Season 3 of Discovery comes to an end. Spoilers.
I’ll try to keep to my thoughts on the episode on this one, which will be shorter because a lot of my reactions really relate to the season overall.
Overall this rates as one of the most predictable ‘second part’ episodes ever. And the most confusingly named, being a ‘Part 2’ of the season opener which this has little direct relationship to. There’s more ‘Die Hard on a ship’ stuff. There’s a climactic showdown between Osyraa and Burnham. And the away team manage to persuade the Keplian to come with them. It’s all done well enough, but I was never surprised.
If anything the surprise was how neatly everything was wrapped up. Every previous season of Discovery has had a cliff hanger, this one ended with the promise of gelato. Although I prefer this to the Season One cliffhanger with the Enterprise just showing up.
A very large chunk of the episode is action sequences (space combat with the Federation HQ, several run and gun scenes on Discovery, and the big showdown with Osyraa. Once you subtract those, and the fairly dull planetside sequence with Su’Kal, there’s no time for interesting character development or difficult decisions. And that’s what I really like the best in Star Trek.
Quick hits:
– Very bad case of upside-down spinny cam this week.
– That is really not how hypoxia works.
– I still hate the ‘wide open exterior for the turbo lifts’ thing. It makes no sense, it’s bad design, and shows the artists don’t understand ship construction.
– I think the Data Core set is the first time we’ve seen a major new ‘room’ on a starship since Voyager’s Stellar Cartography.
– “She’s a Queen” is now on my top 10 Star Trek ‘action movie quips’. “Unlike you I never quit” will not.
– Seriously, did anyone not have ‘his mother dying led to him freaking out and causing the burn’ at this point?
– I hate pointless suspense editing, like showing the Viridian blow up and then cutting afterwards to Discovery arriving. We *know* Discovery survived, in part because the dramatic setup work for ‘losing the ship’ hasn’t been done. It’s fake suspense, and not very well done.
– Less crying more beaming.
– I miss the old uniforms already. The new ones are a bit bland.
– “Let’s Fly” – good catchphrase, and nice callback to how awkward it was for Saru.
– I am a sucker for ‘Ooh, the original theme music’, but it’s not earned this time.
811 down.