Thirty Days of Star Trek: Favorite Discovery Episode

[selenak]

Day 25 - Favorite Discovery Episode

Magic to make the sanest man go mad, still. It's an inventive take on the Groundhog Day trope, with the still unusual choice of telling it not from the pov of the looper; at the same time, it develops several relationships (Michael's with the crew in general, Michael & Paul Stamets as well as Michael & Ash Tyler in particular), Tilly (literally) lets her hair down in the party sequence (the sequence which is also Exhibit A to show to people who claim the Discovery crew, at least in s1, dislikes each other and is grimdark all the time - as I always suspect people voicing said criticism never watched beyond the third or fourth episode at most). Harry Mudd is a great take on the amoral conman trope who manages to be both funny and dangerous in a way the show makes the audience feel, and mind. (I.e. the deaths-of-Lorca montage might be hilarious, but Mudd trying out his extremely painful killing device on other crew members is anything but, and thus his eventual defeat is very satisfying.) While the show is at it, it also updates a sexist TOS backstory (Stella). The way the day is eventually saved consists of both Michael being badass and the entire crew working together. And there are so many priceless moments both funny and touching (Michael and Stamets holding hands!). (Even some additional ones in view of later revelations, like Lorca's expression when Saru and Michael explain the Discovery has to stop and take care of the Space Whale. ( "What even is this universe?" thinks Gabriel L., wannabe dictator of the Mirrorverse, as he goes about saving whales.)

In short, it's Disco at its best, and I love it a lot.



Day 1 - Favorite TOS Episode

Day 2 - Favorite Federation Race

Day 3 - Favorite Starship

Day 4 - Favorite Captain

Day 5 - Saddest Event

Day 6 - Happiest Event

Day 7 - Favorite TNG Episode

Day 8 - Favorite Federation Enemy

Day 9 - Favorite Character

Day 10 - Most Shocking Moment

Day 11 - Crew Position You Would Want

Day 12 – Crew Position You Wouldn’t Want

Day 13 - Favorite DS9 Episode

Day 14- Favorite Time Travel Episode

Day 15 - Favorite First Officer

Day 16 - Favorite Voyager Episode

Day 17 - Favorite Trek Novel

Day 18 - Favorite Non-Aligned Race

Day 19 - Favorite Enterprise Episode

Day 20 - Character You're Most Like

Day 21 - Least Favorite Character

Day 22 - Favorite Trek Film

Day 23 - Best Trek Tech

Day 24 - Best Overall Space Vessel

Day 26 - Planet You Would Most Like To Visit
Day 27 - Character You Would Date
Day 28 - Name Your Own Starship
Day 29 - Favorite Trek Quote
Day 30 - Favorite Trek Series

Comments

[schneefink]

Yes, that was a wonderful episode! I should rewatch it :)

[watervole]

I think I need a total rewatch of Discovery soon -and it's only a few months since I finished watching it for the first time! It's got a lot of quality stuff.

[selenak]

I really love I have a new, unfinished Star Trek Canon to squee over. (And critisize, but that's normal for any show and fandom.)

[kore]

I love how a lot of stuff changes even as you watch, and that happens even moreso on the rewatch, too. That first season was well plotted.

[selenak]

Always a good idea. :)

[yhlee]

I agree, that was a great episode. Hahahaha poor (?!) Mirror!Lorca.

I admit I made the grimdark comment myself after the first couple episodes ("This is the Game of Thrones of Star Treks," I said to my husband in shock) but I was won over! And the arc of S1, especially the end, was very Trekian. I just had to get over the shocker of how it began. XD

[selenak]

The first couple of episodes are dark, no question about it, but no more so than DS9 during the Dominion War. (Or for that matter Enterprise during the Xindi arc, to name a worse executed example of Dark Trek.) When Michael near the end of 1.03 told Lorca she wasn't ethically "flexible" but still believed in the ideals she'd sworn to uphold, I was somewhat confident this wouldn't be going the "Michael goes dark" route, but the "Michael redeems herself route". (There was also the Tom Paris precedent - Lorca hiring Michael straight out of Prison during first broadcast reminded me of Janeway hiring Paris straight out of Prison in the Voyager Pilot, with Tilly being the Harry Kim parallel, the optimistic ensign befriending the outcast prisoner.)

Mirror!Lorca: you just know he would have written Very Secret Diaries if that hadn't been too dangerous. ;)

[yhlee]

I'd been told that DS9 and Enterprise got dark, but I was in South Korea when DS9 was airing (and haven't seen more than one or two episodes of Enterprise, period) so I was completely taken unawares. :p I don't think I've seen the Voyager pilot either. I suspect maybe the opening read better to people who have that Star Trek familiarity.

(I tend to pick up Star Trek in bits and pieces, and had a very confusing introduction to Trek because literally the first episode I saw of the live-action shows was "Reunification." I had no idea who Sarek, Spock, Romulans, or Vulcans were!)

[kore]

Lorca hiring Michael straight out of Prison during first broadcast reminded me of Janeway hiring Paris straight out of Prison in the Voyager Pilot, with Tilly being the Harry Kim parallel, the optimistic ensign befriending the outcast prisoner

I hadn't even thought of that! And I sat through ALL of Voyager for Janeway! duhh.

[kore]

people who claim the Discovery crew, at least in s1, dislikes each other and is grimdark all the time

WHUT

I think that's people who hate the show and decided to dislike it on principle, whatever that was. I saw some people comparing it to the BSG reboot and was just like, no, you're full of shit, sorry. It seemed to be the same type of people who absolutely could not handle that the white male captain was not the savior figure in S1.

[labingi]

My favorite Discovery ep. too.

[kore]

"What even is this universe?" thinks Gabriel L., wannabe dictator of the Mirrorverse, as he goes about saving whales

I just wanted you to know, this has been cracking me up on and off ever since I first read it.

("My God, they're all SO GOOD, it's HORRIBLE")

[selenak]

"Dear Diary: last week, I was getting captured and tortured by Klingons. At last, something felt like home! Gotta say, though, that escape was insultingly easy. That's what happens when Terrans aren't in charge!"