Stamets™Okay. So this review is actually more negative than I expected it would be. You've been warned.
Star Trek: Discovery // S5E1 // Red Directive
Finally get to see the Discovery fly across the Star Trek universe logo is nice. Not to mention the spore drop in.
Curious to see this Pathfinder drive in action and what it looks like
'Scientific Luminary' feels like a slap in the fucking face. I see what he means about walking around shaking hands. He's a scientist from nearly a thousand years ago whose tech he was dedicated to is now shuttered. Is he expected to learn a thousand years worth of scientific advancement and catch up with everyone else? Course not. Thus the title. That sucks. At least let him tinker with it or some shit.
I want that drink. I love how even the white circle in the Federation flag is in the drink from the light reflection.
I see why Tilly is running. Jesus he's gorgeous.
Okay... T'Rina making a flirty joke with Saru is hilarious and I could not approve/love it more.
Saru as Ambassador? Jesus. What an honor and step up from Episode 1, holy shit.
Yay. Vance. More gorgeous.
The infinity thingy is cool. The room could not be more blatantly used as a budget saving measure if they tried but meh. Still looks cool.
Cronenberg saying something is too theatrical for his tastes is hysterical.
So how much better is this supposed Pathfinder drive if they still need Discovery to jump there immediately? Like I get rolling it out to a bunch of ships to make up for speed or dilithium shortages (which honestly should be sorted after finding a damn planet of it) but if you still need DISCO to answer the call then should you really be shuttering the program? I mean isn't it worth funding to some extent? I don't get benching it when you're still calling on it instead of its successor.
Explain what a goddamn Red Directive is already you bastards
Loving Kovich on board though. Guests on the bridge are always entertaining
That is definitely a Romulan interior and exterior.
What the fuck is that dudes face
This guy playing L'ak is familiar. Wasn't he in the shuttle with Burnham in Episode 3 of Season 1? I've been avoiding a lot of information about the season to keep some surprises and now I'm almost regretting it.
Kovich is cold. What is so valuable about this shit?
Man they are packing the credits into this seasons opener, damn.
The rotating stuff at the end is new and... odd
So... you know that the life signs can vanish, you know about personal cloaking and you clear a room with visual detection? What happened to those water droplets? I mean, why even mention it if you're not going to bother to use it again at that point to cover your own ass and make sure you don't get shot in the ass. Like what just happened. The only thing gained there was learning that whoever was onboard the ship with them didn't want to unnecessarily kill anyone because they could have killed the three of them so easily with how long their back was turned.
Burnham says that it would take longer to crack a decryption than the few minutes the lifesigns vanished. That's never explained. How did they crack it so fast then?
Ah so that's why they need the Discovery. Because they don't have the Pathfinder drive out there yet. But that just leads back to my original question. If the Pathfinder is so much better then why are they still relying on the Spore drive when they shuttered the program?
Rayner is clearly correct in them counting on him backing off. They didn't kill the away team and even their method of escape was bizarre, leaving more than enough time for Burnham to suit up and escape. I'm also still not totally clear why they didn't just beam out pre-emptively and why the bomb was needed.
And it fires off a dozen projectiles to go to warp in different pathways to confuse sensors presumably. If they do then Rayner was proven completely right, especially in telling her to back off preaching at him about making things personal. I love her but if he's right on this then I'm going to be kinda just tired of her yet again being like "I got this" while clearly not fucking having got the this. Especially when she was arrogant enough to be like "Don't worry I know better" than the dude who has been actively hunting them and at least knows their damn names.
That is a very cool shot of seeing the spore drive from inside of the shuttle bay but it isn't enough to make up for my stupendous level of disappointment in both her character and the writers for doing this fucking again. Like Season 4 was bad enough with her having to somehow relearn the same goddamn lessons she's been learning in every fucking season thus far but AGAIN?! THE SAME FUCKING MISTAKES AGAIN MICHAEL?! Jesus fucking christ.
Yeah of course it's fucking Book. Gotta bring him back again like immediately so there was essentially no punishment for him going against the wishes of the Federations votes and detonating an illegal weapon that led to two founding planets nearly being destroyed.
Okay so they have already made the point that this is extremely time sensitive. Every moment that they waste is another moment that the fugitives are getting away with an item that is vital to the security of the Federation as a whole. And Burnham and Book are having a fucking meet cute walking down the corridor? Every second up until now, even the previous scene, was stressing how intensely time sensitive this is and how on the ball everyone has to be. And they're just having a chat and moseying down the hallway with zero sense of urgency.
And now they're stopped and just talking being all "I heard you're doing good making up for your intensely insanely what the fuck level of crime breaking." "Yeah, I'ma do whatever it takes to make it right." Good god. I'm sorry but the writing of this opening episode is, in my opinion, fucking bad. If you want to introduce Book then fine but it's like nothing has happened to the guy. Same clothing and he's just saying "I'm trying to do good". Get all this sweet romantic music and a slow moment when, again, a fugitive is running away with information vital to the security of the Federation. I'm actually kind of angry. You don't get to switch the tone that drastically and that quickly for no reason. Unfortunately the only reasons I can think of why Burnham is slowly rolling this down the hall all lead to her being unfit for the Captains chair. I suspect the answer is bad editing but due to the way this has been released this just looks like she is putting her own feelings for Book ahead of this Red Directive which has still not been fucking explained.
Could you walk into the turbolift more goddamn slowly?
Are you telling me that Book is the only courier that they know of who knows of this region of space? Are they in the same spot that they were in the opening of Season 3? Because when they jumped away with Book to Earth they implied it was a stupendously far distance away from that region of space. Or is it that Book just happens to know all the courier knowledge there is to know because he's just the best? This is too convenient.
Almost everything in this episode so far has been luck based. They lucked out not being killed, Burnham lucked out seeing the shimmer of the cloak, they luck out getting the courier who has the right information...
If the holograms on any other ship looks like the hologram of Vance we just saw then I'm going to be so damn annoyed that Hologram tech has basically not progressed in a thousand years. You have fucking programmable matter that can make beds for fucks sake. Can't make a hologram that way? If it only looks like that on 1031 then sure because of the hologram stuff from 23c but if it's like that outside then I dunno what the excuse is there.
Drunk Tilly is kind of adorable but now that I'm spending any time with this dude I do not fucking trust him
Oh wow they really trimmed back the outer hull section that spins
I expected to totally think Rayner was going to be an outright asshole but honestly I'm on his side here too. Dude beams into an awkward situation and they get kinda hostile when he's politely like "Kinda urgent. Red Directive. You know? That thing that still hasn't been explained?" I assume it's high priority but why the hell hasn't that been said? Or have I completely missed it? They keep saying 'Red Directive' all dramatic like but not elaborating. Even Janeway elaborated what the hell was going on with the Omega Directive pretty quickly.
This dude is trying way too hard to be Lore
They introduce the characters and then 5 minutes later you've got another character who's hamfistedly going "Sounds like two word sounds, huh? Huh? Right? RIGHT?" So I'm guessing Moloch is going to be related to this season somehow.
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