✪ [DISCOVERY] S01E09 "Into the Forest I Go" | REVIEWS ✪

donnydoo818

Bypassing Starfleet's orders, Lorca uses the USS Discovery crew's ultimate asset, the ship itself, in an effort to end the war with the Klingons once and for all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4A8vzLUo2M

mirrorchaos

I liked it

A little early obviously to jump ahead of the queue to create the thread. i am glad someone else is doing it with a little more style. No need to worry about future threads.

anyway i will post my thoughts on monday or tuesday when i get to see the final episode before the mid-season starts. 7 January 2018 is when the tenth episode will start.

thay8472

I did NOT like it

Ending the war already? BOOO!!!!

crimeonadime

Looking forward to whatever cliff hanger they leave us with until January.

evilmark444

I liked it

I've long been convinced that Tyler is Voq, but now I also think that he has no idea that is the case.

mirrorchaos

I liked it

Was half expecting Kol to become a bigger thorn in the side of Starfleet than his death facing down Discovery this soon.
Stamets and his predictable giveaway response was carried out more or less exactly, Lorca said it himself to Stamets, he is an explorer.

Then there is the after effects of what happened to Tyler, the serious side of what happens when you take something too casually when in fact it shouldn't be taken as a joke at all. Discovery is touching on the subject of mental and physical abuse and exploring it is a direction the creators should take it for the viewer to understand what it's like being trapped and alone with those thoughts torturing you on a daily basis.

Kodus to Discovery.

artan42

Well that was a good mid-series finale.

• No apparent deus ex machina to solve the day here, just established stuff from earlier in the series. No just getting Robot the Sidekick to hack the problem away or activating the bollocksbeam generator as TNG or VGR would have done.
• Why did those sensor pods talk? Worst part of the episode.
• Why is there only one medical officer on the ship? Isn't it unethical to treat your own relations or partners? Starfleet seems as lackadaisical as Holby City when it comes to doctor just doing whatever they feel like.
• These Tricorders. I take back what I said months ago. They are a great development of the NX and Kelvin versions and a believable precursor to the TNG ones and some of the TOS film versions.
• Poor Kol. The only Klingon in the show I really liked. Maybe we'll see Kor getting a promotion to the head of House Kor now.
• Sigh. Pleasedon'tbethemirroruniverse Pleasedon'tbethemirroruniverse Pleasedon'tbethemirroruniverse .
• The fact the spore drive can access alternate universes is a neat idea, especially if that proves the MU is a separate universe and not a split timeline like the KT, YE, or Endgame.
• Lorca is more complex that he seems. He dosn't need Officer McMushroomface to jump now he know how it works (and thus can use any pilot) so he's no need to manipulate him. So his encouragement to return to exploration and discovery after the war seems genuine.
• I really love Kols factions uniforms. I think they're my favourite Klingon costumes after the KT ones followed by the UC ones. They look like fighters not like metalheads cosplaying as Vikings.

This one goes here and not on my bullet points but I've read comments on other sites as well as posts on the ST subreddit and it seems there's a lot of people (very likely American but possibly others) who seem to imply that L'Rell being visibly naked whilst r.aping Tyler is somehow the crux of the issue of making this show 'not family friendly' to them. With the implication being that the scene would be acceptable without the nudity. I'm not saying if it would or wouldn't be, Star Trek has shown torture (both physical and psychological) before as well as mindr.ape as well as immensely brutal deaths (totem pole of Borg corpses, exploding bug host, crushing Marcuse's head, skewering a child), but the suggestion that the visible nudity is the reason shows some very skewed values and ethics.​​

mhall85

I liked it

Good episode. A bit on the predictable side, but great job of moving the story forward.

And Tyler is totally Voq.

A few thoughts, at the mid-season break:

• I still don't know what to think of Michael Burnham. I don't hate her, especially in the last few episodes. I'm still not convinced that the Sarek connection was necessary for the character (and the series) to work. I really wish they had the testicular fortitude to have made Burnham THE "Number One" from "The Cage." I think that would have done far more to build canon for the selected era, and would have been a tribute of sorts to Majel Barrett. (Obviously, a few plot/character points would have to be changed a bit to make this work.) I also think it would have been interesting to make T'Pol the mentor of Burnham, and not Sarek. You wouldn't have lost much, in the end, but it would have felt less forced, in my opinion.
• I do think the Klingons got better as the story progressed. I still think the subtitles were a road too far, and I also would have tempered the redesign. Still, L'Rell seems interesting enough, and Kol really stepped into a classic Klingon villain role (a la Kruge or Cheng). The universal translator idea was a clever touch in this episode, and now, the only Klinks left are ones that know English. Bodes well for the rest of the season.
• The mythos of Discovery, and why no one talks about this ship in the future, is developing nicely. Clearly, genetic manipulation is not on Starfleet's to-do list, and this particular form of manipulation has conswquences when used with the spore drive. I'm still interested, though, in what happens next.
• The core six characters (Burnham, Lorca, Tyler, Saru, Stamets, and Tilly) are developing well enough. I have issues with Culber, but at least they gave him something substantial to do in this episode. I'm very glad Cornwell will live to see another day, and as I sorta said earlier, L'Rell is the most interesting Klingon to me. Now, I hope this show will have more testicular fortitude to KILL ONE OF THEM OFF. And not just for shock value. Make me hate the loss. Make the stakes real, and make it that you can't come back from it with a woosh of a transporter. It doesn't have to be this season, either (although, I bet L'Rell bites it... seems like the obvious choice, at this point).

mhall85

I liked it

artan42 wrote: »

Why is there only one medical officer on the ship? Isn't it unethical to treat your own relations or partners? Starfleet seems as lackadaisical as Holby City when it comes to doctor just doing whatever they feel like.

Personally, I don't think they've handled this very well, as storytellers. They put the cart before the horse in a number of ways, IMO. Culber didn't feel like a doctor (to me, at least) until this episode, and add to that, he's not even the ship's CMO. His relationship doesn't feel earned with Stamets, either (reminds me of the botched Lois/Clark relationship in the DCEU, with more "tell" than "show").

I think it speaks to a larger issue with this season... in a few instances, at least, they're rushing to get to a place we haven't earned. The plot would have been served better, had they taken their time a bit on a few points. Not a deal breaker, really, but it could be better from a storytelling perspective.

The fact the spore drive can access alternate universes is a neat idea, especially if that proves the MU is a separate universe and not a split timeline like the KT, YE, or Endgame.

I get the gripe, here, and I agree about the ridiculousness of the MU. (I actually hate that DS9 went down that road at all.) Still, I think this franchise has blurred the definitions of "timeline," "universe," and "reality" to the point where I don't care, LOL. To me, the MU reality and the KT reality are on the same plane.

artan42

somtaawkhar wrote: »

artan42 wrote: »

[*] Sigh. Pleasedon'tbethemirroruniverse Pleasedon'tbethemirroruniverse Pleasedon'tbethemirroruniverse .

Look at the logo man

I can't see a vertical line (the dagger) to me it looks more like a deflector or window than a logo, much less the Terran one.​​

damienvryce2

Well the MU is at least aware of an alternate universe based on the fact that they recovered the Defiant. But the Prime universe doesn't become aware of the MU until "Mirror, Mirror" which is in the future for Discovery. I was hoping they wouldn't go down the MU rabbit hole. I guess we'll find out in January

mustrumridcully0

I liked it

Good mid-season finale, but "One Final jUmp" - if that isn't a sign to you that something is going to go wrong, then you probably didn't check the video runtime either.

I was surprised that Kol was killed already, but we might not have seen the end of the Klingon threat, if L'Rell is now getting into Tyler's head. I am still not sure what really happened (Tyler brainwashed and getting a Voq subroutine implanted? Voq transformed into Tyler?), or how it's getting resolved, but I'll be there seeing it unfold. #

The idea on how to scan the Klingon ship was clever. Their sensors equipped with loudspikers and blinking lights seemed... suboptimal, but I suppose the way they were positioned it didn't matter. (After all, they could overlook an entire human until that human decided she needed to intervene)


I guess this episode explains a bit on why the Romulan Cloak technology in Balance of Terror was still impressive, but it also still doesn't match the dialogue completely.


It almost seems as if Lorca is redeeming himself in this episode - he takes the stance to save the singing planet for no other reason than because that is the right thing to do.
Unless of course he deliberately entered wrong coordinates for that "last jump".

mhall85

I liked it

somtaawkhar wrote: »

mustrumridcully0 wrote: »

Unless of course he deliberately entered wrong coordinates for that "last jump".

If you look closely, when he pushes the buttons on his chair, the display clearly shows he purposefully overrode the original destination to an "unknown" destination.

Now, THAT is interesting.

The "Lorca is MU" Truthers will like hearing that, but it could simply be Lorca jumping the gun to take advantage of his golden goose before he bolts.

angrytarg

During Lorca's heroic speech we see the crew in a montage and everyone prepares to save the day. During that exact montage I learned two things: One, I don't know a significant part of crew shown there. Mrs. Roboto, the implant face, weapons guy/navigator - who are those people and why should I care? Which brings me to point two: Even the ones I know I don't care about. Looking back we had nine episodes. Nine episodes I completely failed to learn anything substantial about those characters OR the world in general, save getting three or four expositions about that dumb engine that lets you now jump universes while a war goes on which is really just a fight against one ship which is now kaputt if we don't do temporal shenenigans to go back.

My main problem I think is that DSC feels as if it has no idea what it wants. And failed to show me anything really worth remembering.

artan42

angrytarg wrote: »

During Lorca's heroic speech we see the crew in a montage and everyone prepares to save the day. During that exact montage I learned two things: One, I don't know a significant part of crew shown there. Mrs. Roboto, the implant face, weapons guy/navigator - who are those people and why should I care? Which brings me to point two: Even the ones I know I don't care about. Looking back we had nine episodes. Nine episodes I completely failed to learn anything substantial about those characters OR the world in general, save getting three or four expositions about that dumb engine that lets you now jump universes while a war goes on which is really just a fight against one ship which is now kaputt if we don't do temporal shenenigans to go back.

My main problem I think is that DSC feels as if it has no idea what it wants. And failed to show me anything really worth remembering.

But as I said before we never really learnt about more than three characters fully in any other series (baring DS9) and certainty not half way through series 1.

starswordc

I liked it

Yeah, I don't like the Tyler-is-Voq theory, although I'm starting to become convinced of it since finding out Shazad Latif's birth surname is Iqbal (they've listed Voq's actor as Javid Iqbal).

Reason I don't like it has more to do with setting logic. They can do a DNA test with a tricorder for crying out loud; plastic surgery wouldn't cut it like it would in a real-world setting. And for damn sure they would've done some kind of check on him to see if he really is who he says he is after rescuing him from a Klingon prison ship (he doesn't have to be a Klingon, he could just be another human prisoner pretending to be Starfleet).

But then Star Trek has been that dumb before, so...

/dieinafireeditmonster

artan42

starswordc wrote: »

Yeah, I don't like the Tyler-is-Voq theory, although I'm starting to become convinced of it since finding out Shazad Latif's birth surname is Iqbal (they've listed Voq's actor as Javid Iqbal).

He's also English (Latif, not Iqbal whomever that turns out to be). I know why Issacs didn't want to use his own accent (to avoid comparisons with the heavily French accented Picard) but a lot of English actors, I notice, spent all their time in American media with American accents.

starswordc wrote: »

Reason I don't like it has more to do with setting logic. They can do a DNA test with a tricorder for crying out loud; plastic surgery wouldn't cut it like it would in a real-world setting. And for damn sure they would've done some kind of check on him to see if he really is who he says he is after rescuing him from a Klingon prison ship (he doesn't have to be a Klingon, he could just be another human prisoner pretending to be Starfleet).

I'm almost certain genetic manipulation affects the genes and therefore the DNA.​​

daveyny

I liked it

If you watch Tyler's flashbacks closely, there's a point where Voq's face is actually shown.
He's mixing up his remembering of the procedure to change him, and his bedroom romps with the klingon lady. (whose names escapes me at the moment)
There's likely a whole bunch of implanted memories he's carrying as well in the mix.
To me, it's pretty obvious by her demeanor toward him while in the cell and what she says to him, that he's Voq.

angrytarg

@artan42 valid point, however in this case it's problematic in my opinion since usually you introduce characters, then put them in peril so one can care. Here it's the other way around. But I can ho into more depths later when I'm back home.

My current feelgood-theory is that Discovery and the Klingorks all actually took place in a different quantum reality/universe and NOW they crossed into TOS prime. That explains nobody knowing about the project later, the humanfied Voq/Tyler joining prime TOS Klingons and the crew we follow as audience experiences prime from the "outside", visiting different places that shows us TOS worldbuilding which would explain the creators insistence on respecting canon which they haven't so far, as well as the anti-climactic end of the "War" at this point. If so, I begin to like this.

mustrumridcully0

I liked it

angrytarg wrote: »

During Lorca's heroic speech we see the crew in a montage and everyone prepares to save the day. During that exact montage I learned two things: One, I don't know a significant part of crew shown there. Mrs. Roboto, the implant face, weapons guy/navigator - who are those people and why should I care? Which brings me to point two: Even the ones I know I don't care about. Looking back we had nine episodes. Nine episodes I completely failed to learn anything substantial about those characters OR the world in general, save getting three or four expositions about that dumb engine that lets you now jump universes while a war goes on which is really just a fight against one ship which is now kaputt if we don't do temporal shenenigans to go back.

My main problem I think is that DSC feels as if it has no idea what it wants. And failed to show me anything really worth remembering.

I think that you don't know much about most of the bridge crew is more or less intentional, given that the show deliberaly doesn't follow a starfleet (bridge/command) crew, but one character particularly.

That you don't know anything substantial about the characters that have been in focus... I don't know, maybe you're missing the forest for the trees?

Do you really know nothing substantial about Burnham, for example? Her relationship with Sarek, the reason she got into Starfleet, her feelings about her mutiny and her new role on Discovery, her feelings toward Georgiou or Tyler?

Do you really know nothing about Tyler, Saru or Stamets? Did you really forgot it all already?

evilmark444

I liked it

artan42 wrote: »

angrytarg wrote: »

During Lorca's heroic speech we see the crew in a montage and everyone prepares to save the day. During that exact montage I learned two things: One, I don't know a significant part of crew shown there. Mrs. Roboto, the implant face, weapons guy/navigator - who are those people and why should I care? Which brings me to point two: Even the ones I know I don't care about. Looking back we had nine episodes. Nine episodes I completely failed to learn anything substantial about those characters OR the world in general, save getting three or four expositions about that dumb engine that lets you now jump universes while a war goes on which is really just a fight against one ship which is now kaputt if we don't do temporal shenenigans to go back.

My main problem I think is that DSC feels as if it has no idea what it wants. And failed to show me anything really worth remembering.

But as I said before we never really learnt about more than three characters fully in any other series (baring DS9) and certainty not half way through series 1.

We may not have learned about them fully this early on, but they were certainly more than background characters, which is all the Discovery bridge crew has been at this point. Infact, I couldn't give you any of their names without looking them up.

starswordc wrote: »

Yeah, I don't like the Tyler-is-Voq theory, although I'm starting to become convinced of it since finding out Shazad Latif's birth surname is Iqbal (they've listed Voq's actor as Javid Iqbal).

Reason I don't like it has more to do with setting logic. They can do a DNA test with a tricorder for crying out loud; plastic surgery wouldn't cut it like it would in a real-world setting. And for damn sure they would've done some kind of check on him to see if he really is who he says he is after rescuing him from a Klingon prison ship (he doesn't have to be a Klingon, he could just be another human prisoner pretending to be Starfleet).

But then Star Trek has been that dumb before, so...

/dieinafireeditmonster

Tyler and Burnham used tech to mask their life signs as Klingon, isn't it possible Tyler could have an implanted version as well to mask him as human?

Also, Voq was clearly depicted as an important character, but he completely disappeared after T'rell said he could save the empire by sacrificing everything. And immediately upon his disappearance, Tyler conveniently shows up.

angrytarg

mustrumridcully0 wrote: »

I think that you don't know much about most of the bridge crew is more or less intentional, given that the show deliberaly doesn't follow a starfleet (bridge/command) crew, but one character particularly.

That you don't know anything substantial about the characters that have been in focus... I don't know, maybe you're missing the forest for the trees?

Do you really know nothing substantial about Burnham, for example? Her relationship with Sarek, the reason she got into Starfleet, her feelings about her mutiny and her new role on Discovery, her feelings toward Georgiou or Tyler?

Do you really know nothing about Tyler, Saru or Stamets? Did you really forgot it all already?

I guess I know stuff about the characters, it's just nothing that makes them interesting to me. Burnham is just such a bland Mary-sue it's boring, Tyler is Voq and his background is as forged as the actor's appearance (he looks EXACTLY like seventy one dudes I see every day just walking up and down my street ), Saru has a really dumb species design (almost as bad as Kobali) - Stamets and Tilly are the only characters I enjoy and both of them have very little true backstory but both of them acted sympathetically, like actual persons and Stamets got more likeable after he became perma-high.

But yes, honestly, I forgot a lot - it just isn't as memorable to me as say The Orville which has a lot more moments staying with me. Discovery has almost nothing going for it making it stand out. In fact, if you are on Netflix, please watch the Discovery and The Expanse trailers back to back. Save for obvious franchise identifying cues like music and symbols you cannot tell the difference between the two in terms of cinematography, actors and the overall setting. To me, this is a huge problem.​​

redvenge

angrytarg wrote: »

Burnham is just such a bland Mary-sue it's boring​​

She is not a very good "Mary-sue". We have only seen her excel at deception and drama. While the universe often praises Burnham, the actions she actually performs appear far from extraordinary. This is what makes her boring and uninteresting.

evilmark444

I liked it

redvenge wrote: »

angrytarg wrote: »

Burnham is just such a bland Mary-sue it's boring​​

She is not a very good "Mary-sue". We have only seen her excel at deception and drama. While the universe often praises Burnham, the actions she actually performs appear far from extraordinary. This is what makes her boring and uninteresting.

I still have a thorough dislike for her due to her actions in the pilot. I was kind of hoping Kol would kill her.

mustrumridcully0

I liked it

redvenge wrote: »

angrytarg wrote: »

Burnham is just such a bland Mary-sue it's boring​​

She is not a very good "Mary-sue". We have only seen her excel at deception and drama. While the universe often praises Burnham, the actions she actually performs appear far from extraordinary. This is what makes her boring and uninteresting.

1) Mary Sue is more a thing for fan fiction than the core fiction.
2) She isn't praised "by the universe". People praised her for her competence when she showed it, and they hated her for her mutiny. When she acts rudely, she is actually called out for it and people comment on it negatively (or even offer some ridicule, depending on the situation).
Heck, in the previous episode Lorca clearly criticizes her for failing her mission because the planetary subspace beacon is not sending a signal helping to detect cloaked ships, but sending a subspace invitation to the Klingons. (And in fact, I have a hard time remembering where something like that happened previously in Star Trek - "hey, we got the mission done, Captain". "No, you didn't, you screwed it up!")

angrytarg

She still has to have ties to the most recognized and known franchise character and couldn't stand on her own, apparently (out-of-universe).

It's funny, looking at the half season so far nothing they did, at all, required any of the things they chose to have in order to work ("gifted" protagonist, precise point in in-setting time, reworks of known assets etc.). The actual events are quite interchangeable - it didn't help that the antagonists look like a bunch of Remans jumping up and down in their weird ships.​​

mustrumridcully0

I liked it

angrytarg wrote: »

She still has to have ties to the most recognized and known franchise character and couldn't stand on her own, apparently (out-of-universe).

Kinda like Picard had to take over a ship called Enterprise, instead of one of countless other ships in Starfleet service?

luddimus

I liked it

They certainly ended with a climactic where are they now senario, if it is the MU which is probable as they mentioned an inclusion then phase 2- could be fun.
TNG, VOY and DS9 all had to find their feet as does this one, hope it doesn't fall flat on it's face like Enterprise.

Oh and Tyler has a timelord watch that turns him back to Voq!

jonsills

reyan01 wrote: »

I mean, by the time of 'Mirror Mirror' TOS there was nothing to suggest that the Terran Empire's Constituion class Starships were any more technologically advanced than their 'Prime' universe' counterparts. So that does beg the question - what did happen to the (Constitution class) Defiant? Destroyed? Interphased again? Are the Mirror-Constitution class ships a lot older than their 'Prime' universe counterparts due to the Emprire reverse engineering the Defiant and then perhaps relying too much on it to the point where they reached a technological standstill for a time?

Repressive empires have a tendency to progress slowly, if at all, as autocrats begin to fear that technological advances might threaten their positions. Such empires need not be classically "imperial", of course - in Niven's Known Space stories, for instance, one of the tasks of the Amalgamated Regional Militia (ARM), the police branch of the planetary UN government, is monitoring and occasionally suppressing new technology (for example, one incident mentioned in passing in the third Gil Hamilton story was the FyreStop device, which suppressed fires by using a field that essentially reduced local entropy - and turned out to be a dandy murder weapon, as it also suppressed the chemical reactions needed to keep someone alive).

The Terran Empire was taken over by one junior officer of the Imperial Fleet, using the power of a single Federation starship. New emperors would want to suppress the development of anything that might overtake their own power, such as improved versions of that starship. Thus, by the 23rd century by the Prime calendar, the Empire was flying ships of almost precisely the same power as the Constitution-class Defiant. And when the overthrown Imperials wanted to fight back against the Klingon Alliance and take back their former power, they needed to steal a Prime-universe starship design, because what they had was severely outclassed by developed Klingon and Cardassian technologies.

starswordc

I liked it

You don't even need the state to be unusually oppressive for people not to want tech advances that might obsolete them or their way of thinking. The Royal Navy tried to stop the introduction of turreted breech-loading guns, to the point where one ridiculous battleship had a friggin crane to drop huge shells shells down the muzzle of its guns. The Union Army went into the War of Southern Aggression with cruddy 1812-vintage smoothbore muskets when multi-shot rifles were starting to become a thing: some dumbass in the War Department thought having more than one shot available would encourage soldiers to spray-n-pray instead of aiming their shots when the complete opposite was true (repeaters were both more accurate and safer to reload under fire than muzzleloaders), and didn't even think to buy up a stockpile of British Enfield rifles just to keep Lee from getting them.

And, uh, coal jobs, anyone?

jexsamx

angrytarg wrote: »

During Lorca's heroic speech we see the crew in a montage and everyone prepares to save the day. During that exact montage I learned two things: One, I don't know a significant part of crew shown there. Mrs. Roboto, the implant face, weapons guy/navigator - who are those people and why should I care? Which brings me to point two: Even the ones I know I don't care about. Looking back we had nine episodes. Nine episodes I completely failed to learn anything substantial about those characters OR the world in general, save getting three or four expositions about that dumb engine that lets you now jump universes while a war goes on which is really just a fight against one ship which is now kaputt if we don't do temporal shenenigans to go back.

Not really getting to know parts of the bridge crew is almost certainly intentional. Discovery is obviously not structured like previous shows in the franchise. We aren't supposed to know anything about Side-Shave McCranial-Implant or Way-Too-Many-Dreads McSeat-Filler. As far as Discovery is concerned, if you un-learn the "bridge crew are all main characters" aspect, none of that will bother you anymore.


At any rate. Balance of Terror good? Nah. But definitely a strong showing for the series.

This episode was pretty predictable all things considered, but I did get one big surprise - the last thing I expected in a Star Trek show was a brief, uncensored look at a Klingon's, um... ample nacelles, if you'll pardon the engineering parlance.

artan42 wrote: »

I can't see a vertical line (the dagger) to me it looks more like a deflector or window than a logo, much less the Terran one.​​

The yellow is too striking to just be a deflector IMO. I can almost make out the dagger, I think, but it's so fuzzy that it could absolutely still just be a hull feature of some kind.

If it wasn't for the fact they've confirmed MU for DIS, I'd be on the fence, but that fact combined with that very clear and distinct yellow makes me think it's got to be MU.

And I'm pumped. I hope they go ham with it and give everyone goatees and dangerously short crop tops. Yippee!