LizstarTrek - Discovery Season 3 episodes 11 - 13

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 has not so far.

Su’Kal - DIS 1.5/10

Our episode starts with Adira reconnecting with their Mind Boyfriend, who apologizes for avoiding them, they’ve just felt weird being stuck in Adira’s head. Stamets is like “ohhh you’re lucky we’re at a memorial service right now or I would be giving you a piece of my MIND.” I love Gay Dad Stamets.

They reach where the crashed ship they got the distress signal from was. There’s still a lifesign on board, Kelpien. That was YEARS ago, but the person in the distress signal was gregnant, so that explains it. Book risks his life to go into the radiation nebula to get a scan, and they also find out that there’s a planet made out of pure dilithium, and Michael theorizes this is the source of the burn. No one, in all the 100 years, go this distress signal at the source of the burn and then found this? Yes, there’s radiation, but there were ways about that in the 2300s.

BOOK TOOK THE CAT INTO THE RADIATION ZONE?! JUST TAKE HER OFF THE SHIP BEFORE DOING DANGEROUS STUFF, BOOK.

They send a message to the admiral- wait, subspace beacons are down. They literally said they couldn’t send messages very far. They made it a plot point. How are they- whatever. The Admiral wishes them luck and also tells them that the Orions are attacking. Gee, maybe we should have killed her when we had the chance?! Anyways, they send down Michael, Saru, and Culber to the planet, with Tilly in charge on the ship. But don’t worry, Tilly gets advice from Michael before she’s put in charge :) Look, usually it’d be “oh she’s getting advice from her best friend with experience”, but BECAUSE MICHAEL HAS TO DO EVERYTHING, it’s VERY annoying.

They land on the planet and are weirdly teleported in in phases, and they’re all no longer the same species they were supposed to be. Michael is Trill, Culber is Bajoran, and Saru is a Human!! Saru’s actor is…. one of those people who just already seems weirdly inhuman already? Like kinda Odo’s character, you look at him and go “yeah, he’d play an alien in Star Trek.” Anyways they appear to be in a holo program. They find the Kelpien they’re here to rescue, but he’s mentally just a child, all he knows is this program, and he gets scared of them and runs away. There’s also apparently a “monster” in this program? Gotta say, Saru and Culber are VERY much the correct people for this, trying to handle first contact with a man child. ….why is Michael here? Yes, cause she’s the main character I guess. I know.

Back on the ship, a Federation ship makes it way to them. They send the correct response calls, but don’t respond to hails. Uh, shields up? No? Okay, Tilly.

Michael finds the Monster, which is a Dark Templar lookin’ mother fucker. It chases her around. Neat. I feel like if this were more popular I’d see a LOT of porn of this thing. Anyways she runs away and finds the Kelpien, and pretends to be a hologram teaching about social interraction. The Kelpien is weirding us out in the chat, because like, he’s SUPPOSED to be an adult child, but the acting is like an unflattering autistic representation.

The “federation ship” is actually Ossyra, the pirate, of course. So they activate their cloaking devi- THEIR WHAT?! THEIR FUCKING WHAT?!?! You can’t just fucking drop that on me, that’s a VERY important thing. They finally establish communications, and Ossyra tries to break Tilly down and she’s like “nope :)” Book goes down on his ship to rescue them while they fight the pirate.

Meanwhile, the kid has an emotional outburst and seems to create another Burn wave, but it’s stopped after Saru starts signing a lullaby to him. Well at least Saru solved this one. Culber comes up with what happened to him, somehow, just by seeing this. At some point in utero he became connected with the Dilithium. And when he gets really sad, that causes dilithium to explode.

….The pirates beam in and take Discovery. Um. Their shields are up?? They use a mind jacking machine and force Stamets to do their thing, just as Michael returns with Book to see them leave. Welp. Adira went down to the planet with meds to try and keep them alive, but that’s not gonna matter. Everyone’s dead, the end. Apparently the spore drive can also just take Ossyra’s ship with them. Also, why the fuck didn’t EVERYONE beam up with Michael? Why even leave them down there? So Saru can do even less???

They basically made this episode so that Ossyra could win. They broke every law in the show to make it so that Tilly would lose, so Michael can save the day next episode. THat is VERY annoying :) Tilly’s first time in the captain’s chair and she loses it due to cheating and bad writing.

There Is a Tide… - DIS 3/10

Remember Zareh, the guy they exiled out to the ice to die who was just harassing random miners? He’s here working with the pirates now, he’s still a shithead. He and everyone else is insulting Tilly and saying she did a shitty job because they just easily took the ship. Yes, please, KEEP making it clear Tilly did a bad job that WAS NOT HER FAULT, IT’S JUST CAUSE THE WRITERS WANTED HER TO LOSE.

Ossyra is trying to do a false flag attack on the Federation HQ, basically, but is interrupted when Michael and Book show up. ……..What? They black alerted here. “Oh they used a transwarp”…. THAT LEADS RIGHT TO OUTSIDE THE FEDERATION HQ? How fucking convenient!!!! Anyways they crash into the cargo bay to get back on Discovery. Hmm. Okay.

Don’t worry. She will.

This image is basically Discovery in a nutshell.

I love how Ossyra has to KEEP being “take them alive, kill no one”. Can’t kill any important characters.

Michael gets stabbed in the leg, cauterizes the wound with a phaser, and sends a last mesasge to her mom on Vulcan like “I might not see you again, goodbye”. Yeah, you can send a fucking message from the middle of space to Vulcan through a ship with shields up, through a fucking shielded and cloaked Federation HQ. Sure.

The bridge crew knocks out their guards and gets to work retaking the ship, which is badass, Tilly leading them. Are you all going to give her this OTHER chance and then fucking yank it away from her and have Michael save the day?

Ossyra makes a preposal to the Admiral. Let’s COMBINE the Federation and the Emerald Chain, with us working together, we can help everyone! A NEW federation! :D With blackjack! And slavery!

Stamets is unslaved so this guy can talk to him. His name is Aurelio, and he’s actually a kind of nice friendly guy, he wants to know more about the sporedrive so he can replicate it. He seems to GENUINELY think they’re all doing good things for the world. Ossyra has basically kept him in the dark. Stamets tries to convince him to stop this and help them save his kid and partner. He very, VERY directly calls Adira his kid. GAY DAD STAMETS.

Yet another person got spaced. Do they have a quota? Some kind of kink?

The reason Aurelio trusts Ossyra is because she bought him some medicine that solved a defect when he was a kid, and now he’s still around and is a scientist helping out! He even developed the pesticide that they used to extort that planet a few episodes ago. When Stamets is like “uh, they were using that to extort them so they could extinct a species?” Aurelio is like “um, what?” but THAT scene is fucking ended with Michael knocking him out. Stamets is like “oh thank god now we can go back and save Hugh and the others.” Michaels like “No, I’m here to kidnap you so they can’t use the spore drive :)” Stamets has a fucking breakdown, and a really good line of “MY WHOLE LIFE IS STUCK IN THAT NEBULA!” and Michael fucking vulcan neck pinches him. Fuck you, Michael.

The peace talks fall through cause the Admiral is like “yeah sure, all of this SOUNDS good but you’re STILL a slaver murderer with endless crimes under her belt, so we’ll totally be down if you also stand trial.” and she of course storms out. She also immediately starts showing herself as a shithead and Aurelio is like “oh maybe she IS evil.”

Ryn, the Andorian, is like “I’M NOT AFRAID OF YOU. I’VE SEEN REAL BRAVERY.” He is talking about Michael. He’s also killed.

Oh good, we get to see Stamets yell at Michael AGAIN. I mean, the first scene was pretty powerful and makes me hate her even more, why not just DO IT AGAIN? THis time she spaces him in a bubble so that Starfleet can rescue him.

The episode ends with them meeting the Spore Data AI which has hid itself in these drones. Oh my GOD they wanted to make Star Wars so bad.

That Hope Is You Part 2 - DIS 1/10

Hey, HERE’S the part 2.

Back on the planet, we see Adira landing and giving them the medicine. They ALSO have their Mind Boyfriend with them, which the… holodeck somehow recognizes and makes a physical form for so everyone can see them. Um. This is 125 year old technology, if IT can see them why the FUCK couldn’t any of the medical people? So that it’d be exciting in the final episode? Yes. So it could be exciting in the final episode.

They drag Stamets away kicking and screaming going “Michael was right :)” Fuck everything.

LOL Ni’Var is here cause Michael sent a last message to them, somehow. They’re here to save the day and rejoin the Federation. But now Michael is like “No, let us go, so that more people don’t die. You can trust me. Please :)” Um, you were demoted for insubordination, we demonstrably can not. But she IS the Special Boy.

Ossyra tortures Book to try and get info about where the Dilithium planet is. Aurelio is like “wait, torture? But that’s mean >:(“ so she chokes him out to get him to shut up. I think he might be the bad guy!!

Meanwhile, Saru is trying to talk to Su’Kal, the Kelpien kid, to gently get info and convince him they’re here to help, without starting another Burn. I still am uncomfortable watching this kid.

The bridge crew is being oxygen starved. Everyone is passing out, except Owo, who is really good at holding her breath. So she’s not dying while everyone else is. So she raises her death flags, says “I love you all” and goes off to try and save the day by herself.

Hey, y’all remember how I hate how the turbo lifts are just like a giant empty space with a bunch of boxes flying around randomly? Like Willy Wonka’s glass elevators? It’s very JJ Trek movie coded? You know how I HATE those? The big action climax is Book and Michael fighting through this, after having escaped from Ossyra.

Why do we have a data wall that eats people? Why does Ossyra then shove her into that data wall while having her helpless instead of actively killing her? Michael shoots through the data wall and kills Ossyra, then escapes it. Um. Okay. She takes the ship back and restores life support. Owo is alive! The AI sphere data sacrificed hitself to save her. Well, surprised. Kinda dumb, but surprised. Everyone gets back to the bridge and Tilly’s like “oh, I’m done being the XO. It’s back to you, Michael, please lead us, you’re the only one that can do it.” I AM GOING TO MELT DOWN INTO A PILE OF ANGRY GOO.

Also apparently Book can do Spore transport cause of his empathy magic. They drop the warp core to blast a way out and black alert back to the planet.

They convince Su’Kal to turn off the holograms, and then he has to for some reason see the data entry of what happend 125 years ago. To do… something. He HAS to. Yes, him seeing his mom die caused the burn. Which like, that was OBVIOUS? We didn’t need to see it for no reason.

Discovery shows up, saves the day. And then we get a slam poetry session with Michael as we see everything being fixed. They make Gray a robot body. Stamets is VERY pissed at Michael, understandable. Also Saru is going back to Kaminar and being written off the show. That was…. just thrown in there in a one off line. What in the fuck?????

The Admiral gets her here and goes “Just a while ago I was standing here and yelling at you for not doing things the right way.” NO. WHAT SHE DID WAS WRONG. SHE SHOULD NOT HAVE DONE IT. They give her captaincy of Discovery, because of COURSE they do. I think I called this in the first few episodes, “this will end with Michael becoming captain”. I just didn’t think it’d be done in this stupid of a way.

Let’s undercut Tilly even more by the way. Michael is now captain and goes off to save the world again and again and again and

I hated this. Every fucking writing decision in this was so bad and dumb. Honestly, most of this season. The only thing in this season I really actually liked was the Stamets, Culber, and Adira stuff. And they had their agency ripped away from them in these last few episodes. So that Michael could be the one to save everyone.

Neli actually made a VERY good comparison about this and why I fucking hate Michael. It’s like what people say is wrong with Wesley Crusher. He was designed as a central point character, and solved the problem in a few episodes, and people make fun about that. But then that… stopped.

Michael is like if they NEVER stopped doing that with Wesley Crusher. She is…. bad. She is bad. She is a bad character. And it sucks, cause as a CHARACTER she’s fine, but she’s written SO POORLY.

God. I hated this. It’s better than Picard season 1, I guess. That’s not saying much…