I thought this episode walked a really fascinating line in its approach to exploring the lived experience and cultural significance of mixed identities. Having the ancient alien species misinterpret Spock’s Vulcan DNA as an anomaly/pathology was a risky move from a writing perspective given the potential for reproducing language and ideas associated with eugenics. But doing so allowed what what I thought was a more robust examination of Spock’s character and his relationships, by way of separating one half of his identity from the other and seeing what happens (like a smaller scale of Community’s excellent “Remedial Chaos Theory,” which examined how the study group might be affected by the temporary removal of each group member in turn).
There was plenty to laugh at, of course. Ethan Peck could easily have gone too over-the-top in playing Spock’s surge in human emotions, but I think he threaded the needle really well in allowing through just enough Vulcan “muscle memory” (as it were) to tamp down the humania – and he still managed to be extremely funny. And Anson Mount as always shined with his subtle (and hilarious) comic timing as the host of the engagement ceremony. Watch the way he snaps his fingers when T’Pring’s father asks for more Tevmel --and how he continues on in wide-eyed stride on his way back to the group once Spock starts admitting to his “condition.” Mount is a performer who knows how to blend into the scenery rather than chew it – a distinct quality in a Star Trek captain and a consistently funny one to boot.
But what really made this episode work for me was the heart in addition to the humor. I have a friend who remarked earlier this season that she doesn’t understand why Star Trek is so obsessed with Spock’s human side; she’s much more attracted to his Vulcan side and is confused at what she sees as the constant efforts to make him “more human.” I can see her frustration, and this episode certainly turns into that skid a bit. But the show isn’t fantasizing or daydreaming about a Spock that’s fully human – it’s using the idea as a tool to understand his fuller and more complex identity, and to celebrate what makes Spock Spock. And I absolutely shed tears when Spock came clean to T’Pring’s parents about his condition, not just out of personal pride but as a way to express affection and appreciation for his human mother. What a wonderful moment.
And I think this episode’s true strength was in depicting how everyone in Spock’s life understood that being made “more human” didn’t make him better or more “fun” or more “relatable.” Not once did anyone murmur to anyone else something like, “Are we sure we want to fix him?” (which I could easily see Dr. McCoy saying, for example). Instead, everyone understood fundamentally the unique value of Spock’s half-human/half-Vulcan identity, and went to great lengths to bring it back. It might have been a bit corny to funnel that through Nurse Chapel’s romantic feelings for him, and having her have to admit those feelings to an ancient alien species – but it was smart, too. (And seeing her tell the Vulcan Science Academy that she didn’t think their fellowship was ready for her made me literally pump my arm, by the way).
Another solid Spock-centric episode in my book. I look forward to reading what everyone else thought!
I also can't agree enough with your observation about the human side as a lens through which to understand Spock and how he relates to those around him. Double points for noting the lack of quippiness in the vein of "Are we sure we want to fix him?" I hate that I need to praise that kind of restraint in TV / movie writing these days but, well, here we are.
As for my original contribution here:
I realllly liked the fact that while I'm sure I'm not alone in shipping TF out of Spock and Chapel, I feel like this episode went to decently robust character exploration such that the ending bit felt a lot less tacked on, or a writer's wink "for the shippers". A lot of that IMO rests on Spock's monologue at the end of the dinner. For just another layer of appreciation of that character moment.
Well, I don’t necessarily need Riker, but then I never thought Disco was really Star Trek. It could stand on its own feet perfectly fine but shoehorning it into TOS killed it for me. VOY and DS9 were great and showed that you could do different and still fit well.
It reminded me a lot of Stargate Universe, a complete tonal whiplash that was clearly imitating other popular shows rather than a continuation of the franchise. I was pretty kind to it in the beginning because SGU got pretty good after I got over it not being Stargate as well, but Discovery S2 completely killed any hope I had.
I thought it was incredible that the SG:U writers copied all the teen drama from the SG1 episode Wormhole Extreme. It’s like they didn’t realize that episode was a parody.
If you liked SGU maybe give Disco Season 4 a shot. I did not like 1-3 very much at all but S4 is one of my favorite seasons of any Trek series and I did not see it coming.
I actually caught up on S4 recently, but unfortunately did not like it. S3 was actually the one I enjoyed the most of the two, if only because I thought it was really amusing that they just decided to do Andromeda.
Haha yes. I wasn’t crazy about it but it was a lot better than Andromeda which is not saying much of anything (Why god did I watch all five seasons and how on Earth did it last that long?)
It has been a long, long time since I watched watched Andromeda but I remember always thinking it might be on the verge of something interesting then it seemingly forgetting what it was setting up and moving on to something boring again. Besides, I have always had a soft spot for dodgy look sci-fi action adventure from the 90s/00s.
Also I had a crush on Lexa Doig.
That last season was especially painful though, my god.
But it seems clear at this point that Paramount believes that it’ll be able to make a return on its investment, so it’s just a matter of where the show eventually lands, not if the new season gets created.
Unless they do like WB did for Batgirl, and shitcan the entire thing permanently after production is complete, for a tax write-off.
I don’t think Netflix actually cancels shows after two seasons any more often than other networks do.
Somehow people got it into their heads that Netflix is far more cancel-happy than its competitors, but if you look at the numbers, traditional TV networks have had like a 50% cancellation rate for decades.
Even TOS was cancelled after two seasons!
If Netflix is more prone to cancelling shows at all, which I’m not convinced is even true, it can’t be by an enormous margin.
There was an article a few weeks ago about how Netflix only has about a 15% cancellation rate. Unfortunately there was no deep dive into the data, so the figures are suspect. A few factors that weren’t considered:
A very significant percentage of Netflix programming is reality TV and cheap junk. This doesn’t get cancelled because well, it’s cheap.
Many series don’t get cancelled, they just aren’t renewed. If Netflix tells the producers this is the last season, they’re gonna rush the storyline to some kinda ending regardless of whether it was originally supposed to stretch several more seasons.
I would rather a rushed ending than to be left hanging (unless they’re going to do a movie or something)
Maybe the last few years are better, but through the late 2010s Netflix very much looked at the per episode drop off rate for viewers and used that to determine if a show would continue to pull in viewers and get renewed. They were quite aggressive and then when other streaming services started coming into play they aggressively tried cutting costs off dead shows and burned a lot of people.
Poor Christine Chapel! Now she knows what the audience has always known: her relationship with Spock is ultimately doomed. Plus a delightful mix of guilt and fear that she could unwittingly cause Spock to never measure up to the vague but crucial future that Boimler mentioned to her in the turbolift, simply by trying to make the two of them happy.
Predestination paradox. In fact the entire thing is likely a predestinaiton paradox. “Activated 120 years ago”, which is caused by the imager at “now”; the reason why the two can go back home is because Tendi told them about the version according to Orion and mentioned her great-grandma being the discoverer, which is what let the past Orion to recognize the truth and probably themselves assigned it to Tendi’s great-grandma?
…this little bit of cooperation between the Federation and the Orions probably improves their relationship a bit, which will eventually lead to Orions joining the Federation, which is how Tendi is friends with Boimler in the first place, which is how Boimler knows that not all Orions are pirates which is why Pike tones down his hostile response which gets them to a deal with the Orions which leads to…
OMG! They managed to make that scene just so hilarious and poignant at the same time. Watching her facial expressions as she realizes what Boimler is telling her made me want to just scream at him to shut the fuck up and slap the shit out of him…but he’s just being dear sweet clueless Boimey. :(
Theme-wise, I think they’re setting up a comparison between Pike knowing his doom and Christine/Spock knowing their relationship is doomed. Knowing that, what do you do in the meantime?
Listening to Patrick Stewart say, with full frustration in his voice “we are not here to have FUN” would have made me laugh him out too. God I would have killed to have footage of that
The footage I’d like to see would be Patrick Stewart seeing Galaxy Quest for the first time. Actually, I’d kill to have that as a commentary for the Blu-ray. Hell, give me all the casts’ first reactions.
This episode was way better than it needed to be. I was genuinely moved seeing Una’s reaction to the knowledge of her being the “poster girl”, as well as the reaction of the Orion captain at the end.
Seeing Boimler and Mariner in this context really drives home how much Lower Decks is essentially “what if Trekkies could serve in Star Fleet” and it worked so well!
Yes exactly! To Boimler it was a major and inspiring story out of history, but to Una it was a personal moment that happened only recently. Imagine being told something you did that you thought was relatively minor (and over) would inspire generations of people in the years to come. Her reaction was perfect.
I never got into original series (and I existed before TNG) but something about TNG clicked.
Picard was a man of culture, not some Macho man to sleep with aliens of different colours.
Riker really came into his own as a second and had a different personality and perspective that added to the show
Data explored the concepts of AI and sentience and that mankind could create a new being (The measure of a man episode).
Jordi Laforge was inspiring that people with disabilities could be important and high ranking and overcome those challenges.
Sure, OS has its charm with fake Scottish man and Sulu and the radical idea not all Russians were insane. But I mean, Bones was just such a cliche (dammit Jim) and never really grew on me the way I’m sure he did the generation that loved John Wayne.
Yeah, what was revolutionary in the 1960s (humans of all nationalities working together) wouldn’t have been enough in 1987, but I appreciate that it set the groundwork for the series as a whole.
The acting in TOS is over the top and often silly, but I try to watch it as a product of its time - audiences didn’t really want their shows to have an edge or get deeply philosophical back then, so Roddenberry and team had to sneak that type of stuff in where they could. I have a soft spot for TOS and the campy characters and still think it’s a fun lighthearted watch.
Transporters just kill everyone all the time anyways. The original Tuvok and Neelix were already long dead. What happens to their Nth copy hardly matters.
Don’t feel bad. You can just do what the rest of us do and watch it over and over again for the rest of your life. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve watched DS9, TNG, VOY, and TOS. Even ENT and TAS. dozens and dozens. I even put on episodes when I go to sleep as background noise.
I mean… They’re really not that different. They’re till Trek fans who prefer a different flavor of Trek. Star Trek is pretty consistent in the image that it puts forward and that doesn’t change very much per series. Plus, one of the worst things about reddit is the ability to have hyper specific subreddits for anything. They all end up causing an echo chamber and end up being not that encouraging to new members. I really don’t wanna see that happen to the Trek communities here on lemmy, personally.
I wholeheartedly agree with everything you said, EXCEPT that they’re not that different. I think most of the shows have a very unique tone, especially when you go from TNG to DS9, but unless I’m mistaken DS9 was intended to be “different”.
Maybe a few of the new ones are pretty similar, that’s for sure. But the older ones? Nah.
But I’m not looking for an echo of what I just said, so by all means if anyone wants to disagree with me, by all means! I don’t get a chance to talk about trek outside of the internet and I’d love to hear other takes on them.
Edit: and only after posting did I realize you meant the FANS aren’t that different, but you do go on to say the shows are pretty consistent so I’ll leave this here.
Yeah, your edit is right there. The fans are essentially all the same but with different preferences. The shows all have their own vibe and tone that are pretty different. Well I’d argue that TNG and VOY are very close in tone but that’s about it.
100% agree with Voyager. I think Picard would handle things with more restraint, and probably would have taken an additional few years to get home, but really it’s “exploration… with a twist”
I don’t know if we would have gotten protosalamander babies in tng, but then again we got sub rosa so…
Pretty much. People give Janeway a lot of shit but I honestly think she takes her job as a Captain about as seriously as Picard. As well as their duty/oath to Starfleet. Doesn’t mean their perfect by a longshot but she deserves more credit than she gets. Took an insane amount of guts to (on multiple occasions) put the needs of the many against the needs of the few. Especially when those few were herself and the crew. Even more amazing when you see the times that the crew are given a chance to leave and no one does. Except Seska but we don’t talk about that Cardassian bitch.
Lower Decks addresses it very well in Twovix. The situation is different when you have the whole Federation there to help you out. Voyager was no Equinox.
I think that was probably my favorite part of Twovix. Everyone was horrified someone had to die but everyone kinda understood too. There was no answer to it and it was fucked up but honestly it’d be fucked up to keep Tuvix as well. No one judged her for making that call with no external Federation support.
Was nice to see that instead of strictly “JANEWAY MURDERER” after she constantly puts herself and the crew in harms way to help civilians.
She was absolutely between a rock and a hard place. You have a responsibility to get everyone home, but you can’t just dive straight in and strong arm your way to get there as fast as possible, both because that’s a shitty thing to do and because you’ll likely face consequences at the very least by starfleet when you get home, maybe by delta species who don’t like what you’re doing.
Honestly I don’t know a single person who has a negative thing to say about Janeway, except maybe she was too restrained sometimes.
How many of the crew, especially the Maquis, had nothing to return to and could have settled on one of the worlds they encountered? That said it’s a completely foreign society whose complications and nuances you couldn’t possibly be able to comprehend in the few weeks Voyager is within range.
Seska? I’m not aware of a crew member with that name. There was a Cardassian spy on board one of the ships, but… She’s no longer a concern.
This instance and community it doing well, but is far from the half million base on the old place.
The mods have been really positive towards establishing new communities as volumes pick up. Many of us would like to see the one for Treklit (books and comics) split of, but we just don’t have the numbers to make those kinds of communities viable yet.
Also, there’s really benefits to a crosscutting discussion. Things are civil enough here that it’s working.
We see a lot of people here finally becoming persuaded to give shows they’d passed on a try, including Lower Decks.
As Mariner in Crisis Point 2: it’s a starfleet story so it’s worth telling.
However, I really feel like they wanted to have the “it’s BEFORE almost everything else” cake and also wanting to eat it by having more advanced tech.
Then they realized their error, shot into the future, but in my opinion EXTREMELY underestimated technological advancement across NEARLY 1000 YEARS. Everything basically looks the same.
And then a man child had a temper tantrum and destroyed galactic civilization single-handedly. Sure. Okay. Have fun with the rest of the show, but that’s where I turn in for the night.
It just really seems like they had a premise for a good show, then someone came in and demanded this and that HAS to be in the show, and instead of rewriting to make it good, they just kind of crammed things in to please the higher ups.
I enjoyed large parts of Disco so far, and pretty much agree with you. The show feels like a decent Brian Fuller setup that was corrupted during the production of season 1, and continued to take course correction notes for each new season.
[They] EXTREMELY underestimated technological advancement across NEARLY 1000 YEARS. Everything basically looks the same.
Let me one-up you here: it looked like a step back. Not only in terms of in-universe development, but also just… uninventive production design. Trek gave us sliding automatic doors, flip phones and touchscreen tablet computers before they existed in the real world. Its conceptualisation of 32nd century tech and design on the other hand is swiped from actual 21c industry pipe dreams.
If this sounds very negative, I’ll add that I’ve really enjoyed the highs of Discovery, and there have been a good few throughout the show. I like that they’ve leaned into the emotional and therapeutic work that would go into an accepting, peaceful society — even on a daily workplace and social basis.
And hell yeah, will I binge rewatch all seasons as a warmup to the final outing!
“Flip phone”-style form factors were appearing in fiction in the 20s, and had started to appear in actual electronics by the 60s, albeit as full-sized telephones and radios.
The first stylus-friendly touchscreen became available in 1962, and the first patent for such a device was filed in 1946.
People don't hate this show for existing, they hate the generic JJ Abrams sci Fi aesthetic and writing, its incoherent premise, and the laughable fan fiction back story of its unwatchable main character.
And then a man child had a temper tantrum and destroyed galactic civilization single-handedly. Sure. Okay. Have fun with the rest of the show, but that’s where I turn in for the night.
I felt the same way, at first. Then I realized that we have other things in the Trek canon that asks as much suspension of disbelief:
“God” lives at the center of the galaxy and is a right bastard. Also happens to resemble Chuck Heston as Moses.
Psychics and psychic abilities are a thing
V’ger
Q and the continuum
Whatever species Guinan is, and their supernatural temporal sensitivity
Tachyons and the rest of the fictional subatomic zoo
Mirror Universe
Time travel, but mostly to whatever year the show was made, and for the occasional Deus Ex Machina device
SPACE FUNGUS
Edit: my head-canon for the weirdness of Disco’s first season is that they really wanted it to be the start of a Kelvin-verse TV reboot, but were coy about it.
Edit 2: I forgot about the Kardashev Type 3 civilization of robots living just outside our galaxy, that will turn the Milky Way into a lifeless wasteland if anyone so much as prank calls them. But they made their digits really hard, but possible, to find.
Totally, thank you. Star Trek is goofy as hell sometimes. I think if the Kelpian kid had been a plot device isolated to a single episode, no one would have batted an eye if it were on TNG or VOY. But as the reveal of a season long mystery, it was a big woof for a season and a concept that I was really into.
That said, season 4 really picked up that briefly dropped ball. I think the last two episodes of S4, plus the one with the debate at Federation HQ, will go down as Trek classics once Disco ages a bit.
The Star Trek movie about God flopped though. And for good reason. Holding it up as an example is like saying, “Well, there’s been plenty of one off crappy Star Trek episodes or movies, so we should make five seasons worth of them” and then say that’s ok instead of wanting better.
I don’t dislike it for existing but there are a few characters I can’t stand. Sadly the main two for me are Burnham and Tilly, so I have to cringe a lot. Don’t like the action pace of the show and didn’t like big, season long story arcs. But I do love Stammets and his entire story, wish the whole show was about him, he’s such a unique character and has such a unique skill and connection to Starfleet and the discovery ship itself
I just don’t like the story spanning entire seasons. They either become too complex to keep it interesting, or ir becomes a boring slog to get through.
Also means that if the story sucks, the entire season sucks.
Would have loved it more if it was episodic like SNW.
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