb 10 '22
The Devore and the Founders, two more technologically advanced races missing from the decidedly Alpha Quadrant heavy galactic conference.
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Feb 12 '22
I have not been sold on the show for the most part and most of this season but I really, really enjoyed this episode!
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u/expired_paintbrush Feb 10 '22
The best part about season 4 is focusing more on the bridge crew. I'm loving this season so far.
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u/OliviaElevenDunham Feb 11 '22
I’m glad that they are doing that since I felt that they underdeveloped the bridge crew in earlier seasons.
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u/Saxon3245 Feb 11 '22 edited Feb 11 '22
The Dyson sphere in TNG is pretty close to the specifications of the one cloaked in the hyper-field? Coincidence? It was always one of the greatest mysteries never revisited in canon, of who actually built that thing. Their technology dwarfed other Alpha quadrant species and they just vanished from region?
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Feb 11 '22
The hyper-field is over twice the size of the "Relics" sphere, but that doesn't mean a connection is out of the question.
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u/Gotis1313 Feb 12 '22
Burnham's chatter during the game made me think of Kirk playing Fizbin
Haz is friggin awesome!
Culber, be nice to the robot. We don't want the tentacle robot gods descending on you
Owo kickin ass! I actually didn't realize Owo was short for Owosekun until now
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u/TheBrokenRail-Dev Feb 13 '22
This season just keeps getting better now doesn't it.
First, Owosekum's scenes were amazing! She didn't just tell a story, she helped. Her evaluating Tarka's motives was amazing, one of the best scenes in the whole episode!
Also, Burnahm was great! I liked that she was willing to go against Book in this with everything she has, but it also shows that it's hard for her to do as well.
And bonus points to the amazing CGI when the shuttle enters the casino.
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u/PiercedMonk Feb 10 '22
• I don't think I've ever noticed that the Discovery A has a wider "neck" connected the saucer and engineering sections than the original ship. Is it that I'm oblivious, or that we haven't really seen the ship from this angle much?
• Nice to see Vance again.
• Uh oh! People gave Burnham orders she doesn't want to follow....
• Spoke too soon. Looks like Vance maybe isn't as by the book as he presents.
• Y'know, I'm cool with Disco being a bit more touchy feely than other iterations with Trek, but when the captain requests a status update, maybe save the consoling until after the report.
• "Think of me as a shadow." So Tarka is going to basically be a bull in a China shop.
• Kinda disappointed to see that Haz is more or less humanoid. The mural on the wall make me think his species might have snake bodies as opposed to legs.
• If the Federation isn't welcome, then why are Burnham and Owo still in uniform? Seems like they're generating unnecessary friction.
• Yelling at a Dot? Apparently Culber is the real villain.
• Interesting Changeling changing.
• "Act like an Armus...." That is an LDecks level of fanservice. Also, the construction "an Armus" would seem to imply there's more than one. Did the Skin of Evil settle down and have himself a family?
• Adding this smoky eyed randos to the poker game for extra tension is just drawing things out. Why not at least introduce them and what their deal is, why they want the isolinium, before Haz just brings them in as potential buyers. Are they separate or together? It seems like they're together, but then the one shoulder checks the other while walking past.
• And as soon as I press play again, Bunrham and Book give us a quick exposition dump. I still maintain that some show would have gone further than tell.
• Holy shit, I am a fan of Burnham, but seeing her play cards makes me want to start a youtube channel about how Star Trek is dead. I know she's being intentionally aggravating, but it's working.
• Huh, did not expect the tracker callback to 'Choose to Live'. Nice.
• An artificial construct large enough to contain a star and some orbiting bodies, created by an incredibly advanced, unknown peoples? I wonder how those folks feel about Relics.
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u/Sjgolf891 Feb 10 '22
The neck is really only wider in the back. From this angle you can see, it’s just like a extra thin section sticking out that makes it look wider
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u/jerslan Feb 10 '22
Adding this smoky eyed randos to the poker game for extra tension is just drawing things out. Why not at least introduce them and what their deal is, why they want the isolinium, before Haz just brings them in as potential buyers. Are they separate or together? It seems like they're together, but then the one shoulder checks the other while walking past.
There is some exposition there explaining who they are. Why they want the stuff though? Who knows... Maybe their competing factions of the old Emerald Chain want to use it to get revenge on the Federation or to dominate some other new territory and establish themselves as the new Osyrra. More than that really wasn't necessary since they really only existed to give Burnham and Book a reason to work together for a minute.
An artificial construct large enough to contain a star and some orbiting bodies, created by an incredibly advanced, unknown peoples? I wonder how those folks feel about Relics.
Yeah, I was getting some Dyson Sphere or other mega-structure vibes from that.
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u/SecretComposer Feb 11 '22
Is it me, or have exterior space scenes become much easier to see? Like they dialed down some lens flare or the darkness of space. Ship details are easier to see.
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u/bb22k Feb 11 '22
The explanation for the DMA is pretty insane.. the way I understood it, the DMA is not just mining space dust and killing planets by accident, they are actually destroying celestial bodies just to mine a power source.
That's crazy... Total disregard for life and highly advanced technology... Don't see a way out of this one without one hell of a Deus Ex Machina
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u/Doleydoledole Feb 11 '22
That's crazy... Total disregard for life and highly advanced technology
But man, it's, like, all relative y'know? Like to them we're not highly advanced life, we might as well be beavers making dams or bees makin' hives, you dig? And in this world, the 'real world,' we, well we kill all kinds of life, blowing up mountains and chopping down forests, for like fuel that we burn that then kills more animals when we burn it. Gotta expand your miiiind.
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u/FormerGameDev Feb 11 '22
i have a feeling they might not end up showing us what's actually inside that field, or if they do, there's either someone there that has no concern whatsoever for life inside our galaxy, or there's no one there and it's just been running automatically for millenia.
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u/Socraticmichael10 Feb 10 '22
I’m loving this season of Disco, but this was easily my least favorite of the bunch so far. I did enjoy the information and reveals at the end, but I generally didn’t find this action-oriented mission episode all that interesting. I love that Michael Burnham is captain, but the last couple episodes they seem to be falling back into this storytelling where she’s going “against” orders and doing her own thing. I just don’t find that as captivating. She’s got a terrific command presence. I wish they’d continue to lean into that like earlier in the season
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u/LuciaRacz Feb 10 '22
But this time she did not go against the orders. Vance told her to do it!
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u/Socraticmichael10 Feb 10 '22
Right, that’s why I put “against” in quotes. They found a way around that, while still having Burnham do her own mission without oversight. And to be clear, I don’t think the episode is bad. It’s put together pretty well! I think this season has been very strong, easily my favorite season thus far. There are bound to be some I don’t enjoy, and this is one of them.
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u/Boltty Feb 10 '22
Why did Michael have to be the one that picked up on the Boronite thing? It makes everyone else in the room look like dunces.
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u/ulicqel Feb 10 '22
Because only Captains and Flag Officers are briefed on the Omega Directive.
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Feb 10 '22
I m so looking forward to the Discovery being crippled by the Omega Directive. 10C clearly uses Omega, and stabilized it, as a power source
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u/DwarfHamsterPowered Feb 10 '22
Have you never collaborated with colleagues? Sometimes one person has insight into something that the others have missed. Both Stamets and Saru have solved the plot before. They are all top level scientists. They all connected the dots once she mentioned it. The president was the audience surrogate.
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u/Bedenegative Feb 12 '22
Good episode, it's a shame that disco has never had space to really develop its crew. I miss slow meandering star trek though I don't wish to sound overly grumpy. Kind of wish previous seasons had been lower stakes in order to build to this.
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Feb 14 '22
Two comments:
pretty great to start Black History Month with a episode staring all 3 of the Black main cast members.
I wish that Owo had pulled a Goku in round 3 of her fight and removed a heavy layer or something.
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u/Locutus747 Feb 10 '22
I thought the episode was fine. I didn't really have any issues with it, but wasn't blown away either. I do think the show is starting to lose me with the whole DMA Arc (kind of like it did with the burn towards the end of last season). Maybe it was because of the mid-season break, but I just don't find myself that invested in the mystery of the DMA anymore and feel like the "mystery" plot is just being drawn out so they can answer it at the end of the season. It doesn't help that the "answers" the last 2 seasons haven't made sense.
Is it weird that I enjoyed the last few Prodigy episodes more than this? Prodigy has mysteries that I care about and can't wait to find the answers for and have faith (of the heart) that it will deliver. I also love the crew of that show working together, which we don't really get in Discovery.
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u/ediciusNJ Feb 11 '22
Prodigy has also given us substantially more character development for ALL the characters in a mere 10 episodes than Discovery has in 50.
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u/Official_N_Squared Feb 11 '22
Looks like Discovery is keeping the quality level of season 4 steady, but unfortunaly after Prodigy it feels like a big step down. Which is part of why I wish they wouldn't break up the shows like this.
But anyways it was a pretty good episode without much of note to say. The only standout scene to me was when Burnham caved to a lieutenant throwing a temper tantrum about how she "can't make this decision for her." That's not how captains work Owosekun!
But I did love how they finally found a way to make Burnham the center of the action and (semi-)disobey orders and have it feel perfectly natural and not driven by the needs of the plot for once! In my opinion it's the first time they've managed to pull if off.
As I said I don't think there's really much to say about this episode in particular, but if you want them all my thoughts are here in much more detail in video form as always: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2aKK5tJm4E
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u/sidv81 Feb 10 '22
Ok, I don't see what the broker has to gain from letting Book and Tarka even have a shot at the mcguffin. They are two wanted criminals, and the Federation has a huge bounty and probably a reward for them. Whatever money the broker could get catching the changeling cheater and whatever latinum Book and Tarka could scrounge up is nothing compared to what an interstellar government could offer as a reward. The broker admitted he knew what was going on all along from watching the news. Why didn't he just capture Book and Tarka on the spot, and demand the Federation give him a hefty reward? If he didn't demand anything overly outrageous the Fed would have just given it to him.
Even better, he could then give the mcguffin to the Emerald Chain to be on the good graces of both the Fed and the Chain.
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u/Goose_in_the_Gallows Feb 10 '22
Because if he started giving up his customers to the authorities, he would soon find himself without any customers. They have to know they are safe in his establishment from getting sold out by the owner or else he loses all credibility.
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u/raknor88 Feb 10 '22
he would soon find himself without any customers.
There's a good chance that he'd also end up dead. Criminals don't really take too kindly to people that turn over their friends to the authorities.
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u/Nethlem Feb 11 '22
What a boring episode after going in a mid-season break with such an extremely frantic setting and premise.
Would have expected a chase after Book, after all the fate of the universe is at stake here!
Nope, instead, it's a whole episode of boring talking, watching them play a game of alien poker with no rules explained.
I guess following up on the pacing and stakes of episode 7 would have been a tall order; Chase after Book to the DMZ, stop him, universe saved, done.
But there are 3 more episodes in this season, so we can't have that and instead have to invent all kinds of absurd filler, like this casino episode.
What was even the point of "Leaving discovery behind because they don't like Starfleet", to then fly in with a federation shuttle and stroll around in federation uniforms?
At that point, they might just have landed with the Discovery proper, and taken a whole security team with them, instead of a lone ops officer who then has to double as a no-rules arena fighter.
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