LizstarTrek - Discovery Season 1 episodes 6-10

Every Sunday my Twitch subs and I watch Star Trek in my Discord. Here are my reviews and thoughts on each of the episodes as I see it. If you’re curious about a nerd’s views on Star Trek episodes, please read on, I go quite in depth with some of these episodes! I’ve watched some Star Trek before but not all of it!

I know literally nothing about Discovery, except for The Burn, and that it leads into Strange New Worlds. So uh… I’ve been dreading this one. But hey, who knows! Maybe it’ll surprise me!!

IT HASN’T SO FAR! :’)

Lethe - ENT 2/10

What the fuck is this Starwars Episode 2 shit

Sarek and some other Vulcan are doing some diplomatic mission, blasting off of… I GUESS it’s supposed to be Vulcan. Which for some reason has four moons in the sky. (it canonically has none)

There is no fucking way this black project secret weapon ship has BRANDED T-SHIRTS, WHICH THE CREW ARE RANDOMLY WEARING DURING WORKOUTS. And apparently we have holodecks now?! Those don’t exist- ughhhh. If this review was just me talking about anochronistic shit where the people making this clearly knew nothing about Star Trek, it’d be all of the review.

I have to say, this clearly does not want to be Star Trek, and if it was it’s own new IP, it’d be bad, but ignorable. As it is, it’s a black fucking stain.

The Vulcan sidekick Sarek was going with is actually an extremist who is here to assassinate Sarek. He turns himself into a bomb and blows himself up, saying that Vulcans are superior to Humans and soon they were realize and withdraw from the Federation.

It’s fascinating that we already dealt with this in Enterprise, but we’re going at it in the exact opposite direction. We ALREADY went over this y’all, don’t need to retread THIS stupid plot point.

Burnham has a weird Force Diad Attack and is forced to watch something in Sarek’s mind, which makes him angry and he violently kicks her out. She comes to and is like “Sarek is in trouble, captain, you have to help me find him”. Oh yeah sure how fucking hard can it be, SPACE ISN’T LARGE OR ANYTHING

WHAT THE FUCK ARE LOGIC EXTREMISTS

“We’ll send out a probe” OH, YOU HAVE PROBES NOW. Maybe they were invented in the last six months after the fuck up of the first episode. Anyways, Starfleet is PISSED at Captain Lorca cause he’s launching an unauthorized rescue mission with a convicted felon and a POW who has JUST recovered. They send an admiral, who admonishes him until he goes “You know we could be having sex right now” and then they start fucking. Damn. Is anyone else wet or is it just me?

Anyways we find out that many years earlier, Burnham didn’t graduate and wasn’t allowed into an institute of science. She lived with the idea that she had failed for years and Starfleet was the second best thing she could do. But it turns out that Sarek is living with guilt about this, because oh wow, the people in charge were racist! Racist vulcans oh boy, MORE OF THAT. They’re like “You also want Spock to join us, and we can’t have TWO non-Vulcans, that would be illogical because I said it is.”

WRITE VULCANS RIGHT CHALLENGE FAILED

Lorca pulls a phaser on his admiral girltoy in bed and she’s like “What the FUCK”. She deems him unfit for command and says she’ll take his command away from him. He is, for the rest of the episode, SUPER sussy and it’s obvious what’s about to happen.

The episode ends with the Admiral going to some peace talks with some Klingons and being captured. Wow what a fucking shock. NOW, when finding out she’s been captured, Lorca is like “Well it might be a trap we should be careful before going in for a rescue. Let’s await orders.” Aight dude.

Once again, not good.

Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad - ENT 0/10

What a pretentious fucking title. Anyways, this is THE episode to me. Like, when I first heard about Discovery, I heard some of the things they did. And this was the first thing I remember hearing about, and it’s stuck with me the entire time. Just a fucking shock of “Why the FUCK would they do that to an established character???? This is straight up character assassination”

Let’s begin.

Burnham is crushing on Tyler but trying to ignore it because of trauma. Please ignore the fact that they’ve shared three scenes together, and in one of them, she was unconscious.

There’s a fucking frat party on the Discovery. What the hell?

Tilly is like “Yo what’s the deal with you two?” Uh. What? And then the doctor and engineer, I forget their names, are like “Yo what’s the deal with you two?” THEY ATE LUNCH TOGETHER TWICE? WHAT IS THIS WRITING?!

A single person sneaks on board through a space whale and takes out literally 8 people all by himself. He’s wearing a big bad beetle borg outfit for some reason. When he reveals who he is, it’s HARRY FUCKING MUDD. HARRY MUDD JUST KILLED 8 PEOPLE BY HIMSELF? HE’S A FAT USED CAR SALESMAN, HE’S NOT A FUCKING MARINE. He’s pissed that they left him on a prison ship and intends to sell the Discovery, but first needs to learn about it. He blows the ship up, killing everyone.

We’re back at the party. Oh boy. Time loop. Everything proceeds the same, except Stamets (I remembered his name cause Tyler said it, thanks Tyler) seems to remember the last loop and is ranting and raving about it. Everyone ignores him, though he knows how it starts and warns them to avoid the space whale, so now Tyler and Burnham are on red alert. Mudd beams into Engineering and tries to hijack the ship this time. You know, I think the Enterprise team is no longer the worst crew in space. These guys are bad at their fucking jobs. Anyways the ship explodes again after Stamets kills Mudd.

Stamets has been reliving this over and over, it’s not actually the third loop. It’s many, many loops, and Stamets is having a hard time keeping it all straight (ha ha get it). Anyways this episode is actually a comedy, did you know? Did you know it’s FUNNY to have Harry Mudd torture the crew, killing them over and over again in a stable time loop? It actually shows Mudd going through time loops, over, and over, and over, shooting and killing Lorca in so many inventive ways, with no care or emotion about it over than slight joy. And why? Cause they left him behind in a cell, because he had betrayed them.

What in the shit.

Also speaking of good writing, they go “YOU’RE MAD!” and he goes “No! I’m Mudd :D”. FANTASTIC. THANK YOU FOR THAT.

Anyways, Stamets finds a way to get Burnham to immediately believe him, and he needs her to get Tyler on board so he can give info about Mudd, cause they were cellmates. But she has no idea how to talk to people, so Stamets has to teach her how to talk to someone who likes her. This episode might have a tone problem. Sorry, that’s an understatement. This episode injects tone directly into its veins to get high and its tearing this family apart.

They make out. Again, in this timeline, they have spent two scenes together. She manages to convince Tyler, and they go to try and stop Mudd but fail, and Tyler is killed violently.

Stamets gives up, and is like “okay I can’t watch you kill more people, I’m the key you want to use the ship”. You couldn’t have waited for the NEXT LOOP so everyone’d still be alive?! They find out that Harry is hiding his time machine in the space whale, and ends up telling Mudd “hey, you actually want me alive because the Klingons wants me cause I killed their messaiah. Baiiii~” then fucking kills herself in front of him. What the fuck.

Again this is supposed to be a comedy.

Anyways this time they trick him and he summons his wife who he ran away from. Remember her form TOS? He made an android of her that always yells and nags. Here she is. Looking ab it nicer than that version. Anyways I’m not going to explain how they trick him because even this, me not trying to explain anything, is less lazy writing than the episode’s writing. Anyways he’s married to the ol’ ball and chain and Tyler and Burnham become A Thing or something.

I want to raise a glass. A GLASS! TO STAR TREK DISCOVERY! FOR MAKING THE SECOND 0/10 EPISODE I’VE EVER REVIEWED. How in the FUCK. I didn’t even LOVE Mudd, he’s not like a cherished character or anything (though I like I, Mudd a lot). But this is STRAIGHT UP a character assassination. He was a shitty conman, but he wouldn’t just kill and torture people. But he sure does here! He’s straight up sociopathic.

Every single decision in this episode is wrong. The actual conceit (I love time loops but man this is incoherent and impossible to follow), the writing (NO, I’M MUDD :D), the fucking characterization, DO I NEED TO EXPLAIN, the Comedy (No), the romance (VERY no)? I will say, Mudd’s actor? Very good. His acting and mannerisms are good and correct! But the material he has is bad bad very bad not good very bad.

Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum - ENT 4/10

Stamets is starting to have some negative effects from using the warp drive. I can’t imagine why.

They go to some planet to do some science shit to learn more about the science behind the Klingons’ cloaking technology. While hiking to the thing they’re hiking to they’re suddenly interrupted by some Forest Energy that floats around them and tries to get them to follow it. Oh no, elf time. Time to be lead off a cliff. Anyways the Chorus here, whatever it is, is friendly, but now they can’t actually do their Science Work without its permission.

Meanwhile we get some torture scenes with Admiral uhh… I looked her up, Cornwell. She’s the one who was kidnapped two episodes ago. She’s being tortured… so it seems. Her torturer actually wants to escape with the admiral. Her name is L’Rell, and we actually saw her ages ago with that albino Klingon who swore to hunt down Burnham? Yeah we still have that plot point going. THough honestly I had to look up who she was, she seemed important but it’s impossible to recognize these Klingons with all that makeup.

Saru makes friends with these aliens, the Pahvan. They are very friendly and want to meet aliens. They also seem to kind of… genetically change Saru so he’s no longer genetically afraid of everything. Oh that’s weird. He’s also acting very, very sus suddenly.

Okay so uhhh, this episode was actually VERY Trek-like for a bit and I was kind of happy about that? But was expecting the other shoe to drop and for these Pahvan to actually be Evil. But they’re not! They’re very friendly and want to be buddies, which is very Trek! But because this show is NOT Trek, at all, it clashes, and it clashes VIOLENTLY when the plot has to come crashing back down to where it is. Anyways Saru basically intentionally strands them there so that they won’t bring the war to this planet. Fair tbh. I sure do love that our GOOD GUYS Are going to try and stop him from protecting this planet, so they can kill people more efficiently.

DS9 had war stories too where characters did bad things for the greater good, but the difference is those were written well.

L’Rell and Cornwell are trying to escape but are caught, and they have to act that they’re fighting. L’Rell SEEMINGLY fucking kills Cornwell? I don’t think so but it’s actually very confusing and hard to follow.

Saru attacks Burnham as she tries to send a distress beacon. The Pahvan see that they’re fighting, and Burnham pleads to them to help them see cloaked Klingon ships using their space crystal magic or whatever. The Pahvan light up the beacon and then everyone is beamed back to Discovery. So uh… are they going to arrest Savu now for mutiny?? No of course not. That’s only when Burnham does it.

Anyways turns out the Pahvans actually changes the signal as an INVITATION TO THE KLINGONS so that they can all be friends :D Ha ha, this stupid friendly species wants to be friends, don’t they understand we’re at war and have to KILL THEM? Stupid naive aliens. Burnham swears to protect them, then it ends.

This is the best episode cause it almost feels Trek at some points.

Into the Forest I Go - ENT 5/10

Discovery is ordered to leave and run away so that the Klingon ship doesn’t blow it the fuck up. The Captain accepts and leaves… or well, pretends to. He has no intention of actually doing that. Is this guy heroic or not?? Meanwhile, Stamets is being a Sussy Baka about his spore drive and doesn’t want to see the doctor, but the captain says it’s mandatory. And then when the doctor says “shit’s bad we need to take him off the navigation”, Lorca ignores it and tells him to keep jumping anyway. He also shows Stamets that, through some analysis, he’s determined that the mushroom drive might be able to jump into parallel universes. Which Stamets is like “that’s cool, I’m in”.

They come up with a plan, boarding the Klingon ship and disabling it. They’re gonna send Burnham cause hey, when the war is over she’s going back to jail anyway so who cares if she dies. For the record she asked for this, no one really thinks of her like that other than her. Tyler goes with her cause of course he does.

They find the admiral stuck in a room, alongside L’Rell, who had been thrown in there and was dying. She’s like “oh it’s you” to Tyler, who shoots her and goes into a PTSD panic attack. Gee maybe we shouldn’t have put a Klingon torture participent on this fucking ship?

The strategy is working, though. Discovery is jumping around like nuts, easily defeating the Klingon ship. It’ll take a lot of jumps to fully scan the ship and defeat the cloak or whatever, which is straight up going to kill Stamets.

The Klingons are like “this shit sucks let’s hit the bricks” and Burnham starts fighting to distract them. She announces “I KILLED YOUR MESSIAH AND YOU ARE A FAKER” to this guy who took over the messiah’s ship.

Oh, they’re fighting now! Who’s ready for some quick cuts and shitty editing that makes you sick?! :D

She manages to distract them long enough for the jumps to finish. They can now see the Klingons, and beam everyone back on board, including T’Rell for some reason. The Klingon leader is killed. The war is over. Yay!

Extremely hard cut after the ship explodes. It’s almost comical.

Well okay it’s not OVER yet but it’s a serious victory and prospects are good. Starfleet is calling Discovery home and awarding Lorca with a medal of honor.

We get a scene between Tyler and Burnham. It’d supposed to be very emotional. It is not, because their chemistry is like two noble gasses hangin’ out.

Holy lens flare, Batman. Stamets agrees to one last jump cause after this he’s retiring. Cool. Stamets is like “let me jump us home faster it’s fine”

We suddenly get a weird nightmare sex scene of Tyler fucking a Klingon. What is even going on in this show.

They jump and uh, it goes bad. Stamets screams, and passes out. They beam to some kind of wreckage, boom, episode end.

Despite Yourself - ENT 4.5/10

Things are weird and funky. A Vulcan ship fires on them, and another ship, the Cooper, scares them off. Stamets is also unresponsive so they’re a little dead in the water right now. Lorca posits it first: they are no longer in their universe.

Ahh man.

Burnham makes the suggestion that they check the logs. Lorca shuts that down and says it’s just cause he pushed Stamets too hard. Hmm.

Okay, I have to say, there’s something we’ve been noticing about this series. This ship feels weirdly empty. We have like, no crew other than tyhe main crew. There’s a few people on the bridge who are here all the time but they NEVER speak. The medical bay is super empty. Lorca is like “I’m putting another doctor in charge of Stamets”, and we were stunned cause there are other doctors here??? They keep sending Tyler out to do things with Klingon stuff even though he’s suffering from PTSD. Are there NO OTHER security officers here?

Tyler goes to L’Rell and lets her out of her cell when she asks him to. Where are the other security officers?! WHY IS NO ONE PROTECTING THE BRIG? Anyways she says something in Klingon and he awakens like a sleeper agent. But it seems to not work perfectly and he runs off, freaking out, leaving her back in the brig. I’m sure he’s gonna go tell everyone exactly what’s going on :D

They scan some data cores and find out what’s going on. They’re in the mirror universe. Oh boy! We’ve ALREADY done a First Contact Was Actually Earlier plot for the mirror universe, weird that we’re pushing this.

A ship comes along and wants to talk to Discovery. They found out Tilly was the captain of the Mirror Discovery so ha ha, sudden weird tone switch as she has to be awkward at communicating. Torca pretends to be a Scottish engineer. Ha ha :) They have not earned that joke.

They also find out that the Discovery came over here in that one Enterprise episode. Without a spore drive. So there’s SOME way back home, let’s find out what it is. THIS they continuity, huh? Okay. You’d think it’d be uh, hidden in some way? Cause they erased all data on that? I dunno.

Damn, Burnham is pretty hot like that

OH, OKAY. TYLER FUCKING MURDERS DOCTOR CULBUR’S NECK. This is why we should have OTHER DOCTORS IN THE MEDBAY? SOMEONE SHOULD HAVE SEEN THAT. Culbur is like “I think there’s another personality under you, something bad happened- oh I’m dead”

That’s one gay buried :D

Burnham goes to her ship that she’s supposed to be captain of, with Tyler (who’s TOTALLY FINE) and Lorca as prisoner, pretending to be her mirror self who died years earlier, back from hiding. Her second in command, now captain, attempts to murder her. It fails. Afterwards, Burnham returns to her quarters and meets with Tyler who SHOULD be like “Hey you’re not like, attached to Doctor Culbur right?” but isn’t even gonna fucking mention it. Do you think they’ve even found his corpse back on Discovery?

It cuts from Burnham and Tyler making out to Lorca being tortured in an excrutiator. This is almost comical.

This episode was almost okay.