After a good start in season two it seems we're having back one of those crappy season 1 episodes.
Far too much season 1 baggage waylaid an otherwise interesting continuation of the Red Angel plotline.
Even the Klingon plot was doing pretty good until Mirror-Georgiou showed up in an MCRN ship and plot device'd it to death. I think this is one of the episodes produced by the original showrunners, prior to their exit, that wasn't re-treated by their replacement (though, some scenes do look like they were inserted after the episode was completed). Either way, Point of Light almost completely lacks the positivity and charm that the first two episodes of season two have.
My two least favorite characters are back.
I don't mind that they re-visit the Klingon story as such but those Klingons still don't feel right.
Flicking through the Klingon sections coz that whole thing is fucking painful ugh.
Oh please! Now the useless writer is rewriting the Vulcans as well. "Raised in an age where emotions were discouraged". That was not an age. That IS the way Vulcan's should be and are. This season do NOT start well. And this crap with Tilly is just that...crap!
I find the Klingon Soap Opera really annoying, the hair is a step in the right direction, but not enough. Best thing of the episode was Michelle Yeoh kicking ass, and preparing the way for the Section 31 spin-off. Still no Spock in sight.
I never thought would say this, but the Tillly story line was the best thing about this episode. The Klingon stuff is still a total trainwreck and them suddenly having hair doesn't improve anything.
Holy fuck! The Klingon side story is crazy enough to make the most emotionally twisted Latin American telenovelas ashamed of themselves! Discovery is clearly embracing its soap opera nature and I'm loving it! I can't wait for another episode of 'oH maHvaD!
Also, isn't the thumbnail for this episode a spoiler?
And I'm VERY curious about Section 31, I'm sure they're gonna destabilise things and bring some serious fun to the show!
I'm not a fan of the Orcs and Ash, and they featured prominently here. I'm not much of a Tilly fan, either, and she figured prominently here. I am a fan of this Pike, and of course he had almost nothing to do here.
Well, now....., wasn't that, .....special? You know, I really, really tried to find an angle to present a positive commentary on this episode, but, sorry to say this looks like a case of 2 episodes forward, and now one back...., to LAST season.
Growing up, when I hit my teen years, I would, on occasion, give Moms a little attitude, as teens are wont to do. She would give me, "the look", with an arched eyebrow and ask, "Oh, so you're smelling your piss now?", or "So, you must be feeling your oats", both of which basically meant, so, you're feeling cocky eh"? All of these responses were telling me to "back off kiddo", and if not heeded, would result in sometimes painful consequences.
Well, after two stellar episodes, it seems that the writers of STD(iscovery) started feeling their oats, got a bit cocky, and bit off more than they could chew.
Therefore, sadly...., Friends, Trekkies, Trakters, lend me your ears. I come to bury episode 3, not to praise it. The evil the scribes did (in season 1) lives after them. Though there was good interred in its bones. So let it be with DISCO. The noble Burnham hath told you DISCO was ambitious. If it were so, it was a grievous fault. And grievously hath DISCO answered it......
Yes, IMO Episode 3's grievous fault was that it was indeed TOO ambitious. Rather than simply continuing the arc began in episodes 1 and 2, the scribes, er, writers for some unknown reason decided to attempt to (in)coherently explore not just old business from last season, in the form of ..."meanwhile back on the Klingon Home World". But hey, lets throw in some marital discord, political infighting, and for good measure, surprise, surprise, surprise, son of a Voq......yes, LITERALLY a son of a Voq! Which was an weirdly inordinate amount of time to spend building the whole plot line up only to see Jr exiled to Fury-161, and daddy duo hooking up with the Sec 31 gang, now led by I'm not the Emperor Georgiou.
And if Burnham's Brother and Daddy issues weren't enough, Mom shows up at the office and, since Michael already did that whole mutiny thing already, asks her to break a couple more Starfleet regulations just to let em know she's still a rebel, if there's a good cause. Which, cause, now it seems, will have them embarking on the FIRST "Search for Spock", not to be confused with a much later search, which occurred after he was jettisoned out of a photon tube after being derezzed by a failing reactor. Oh yeah, and he's apparently gone batshiz cray cray and went "1 8 7 on some mutha' FN Doc's". (apologies Snoop)
And... speaking of Batshiz cray cray..... our girl Tilly, is now not only seeing dead people, but arguing with them, in front of everyone on the Bridge, and rather than esplain' and check in to sick bay, tells her BFF Burnham, who being an expert on interpersonal relationships and the cray cray, immediately susses out that our girl does indeed still have a full Happy meal, but, it may have become a bit moldy. So she takes her to see the resident spore whisperer Staments, who by the power of the space rock, discovers she is being haunted by......, SLIMER!!! (but featureless and not as cute)
Add all that to the already getting complicated "what are these signals, what is the Red Angel, what are Dark asteroids, plot lines, and you are starting to have Steven Moffatt levels of story complexity, with none of the fun. And, while I like my cranial contents twisted into a timey wimey pretzel just as much as the next Whovian, this AINT that show, so, my advice would be to stick to the basics, develop a coherent storyline, and play for the long game instead of coming across like you're panicked, and trying to cram as much stuff in as you can before you get canceled.
Unless the writers know something that we don't...., yet.
[7.7/10] I wasn’t necessarily asking for what amounts to an epilogue to the first season of Discovery, or a backdoor pilot for Georgiou’s new Section 31 spinoff. The Voq/Ash Tyler story had promise, but was never my favorite part of the show’s first season, and revisiting that core part of the twists-upon-twists that season 1 of Discovery offered is not, in a vacuum, my idea of a good time.
And yet, I think I felt for Ash Tyler and/or Voq, cared about L’Rell, and appreciated the Klingons and their internal politics here more than at any moment in Discovery’s first season. Tyler, having to walk the line between human and Klingon on the other side of the divide is more interesting, and has more actions than words than the number of tortured monologues we got with him in Starfleet. L’Rell having to balance her need to show Klingon strength and unite her people while having affection for her lover and her child is more compelling than all the “Make Qo’Nos Great Again” material we got last season. And the familiar backstabbing and machinations among the Klingon high council is more twisty and exciting than all the surprise reveals from before.
At the core of all this is a simple, relatable struggle to figure out who you are, done up in sci-fi splendor in the way only Star Trek can. Obviously none of us (I hope) have found ourselves genetically altered and mind-wiped to think we’re a different person. But Ash’s struggle to hold onto the part of him that’s Voq, a proud Klingon who wants to restore honor to his people and be taken seriously as a member of their species, but who also remembers Ash’s sense of violation at L’Rell’s touch and struggles to know what to do or how to act, captures a sense of duality and internal tension that is universal.
It’s the parallel between his self-identity and Michael Burnham’s own struggle between her human physiology and her Vulcan upbringing that should have provided the foundation for a more compelling connection between the two of them before. And yet, the scene where they speak to each other by hologram (which feels edited and staged to mirror the outstanding scenes between Rey and Kylo Ren in Star Wars: The Last Jedi) is laden with meaning and regret and feeling in a way that so many of their earlier interactions were lacking. In a show whose writing can be thudding, Burnham’s offers of commiseration with Ash, her words about L’Rell that are layered with her own feelings and wistfulness for their time together, does so much to underscore the connection between these two characters, in a way that makes you genuinely sorry they’re so separated from one another.
As Burnham feels the separation with one person she loves, she’s reunited with another. Amanda Grayson, her adoptive mother, appears on the ship with a stolen copy of Spock’s medical file and a bundle of concerns and her own set of regrets. Again, there is a power to the way that Amanda’s description of life in Sarek’s home, in the differences between Burnham’s upbringing there and Spock’s, led to family strife and estrangement, that didn’t hold water in the same way last season.
It ties into that same sense of duality, where we’re told that Spock, who was half-human, was discouraged from showing emotion, from embracing his human side, to the point that Amanda tried to quell her own emotions around him. That contrasted with her treatment of Michael, who received all the expressions of motherly love that Spock was denied. That naturally creates jealousy, and frustration, and the sort of lostness that could lead an otherwise noble Starfleet officer to be involved in some (likely twisty and already hush hush) incident at a mental hospital in the here and now.
It ties into the meta-narrative of this season, with Amanda explaining that the “Red Angel” Michael saw on the planet matches the one Spock claimed to see as a boy, one that represented a change in him for the worse. It also hints at the strains in his and Michael’s relationship, where she hurt him to try to protect him, to stop him from following her so that the logic extremists would not go after him. The latter deepens the relationship, the sense of violation and betrayal amid intimacy that mirrors Ash’s feelings. And the former is a confirmation that there’s more to a supposed hallucination, a connection to something real, than the person experiencing something fantastical but prone to logic might believe.
That connects Michael’s story to Tilly. I’ll admit, I quickly grew tired of Tilly’s imaginary friend, whose chipper demands became as annoying to the audience as to Tilly. (Though I’ll cop to appreciating the fake out over her references to a shorter, blonder captain.) But there’s something very Star Trek about Tilly experiencing this seeming delusion, only to have it revealed that there’s a scientific cause to it that their technobabble abilities can remedy. I’ll admit that it’s odd to have it broken up over two episodes, but it actually feels like a pretty standard Star Trek “weird thing happens/main character doubts themselves/solution is found” story.
But what I appreciated about it is the way that it ties into Tilly’s character relationships. As I said for last week’s episode, there’s a father-daughter vibe to Saru and Tilly’s dynamic, and seeing his disappointment with her after her Durden disturbance on the bridge, followed by his reassurances after she’s been treated, is endearing as hell. More than that, while Discovery occasionally tries to force the Burnham/Tilly dear friend vibe too much at times, Tilly’s confession of her deepest concern and need for help to Burnham, and Burnham’s confirmation that Tilly isn’t crazy, validating Tilly’s willingness to confide in her, makes for an incredibly heartening scene that fortifies that relationship up. As Trek-y as it feels to have the voices in your head turn out to be some sort of interdimensional parasite, it feels even Trek-ier to have the solution come from a person who trusts you despite how wild what you’re describing is.
That sort of trust is at the core of Ash’s story in “Point of Light.” He wants the trust of the Klingon people. He wants the trust of L’Rell. And most of all he wants to trust himself, to know who he is and figure out who he wants to be. The key to that ends up being his son, another admittedly crazy twist that requires some elaborate explanation, but which immediately clarifies that kind of life and devotion that Ash wants to have.
It also adds stakes to the usual Klingon succession plot. Much of the business on Qo’Nos in this one felt like those classic Ronald D. Moore episodes of The Next Generation that set aside the Enterprise problem-solving for engrossing Klingon palace intrigue. Having a red-painted rival steal L’Rell and Voq’s child to try to guarantee their ouster as chancellor not only gives us a good dose of the usual Klingon ambition, it gives us Discovery’s best combat scene, with bat’leths and hack and slash flair.
It’s exciting, albeit a little convenient, when Mirror Georgiou shows up to save (then semi-ruin) the day, but there’s high tension and action in the scene up until that point. And as much as I’m not necessarily enamored with the idea of a Section 31 spinoff, the notion of Mirror Georgiou as a brutally practical “security consultant”, there to try to maintain order in the galaxy through whatever means are required is a compelling counterpoint to L’Rell and Ash trying to balance their desire to unite the Klingon people with their desire to rebuild something of the life they once had together.
So we have L’Rell pulling the equivalent of an Elizabeth style “virgin queen” declaration (or rather, the opposite of that, given that she designates herself the metaphorical mother of Qo’Nos). We have her and Ash’s child sent to a monastery where he will not know the same pull of two lives and sides of oneself that Spock did. And we have Ash finding himself invited to join the “freaks are more fun” crew that Mirror Georgiou is putting together.
The latter development makes me roll my eyes, as the last five minutes are selling that spinoff pretty hard, and in such a shallow “calling all misfits” sort of way it would make Suicide Squad blush. But it still ties the knot I didn’t know needed to be tied. Ash Tyler was never Discovery’s most interesting character, but he often had the potential to be. The notion of being pulled between being human and being Klingon in a way not even Worf dealt with, of having part of you love one person wholeheartedly and another part love another, of not knowing what your place is in this universe, are all fodder for a sympathetic and unique character who warrants explanation and conclusion.
In “Point of Light”, Discovery finally makes good on that with Tyler, making him the echo of Spock’s past, and another piece of Michael’s growing list of people she loves whom she feels a distance and sadness about. I’m not necessarily signing up for another 13-episode arc on “The Adventures of Section 31”, but for once, Ash Tyler felt recognizable and interesting amid the Klingon Machinations, and sympathetic and wounded as a human being, with an episode that synthesized him into the best and most compelling version of the character we’ve gotten so far.
(As an aside, it didn’t really fit in this review, but I loved how Amanda Grayson was depicted her, and the motherly concern and confidence she showed in equal measure made for a distinctive parallel between her and L’Rell, and deepened and arguably justified the Spock family drama that’s been the centerpiece of this season so far.)
7/10
I enjoyed this episode and had fun with it and I thought this was just setting things up for the chaos to come.
Bring on the Chaos:
X FINAL THOUGHT:
Star Trek Discovery is still the best Star Trek ever created and every episode is a joy to watch.
Loved that line
"Control" values his skill set
(yeah I see what you did
there)
(So this season has two spinoff's
"Star Trek Strange New Worlds"
and a "Star Trek Section 31" Movie).
wtf is up with section 31? Arent they suppose to be unknown to starfleet? Nope everyone is talking about it like section 31 is known to everyone.
And on another note. theyre trying to fix their screw up with the klingons looks by "ooh the war is over we can grow our hairs back" like a little hair would fix their complete fuck up.
Nope, it wont, your fuck up is unfixable!
God this episode was boring, I have just about given up with this latest attempt at Startrek. I was just about to turn this off but then Michelle Yeoh appeared and saved the whole episode. I hope the spin off comes soon and actually has some action in it, unlike Discovery where it’s mind numbing dialogue that goes on and on and on….. I hope that’s the last we see of the Klingons for a long time, they may have grown hair but they still look like the vampires from Buffy, and why do they talk funny, I just don’t get it.
A few thoughts...
Who wrote this damn episode? The long, boring conversations between Michael & her mother went on forever. More blah, blah scenes between other characters. Little action. Yawn.
So, the most annoying ensign Tilly, who btw weights about 80 kg., wins the marathon of the ship. It happens before opening credits, so I'd not mark it as spoiler, but yes - this is how believable the entire show is.
Loved the storyline of Tilly
After a solid start to the second season, we get this Klingon focused episode. The Klingons in ST:D are the least interesting thing and this episode dragged on and on -- the end with the two twists that didn't quite make up for the lethargic episode. I hope this episode is a fluke in this season and that we're done with the Klingons for the rest of the season. Where the hell is Spock?
The most boring part of last season is back to haunt us, combine that with the focus on Tilly and you have a real rough episode.
The plots advance, although I am surprised how they do it
as i remember there was a black badge wear by someone on early episode in season 1.
why nobody confront that?
The return of Michelle Yeoh was definitely the best part of this episode.
I "love" Trekkies. There's too much action, too little action, they changed this and that ... This episode is was back on the tracks after too 90s second episode that served no purpose and was really awkward all the way.
Mmm, I didn't quite enjoy it, I just think it is a little scattered, disorganized, and boring.
Shout by anthoney65BlockedParent2019-02-01T16:18:19Z
First off, I love the Disco shirts (I know it's short for Discovery but still).
To much time with the space goblins. I feel insulted every time they put these creatures on screen pretending they're Klingons. On top of that they feel the need to involve us in a love triangle. An albino goblin, a human raised as a Vulcan and a Klingon surgically altered to look human walk in a bar. There is no punchline unless you count the baby. I think they spent money on their pseudo Klingon's clothes and sets and they feel obligated to use them .
What I didn't mind was Georgiou showing back up. I like the Emperor storyline and I like section 31. Now that she's away from the goblins maybe they can do something cool with her.