# Star Trek Discovery Episode 12 (Week of 1/21/18) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 21, 2018, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-discovery-episode-12-week-of-1-21-18/807151 "2018-01-21T22:11:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2018, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-discovery-episode-12-week-of-1-21-18/807151/1 "2018-01-21T22:11:56Z")
New thread for tonight’s episode. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-discovery-episode-12-week-of-1-21-18/807151/2 "2018-01-22T03:00:44Z")
O.D.G. I honestly don’t quite know what to think - I kinda/sorta held out some hope. Someone elses prediction that I thought for sure they wouldn’t do - they did - and they even upped it a notch beyond. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-discovery-episode-12-week-of-1-21-18/807151/3 "2018-01-22T11:48:37Z")
Sucks donkey balls. OTH, how were else were they going to get Jason Isaacs otherwise, a short turn over an arc is more likely than a mult season show. ---
**Author:** ![Hermione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/cdc98d/32.png) [@Hermione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermione)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-discovery-episode-12-week-of-1-21-18/807151/4 "2018-01-22T20:17:08Z")
But Jason’s done multi-season series before (for the BBC, for Netflix, and he was in Awake here in America, which was canceled after one season but he would have been willing to do more). Maybe it’s my crush on Jason talking, but I do hope that Prime!Lorca’s still alive, hiding out in the MU, and will return with the crew. That way, in the next season and beyond, they can still have an interesting character in a different way…someone who’s closer to the character many fans thought they were getting in a non-mirror version. Someone who’s had to make difficult choices to survive in a hostile environment for a long time and had it leave its mark on him in the form of PTSD he has to work through. Someone who returns home to find his old crew is dead and has to wrestle with guilt over it. Someone who needs to learn to let down the walls he’s built around himself to survive. And, if the information about the MU ends up being classified and they’re forbidden to reveal it, someone who’s going to have to bear the shame of his mirror-self’s actions in the prime universe. Around the time that the season’s ending, there’s a novel coming out featuring Prime!Lorca and Prime!Georgiou–Drastic Measures, which takes place during the Tarsus IV massacre (you know–Kodos the Executioner) ten years before Discovery. Even if it’s not strictly canon, maybe it’s a way of giving fans a look at Prime!Lorca’s character as he used to be as prep for the next season? ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-discovery-episode-12-week-of-1-21-18/807151/5 "2018-01-22T23:08:19Z")
Okay, what’s the next completely obvious and lazy plot point that will be true? That whatever was done to Klingon Dude will be what makes all Klingons look like TOS Klingons? ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-discovery-episode-12-week-of-1-21-18/807151/6 "2018-01-22T23:38:47Z")
I just want to know how the Emperor’s ninja star/brain razor/killing thing managed to kill the council and miss Lord Eling’s head. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-discovery-episode-12-week-of-1-21-18/807151/7 "2018-01-23T00:08:21Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Okay, what’s the next completely obvious and lazy plot point that will be true? That whatever was done to Klingon Dude will be what makes all Klingons look like TOS Klingons? Staments is switched. > [@vivalostwages](#): > > I just want to know how the Emperor’s ninja star/brain razor/killing thing managed to kill the council and miss Lord Eling’s head. She needed someone to clean up the goo and govern Andoria ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-discovery-episode-12-week-of-1-21-18/807151/8 "2018-01-23T02:57:25Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Okay, what’s the next completely obvious and lazy plot point that will be true? That whatever was done to Klingon Dude will be what makes all Klingons look like TOS Klingons? Enterprise already explains that. It was a plague based on human augment DNA (I didn’t say it was a great explanation :)) I don’t know if I am just Trek starved but I am enjoying this jaunt into the Mirror Universe. I think the revelation they have different eyes than mainline humans is kind of dumb (the entire point of the Mirror Universe is that they are us but cruel and vicious. It’s a cautionary tale) but I’ll live with it. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-discovery-episode-12-week-of-1-21-18/807151/9 "2018-01-23T03:11:22Z")
A different level of light sensitivity would of course have led all of human history to be vastly different, not just some recent divergence. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-discovery-episode-12-week-of-1-21-18/807151/10 "2018-01-23T03:30:23Z")
> [@simster](#): > > Staments is switched. > > She needed someone to clean up the goo and govern Andoria I know why, but I was asking how. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-discovery-episode-12-week-of-1-21-18/807151/11 "2018-01-23T03:44:29Z")
> [@vivalostwages](#): > > I know why, but I was asking how. It’s programmed to always skip the first person to the left. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-discovery-episode-12-week-of-1-21-18/807151/12 "2018-01-23T06:45:16Z")
Good answer! ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-discovery-episode-12-week-of-1-21-18/807151/13 "2018-01-23T10:53:44Z")
> [@Quimby](#): > > I think the revelation they have different eyes than mainline humans is kind of dumb (the entire point of the Mirror Universe is that they are us but cruel and vicious. It’s a cautionary tale) but I’ll live with it. “It was far easier for you as civilised men to behave like barbarians, than it was for them to avoid closing their eyes, wincing, and moaning in pain…” ---
**Author:** ![One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/838e76/32.png) [@One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/One_And_Only_Wanderers)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-discovery-episode-12-week-of-1-21-18/807151/14 "2018-01-25T10:10:11Z")
So, given that mirror universe humans are evil by prime moral standards a) why is Michael appearing to be on the side of the Empress rather than Lorca b) is Lorca ‘evil’ and just running a coup to be top guy, or is he more in line with prime ethics and was anti empress for that reason? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-discovery-episode-12-week-of-1-21-18/807151/15 "2018-01-25T11:18:27Z")
> [@One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](#): > > So, given that mirror universe humans are evil by prime moral standards > > a) why is Michael appearing to be on the side of the Empress rather than Lorca > b) is Lorca ‘evil’ and just running a coup to be top guy, or is he more in line with prime ethics and was anti empress for that reason? a) Because the Empress never lied to her. And because the Empress can get the Discovery home. b) I think the next big twist is that “evil” Lorca is actually a good guy, at least by Mirror Universe standards. Remember, he did allow someone he was conditioned to think of as livestock to serve as his second-in-command. That might just have been pragmatism, trying to blend into the Federation, but I’m not so sure; a devious man like Lorca could have found a discreet way of disposing of Saru. I guess we’ll see. Incidentally, I’m really loving this show. It’s utterly insane. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-discovery-episode-12-week-of-1-21-18/807151/16 "2018-01-25T12:50:51Z")
Seen **The Orville**? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-discovery-episode-12-week-of-1-21-18/807151/17 "2018-01-25T13:55:04Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Seen **The Orville**? Sorry - I have an uncontrollable drive to punch Seth MacFarlane in the face, and I can’t afford the replacement televisions. ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2018, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-discovery-episode-12-week-of-1-21-18/807151/18 "2018-01-29T22:23:17Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Seen **The Orville**? Yes—it’s far more Trek-like than Discovery is, with its emphasis on episodic development as well as campy humour. But Discovery has improved considerably with these recent mirror universe episodes in my opinion. Much more like speculative fiction now.