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Star Trek: Discovery

‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Season 2, Episode 13: Saying Goodbye, Maybe.

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By Sopan Deb

• April 11, 2019

Season 2, Episode 13: ‘Such Sweet Sorrow’

In the penultimate episode of this “Star Trek: Discovery” season, we get fan service: a lot of it. There are gratuitous shots of the Enterprise, complete with the musical riff familiar to Trek fans of multiple generations. We spend much of the episode on what will eventually become Kirk’s ship (or will it?) instead of the Discovery. We see the colorful uniforms we grew to love in the original series (in contrast to the dark blue typical of the Discovery crew). We hear the whooshes of the sliding doors and the whistle when Pike walks on the bridge.

“She looks as good as I remember,” Pike says. Better, in fact, thanks to decades worth of production upgrades.

The Trek franchise has been in dire need of a fresher look, and this week’s episode was a distinct reminder of what a visual upgrade “Discovery” is.

I was into it, and not just because of how it looked. Previous Trek shows with tie-ins to earlier iterations sometimes struggle to keep the story their own — see the “Voyager” episode “Death Wish” involving Q. But the best ones (“Unification” in “The Next Generation”) keep the tone the show has already established while also properly integrating external elements from its forebears.

“Such Sweet Sorrow” has Burnham preparing to make a giant sacrifice. The sphere and the Discovery have merged, making it impossible to destroy, while Leland and Control are speeding to come get the data. As Spock says, “Discovery’s very existence is the problem.”

Burnham proposes using the crystal to “take the data out of this time,” meaning, “Discovery has to go to the future.” But of course, Burnham is the one who must go to the future without a certain path back to the present. Spock deduces that there is more than one Red Angel — one of them being Burnham.

A new signal appears that leads the Discovery to Xahea, to the delight of Tilly. Xahea, you might remember, was the focus of one of the “Short Trek” episodes from before the official second season of “Discovery.” The queen of Xahea, Po, is a 17-year-old who developed technology to recrystallize dilithium, which comes in handy in creating the supernova necessary to launch Burnham and the Discovery into the future.

Burnham’s crewmates, in a show of loyalty, commit to going with her into the future, suggesting that we might never see the Discovery crew again — unless the rest of the show takes place in the future. (Curiously, Pike offers to wear the suit in the first part of the episode but doesn’t offer to go later on. I was also surprised that Grayson and Sarek didn’t offer to go as well.)

The problem here is a self-created one by the “Discovery” writing team: Much of the episode features emotional goodbyes, but as we’ve seen, characters too often appear to get killed off only to return. And in this case, Spock is one of the crew who says he’ll go with Burnham to the future — and we know that this actually doesn’t happen, unless we are just wholly disregarding Trek canon.

My prediction is that Burnham doesn’t even get to make the trip because Control finds a way to disrupt the time crystal in the finale.

In terms of the Control-as-Original-Borg theory, I’m beginning to come around. I’ve said before that I don’t think this is a good idea for “Star Trek” as a whole, but let’s see if that actually happens in the season finale. Vulture’s Devon Maloney wrote a really smart piece arguing for how brilliant that idea would be, if true. I’m not sure I agree, but let’s see the execution first.

I enjoyed this week’s episode in part because of how much time we spent on the Enterprise. Some scenes made me laugh. At one point, Stamets snaps at his crew members to move quickly, emphasizing the urgency of the retrofit at hand. Seconds later, he pauses to have a personal conversation with Culber about the state of their relationship, which seems like a conversation that could’ve waited. But overall, it was a tightly focused episode, emphasizing the boldness of the writing staff.

Now, as Saru says to close the episode, “Prepare for battle.”

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Mary Wiseman Celebrates 'Star Trek: Discovery's "Cascading" Impact on the Queer Community

Wiseman also discusses Tilly becoming that teacher that all the queer kids admire and what she's taking away from the final season of 'Discovery.'

The Big Picture

• Tilly's character arc on Star Trek: Discovery showcases her growth and mentorship of the show's young queer characters.
• Wiseman expresses gratitude for the LGBTQ+ representation on the show and emphasizes the importance of inclusivity.
• Wiseman also breaks down tackling classic Star Trek concepts in the latest episode and reveals what she's taking away from Discovery as the series ends.

As Star Trek: Discovery heads into its final episodes, it's getting harder and harder to say goodbye to these characters, especially those that have been here from the beginning. One such character I'm particularly not ready to let go of yet is the endlessly empathetic and delightful Sylvia Tilly, played by human ray of sunshine, Mary Wiseman . From Burnham's shy and awkward roommate to the bright and bubbly engineer turned Starfleet Academy instructor of Season 5, Tilly's had such a lovely arc across Discovery 's run.

Ahead of this week's episode, "Whistlespeak," I sat down with Wiseman to discuss Tilly and Michael's ( Sonequa Martin-Green ) classic Star Trek away mission, Tilly's current status as "that one teacher" that every queer student imprints on, and her growth from the first season to the final season. We also spoke about how Discovery is a place for everyone, both on screen and on set, as well as the show's impact on the queer community and what she's taking away from her experience on the series as it comes to an end. And, of course, I had to ask if there's any chance we'll see Tilly again on the upcoming Starfleet Academy series.

Star Trek: Discovery

Taking place almost a decade before Captain Kirk's Enterprise, the USS Discovery charts a course to uncover new worlds and life forms.

In the latest episode of Star Trek: Discovery, the season's treasure hunt leads Michael and Tilly to a pre-warp planet with terrible dust storms. While both searching for the clue and attempting to save the civilization there, the duo must maintain the prime directive and compete in an ancient sacrificial ritual. Ultimately, Michael makes the decision to break the prime directive, both to save the innocent people on the planet as well as to save Tilly. When asked what she first thought when she realized she'd get to tackle such a classic Star Trek dilemma, Wiseman admitted she "was super excited." She continued, saying:

"I was super excited to go on an away mission in sort of the traditional sense, just get to dress up as like a different kind of alien. That felt very cool. I thought the episode was really well written. And Chris Byrne, who directed it, is a whole lot of fun and very very strong visual storyteller. So I thought there were some very cool dynamics stacked up in its favor. So, yeah, I was psyched. And then I was thinking about this when I was watching the episode, and I was like, wow, yeah, they broke the Prime Directive, why is that okay? And I'm like, well, these people would have been eviscerated without breaking it anyway. It's not just about Tilly, it's kind of about their future. They have to know about this technology in order to keep functioning. And those questions are really fun, and I thought that was really beautiful."

'Star Trek: Discovery' Is a Place Where "Everybody Is Home," Says Mary Wiseman

Before they venture down to the planet, during Burnham's pre-mission research, we learn that this planet has "at least" three recognized genders . Once they arrive, a young person named Rava who uses they/them pronouns — much like Discovery 's young ensign Adira — takes a liking to Tilly and Burnham, inspired by their "faith" to compete alongside them in a sacred ritual. In a television landscape that is increasingly pulling back on queer representation, it's heartening to see Discovery continue to normalize the mere existence of queer people.

As Wiseman and I are both members of the queer community , I asked what it means to her to be on a show that so fearlessly keeps pushing that envelope in favor of LGBTQ+ representation. "Oh my gosh, I'm so grateful for it," she said. "It's one of the greatest things about our show, honestly, and it feels like family, you know?" Not only does Discovery have multiple queer characters, but many of the actors working on the series are part of the community as well. Wiseman went on to speak about how being surrounded by such company makes a huge difference on set. She said:

"And I've been in other projects where no one is queer, and you could sometimes feel like you can't be yourself. And in this family there is…yeah, everybody is home. And everybody is welcome . And it's just a really beautiful thing. You don't feel isolated, or weird, or like you can't say things, or you know, that you're perceived one way and that you have to, like, come out. Everything feels just prime for any actor who might enter the set. I'm just really grateful that our show is the way that it is, because it was really lovely for me, and I think it's really great for the audience to see characters like that. "

Wiseman also spoke about the ripple effect Discovery has had, sharing a story from behind the scenes of this episode. "The actor who played Rava [ June Laporte ] said watching Blu [del Barrio] on Star Trek was part of what made them kind of wanna come out," she said. "So you can see that impact kind of cascading down, and now they're on the show and who knows who they'll impact. It's really beautiful."

Between Adira and Rava, Tilly has begun to collect quite a little following of baby gay mentees. And as any queer person will tell you, there's always that one teacher who leaves a lasting impact as someone that you look up to and want to impress. When asked what makes Tilly such a good mentor, Wiseman said, "I think she really pays attention to what younger people are expressing about how they're feeling. Tilly's quite empathic and can pick up on more subtle emotional messaging, " she explained.

"There's something about her — like when she meets Rava, she's immediately clued in. Like, there's something going on here with this kid's self-confidence and desire to be something, to be seen in a certain way, and she sort of just immediately starts supporting them." Having once been that bright-eyed kid herself, Tilly knows exactly what it's like to want to be seen and to want to impress those around you. "And that's part of what makes a great teacher," said Wiseman. "And dude, I've met celebrities, but the people in my life who I think about all the time who have made like the biggest impact on my own brain and my own sense of self are the really great teachers I’ve had throughout my life. It's no small thing, and I'm really grateful to be able to portray that, how generous it is, and how important it is."

With all this talk of teachers, I had to take a chance and ask if audiences could hope to see Tilly again on new Starfleet Academy series. However, as most details about the series are still heavily under wraps, Wiseman was quick to brush past any kind of conformation, with a "No, I don't know." Given the year it's set in, it's believed that Starfleet Academy will be a Discovery spin-off, but it looks like we'll have to wait a bit longer to know if any of the cast will be returning.

Tilly Has Found Her Voice in 'Star Trek: Discovery' Season 5

Having spoken with Callum Keith Rennie earlier this season , who said some lovely words about working with Wiseman, I had to bring up that excellent scene from Episode 3 in which Tilly sort of puts Rayner in his place after he was so dismissive of Discovery 's lower ranking officers. It's a really gratifying scene for Tilly and the audience as she says what's on everyone's mind. When asked about the growth it took for her to get to that point, Wiseman said, "Tilly, when we first meet her, is such — she's so vulnerable and so insecure, and something like that would absolutely have made her wilt."

"And through the course of time and the experiences that she's had and kind of finding herself as a teacher, as somebody who shapes and supports developing minds, I think she's just really found her voice and really found her center," she explained. "So I think particularly when she feels that Rayner is being dismissive to people who are really important to her, and to people whom he should value and show respect to I think it just…it pushes a button, you know? And no, I don't think she would have done that in the first season, but I think that was always inside of her. "

As someone who finds Tilly extremely relatable, it's been so lovely to see her grow over the course of Discovery's five seasons, and I told Wiseman as much. "That's nice! Thank you so much," she said. "Also, I should say that Callum Keith Rennie is amazing. Let me just pay him that compliment back. He's wicked."

As Discovery comes to an end, I've been asking the cast what they're taking away from the series. Naturally, Wiseman gave a really lovely answer about gratitude and generosity, as well as leadership in a nod to series star Martin-Green . She said:

"The ultimate thing that I'm taking away from Star Trek is, I mean, a lot of gratitude. I think I've learned a lot about how to be a person, both in my workplace and in the world, with a little bit of a public persona, and how to try to be open to other people, but also really hold space for myself. And so, I think I will take those things forward with me, and I've learned a lot of really important lessons and I think I've learned a lot from the people that I've worked with. I've learned so much about generosity and leadership and how you get to shape the room you're in by how you act. I'll take those lessons with me for the rest of my days."

Finally, as we were wrapping up I asked Wiseman if she had a favorite episode from this season. After thinking on it for a moment she said, "I gotta say Whistlespeak," with a laugh.

New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery arrive on Paramount+ every Thursday. You can watch the first four seasons as well as the first six episodes of Season 5 on the streamer right now.

Watch on Paramount+

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Star Trek: Discovery - Episode Guide - Season 2

And season 2 is when it happens, with the return to Star Trek and/or Discovery mythos of EEEEevil Captain Philippa Georgiou; the menacing Section 31; Ensign Tilly’s BFF Queen Me Hani Ika Hali; and Saru’s sister Siranna, the latter two continuing their respective Short Treks stories.  

Returning to the show are the pre-TOS bridge crew of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701: Captain Christopher Pike, the enigmatic “Number One,” and some guy known as Science Officer Spock, among others. In the mold of Deep Space Nine , a massive ensemble of characters is sent on a seasonlong story arc -- and damn, this thing is epic. Planets throughout the quadrant are investigated, there’s pingponging through time, callbacks aplenty to ST mythology and some massive space battles. As Commander Data once said, “Yes!”

Star Trek: Discovery episode guide – Season 2

1. Brother . Picking up directly after the season 1-ending cliffhanger, the reason for the Enterprise’s emergency distress call is immediately revealed. The Enterprise had been investigating one of seven signals seemingly randomly disbursed throughout the quadrant when suddenly knocked out of commission. Commander Michael Burnham leads a hazardous away mission to rescue the survivors of the wrecked USS Hiawatha who are eking out survival on a nearby asteroid. While nearly dying, Burnham has a strange, vision-like experience, and she sees a red-colored humanoid figure. Pike takes command of Discovery, and Burnham discovers that her brother Spock had dreamt of the seven signals. ***

2. New Eden . Discovery follows a second signal to the planet Terralysium, where the descendants of humans taken from Earth in the 21st century live – shades of Voyager ’s “ The 37s ”. Among the dominant culture’s religion is a belief in the “Red Angel,” a being identical to that seen by Burnham on the asteroid in “Brother.” Pike soon discovers that the Red Angel literally existed – or exists. In the subplot, it’s a head trip for Tilly, as an old friend joins the crew – an old friend that’s been dead for years. Jonathan Frakes directs for even more of that 90s Trek feel. ****

3. Point of Light . Spock’s mother Amanda visits Burnham on Discovery, providing her with Spock’s medical records as well as proof that he, too, had visions of the Red Angel in his childhood. Meanwhile, on Qo’NoS, Georgiou of Section 31 helps keep L’Rell in her position as head of the Klingon Empire by faking the deaths of Ash Tyler/Voq and their baby. Tilly’s head trip is diagnosed as due to a parasite and she is, apparently, cured. ***

4. An Obol for Charon . In the TOS tradition, an episode title grounded in mythology! In its death throes, a living planetoid yanks the Discovery out of warp so as to transmit in data form its memories from thousands of years of travelling about the quadrant. Unfortunately, this biological phenomenon triggers a fatal but normal condition in Saru. Tilly deals with her own condition, as the parasite reattaches itself to her, threatens the Discovery which is destroying the being’s ecosystem and appears to consume Tilly completely. Though Saru asks Burnham to perform his death rites, she finds Saru can survive the process and in fact is made all the stronger for it. ***

5. Saints of Imperfection . Tilly has been pulled into the mycelial network and discover that the ecosystem destruction has been caused by Dr. Culber, who somehow exists in the pocket world despite his apparent death at Voq’s hands. ***

6. The Sound of Thunder . The next signal leads to Kaminar, Saru’s home world and the site of the Short Trek “The Brightest Star.” Much is revealed of Saru’s people the Kelpians and their predators, the technologically-advanced Ba’ul and a killer twist leads to Saru essentially born again as a total badass. ****

7. Light and Shadows . While still in orbit over Kaminar, Pike and the Discovery crew investigate a temporal anomaly, which turns out to be the result of future technology. This technology soon invades the cyborg Lt. Airiam. Plot B has Burnham traveling to Vulcan, where she finds Amada hiding the clearly psychologically shattered Spock. Though Sarek advises they turn Spock over to Section 31 and Starfleet, Burnham instead escapes with him via shuttlecraft. ***

8. If Memory Serves . Burnham brings Spock to Telos IV, previously seen in the TOS pilot episode and again in “ The Menagerie .” The Telosians – you know, the big brain dudes – heal Spock with their mental powers and contact Pike telepathically to notify of their location. A nice callback to TOS. ****

9. Project Daedalus . Admiral Cornwall boards the Discovery again to confront Spock, Pike, Burnham and the rest with footage showing Spock murdering three in the psychiatric hospital. Instead, they soon find that Starfleet’s new artificial intelligence program, called Control, has been manipulating Starfleet and Section 31 in order to prevent Spock from revealing his knowledge of a future in which Control conquers all carbon-based life. When Control attempts to steal information gleaned from the sphere, a Discovery crew member sacrifices her life. ***

10. The Red Angel . Tilly discovers a bio-scan of the Red Angel entity which reveals that the humanoid inside the suit is in fact Burnham. Burnham in turn deduces (incorrectly, as it turns out) that the Red Angel is drawn to moments of her personal peril. Using Burnham as bait on quite a nasty undeveloped planet, the Discovery gang indeed gets manage a manifestation of the being, shown to be Michael’s mother… ***

11. Perpetual Infinity . Dr. Burnham’s backstory: The Red Angel is an experiment in time travel that she hastily donned when Klingons attacked the Burnhams’ home. Dr. Burnham was flung nearly 1,000 years into the future, from where she attempted to change the Control-dominated future by returning to the past. After literally hundreds of attempts, she was ensnared by Discovery’s trap. Meanwhile, Control, now in control of Section 31 head Leland, again attempts to steal the sphere’s data as the Discovery crew is trying to download it into the Red Angel suit. Control/Leland manages to get just over half the data. ***

12. Through the Valley of Shadows . Otherwise known as Pike Leaps into the Pantheon of Great Captains. A signal brings Discovery to the planet Boreth, whereon a group of Klingon monks guard time crystals – and suffer the strange effects of essentially living within a temporal anomaly. Needing a crystal to power the Red Angel suit, Pike takes it despite a warning that he’ll be shown his inevitable destiny, i.e. the vegetative state in which he’s seen in “The Menagerie.” Soon, a whole fleet of Section 31 ships under the command of Leland/Control, and thus Pike makes the decision to destroy Discovery rather than let Control attain the sphere’s data. ****

13. Such Sweet Sorrow, Part I . How a streaming series of only 14 episodes can ever feel padded, but such is the case with part 1 of the season-ender. After the entire crew is evacuated from the Discovery onto the Enterprise, which is back in working order under the command of Number One, Pike et al find that Discovery, loaded with AI data, will not be destroyed. A signal draws the two ships to Xahea, home of Tilly's friend Queen Me Hani Ika Hali Ka Po. Po helps the crews in working the Red Angel suit and a new plan is formulated: Burnham will wear the Red Angel suit and anchor the Discovery to it, bringing the sphere data 1,000 years or so into the future – and thus out of reach. ***

14. Such Sweet Sorrow, Part II . Space battle time! The Enterprise attempts to fend off Section 31 ships who would stop Burnham and the Enterprise. Klingon ships enter the fray, as does another unexpected and timely ally. Burnham experiences a half-dozen trips into the future and back to the past: Namely, to the times and spaces of the signals Discovery has traced thus far. Ultimately, the Discovery and a skeleton crew is sent into the far-flung future of the Short Treks episode “Calypso.” A satisfying, fast-paced, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink conclusion to one of the strongest seasons in all of Star Trek history – so far… ****

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Preview: Star Trek: Discovery 507 “Erigah”

The seventh episode of Star Trek: Discovery’s fifth and final season “Erigah” premieres this Thursday, May 9th . The episode is written by M. Raven Metzner and directed by Jon Dudkowski .

Today, we have a video preview, a clip, and a few new photos from the episode — featuring David Ajala as Book, Blu del Barrio as Adira, Tig Notaro as Jett Reno and Mary Wiseman as Tilly.

You can check out the new photos below. Please be aware of some minor spoilers.

Check back soon.

Official description:

With Moll and L’ak finally in custody, the Federation is pulled into a diplomatic and ethical firestorm when the Breen arrive and demand they be handed over. Meanwhile, a frustrated Book looks for ways to help as Tilly, Adira, and Reno work to decipher the latest clue.

Star Trek: Discovery season 5 castmembers include Sonequa Martin-Green (Captain Michael Burnham), Doug Jones (Saru), Anthony Rapp (Paul Stamets), Mary Wiseman (Sylvia Tilly), Wilson Cruz (Dr. Hugh Culber), David Ajala (Cleveland “Book” Booker), Blu del Barrio (Adira) and Callum Keith Rennie (Rayner). Season five also features recurring guest stars Elias Toufexis (L’ak) and Eve Harlow (Moll).

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Runaway (episode)

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Summary [ ]

On board the USS Discovery , shift five is coming to an end. As crewmembers leave cargo bay 3 for its decontamination , one of the cargo containers unlocks, and a hand, appearing partly transparent, emerges from the container. Catching itself on a jagged edge of the container hatch, the inhabitant shrieks in pain, and bright orange blood drips onto the deck.

In her quarters, Sylvia Tilly has an awkward conversation with her mother , about her participation in the Command Training Program . Commenting on the intelligence of Tilly's stepsister , and the untidiness of Tilly's desk, Siobhan compares the situation to a time when Tilly was a child and ran away when she was unable to climb a wall that her schoolmates could. With the transmission ended, Tilly falls back onto her bed, grabs her pillow , and screams into it.

Tilly orders an espresso following a stressful conversation with her mother.

Tilly orders a quadruple espresso in the mess hall , despite the disapproval of the ship's computer. Contemplating her coffee, she is suddenly disturbed by movement, noises, and the appearance of a strange orange fluid. A figure then drops to the floor, and the mess hall systems suddenly malfunction – lights flicker and the food synthesizers eject random foods into the room. When the food storm calms, Tilly watches as an alien woman shimmers into view, growling. Despite the woman's aggression towards her, Tilly is able to scan the orange fluid with a nearby tricorder , and discovers that the woman is Xahean , and a teenager .

While the teenage Xahean is distracted by the ice cream staining her clothes and the other food around them, Tilly spots a communicator , explaining that it can translate for them, and asks for the Xahean's name. Although she responds sarcastically, noting that she built a translator herself when she was a child, Tilly's retort about reprogramming her food synthesizer to only output ice cream at the same age leads to the Xahean finally identifying herself as Me Hani Ika Hali Ka Po – which she shortens to "Po" when Tilly has trouble following.

As Tilly tries to explain how bad Po's situation is stowing away aboard a Federation starship , and how worried her family must be, the Xahean says that she had to run away, and that her parents and brother are dead. Just then, the mess hall doors open, and the next shift enters to see the mess, which Tilly attributes to a "hormonal space rabbit ."

Tilly finds a "galactic APB" for Po.

Getting Po back to her quarters, Tilly begins a search for recent incidents on Xahea . To Tilly's initial skepticism, Po explains that her species was born with their planet, which makes them twins and ensures a natural balance on her world. Tilly's search soon reveals that Po's disappearance has triggered a diplomatic hail for her safe return as "strategically critical," which Po says is the result of her developing a dilithium incubator , which she did to give something back to the world she grew up with, but her people ignored her desires, becoming greedy and desperate for warp technology. Tilly sympathizes with Po's feelings of being unheard, but asks who else will be able to help shepherd her world through this transition, and Po comes to the realization that she is the only one who can protect her "twin sister."

Po gives Tilly a dilithium crystal, asking her to come visit Xahea

As they get ready to return Po to Xahea, she quickly discerns how the transporter works, and Tilly asks who she learned from. When Po notes that it was her brother, but that he wasn't a scientist , but rather the king , Tilly suddenly realizes that Po is not just a commoner, but Xahean – she is about to be their queen. Po says she ran because she felt unprepared for her role, and did not tell Tilly because she wanted to talk to another person, not someone awed by her status. She gives Tilly a dilithium crystal from Xahea, and then asks her about her earlier comments about the command program being a "mistake"; Tilly responds that it was "something dumb" that is gone now, before beaming her friend away.

Memorable quotes [ ]

" I will remember to expect nothing… even from this espresso. Espresso –I release you. "

" There was a hormonal space rabbit. He escaped from the lab and then he got loose in here… He's got mood swings. "

" When the people who are supposed to care about you don't listen to you, it's it's frightening and it's lonely and it makes you feel like you're crazy or like you're like, not even there. "

Background information [ ]

The date from the teaser trailer

Production [ ]

• The episode title, synopsis, and airdate were announced on 20 September 2018 . [1]
• The episode was filmed in 2.39:1 aspect ratio, wider than Season 1's 2:1 presentation. [2]

Continuity [ ]

• The episode takes place at some point after " Will You Take My Hand? ": Tilly is an ensign , and her Starfleet Medal of Honor is visible in her quarters. Both her rank and citation were awarded at the end of that episode. It also takes place at an unknown point before " Such Sweet Sorrow ", which follows up on the events depicted here.

Home video releases [ ]

• As part of the Star Trek: Discovery season 2 DVD and Blu-ray releases. Only this episode and " The Brightest Star " were included from season 1 of Star Trek: Short Treks .

Links and references [ ]

Starring [ ].

• Mary Wiseman as Sylvia Tilly
• Yadira Guevara-Prip as Me Hani Ika Hali Ka Po
• Mimi Kuzyk as Siobhan

Co-starring [ ]

• Geet Arora as Worker Bee #2
• Milton Barnes as Deck Crew #1
• Joe Delfin as Worker Bee #1
• Julianne Grossman as Discovery Computer

References [ ]

2239 ; 2248 ; APB ; arm ; best friend ; brig ; Burnham, Michael ; cargo bay ; Caesar salad ; caffeine ; catalog number ; cave ; cheeseburger ; cheesecake ; chicken noodle soup ; chicken pot pie ; citizen ; Class C shuttlecraft ; class M ; Command Training Program ; coordinates ; coronation ; decontamination ; desktop ; dilithium ; dilithium incubator ; diplomatic hail ; door ; doughnut ; emulsifier ; engineer ; espresso ; evolution ; Federation ; french fries ; fugitive ; gelato ; hairline fracture ; hormonal ; Human ; ice cream ; key ; kid ; king ; lab ; lemon ; lycopene ; magnetic lock ; matter synthesizer ; meat sauce ; milk alternative ; Milky Way Galaxy ; minute ; mood swing ; natural balance ; orbital socket ; Osnullus ; post-larval intermediate quiescent-stage development ; protein concentration ; quarantine protocol ; queen ; reality ; school ; scientist ; second ; shuttlebay motor vehicle ; snack ; soul ; space rabbit ; spaghetti ; species ; spumoni ice cream ; Starfleet Command ; Starfleet database ; Starfleet Academy ; Starfleet Medal of Honor ; " strategically critical "; sugar ; teenager ; temperature ; twin ; universal translator ; vulture ; wall ; warp capacity ; worker bee ; Xahea ; Xahean ; Xahean blood-based circulatory fluid ; Xahean Council

External links [ ]

• "Runaway" at StarTrek.com
• " Runaway " at the Internet Movie Database
• " Runaway " at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• " "Runaway with Larry Nemecek" " at MissionLogPodcast.com , a Roddenberry Star Trek podcast
• 2 ISS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

• May 7, 2024 | Crowdfunded ‘Space Command: Redemption’ Released, Features Star Trek’s Doug Jones, Robert Picardo & More
• May 6, 2024 | William Shatner Calls Return To Star Trek “Intriguing Idea,” Suggests Digital De-Aging To Play Kirk Again
• May 6, 2024 | Preview ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Episode 507 With New Images And Clip From “Erigah”
• May 5, 2024 | Alex Kurtzman Says There’s An Infinite Number Of Star Trek Stories To Tell, But New Shows Must Be “Authentic”
• May 5, 2024 | Interview: Mary Wiseman On Doing Some “Classic Star Trek” In ‘Discovery,’ And Tilly’s Future

Recap/Review: ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Goes On A Spiritual Journey In “Whistlespeak”

| May 2, 2024 | By: Anthony Pascale 103 comments so far

“Whistlespeak”

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5, Episode 6 – Debuted Thursday, May 2, 2024 Written by Kenneth Lin & Brandon Schultz Directed by Chris Byrne

A classic Trek setup delivers a solid episode exploring character arcs and big ideas.

Hey, I’m in this episode too!

WARNING: Spoilers below!

“The most important thing is to work in harmony”

Picking up on the clue they nabbed in the previous episode, Paul and the geek squad run into a science wall deciphering the simple vial of water so the captain suggests they try cultural analysis instead before she pops off to the mysterious Infinity Room. Kovich tells her that another ship is tracking Moll and L’ak, and the Disco has to stay on task for the Progenitor Tech. He does offer a bit of help, providing a list (on actual paper!) of all the scientists from Vellek’s team. Returning to the science lab the team quickly sorts out which scientist left the water clue, it was a Denobulan named Dr. Kreel who designed rain-making weather towers. A bit more detective work narrows things down to an arid world on an old Denobulan trade route and presto shroomo, they arrive at Planet Helem’no. The good news is they found one of Kreel’s weather towers. The bad news: the tower is surrounded by some “weird energy” preventing scans… and a pre-warp society. The captain flexes her xenoanthropology, revealing Helem’nites have three gender identities and no concept of class status; sounds like just the kind of place a Denobulan would party. Tilly is tagged to join on the field trip and so it’s good ol’ alien disguise time!

On the planet, they have a bit of a hike to get to the tower so they walk and talk about Tilly’s new life as a teacher at Starfleet Academy, where she is concerned one of her students is thinking of leaving. Soon enough they follow some “whistlepseak” (title alert!) leading to a group of pilgrims, only to witness one collapse due to spending too much time in the dust storms. Michael and Tilly struggle over that old Prime Directive, but the local woman ends up being saved by High Priest Ohvahz and his cool “sound cure,” which has the surprise side effect of knocking Michael out. She wakes up to find Tilly making friends with the priest’s kid Ravah who is super excited to get to the temple at the high summit, which is actually an 8-century-old Denobulan weather machine. Shhh. There is a traditional “Journey” race with the winner getting the honor to enter the temple and so Michael and Tilly sign up as a way in to search for the clue. Ravah signs up too, but priest dad is suspiciously not into the idea. Tilly encourages them, seeing the same kind of ambition she admires in her cadets. Michael takes a surreptitious sidebar to talk to Rayner and the gang on the Disco. Adira discovered more old (and broken down) weather towers and this last one is about to fritz out too. This fun day trip just turned into one of those “everyone is going to die if we don’t fix it” kind of things.

Why am I getting a sense this is no “fun run.”

“Let’s go meet the gods together”

Meanwhile on Discovery, Culber is still feeling a bit off. He decides to get counseling from a holo grief program based on his own abuela, who was known to dabble in the spiritual. He is looking for answers to what’s been happening to him since he merged with a Trill , but grandmother reminds him she was also a doctor, suggesting he stop trying to examine his soul before examining his body. So he grabs his hubby and they head to sickbay because “nothing is as romantic as a neural scan.” Aww. All Paul can detect is Hugh’s brain is normal, and of course “handsome.” Adorable. Culber was hoping for more, revealing ever since Trill he feels “more connected” to something big, but he just doesn’t know what to do it about. Is someone about to meet a Koala ?

Michael has a curious chat with the cured woman from earlier talking about how she really misses her old friend who won the last big race. Like priest dad, she suggests there are other ways to show devotion besides participating in the Journey ritual. Hmm. The race begins with the sucking of a cube that parches the competitors as they head up a course lined with water bowls, which they can’t drink without being disqualified. After spotting some mutated moss, Michael leaves the race to find the radiation-leaking control panel. Eventually, Tilly and Ravah are the only two left, both tripping big-time with dehydration. The ritual now calls for carrying water bowls, which seems particularly cruel. Ravah drops theirs and Dad is elated, but Tilly steps up and shares her water with her new little protégé, and they continue to the high summit together. Teamwork! They tie up and both get to enter the temple. As Ravah takes in the spiritual moment, Tilly uses her cool new retinal tricorder but isn’t finding any clue. Priest dad shows up looking miserable, telling the winners their sacrifice will bless Helem’No for many seasons. Sacri-whatnow?

Upon reflection, fire was not a good call for the vacuum chamber.

“Beliefs can evolve”

As the walls are about to literally close in on Tilly, Michael gets some tech support from Adira to fix the weather system’s control panel, which is in the middle of the forest for some reason. The ensign is still feeling out of sorts since letting the time spider on board (not their fault) but Rayner rallies them so after some technobabble, the system is fixed. Tilly is now trapped in a vacuum chamber and can’t be beamed out so Michael breaks the Prime Directive and beams into the room right next door where Priest Dad is hanging out. With the air escaping, Ravah is now having second thoughts as Michael goes all in with their father, revealing his whole world is a lie so he should just open the door. Yeah, that didn’t work so Michael makes contact through the impenetrable wall using her subcutaneous communicator and starts humming a song she hears from Ravah that their mother used to sing. That gets Ohvahz’s attention and with “I am not a god but maybe I was sent here by one,” he opens his mind to a new reality… and the door. By this time Ravah has collapsed but Culber’s medical team can now beam in for the save. Heisenberg be praised!

As Culber and his team work everyday miracles, Ohvahz takes in the wonder of a hologram of his planet as he learns aliens called Denobulans saved them centuries ago. Now it’s his job to keep their technology working… no prayer required. Michael plays agnostic on whether this big reveal disproves the divine, leaving him with the thorny issue of getting his society to stop the pointless (yet popular) sacrifices. As Dad and Ravah reunite, Tilly has big news, showing Michael wall markings matching those on that persnickety water vial clue. They are in the wrong tower, but the next map piece and clue is in tower #5. Back on the ship, Book is sulking for not getting picked for the fun away mission, doing what dudes do… playing video games – technically shuttle combat simulation, but it looked just like Asteroids . Culber joins to cheer him up with a snack and to find a new outlet to talk about his burgeoning “spiritual awakening.” The former courier offers solace saying it’s okay for Hugh to have a part of his life he doesn’t share with Paul, while Book inadvertently shares how much he misses what he had with Michael. As the boys share a nice moment, Tilly and Michael have one too as they put the fourth piece of the map in place and ponder the big picture, and how each of the scientists seems to be sending them a message through time, warning of the “massive responsibility” of the Progenitor tech. Before they work all that out, the word comes that Moll and L’ak have been found. Black Alert!

Wait ’till I tell you about Denobulan marriages, it’s going to blow your mind.

Faith of the heart

“Whistlespeak” is a decent mid-season episode that takes a moment to pause and reflect on the season’s themes and impact on the characters. The pacing was slower by design, giving time to take in the location, performances, and character development. And they threw in the world-ending stakes to keep it interesting. Like other season 5 entries, the premise is classic Trek with an actual visit to a strange new world. Exploring a pre-warp society and coming into conflict with the Prime Directive, evokes episodes like “Who Watches the Watchers,” “The Paradise Syndrome,” and many others. You may not even notice it but the facial markings and even Tilly’s hairstyle were added as they beamed down, a subtle 32nd transporter tech upgrade to having the doctor handle alien disguises. It’s always hard to come up with a new culture on Star Trek but keeping it simple worked for “Whistlespeak.” The events on Helem’No were also a bit of a microcosm of the season itself, a race to receive the grace of the gods is not so different than the USS Discovery’s race to find the Progenitor’s tech. Like the Progenitors, the Denobulans played God with this planet but there is a warning about even good intentions can have unintended consequences. Confronting the Prime Directive — one of the core tenets of Federation philosophy — isn’t so different than how the High Priest had to evolve his worldview. The season’s focus on connection was nicely woven throughout the various plots and stories with a strong emphasis on the recurring theme of exploring spirituality without getting too heavy-handed, showing respect, and learning lessons from different points of view, which is all very Star Trek.

This was a great episode for Mary Wiseman as she showed off all the familiar aspects of Tilly from her dry wit to her whip smarts, with the season’s added layer of her growing into a mentor figure, such as how she immediately bonded with Ravah, ably played by guest star June LaPorte. And once again this final season reminds us where it all started, bringing back some of the Michael/Tilly bonding seen in the first couple of seasons, including a bit of running together as they used to do around the USS Discovery. Extended scenes with Wiseman and Sonequa Martin-Green have been missed. But as this was a Tilly-focused episode, the show could have held back some of its tendencies, giving her more of the “aha” moments to move the plot along. Burnham will also be the hero, but share the character wealth. Wilson Cruz also stood out as we explored his character’s spiritual awakening. This storyline has been playing along nicely and seems to be setting something up. Simple things like paying off namedrops of his abuela show how much Discovery has improved on layering in these season-long character arcs.

Tilly is concerned about her listing on ratemyprofessor.com.

Reach for any star

While the intriguing big Breen reveal from the previous episode was set aside for this week, the search for clues structure continues to allow for these nice little episodic adventures. It’s always great to meet a new culture and expand on the canon. Once again the season doesn’t shy away from utilizing franchise lore, in this case bringing in a few bits of Denobulan society through Dr. Kreel. However, after we got to (sort of) meet the first two Progenitor research scientists in episodes 1 and 3, the show is missing an opportunity to continue that by introducing the others. Instead of just talking about Denobulans, it would have been a treat to actually get to see Dr. Kreel (and Dr. Cho in the last episode, too), and that could have also helped sell some of the episode’s themes. On the other hand, it’s always great to get to learn more about the enigmatic Dr. Kovich, with David Cronenberg continuing to intrigue us with more tidbits about his character who has a penchant for old legal pads. This and his “Infinity Room,” all feel like it is leading somewhere and hopefully this series doesn’t wrap up without finally explaining what is his deal.

Of course, the episode also has some of the usual frustrations. Discovery needs to find some more creative ways to explain away when and how and where the 32nd technology doesn’t work. It seems every episode has some weird energy field preventing the transporters from working so that the episode can progress at the desired pace, specifically a walking pace. That being said, the retinal tricorders were a nice new bit of tech, although perhaps not discreet enough if someone checks out what’s happening with one of your eyes. And while it may only be the “Prime Suggestion” to many Trek captains, it still isn’t clear if the season plot “Red Directive” supersedes the Prime Directive, but for obvious reasons, it’s not likely Burnham will face the same kind of tribunal as (formerly) Captain Rayner. The disruption to this society was pretty profound and they probably should have noted that Starfleet would be back to check in to make sure they didn’t just kick off a religious war. By the way, why didn’t the Denobulans ever check in after leaving all their tech running? These quibbles are not episode breakers but are the usual kinds of things that Discovery doesn’t seem interested in tying up, and perhaps they are a bit nitpicky, but that too is a Trek tradition. Finally, this may not be a nitpick, but the crew seems a bit blasé in how they treat the slowly-assembling map, which seems to be left around various parts of the Discovery. Like every hero ship before, the USS Discovery has been boarded by the bad guys on several occasions, so maybe this is setting up for a coming heist.

The most important thing in the Federation makes for a nice conversation piece.

Final thoughts

This (dare I say) “filler” episode was a solid outing that delivered some classic Star Trek to Discovery . With four out of five pieces of the map assembled in six episodes, it feels like we are making progress without getting sidetracked. The pivot in Season 5 continues to be finally finding the sweet spot in episodic adventures, serialized plot, and character development.

Only four more, y’all.

• For the third episode in a row, Doug Jones is not credited. Saru is confirmed to appear in at least the finale episode, so he will be back.
• The actual whistlespeak heard in the episode was performed by professional whistler Molly Lewis .
• Michael studied xenolinguistics on Vulcun under a Dr. T’Prasi.
• Denobulans use silver iodine to make it rain on Denobula, which is used today in cloud seeding .
• The walls of the Denobulan vacuum chamber were made of solid Tritanium , which was commonly used by Starfleet in the 24th century, but perhaps the thickness prevented beaming.
• The (replicated) Culber family Mofongo con pollo al ajillo is a traditional Puerto Rican dish with rice, chicken, and garlic.
• The “sound cure” bowls used by the Hilem’No are like so-called Tibetan “ singing bowls ” which have been used in the modern era for “ music therapy .”
• The sound wave pattern shown during the “sound cure” is a real phenomenon called cymatics .
• The weather control interface was in the Denobulan language , first seen on  Star Trek: Enterprise .
• If Kovich’s 21st century legal pad is made of acid-free paper, then it could indeed survive for centuries .
• Vellek (Romulan)
• Jinaal Bix (Trill)
• Carmen Cho (Terran)
• Hitoroshi Kreel (Denobulan)
• Marina Derex (Betazoid)… obviously named in honor of Marina Sirtis .

Four more?… for you maybe.

More to come

Every Friday, the TrekMovie.com All Access Star Trek Podcast  covers the latest news in the Star Trek Universe and discusses the latest episode. The podcast is available on Apple Podcasts ,  Spotify ,  Pocket Casts ,  Stitcher and is part of the TrekMovie Podcast Network.

The fifth and final season of  Discovery debuted with two episodes on Thursday, April 4 exclusively on Paramount+  in the U.S., the UK, Switzerland, South Korea, Latin America, Germany, France, Italy, Australia, and Austria.  Discovery  will also premiere on April 4 on Paramount+ in Canada and will be broadcast on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada. The rest of the 10-episode final season will be available to stream weekly on Thursdays. Season 5 debuts on SkyShowtime in select European countries on April 5.

Keep up with news about the  Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com .

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It’s a good stand-alone ep. It proves you don’t need bad guys chasing for the same relics. I realized how unnecessary they are.

I echo that sentiment, big-time!

The best Trek is without “bad guys”. Always has been. Too bad modern writers don’t get it. This was a gem of an episode.

Great episode i really enjoyed the slow pacing of it and i always like a episode involving a trip to a pre warp society.

It’s great that they have gotten 4 of the 5 pieces of the puzzle already and not leaving it to the penultimate episode.

I do agree with the review that it would be nice to see the rest of the scientists and i hope when they do find the Progenitor Tech we find get some form of flashback with the scientists finding the tech.

I really like it when NuTrek references Enterprise.

What do you mean, exactly? I didn’t get get it

Possibly he’s referring to the Denobulans.

This is like the trill episode. A lot of other stuff happens with a minimal plot advancement. I’m ok with that, if it’s interesting. If you’re going to recycle and re-use tropes, it needs to be interesting. This was largely, not. I found it more interesting than the Trill episode, and I loved the delivery of the message Burnham gives at the end. That why I found this episode better than that one. But still wasn’t all that great.

I was bored rigid. This is what happens when you take 45 minutes of plot and stretch it out over 10 episodes.

I finally started watching Slow Horses on the weekend – and ended up binging all three seasons this week.

Six 40ish-minute episodes a season, no filler, complex plots and solid characters, writing and acting.

I wish Trek could pull that off.

Great show.

This is my main problem with it, yes. I loved episodes 1 and 2, but from after that it started going downhill for precisely that reason: because there’s not much of a story here. So we get a whole lot of filler scenes, scenes about people being unsure of themselves (this must be the most emotionally fragile crew in the history of Starfleet–it’s getting kind of ridiculous at this point), and minimal plot advancement. Meanwhile, all the focus is on Action Hero Michael every single episode, with Saru, Stamets, the entire bridge crew, and Reno doing almost nothing all season. Tilly has had more to do this season, which is great. But other than Michael, Book, Culber, and Saru, everyone else has done almost nothing since season two. I really wanted to like this season, and when it started I very much did. But it’s going nowhere fast.

You nailed it.

Wow you said everything I been thinking too. The season is feeling more and more flat and the characters outside a few of them just has nothing to do.

Started off great but halfway through now and I’m getting bored again because it doesn’t feel compelling enough.

Yeah, they took what might have been a solid four-hour story and turned it into ten hours, and they gave us two entirely lackluster villains. One thing that has been a big problem on Trek for a while now–on Discovery, as well as on Picard–has been utterly forgettable and boring villains. Not one of them has really stood out to me on either show, other than Lorca.

This has been the problem with almost all of these. I go back to, if you’re going to deviate a bit, it’s ok.. but it better be engaging.. better be interesting. With Star Trek, you really have to make the theme feel original. None of that happens here. I don’t have a problem with what they’re trying to do.. I have a problem with the execution of it. And that’s the same problem with most of Discovery for me.

agree. I wonder what the financial upside would be if they had the courage to write the main story they want to tell and film it. This should be the benefit of the streaming platform model. If it’s 5 episodes, it’s five episodes but – if they are a great five episodes, wouldn’t that be better for the franchise than 10 of mediocre quality?

Pssst… not sure if you are aware of this or not. But that was the whole premise of the show from the start. It was… and is… about Michael. It was never going to be a cast show. It is a show about Michael. And that is why she is predominately the focus in the episodes.

Bit behind on this series and just watched episodes 2 and 3 this evening., but Culber had a big part in episode 3 in my opinion. Also it seems to me that Captain Rayner has a big part. It isn’t just the Kirk, Bone, Spock show to me with Discovery this season.

This sounds lovely and wonderful! I think I’ll finally break down and join Paramount+ instead of waiting for the DVD release! (And I’m a Tilly fan, too :)

My least liked episode of the season. It was a filler episode without any meaningful filler.

Yeah they found the next clue in the end but it went sideways at times with Tilly and Culber having some kind of personal crisis that went nowhere. .In my opinion, it wouldn’t be noticed if this episode were accidentally skipped. It is a standalone episode that stands still.

Maybe this show is better if the seasons are watched in one sitting?

Hopefully the next episode will advance the plot more than this one did.

To my happy surprise, I enjoyed Tilly’s involvement a lot. I don’t always like her. But here, I thought she worked well. The rest of the episode? Pointless.

So Betazed is the location for both a red herring AND a real clue? Moll and L’ak are going to be pissed they missed it. I mean, they had to have missed it or they would have had no motivation whatsoever to return to Lyrek.

I think that’s more because the clues left for the Trill episode pointed toward the Trill and not the Betazed clue though too. Although, yeah I’d be irritated too.

Anyone else find it interesting though that whatever they’re making they are finding the pieces right in the order they appear in the circular puzzle?

Seems intentional in-universe; the only way to not start at the beginning would be to luck into a random clue and somehow see it for what it is without the Romulan journal providing context and the official starting point.

Does anybody know why Doug Jones is absent for so much of this season? Was he off making a movie or something? It seems odd that he is not actually in the series that he is one of the main stars of…

This season is peculiar because of the missing regular cast, hard to believe they couldn’t get commitments from the actors unless the show simply couldn’t use them or didn’t want them. I suspect it has something to do with controlling the budget or other contractual issues.

It’s peculiar, I agree. Discovery has become the Michael-Book-Culber show, with most of the characters under-utilized and ignored. That, for me, has been its greatest failing in the past couple seasons, but especially in this one.

Tilly was similarly absent for most of last season. It’s keenly felt because it’s a small cast to begin with. That’s part of my frustration with how they never really promoted any of the bridge crew to be a more impactful and fleshed-out character. There’s been plenty of time to do it.

Doug Jones posted that he was out for most of this season due to Hocus Pocus 2.

Thanks for the information, William. I was going to say it was weird that he chose to be absent from a big chunk of the last season of his show, but then remembered that he did not know it was the last season.

Seems like Hocus Pocus 2 came out waaay before this and that wouldn’t have been filming anywhere close to each other – dates in Wikipedia indicates HP2 was done filming by the time Disco 5 was even ordered

But – time is an illusion. Tea time, doubly so.

This is his Twitter post: https://twitter.com/actordougjones/status/1784136793753042992

He was promoting Hocus Pocus 2 while S5 was being filmed.

That’s not how contracts work, though. If they wanted him for episodes of Trek, he’d have had to skip the press tour. This means they let him out of any contract he had, presumably; which in turn likely means they were find with paying him for fewer episodes.

I agree on the statement about how contracts work and it probably was a cost saving measure for them. There’s also the possibility that Doug Jones original contract for Hocus Pocus included sequel clauses and promotional requirements.

This current era of Trek though does seem willing to let their players go do other things. Saru in Season 5 with Hocus Pocus, Tilly in Season 4 with her play, Bryce for his BET show.

It was a descent episode. And since you guys were discussing what a ‘filler’ episode is on you and Laurie’s (amazing) podcast, I too wanted to say: this is a classic filler episode. Nothing really happened but it was injoyable on its own. Funny enough, I give this one an enjoyable 7, where last week was a frustrating 7.

Some of the repeating things are getting annoying:

• Michael headlining EVERY episode.
• Transporters not working.
• Talking about characters but not showing them (at least here it was an unknown).

I still don’t understand what they’re trying to do with Culber and his so-called spiritual awakening. Like you said, it must be going somewheren, because, what else is the point. I’m juist not seeing (or getting) it yet.

I’m shocked you didn’t mention the perfectly machine-made wooden water bowls by the way. That one bugged me, for such a primitive people.

And I cringed at the Marina tribute, because it was just too on the nose as a literal first name of a person.

By the way, regarding Kovich: there might be a chance he’s from the department of temporal whatsit. Although not the same suit as temporal agents on SNW season 2, it is about the same color.

Yeah, I’ve always assumed Kovich could time-travel, so that’s how he gets the paper.

Correction: The episode happened in and around tower #3, the clue was in tower #5

I only mention that because I read somewhere how nitpicking is part of Trek … :)

I guess the fact that the winner of the race was sacrificed was supposed to be a surprise? When the priest tried to talk his child out of it, and the person Burnham saved talked about how the friend who’d won the race she ran when she was young was dead, I was sure that the winner would be sacrificed. If it was obvious to ME, how did Burnham and Tilly miss it?

I know Burnham decided to break the Prime Directive for what she thought was a good reason, but I’m amazed that she decided to show the priest his planet from space. Wait, once it’s broken, you can go whole hog? There’s no attempt to maybe limit the damage?

I’m an atheist because of Occam’s Razor, and I’m always uncomfortable when Star Trek tries to get spiritual. I grew up on Kirk’s unmasking false gods and tearing down computers who pretend to be gods, so NuTrek’s careful tiptoeing around gods always makes me long for a little Jim Kirk. Apollo’s just an alien with an extra organ in his chest, damn it! :-)

I didn’t even like it when DS9 turned the franchise more toward a distinctly non-Roddenberrian spirituality, much less when Discovery does it. That said, I enjoyed this episode.

The extended impact of Culber’s experience on Trill could have played out in a very cliche way, so at least this is different. I suspect his “new outlook” will have a place in the resolution of the Progenitor tech. It’s also sort of retcon of his rebirth, which never really was “used” properly. So far, I am liking this… and I definitely come to Trek to should down alien gods!

Mankind has no need for gods we find the one quite adequate Captain Kirk

McCOY: We were speculating …’Is God really out there?’ KIRK: Maybe He’s not out there, Bones. Maybe He’s right here …in the human heart. …Spock?

SPOCK: I wish we could have examined that belief of his more closely. It seems illogical for a sun worshiper to develop a philosophy of total brotherhood. Sun worship is usually a primitive superstition religion.

UHURA: I’m afraid you have it all wrong, Mister Spock, all of you. I’ve been monitoring some of their old-style radio waves, the empire spokesman trying to ridicule their religion. But he couldn’t. Don’t you understand? It’s not the sun up in the sky. It’s the Son of God.

KIRK: Caesar and Christ. They had them both. And the word is spreading only now.

MCCOY: A philosophy of total love and total brotherhood.

Kirk or Sisko wouldn’t have asked the dad to open the door. They would have blasted it with their phaser.

Could Kovich be a Supervisor ala Gary Seven and Tallinn?

I was wondering – or a Q?

I think he’s a time agent. His suit is different than the time agent in SNW but basically the same dark grey.

Technically he can’t be a time agent. They said in Season 3 that there were temporal accords that prevented those types of personnel in Starfleet.

Future Guy from ENT

He managed a staples in 2004.

Two ‘meh’ ones in a row. Who Watches the Watchers this is NOT!

Sure, It’s great to see a pre-warp prime directive story again and I liked that Burnham revealed herself in the end to save Tilly and the girl. That’s always a Trek trope and I’m trying to think of any episode where they managed to stay completely hidden the whole time. Anyone have any examples?

But this episode just really lacked for me. Not awful just not very interesting either. It tried but just felt pretty flat overall.

As for finding pieces of the progenitor tech, it’s become pretty formulaic now and very little of a challenge. The clues are all easily found and it’s literally like putting together a Jinga puzzle. It just feels too easy. And Moll and Lak doesn’t feel threatening at all. They are just there so they can have some conflict in the story but it also feels so meh, similar to the Book and Tarka’s ‘chase’ last season.

I know they are trying and want to give us this grand adventure story but it’s still Discovery falling back to the same issues again and again. And this show keeps stretching five minutes of plot into an hour story. I wish I could care more about Culber’s ‘spiritual journey’ but yeah I just don’t.

Anyway four more episodes. Trying to stay positive but sadly I think I’m just back for the show to end. Hopefully things will finally start to ramp up and the Breen becomes a bigger part of the story.

Some great acting and character moments happened throughout this episode. But I was amused that violating the Prime Directive is just a matter of paperwork now.

I also always wonder how Michael and Tilly communicated with the people on the planet. Of course they had their universal translators and could understand them, but the people they were talking to didn’t have them.

I was surprised by the Prime Directive being paperwork too, especially after Rayner seemed to lose his command over what they were considering a Prime Directive issue.

yeah, the prime directive stuff is eye rollingly bad. It’s really there for the exact reasons they violate it in this episode. It’s stupid.

That has always been a problem with the universal translator on Trek. The concept works fine over a comms channel. But as soon as people are in direct communication the concept (as presented on all the shows) kind of falls apart, especially if only one side of the conversation even has such a technology.

I rewatched the Enterprise Incident a few weeks ago where Kirk sneaks onto the Romulan ship and fully disguise as a Romulan but oddly talks to everyone in English. Seems like that would be the biggest giveaway he’s really not a Romulan lol.

Yeah it’s always been a problem from the very beginning. The later shows have tried to find ways to explain it a little better but I don’t remotely buy you can just pretend you sound like a native speaker when A. You just met a race for the first time and B. That they wouldn’t know you’re speaking through some device.

Forget pretending it can just deduce an an entire new language after hearing a couple of words. I don’t buy that regardless the century they are in and it happens on every show.

Sure it’s a stretch that a computer can decipher an unknown language after a few words. But at least it’s technically easy to swap out audio during the transmission. It falls apart when people talk to each other directly. Unless you assume they have a chip implanted in their brains that intercepts the nerve signals from the ears. Plus another chip in their vocal chords that translates outgoing speech. The universal translator exists so that we as the audience don’t need to read subtitles, the actors don’t need to learn made-up languages and the plot doesn’t have to come to a grinding halt each episode while the characters learn how to communicate. Having the universal translator fail and dedicating an episode to showing how people actually figure out how to communicate is interesting from time to time but the majority of the audience would probably grow tired very quickly if this took up substantial time in every single episode.

Of course I get all of that. I was just agreeing how it sometimes make no sense in the story itself. But it’s all fiction and most of us just accepted it at this point.

I am thoroughly enjoying this season of Disco. Possibly because I am not hunting for anything and everything to criticize. Among other things, I think it is nicely balancing the slower pace of a serialized format while also having more episodic stories. It reminds me a lot of DS9 in this regard without having as many episodes per season to work with.

I am also interested in how well they will explore the topic of spirituality, another commonality with DS9. Although in the end I don’t think DS9 quite succeeded in this because the viewers could just dismiss Bajoran Faith as ignorance of the “true” nature of “The Prophets” as “wormhole aliens.”

Looking forward to see how it all turns out, though I wish this were not the final season as the series really seems to have hit its stride. But all good things…

I thought it was “ok.” Definitely tried to be a more traditional Star Trek episode, but I often feel when Discovery, and to a lesser degree Strange New Worlds, tries to do traditional Trek it just feels shallow. Like they are following a recipe to the letter but not adding any of the zest that really makes it stand out. I was also confused why they made such a big deal of the “whistle speak,” and then have it play almost zero role in the plot. Finally, it was really convenient that Michael and Tilly just happened to arrive at the exact perfect time to join the race to enter the temple. I wish I could master the art of perfect timing so well :-)

I though it was pretty clear that the young woman wanted to become and adult and requested the race because she thought she could beat “foreigners” in the race.

But I also thought it was going to become a battle to the death. They never went that far – only starving their competitors!

Ah, could be. I plan to watch it a second time and will look for that… thanks!

Making the race a battle to the death doesn’t really make sense because the winner of the race was actually going to be sacrificed.

I would like some Saru, Owosekun and Detmer now please.

I’m sure they’ll show back up at the end with a refitted ISS Enterprise.

The music in this episode was outstanding.

Is it now a Star Trek trope to show a member of a pre-warp society a view of their planet from space?

Whistlespeak is about caretaking.

Did this week’s episode begin a deeper, exploration of what this all could really mean? Power? Responsibility? Her trepidation is a nice way to end the episode.

I’m in love with the whole idea of sound as language. I wanted SNW’s musical episode to be totally like what we see in this episode – so it was a nice kick for me to get a taste .

That Denobulan’s name Hitoroshi Kreel….Hoshi Sato. Why do I feel like that might be another Enterprise reference?

47 comments so far. Discovery is quite the barn-burner! ; )

Maybe people are just annoyed by all the whining that people post in here.

People keep saying this and yet so far this has been generally a very positive season so what are we missing??

Even this episode, while more divided there are just as many people who liked it as many who didn’t (and unfortunately I am in the latter personally). Actually I would probably say more liked it than didn’t.

This idea that its been nothing but constant hate this season is not remotely any basis in reality. Most people seems to be more positive than negative over it. The real possibility seems to be many have just stopped caring in general as there is a lack of discussions everywhere online besides here and probably why the lack of postings this season.

I’m not sure what you’re reading, but it’s been nothing but negative comments from season one. People are sick and tired of the same comments over and over again. I know many people have stopped commenting due to this. But would be interesting to see what the site traffic numbers are and to see if the site traffic is gone down or just the comment section. It’s honestly the same people saying the same thing over and over and over… Yawn.

The real strength of this season so far is that they have not teased something they cannot deliver. I have really enjoyed each episode without worrying that the characters were going to do something stupid just for the sake of stuffing the plot with action. Seems pretty sad that they are largely “getting it right” and no one wants to celebrate that.

I literally counted the number of positive vs negative posts in the episode 4 thread when someone suggested this and it was 24 positive posts about an episode vs 3 negative ones.

Go back to the first two episodes of the season. Again it was overwhelmingly positive. Nearly everyone liked those. The outliers were the people who didn’t.

I just counted the number of people who were positive about this episode vs the people who weren’t. And I only counted the ones who directly said they liked or hated it.

The people who said they liked it are 13 people. Now some some of those were mixed feelings for sure but if they said they ultimately liked it then it counts. But half of those considered it outstanding. As for the ones, like me, who didn’t like it are 7 people. So again that’s more people here saying they liked it than didn’t correct? So what am I missing?

Every episode this season there has been way more positive posts than negative overall. Yes I get your bigger point people have been putting down the show since the first season which is definitely true lol but it didn’t stop people from talking about the show in droves for YEARS. And your argument doesn’t hold water this season because most people who are commenting seems to LIKE it, right? The minority comments so far are the people who still thinks the show sucks.

And even the people who don’t they are just giving their opinions about it and not attacking or challenging anyone who DID like it. That’s actually one thing I have been noticing about this season and there isn’t a lot of infighting about the show. Again look at this thread, besides me and you lol, who is arguing about it? There is no big debates or people being triggered. The people who said they liked it aren’t being challenged over it no more than the people who said they hated it.

Isn’t this is what we want on a message board? People being civil and not attacking others? And one such troll was finally banned here a month ago who IRONICALLY kept attacking anyone who was being negative about the show and turning everything into a ridiculous fight in every thread; so that probably has helped the civility here a great deal now he’s gone regardless of your personal thoughts about the show.

So I don’t remotely buy this argument. The reality seems to be a lot of people have just moved on from the show in general. When you look at the level of discussion about the show in its first three seasons vs the last two the gap is very obvious.

Again maybe many people are still watching the show. Unfortunately we don’t have any data on that. But we know how this works when people are passionate for a show on the Internet it’s very very easy to see everywhere.

Picard season 3 is the perfect example. I went and checked how many posts its episode 6 got here (since this episode 6 of this season) and it was 450 posts and that was just a year ago. And people slammed season 2 like no one’s business lol.

I don’t think this season has even gotten that many posts if you combined all the episodes.

I’ve also said this before as well and the show had been off the air for two years now. Yes we’re used to seasons having longer gaps these days but that’s still very long even for today and a lot of people could’ve just moved on or lost interest.

“Again maybe many people are still watching the show. Unfortunately we don’t have any data on that.”

Actually I have to correct myself on that because I forgot Paramount+ is part of the Nielsen ratings for streaming. But I have no idea exactly how in-depth they make it publicly. I only know how well a show is doing here when this site reports it.

And maybe Discovery will enter the top 10 this season. Now let me make this very very very clear, even if it doesn’t it doesn’t mean the show is failing in terms of views obviously. When there are 200 streaming shows these days and many on much bigger sites to boot it’s a miracle for any Trek show to be in the top 10 lol. And those listings are very skewed in my opinion since the only ‘top 10’ list we ever see are original shows. So while I’m happy to see Trek on any top 10 lists it still doesn’t tell us the whole picture just much these shows are truly being viewed.

And Paramount+ still avoids releasing any numbers independently unless a show is huge like some of the Yellowstone spin offs.

“Every episode this season there has been way more positive posts than negative overall.”

Hmm, maybe that’s the real problem and it’s all the negative and bitter haters that just finally left haha.

But don’t worry I still show up as much as possible! 😁

I’m teasing I’m actually enjoying the season for the most part but agree I think most people just lost interest. Obviously the people who always loved it are probably still devotely watching but it is probably the fence sitters and the people who always hated it who ultimately moved on which would make sense.

And I have seen people say they just have no interest to watch the show week to week anymore after being burned every season and just plan to binge it when this season was over. I even remember reading you were thinking of doing that so that could be another issue.

“Isn’t this is what we want on a message board? People being civil and not attacking others? And one such troll was finally banned here a month ago who IRONICALLY kept attacking anyone who was being negative about the show and turning everything into a ridiculous fight in every thread; so that probably has helped the civility here a great deal now he’s gone regardless of your personal thoughts about the show.”

This is really is the biggest irony out of all of this. A lot of these comments section does get inflated when you had people like that guy being triggered all the time, making the same 20 posts a day over anything he didn’t like (how many times did he utter the phrase ‘ROTJ’ in every Picard post 🙄) and literally went on constant tangents how people here were just coming here to drown the boards in hatefests?

Instead that lunatic was removed and ironically this place has been the most relaxing in years lol. The very fact as you pointed out no one is spending time arguing with others over their opinions is another reason there are fewer posts because no one cares anymore lol.

I think everyone just resigned to the fact the show is now done and everyone’s views are baked in so what’s the point arguing over it anymore?

And when you remove the disruptive people who wants to act like insullen babies like that guy and Alpha Predator, REGARDLESS how they feel about a show, good or bad, surprise surprise you get a more civil and balanced discussion and board now.

Yeah … shocking! 😉

“And I have seen people say they just have no interest to watch the show week to week anymore after being burned every season and just plan to binge it when this season was over. I even remember reading you were thinking of doing that so that could be another issue.”

Yes this is possible as well. In fact another member here said they were thinking to do just that after they watched the first episode of the season but didn’t like it.

And yes I too was considering it because of just how bad season 4 felt by the end. I was even thinking of doing the same thing with Picard season 3. But once I heard it was the final season (and Picard was bringing back the TNG cast) it’s no way that would happen. And I don’t know if I would’ve done it regardless because I have zero willpower lol.

I guess I’m just surprised because I really expected the opposite for three big reasons. A. Being the final season of course. B. Being so closely connected to a big and popular TNG episode and C. The early reviews were solid.

So I just thought it was going to be a big party lol. Not at the level of Picard season 3 but at least at the level of SNW.

But instead of a party it feels more like a funeral. Or maybe someone on their death bed is a better morbid term lol. Just sorta here waiting for it to end and not really hyped up about the season.

As far as your last point, agreed. No matter what these boards have been a lot more fun and relaxing to write on.

I have said it before in the past it is really strange the lack of discussion around this season. Outside of this site I also post on TrekCre as you know and Reddit (but under a different handle there) and it’s obvious how much the discussions have fallen off at those places too. It’s not a lot of people at TrekCre so the posts were already less but the more popular stuff like Picard and SNW still got decent traction. It just doesn’t feel the same way with Discovery this year and I post there a few times a week as I do here.

Reddit it’s very obvious though. There are times you can’t even view all the responses because there was so many especially the first few seasons. Now it’s much more manageable.

It is a little disappointing because this will probably be my favorite season (that’s not really hard though lol) and like you I expected to see a lot more debate and discussion considering we’re dealing with such a big storyline.

But I imagine the audience has peaked for this show years ago and it’s just the hardcore mostly watching. There is no hype for it outside the usual places like here.

Good for you. You counted the comments the last couple of episodes. What about all the past seasons? Have you gone back and counted all that? People just don’t want to bother with all that negativity. It’s like the movie BEYOND, a far better movie than INTO DARKNESS. But less people went to see because they felt it would be bad like ID. Same thing here. Because of all the negativity last season in the posts, less people are reading and posting comments. Like I said, would be interesting to see if the traffic on this website reflects the comments. My guess, the same amount are hitting the page but less commenting. And the ones that are commenting, are the same usual suspects. People can’t be bothered reading the toxic comments spewed towards the actors, the writers and the producers. Same old blah blah from the same old people. Yawn.

I’m going to say it again.

A. This is NOT the only place that has less discussions. I keep saying this and it keeps getting ignored lol. This is across the board. A great example is Reddit. It’s easily the biggest Trek board. Until this season most Discovery threads had 600+ posts when an episode review was posted. Now most of them are under 500 which is not horrible but it already tells you a huge gap Discovery has when you compare it to the bigger shows like Picard and SNW which easily goes into the thousands. It’s the same with TrekCre, Trek BBS, etc. The show has less people talking about it these days.

B. Your logic doesn’t make sense because if the more negative posts drove away the more positive posts then why are there still more positive posts?? And literally on every review thread. How do you derive at that conclusion if more people are actually saying nice things about it? Wouldn’t it be the opposite then? Or at least a bigger subset of those posts? Help me out here?

C. I have been saying these boards have been negative since 2009. You just made the point for me with STID. That time was brutal lol. Way worse IMO because there were so many more people at the time.

People go on and on about how much hate Discovery gets here but very few threads ever went into the THOUSANDS of people fighting over it like what happened with STID… for years after it came out.

But you’re also right yes less people discussed Beyond when that came around but I don’t think you can blame that all on STID either. I think people grew tired of those movies in general and Beyond just didn’t grab people on its own (and had a HORRIBLE marketing campaign), hence a big reason why it bombed. I don’t think you can blame this board for that lol. In fact I think less postings was simply an reflection that less people had interest in the movie in general and its box office indicated that.

I’m saying the same thing has happened with Discovery. It’s not just ONE thing. I do agree that the negativity has maybe driven some people away. I also think the show itself has driven people away too for those people really unhappy with the last few seasons. It CAN be both right? Just like what happened with the Kelvin movies.

D. How is it any different than all the derision Picard got in it’s first two seasons? And yet season 3 had the highest number of people posting probably simce STID. And most people seem to think season 2 wasn’t just the worst season of that show or even NuTrek but one of the worst Trek seasons ever.

It didn’t stop anyone talking up season 3 to death and not everyone loved that season either.

You can repeat it until you’re blue in the face. Whether it is hear or on other boards… The same repetitive negative people here are the same repetitive negative people on other boards. People are tired of hearing the same drivel no matter where you go because it’s all the same people.

Do you actually believe that people don’t go to multiple platforms? Come on. People are mean. People are arrogant. People are negative. It’s repetitive drivel.

My logic makes perfect sense. And I would put money on that the traffic on the site hasn’t dropped. The articles are still good. Fans want to read them. But people just don’t want to deal with the same crap all the time. How many times does Emily have to say how much she hates nostalgia and legacy before you are sick of hearing it. How many time does Lorna have to slam Martin-Green’s acting and “whisper speaking” before you get sick of it? And the list goes on. Blah blah blah over and over.

I’m going to repeat myself. How come the last season of Picard didn’t get the same problem? You can admit season 2 was blasted as much as season 4 of Discovery was right? I think even worse. It didn’t stop anyone from talking about season 3 in droves.

And I seem to recall others still repeating themselves who still hated that show too.

As far as Discovery It’s probably a show that has been falling in the ratings awhile, hence it’s cancellation before season 5 even aired. My guess has always been by the end of season four a lot of people had simply stopped watching it because there were people, some on this very board, said they stopped watching it lol.

Again it CAN be both things right? Yes you can be right but what’s weird is you seem to acknowledge a lot of the negative feedback but you don’t acknowledge that maybe many of those same people have simply stopped posting or watching on their own as well.

It IS possible right?

I mean the show is now halfway over. There has not been a single article ANYWHERE discussing the metrics of the show. Not one press release by Paramount that the show is hitting any admirable numbers even if they don’t tell us what they are. This is the one frustrating thing about the streaming era.

And maybe it’s really doing great but the deafening silence is telling.

So I’m going to say it again could you be right, yes. Is that the ONLY reason though, no I don’t think so. Not by a long shot.

But listen if you really feel that way fine. But I’m also the SAME guy who has been begging for an IGNORE BUTTON more times than I can count. I get accused of saying the same things over and over again too and believe me I have said that the most out of everything else lol.

Personally I don’t have an issue what people say here but yes I am sadly more on the negative side of Discovery. I don’t WANT to be but sadly yes although I am still liking this season, but it’s starting to lose me.

I’m not just talking the negativity about Discovery… I’m talking about the negativity towards Trek in general ever since Discovery debuted…all all the shows thereafter. It’s too much dude. Way too much negativity towards Trek in general now. It’s fine to dislike a show regardless if it Discovery, SNW or lower decks… But coming on and slagging the shows ENDLESSLY is tiresome. You even have people PRE-hating the academy series before it’s even shot! Mention section 31 and you get the “space Hitler” people coming out of the woodwork. So no, it’s not just the hate of Discovery, it’s the constant hate of everything new. So that’s why people don’t bother. Enough already.

Which I LITERALLY said has been happening here since 2009 did I not?

Look I don’t know what you want me to say but this isn’t a new thing. We obviously agree on that lol.

Same time though we just have different philosophies on it. I have no problem of people saying whatever they want AS LONG AS they don’t attack others for their opinions or try to argue with them over everything because they don’t like their opinions and trying to shut them down.

And yes that has happened PLENTY of times here but thankfully those people have mostly been banned.

But outside of that this is how message boards operate. People are abandoning this site NOW after nearly 15 years of negativity? What took them so long lol.

And dude I’ve asked you this three times now if that’s the case then why did season 3 of Picard get so much fanfare then? Or season 1 of SNW?

Again I get what you’re saying but you seem to discount all the times fans are generally excited and positive about things here. It’s not all bad all the time INCLUDING with Discovery. Whenever they like something about it people shout it from the rooftops. Remind me how we got SNW again?

I remember having this SAME discussion with TG47 (another guy who looks like took off for good and yes probably due to the negativity) when he complained about people being too negative over SNW. I didn’t see that at all because the MAJORITY of people liked the show, but they still pointed out some of its flaws as they should.

I guess I just don’t know what people expect? Do you seriously just want to come to a board where everyone loves every show only say glowing things about it? OR are you saying that these shows don’t have any flaws for people to be that critical about? I don’t think the answer is yes to either of these questions, so what is the answer.

All I can say is I remembered waaay back in the 90s when fans were crucifying Berman and Braga saying that Voyager and Enterprise were horrible shows, DS9 was a slap in the face to Gene’s ‘vision’ and Nemesis were so bad it killed the franchise.

I didn’t see any of that on this board because it didn’t exist then. But I saw it in plenty of places. And it went on and on until Enterprise was cancelled. Doesn’t mean everyone felt that way(I personally loved DS9 and VOY from the start; no comment on Enterprise or Nemesis;)) but none of this is new bro. It’s been going literally since TNG first aired to be honest. We just didn’t have the Internet then to wallow in the hate lol.

Oh there was a lot of hate going on for Picard season 3. All the people complaining about it being nothing more than nostalgia. Saying the writing was crap and so on. And there were a lot of criticism about SNW and how it doesn’t look like it’s before TOS and how come the Enterprise looks like potato peeler. And so on. Yes, people are finally tired of it. Frankly, so am I. I have actually stopped going to other boards for that very reason. Why wait until now? Well it’s because there were literally years… YEARS… between Trek 2009, ID and Beyond. Barely anything happened on the boards. I actually thought the site would close. Now, with so much continuous Trek and Trek news, you see the whiners and complainers and haters so much more. Back during TNG and the TNG movies, DS9, etc… the internet was as it is now. You would barely hear anything from the fans unless you were at a convention. People were buying magazines and read those articles. So you didn’t see the hate and negativity like you do now. It’s so easily accessible. Anthony, if you are reading, what are the site traffic numbers like? Is there a decline like in the comments? Or are the numbers stable with only the comments dwindling?

Ok I get your point. I guess I’m just decencitize to it lol. But as I said I’m not as bothered. For example I loved season 3 of Picard. It’s my favorite season in NuTrek in terms of live action at least. It brought me back to a time where Trek was very special for me.

But same time I read all the same criticisms as well it was too much nostalgia, a lot of memberberries etc. And I didn’t really disagree with that sentiment but didn’t have any real issues either. I understand people just have issues with the show and I had a few as well but more minor.

Same with SNW, I generally think it’s a good show but I get the criticisms for that one too especially the canon ones which drives me crazy lol. But that’s why we come to places like this, to hash out stuff out with fellow fans. If others are getting triggered over it because some of is just want to discuss these things then OK but this isn’t the place for them obviously.

And no maybe it wasn’t as in your face in the 90s because obviously the Internet as big as it is now. Social media didn’t exist. I always remind people YouTube started the last year Enterprise was on. But still there were PLENTY of places to talk Star Trek and by the late 90s it became very negative by then. It’s worst now in terms of much is out there but the vitriol was still pretty bad. Type in Berman’s name on this site and you will see it here circa 2007 and on.

But if you need a break for awhile certainly understandable.

Even if there was hate for Picard season 3 it wasn’t the majority who felt that way, far from it and tons of people still discussed it. In fact the sole reason I joined this board was to just discuss that season. I really planned to stop posting here once it was over. But hardly anyone is discussing this show this season which is odd since most who is watching it at least seems to like it.

And I used to be a huge NuTrek hater. Guilty as charged lol. I had no problems being cynical about it because we are now paying for these shows full time and the Internet is the place to vent and debate this stuff. No one I know in real life outside 1 or 2 people knows these shows exist much less watch them. Oddly Star Trek feels more niche today even though there is so much of it on right now.

But anyway these sites are the places fans come to be honest about their thoughts. I was very disappointed with JJ verse, Discovery and especially Picard and have no problem saying so. But I didn’t want to hate any of them but overall they all been mostly disappointments. Obviously not just to me but a lot of people. I will say the JJ movies were more popular with newbies but clearly not enough cared after awhile and why Beyond ultimately failed but that’s a different thread.

As far as the shows themselves I have been open-minded about all of them and oddly they always started off strong but end in a winper.

But even that has changed since I love he animated shows out the gate and SNW finally feels like 90s Star Trek again which a lot of people like me was missing.

Now oddly I’m on the other side of it and considers myself a NuTrek lover. Who knew that was possible lol. But it proves I was never out to hate anything; it just sucked IMO.

Like I said I’m even enjoying Discovery now, my worst show in the entire franchise. But I understand if others still think they are bad and just want to vent. I can’t be a hypocrite about it. If I could get online and spew why I thought shows like Discovery and Picard were total trash then I have to allow others say that about shows I truly like like SNW or LDS.

That’s how it works right? I believe message boards are here to hash everything out regardless my personal feelings about it. Some people oddly can’t seem to understand this basic reality when they decide to join a board and that’s why they get banned or everyone hates them; not for their opinions but constantly trying to censor others over theirs.

Sure you may be right and people are sick of the negativity. But we’re Star Trek fans, this is how we usually roll! 😂

But yeah I get it it can feel too much at times but I’m actually with Tiger2 on this one most people seems to be a lot more positive lately. The last year has been really fun to talk about Star Trek thanks to LDS, Prodigy, Picard season 3, SNW and now even this show. Of course there will always be naysayers but they don’t overrun these boards either. It’s not YouTube lol.

Amazing episode again. This season the show is just knocking it outta the park! Wish it wasn’t the last season.

Admittedly this is kind of a paint-by-numbers Star Trek episode, but I enjoyed it quite a bit if largely for Tilly’s charisma. I do find the ongoing Culber existential crisis a little off balance, feels like we’ve already been here before with him after a far more significant event. But I do like aspects of his crisis, especially the tug between the scientific and the spiritual and how that’s expressed in his conversation with the analytical (yet caring) Stamets. Like much of Discovery’s writing, the story does take some logic shortcuts that I find distractingly convenient, but at least it fills in most of the gaps. On a side note, although I have a very high end sound system that sounds phenomenal with most streaming content, Discovery has uniquely terrible onset audio, it’s been a constant problem for the show (and seemingly all Toronto-based productions), but this season is by far the worst. It’s making it really hard to understand every word being spoken, I’m constantly rewinding to listen again and I just straight-up miss things all the time because the voices are often garbled.

While I certainly did not dislike this episode, I still found its resolution to be kinda lacking. It left me wondering whether they couldn’t have found a way to bend the Prime Directive instead of outright breaking it (even though, arguably the DISCO-crew weren’t the first to do so but rather the Denobulan scientist who installed those weather towers in the first place). It seemed like they just took the easiest possible route there… Also: Why was the episode even called “Whistlespeak”? Was there any sense in introducing that culture’s whistle language at all? I was honestly flabbergasted that there was no mention of such means of communication actually existing on Earth (on the Canary Island of La Gomera) and it existing on that planet could’ve been a nice setup for another linguistics-centered episode (not necessarily another “Darmok”, but maybe something akin to SNW’s “Children of the Comet” – you know like, a linguistic problem interwoven with a bunch of other problems). However, upon closer inspection, the whole introduction of that concept just went absolutely nowhere. A bit of a pity if you ask me.

Thank you! The titular “whistlespeak” was completely irrelevant to the plot or theme of the episode. I kept waiting for it to at least play a function in the third act. The writing of Disco can be so maddeningly sloppy.

Loved this episode. Very smart writing and continued with a great pacing. It had quite the TNG feel to it as well as feeling like a really Star Trek-y episode.

Really loving this season. The writing has been very solid as has been the acting.

For how much I dislike this season, I must admit this was actually a good episode to watch. As usual too many shared emotions, but the plot and the story was enjoyable for once.

I know I have mentioned this before but the dearth of posts this season is really surprising.. It’s the middle episode of the final season and its barely gotten 60 posts so far after a day. And again this is not TM alone. The show has lacked discussion everywhere and nowhere close to the kinds of discussions SNW season 2 and especially Picard season 3 got.

Maybe its getting more viewings than the discussions themselves are suggesting but if not it’s probably was a good idea to end the show after this season. I think a large part of the fanbase have simply moved on.

Yeah, I was curious about this and went back to check. Each recap/review article for SNW and Picard got hundreds of comments.

Yeah! And to be more fair I went and checked how many views those shows previous seasons got in the seasons run to correlate with the current episode of this season and for episode 6 Picard season 3 had 450 posts (which is pretty insane lol). For SNW season 2 it had around 240 posts which to be fair is the more common number for most live action shows.

Picard was more of an outlier for the obvious reasons. But then again it’s also PROOF when people are excited or passionate about a show or season you see it reflected.

It’s not nearly the same for this season. Many seem to like it overall and I include myself in that even if I’m starting to feel more mixed about it, but no one is really jumping up and down about it either.

I noticed this as well, engagement is very low which I suspect is reflected in the viewership. Part of this is probably the long 2-year hiatus and the cancellation, not to mention lack of promotion. This season also seems to lack a hook like the previous season, I know my interest was very low because I felt this story had been told and there really was nothing noteworthy this time. However, this season has been significantly more interesting than I expected because it’s so smart about its canon, for once! I’m really enjoying the work put into building this world and telling a story within the Star Trek mythos.

I think you nailed it. Viewership is just probably much lower these days which shouldn’t be surprising since they cancelled the show lol.

But ironically this is the most I have enjoyed the show so far and that’s probably because they are really embracing canon these days. I love we have the Breen back finally and I have loved how they dived into stuff like the Dominion war, Trill mythology, and the Progenitors. Every episode has been a link to old school Trek connections like how this episode linked the Denobulans (would’ve been cool if we saw actual Denobulans though).

It hasn’t all been winners like the Mirror universe stuff and the ISS Enterprise connections felt really weak and shoehorned like many have said; but I still applaud them for the effort. But overall it sadly doesn’t feel like many people care anymore. I remember how much fun it was here and other places to talk about Picard season 3. There was real excitement about it.

Oddly there is none of that here this season. People seem to like it, comment what they like but no real exchanges about any of it. I think the two year wait including how disappointed people were with last season just made the reception to this season feel very ho hum so far. I can’t believe it’s already passed the halfway mark.

It actually reminds me how Beyond was received. It came out, most people, at least old school fans, seem to at least like it (it’s my favorite of the three) but it was obvious the hype was over because no one really talked about it much after the first few weeks after it came out. And of course it bombed which was more odd because it was a decent movie but a lot of Trekkies and newbies had moved on.

This feels very similar.

That’s a good comparison. I liked Beyond too, but sometimes even I forget it exists.

Also, I wonder if Culber’s holo-Grandma is going to be the medical-holo on Academy. This seems like a perfect set up.

This one reminded me of first couple seasons of Enterprise. Not because of the Denobulan references but because it was uninspired, pointless, and painfully boring.

i’m sorry but i really can’t stand Tilly. she is like the opposite of Ensign Kim, who spent 7 years overachieving as an ensign where as Tilly is now a wise old sage full of nervous / frantic confidence. i hope she’s not a series regular on Starfleet Academy, the way she’s written and performed is so offsetting. meanwhile lets sideline Saru, IMO the only true ST style character on DSC.

Den of Geek

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 Episode 6 Review – Whistlespeak

Discovery’s search for the Progenitors’ technology takes the crew to a pre-Warp planet and runs afoul of the Prime Directive.

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This Star Trek: Discovery review contains spoilers .

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 Episode 6

Star Trek: Discovery (mostly) gets its final season back on track after last week’s flashback-filled snoozefest , but Michael and company’s search for the next clue hits a snag when the trail leads to a pre-Warp planet whose lack of technology makes accessing it more of a challenge than anyone expected. It’s a shift that comes as a welcome relief—the best part of this more adventure-oriented season has been its old-fashioned space explorer feel as Burnham and her crew bounce from planet to planet (or random interdimensional pocket of space). And it’s nice to finally get back to that, even if the planet Halem’no isn’t quite as exciting a side quest as some of us (read: me) may have wanted it to be.

The planet is largely arid, with a habitable zone that’s been created thanks to the work of Denobulan scientist Hitoroshi Kreel. A weather tower disguised as a sort of mountain peak, the tech emits a low-grade force field that protects the land around it from dust storms and pulls rain from the atmosphere on a semi-regular basis. All in all, it’s a technology that’s wildly advanced for the pre-Warp, pre-industrial society that lives on its surface and may have been built as part of some kind of humanitarian mission to help the people on its surface survive. The question of how, precisely, Kreel managed to do this without anyone on the planet noticing or why he chose this particular spot to hide his clue is something the episode is happy to handwave away. But, sure! Why not!

But, then again, very little about this consortium of old scientists determined to hide the Progenitor technology makes a ton of sense. Thanks to Kovich, we at least learn the identities of all five participants—Jinaal Bix (Trill), Carmen Cho (Terran), Marina Derex (Betazoid), Hitoroshi Kreel (Denobulan), and Vellek (Romulan)—who each came up with their hiding places and clue themes tied to their own lives or areas of expertise. ​How they all joined forces is anyone’s guess, but at least we have something of a roadmap as to where we’re headed now. (And I have to assume the Betazoid scientist is named in honor of Star Trek: The Next Generation ’s Marina Sirtis, which I admittedly already love.) 

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After Tilly and Michael disguise themselves in shabby, planet-appropriate attire (complete with convenient retinal tricorders that only make them look a bit like they belong in The Matrix ), they beam to the surface of Halem’no, which—at least in its habitable zone—is lush and green. The conceptualization of this planet and its society is the most intriguing part of this episode—particularly the phonetic elements of their language, known as Whistlespeak, which sounds like birdcall, doesn’t have words to denote things like class or status, recognizes at least three distinct genders, and prioritizes connection amongst its people. A timely reminder that simply because a society is not advanced in one way, doesn’t mean it isn’t in another. 

To find the next clue, Team Discovery must make their way inside the High Summit, the weather tower that the locals see as a place to commune with their gods and pray for the rain that keeps them all alive. A sacred place, access is restricted to those deemed especially holy or chosen through a race called the Journey of the Mother Compeer. Michael and Tilly immediately decide to participate in this very specific ritual without doing any research in it or even asking around about why everyone who’s won it appears to no longer be alive. To the surprise of no one, it’s actually a method of choosing those who will be sacrificed within the tower, trading their lives for the promise of rain and the chance to commune with their gods before they die. Tilly wins, because of course she does, and she allows a kind young woman named Ravah to tie with her so that she can too fulfill her dream of proving herself to her father, and now they’re both essentially marked for death. Good times! 

Not that any of us likely really expected Tilly to suffocate during this episode or anything, but truly the speed with which Michael jettisons the Prime Directive in the name of saving her friend is…honestly, something I wish the show would explore in a bit more depth. Because it actually ought to be an interesting story about how important Tilly is to her! Instead, it’s…just another example of the way that Michael’s constantly allowed to break the rules in ways that others are repeatedly punished for. Because, let’s face it, Rayner was demoted and publicly humiliated for doing much less.

And, for whatever reason, Discovery feels the need to overtly justify Michael’s choice, deliberately leaning into the idea that because she’s in for a penny, she might as well be in for a pound. I mean, it’s one thing to explain that the High Summit is a weather machine rather than the seat of vengeful gods. But it’s quite another to literally ferry Ravah’s dad Ohvanz up to their actual spaceship that is parked in space and show him what his planet looks like from orbit! Did she leave a spare warp drive behind her to top everything off? ( Ed note: Thank you to the eagle-eyed commenters who pointed out Michael only showed him Halem’no from space using the tech her team brought down with them. Is that better? I guess?) Maybe it all would be less annoying if it had truly ever felt as though Tilly was in some kind of real danger, or if it seemed as though the show was finally ready to tackle the cost of Michael’s reckless choices in a more serious and lasting way. Instead, it’s just another convenient shortcut she’ll inevitably face no consequences for. 

If every one of these clue hunts is supposed to either teach or test the person doing the searching—to ensure they’re trying to find the Progenitor technology for a good reason—what is this search (and Michael’s response to it) meant to show us? That friendship is magic? That climate change is real? That false gods exist? That you shouldn’t allow your loved ones to participate in poorly explained and potentially deadly rituals? Or it’s okay to do whatever it takes to save someone you care about, even if it means breaking rules to do so?

It’s particularly jarring when much of this episode is about unintended consequences—about what can happen when technology is used irresponsibly, even with the best intentions of the world behind it. The Denobulan scientist Hitoroshi Kreel tried to do a good thing by disguising high-tech weather equipment in what is essentially religious iconography, but it still ended up giving rise to ritual sacrifice and murder in the name of bringing rain. Discovery isn’t normally very subtle about such parallels, so I think we can all assume that whatever the Progenitors did leave behind for future generations to find, the question for Michael and the Federation will be more about whether anyone should have access to it at all. 

With just one more clue to go—and four more episodes in the season—-it’s anyone’s guess what’s coming as the Discovery enters the final phase of this story. Will Michael manage to unearth the Progenitors’ ancient, potentially galaxy-changing secret? Or will it turn out that the real advanced technology was actually the friends we made along the way?

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Lacy Baugher

Lacy Baugher is a digital producer by day, but a television enthusiast pretty much all the time. Her writing has been featured in Paste Magazine, Collider,…

'Star Trek: Discovery' season 5 episode 6 goes old school and benefits because of it

Warning: Spoilers ahead for "Star Trek: Discovery" season 5, episode 6

Here we are then, the other side of the halfway mark of the very last season of " Star Trek: Discovery ." Will the plot actually advance any further? Or does the chase across the galaxy for the Progenitors MacGuffin continue, offering another chance to insert a stand-alone, episode-length adventure along the way? Interestingly, a look at the IMDb top 10 rated episodes of "Discovery" there isn't one single entry beyond the second season. 

This week's curiously named installment is entitled "Whistlespeak" and it's almost a throwback to old school-style of sci-fi storytelling, more typically found in something like "Stargate SG1." And a 10 episode-long chase for an alien artifact would be just fine in that show, because each season was typically 22 episodes long. Sadly, that's one reason why "Discovery" has been deteriorating, rather than improving, because each season — and it's far more obvious in seasons 3, 4 and 5 — seems to follow a very cookie-cutter formulaic approach. 

Related: Star Trek streaming guide: Where to watch the Star Trek movies and TV shows online

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There's always a threat facing all life in the universe (killer AI, exploding dilithium, gravity waves, Progenitor tech), there's always a series of clues-of-sorts that have to followed and that usually entails a set of standalone adventures before finally everything concludes in a disappointing payoff. Tragically, "Discovery" never really found its identity and it struggled from the outset when the original concept was not to focus on the captain of a particular starship, but rather the first officer. 

That combined with the fact that big-budget TV sci-fi has shifted to shorter seasons with more expensive episodes over longer seasons and more expansive storylines. Just remind yourself what other sci-fi shows have managed to achieve in five seasons; "Stargate: Atlantis" and " Babylon 5 " both had five seasons, "Battlestar Galactica" only had four and "Stargate: SG1" had 10. (Although the less said about the whole Ori storyline, the better.)

All that aside, this particular episode was a quirky little number that was actually quite enjoyable. So, that's nice. Yes, there are one or two enormous small plot holes and the super-convenient tech has somewhat taken a turn for the ridiculous. This is not swallowing a pill to genetically alter you temporarily, these are easy-install "optical tricorders" — yes, indeed, you need never have the burden of having to actually carry a tricorder anymore, because now they can be worn like contact lenses.

This week, Capt. Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Lt. Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman) beam incognito down to the surface of a pre-warp, pre-industrial world much like the Planet Vancouver that we often saw in just about every incarnation of "Stargate." And why-oh-why do these primitive, unevolved civilizations always have traditions that seem harmless at first, but upon further examination almost certainly seem to involve decapitation, disembowelment or any one of a hundred different, excruciating ways of dying, all in the name of glorious sacrifice to some god or another. Was the human race ever like tha...oh wait, hang on. Damn .

In this particular instance it's simply suffocating. Of course if you blew the fires out that also happen to be burning in the room, you know, using up all the precious air that's left, you might last a teeny-tiny bit longer. But that's probably not covered in standard Starfleet training, rather undergraduates are instead taught how to rebuild an illudium Q-36 explosive space modulator using only a discarded toothbrush, a clothes peg, an empty washing up liquid bottle and sticky-back plastic. 

You also have to wonder how the local population had such an in-depth knowledge of the sacrificial chamber if no one ever survived, but we'll look past that, just like the writers did. And boy-oh-boy, there's along time to kill before you get killed. On the up side, the dialogue is pretty sharp this week and despite all its flaws, this is a well-paced installment. Still, a cliffhanger might be nice at some point before the show wraps permanently. All things considered though, given the low bar "Discovery" has sadly set itself, this one isn't terrible. 

In other, somewhat related news, Paramount CEO Bob Bakish has stepped down and it's rumored that the entertainment giant is going to create an "office of the CEO" and have a team making the important decisions rather than a rich, white man who doesn't seem to have much of a clue. Sounds like a plan, right? Well, wait for it... Instead, three rich, white men will be making all the important decisions. George Cheeks, president and CEO of CBS; Chris McCarthy, president and CEO of Paramount Media Networks and Brian Robbins, president and CEO of Paramount Pictures.

Needless to say, Paramount's share value has taken a nosedive this week. Now while most of this is related to Paramount Global, it will of course affect the future of Paramount Plus, including programming choices, budget and just about everything else that determines whether or not we'll get to see any "Star Trek" going forward, let alone quality "Star Trek." Let's face facts, the only reason we're getting a Section 31 TV series TV movie is because of contractual obligations. 

The fifth and final season of "Star Trek: Discovery," and every other episode of every "Star Trek" show — with the exception of "Star Trek: Prodigy" — currently streams exclusively on Paramount Plus in the US, while "Prodigy" has found a new home  on Netflix.  

Internationally, the shows are available on  Paramount Plus  in Australia, Latin America, the UK and South Korea, as well as on Pluto TV in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland on the Pluto TV Sci-Fi channel. They also stream on  Paramount Plus  in Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria. In Canada, they air on Bell Media's CTV Sci-Fi Channel and stream on Crave.

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

Such Sweet Sorrow

• Episode aired Apr 11, 2019

When the U.S.S. Discovery's crucial mission does not go according to plan, Burnham realizes what must ultimately be done. The crew prepares for the battle of a lifetime as Leland's Control s... Read all When the U.S.S. Discovery's crucial mission does not go according to plan, Burnham realizes what must ultimately be done. The crew prepares for the battle of a lifetime as Leland's Control ships get closer. When the U.S.S. Discovery's crucial mission does not go according to plan, Burnham realizes what must ultimately be done. The crew prepares for the battle of a lifetime as Leland's Control ships get closer.

• Olatunde Osunsanmi
• Gene Roddenberry
• Bryan Fuller
• Alex Kurtzman
• Sonequa Martin-Green
• Anthony Rapp
• 71 User reviews
• 22 Critic reviews

• Michael Burnham

• Paul Stamets

• Sylvia Tilly

• Dr. Hugh Culber

• Captain Christopher Pike

• Admiral Cornwell

• Me Hani Ika Hali Ka Po

• Amanda Grayson

• Dr. Gabrielle Burnham

• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Did you know

• Trivia The character of Po originated in the first episode of Star Trek: Short Treks (2018) , Runaway (2018) . Clips from that episode are included in the opening "previously" teaser for this one.
• Goofs When Michael Burnham is discussing having the suit crafted for her, she says her "MRNA" is closest to Dr. Burnham's, her mother. Mitochondrial *DNA*, mDNA, is what is passed down from mother to child, not mRNA. mDNA = mitochondrial DNA, only maternally inherited, while mRNA = messenger RNA, totally unrelated to genetic inheritance.

Captain Christopher Pike : Sometimes we know the role we're meant to play, sometimes we don't. I'm not sure which is better, to be honest.

• Connections References Star Trek: Short Treks: Runaway (2018)

User reviews 71

• berkovich-76592
• Apr 12, 2019
• April 11, 2019 (United States)
• United States
• Woodbine Beach, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (Sarek and Amanda at the beach on Vulcan)
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

• Runtime 48 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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Saru is missing from star trek: discovery season 5 - doug jones explains why.

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Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 Returning Cast & New Character Guide

I've been missing detmer & owosekun in star trek: discovery season 5, star trek: discovery’s moll & l’ak could never find season 5’s treasure on their own.

• Doug Jones clarifies Saru's absence from Star Trek: Discovery season 5 due to prior commitment to Hocus Pocus 2.
• Jones assures fans that he will return to Star Trek: Discovery before the season ends.
• Saru's limited appearance in season 5 linked to Jones promoting Hocus Pocus 2, not a storyline shift.

Doug Jones explains Saru's absence from Star Trek: Discovery season 5. As one of Star Trek: Discovery 's series leads and most popular characters, fans have noticed that Saru hasn't played a substantive role in Star Trek: Discovery season 5 since episode 3, "Jinaal", outside of his voice being heard and being briefly seen in Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 4, "Face the Strange"'s time travel flashbacks. Doug Jones' name has also been missing from Star Trek: Discovery season 5's opening credits .

To alleviate fans' concerns, Doug Jones replied on his X account to explain why Saru has been missing from Star Trek: Discovery season 5. Jones explains that his prior commitment to Disney+'s Hocus Pocus 2 , in which he plays Billy Butcherson, is why he and Saru haven't been in the last few episodes of Star Trek: Discovery season 5. Check out his post below:

As Burnham seeks the universe's greatest treasure in Star Trek: Discovery season 5, she'll need help from a host of new and returning characters.

Saru Will Return In Star Trek: Discovery Season 5

Saru and t'rina are engaged to be married.

Doug Jones is very much in demand , and he has other roles in Hocus Pocus 2 and What We Do In The Shadow s keeping him busy beyond Star Trek: Discovery. However, as Jones noted, Saru will return later in Star Trek: Discovery season 5. The noble Kelpien left the USS Discovery early in Star Trek: Discovery season 5 to assume a new role as an Ambassador to the United Federation of Planets. It's logical to surmise that this shift in Saru's career was a creative way for Doug Jones to split his time between Hocus Pocus 2 and his commitment to Star Trek: Discovery.

Star Trek: Discovery 's cast and crew also didn't know season 5 would be the final season during production.

Ambassador Saru's other big storyline in Star Trek: Discovery season 5 is his pending wedding to President T'Rina (Tara Rosling). Saru and T'Rina have announced their engagement, and hopefully, their wedding will take place later in Star Trek: Discovery season 5 . Since it's the final season, it's likely that Saru and T'Rina's wedding may be part of Star Trek: Discovery ' s series finale after the USS Discovery's hunt for the Progenitors' treasure is resolved. After all, Saru will want Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and his beloved crew mates from the USS Discovery to be guests at his wedding.

New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery season 5 stream Thursdays on Paramount+