It's time once again for the Tuesday TV Touchbase where I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You answers the question that grips America every week, "What the hell is Dave-El watching on TV?"
This week's post looks at Star Trek stuff.
Star Trek: Discovery
While the 3rd season is mere weeks away, the family here at the Fortress of Ineptitude is still muddling it's way through the 1st season of Star Trek: Discovery. Andrea and I plowed through episodes 1 and 2 while our daughter Randie was away at school. When Randie came back home to continue her schooling remotely, I wasn't prepared to go back and watch those 2 episodes to catch Randie up and quite frankly they were not needed. Picking up from episode 3 works just fine.
It's taken us from episodes 3 to 6 to finally learn who is who and why we should care about them. Randie is pretty quick to pick up on details but I too frequently resort to "Hey, that woman who did that thing is talking to that guy from the other thing."
The credits for Discovery are no help. Yes, the sequence is beautifully rendered with a haunting theme but the credits just give the names of the actors and not the characters. Credits for Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager list actor names with their respective characters which is very helpful. God forbid that Star Trek: Discovery should be helpful.
(Star Trek: Enterprise also dispensed with the actor name/character name match ups in the credits. It would've been helpful if they didn't do that.)
Sonequa Martin-Green as Michael Burnham gets the most attention and deservedly so. She is a fascinating dichotomy, a human raised on Vulcan, the ultimate Starfleet officer guilty of the ultimate Starfleet betrayal, a proponent of Starfleet's highest ideals while trapped in a war that challenges those ideals, a war she did not want but a war she helped start.
I've written that the first two episodes of Star Trek: Discovery are extraneous to following this series. Yes, a lot of the groundwork for Burnham's character and motivations are laid out in those episodes. But picking up from episode three, the examination of what makes Michael Burnham tick is peeling away at an onion which I think makes for a more fascinating journey in discovering who Burnham really is. The information from episodes 1 and 2 could have just as easily been presented in flashbacks in subsequent episodes or even dedicating a single episode to Burnham's background.
Doug Jones as Saru is a interesting new addition to the Star Trek mythos. Saru is a Kelpien, a species hunted as prey on their home planet and with an evolved ability to sense danger. Saru is first officer on the Discovery and is trying really hard to be a good Starfleet officer who can stare down danger while having an evolved ability to sense danger that tells him to run like hell. If that wasn't enough for Saru to deal with, his relationship with Michael Burnham is fraught with complexities. Saru thinks highly of Burnham's skills as a Starfleet officer. Saru is also seriously pissed at Burnham's mutiny over their former captain. Saru respects Burnham's talents even as his evolved ability to sense danger tells him she's gonna be trouble.
Anthony Rapp as Paul Stamets is a bit of a jerk when we first meet him but hell, he's got Michael Burnham thrust upon his department on Discovery and everyone's being a jerk towards Burnham. As Discovery's chief engineer, Stamets is tasked with making sense of the ship's experimental spore drive. He lightens up considerably when Burnham's intervention leads him to finally making the damn thing work. In a first for a Star Trek TV series, Stamets is an openly gay man, married to the ship's doctor.
Mary Wiseman as Sylvia Tilly is delightfully weird in a way Star Trek shows usually don't let regular characters act. She has aspirations to be a captain one day if she can get past her social anxiety and other quirks. She's perky and optimistic so naturally she winds up paired up with the perennially dour Burnham as her roommate. It's kind of like Tuvok and Neelix from Voyager but less irritating. Unlike Neelix, I actually like Tilly.
Jason Isaacs is Gabriel Lorca, captain of Discovery and probably the most profoundly fucked up captain we've seen on Star Trek. He's sensitive to light so he spends a lot of time lurking about in underlit rooms. He has zero fucks to give about the Starfleet chain of command, sending Discovery to wherever he damn well pleases to do whatever he damn well wants. While I am watching these episodes of Discovery for the first time, there are things about the show that I am aware of and I know the secret of Gabriel Lorca. My wife and daughter wish I would stop dropping hints about it.
My family is taking our re-watch of Discovery slow with 1 episode a week after we watch Lower Decks. After Lower Decks finishes its 1st season, Discovery's 3rd season will launch but that will have to wait while we play catch up.
As of now, we are through episode 6 of season one.
Star Trek: Lower Decks
We're up to # 8 of the 10 episodes for the first season. "Veritas" shows what happens when lower echelons on a Starfleet starship are left out of the loop of whatever is going on with the bridge crew. It echoes some of the beats of the Next Gen episode "Lower Decks" where the senior staff are up to shit and the junior guys do not have the full picture of what the hell is going. In "Veritas", the senior crew of the the Cerritos have been up to some kind of shenanigans with a secret mission involving the Romulans and when asked to give an account, Marriner, Boimler, Tendi & Rutherford can only give bits and pieces of what little they know.
Cool guest appearance: John DeLancie's on hand as the voice of Q for a couple of cameos.
Obscure reference: In a discussion of bad asses who have taken on Starfleet, Marriner cites Kahn's battle with Kirk but Boimler digs deeper into Star Trek lore for his pick for the best bad ass who fought Starfleet: Roga Danar.
Roga Danar appeared in the Next Gen season 3 episode "The Hunted". Danar is a genetically enhanced super soldier who is able to run rings around the Enterprise in only an escape pod. Danar was super strong, nearly invulnerable, a sharp strategic thinker and could fight off a transporter beam. Obscure reference but I agree with Boimler's assessment of Roga Danar: the dude was a bad ass.
Next week's Tuesday TV Touchbase will take a look at Muppets Now on Disney+ and we catch up on the return of Press Your Luck.
Until next time, stay safe, remember to be good to one another and keep it down, would ya, I'm trying to watch some TV here.
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