Last one until January…
I was effin pissed when I saw that it was the season finale after only only 9 episodes. This is for pay and only 9 episodes - and they are not all that good, but only 9. What rip off.
I may be reading too much into it but I think we got a hint this may not be the Prime Universe when they talked about visiting parallel worlds.
I thought it was a good mid season finale. The show gets better and better.
So they sneak on the Klingon ship and place the sensors–which loudly announce in English that they have been activated, make constant noises, and are covered in blinking lights. Way to go with the “subtle.”
They had a built in universal translater - “cloaking system activated” is what the Klingons heard.
So, there’s the mirror universe shenanigans I anticipated. Also, Tyler is totally Voq, his flashbacks were of the surgeries he had to undergo (there’s no honor in anaesthetics); it’s just that he doesn’t know, due to some sort of brainwashing.
Also, why couldn’t they just beam the beacons aboard? And the sensors aboard the ship could’ve detected human life signs, but not the transporter beam or phaser fire?
I have to say it, but Dr Hugh is really annoying me. Whats his role, besides being Stamets bedwarmer/nurse? If it was Dr Henrietta, there already would have been yelps about how it women characters exist only to serve men etc etc.
Stamets is also an incredibly unlikable person (props to the actor for playing him so well), that I am half convinced the Dr is a hologram, no one would want to be with him for longer that 30 minutes.
Not to mention a big-ass Star Fleet logo on top.
How does the Tyler=Voq theory reconcile with the fact that Tyler has gone through a full medical examination, including monitoring of internal organs? Although all the other evidence is compelling, this one seems a step too far.
While Bones was able to pick up “Klingon” easily through, the other species changes we have seen are all over the place. In Voyager a Cardassian was able to be human for the longest time. And Picard was able to pass as a Romulan.
I can well imagine they have a whole catalogue of procedures performed on patient -operative which mimic other species to a varying extent. From basic cosmetic changes all the way over to masking body internal physiology. This would depend on the mission and the level of scrutiny an operative might expect to face. Presumably, a" full service" operation might be a lot more complicated, and a lot less pleasant for the operative to endure and possibly requiring a much more major surgery for change and reverting. I mean, Tyler was not acting, he really felt his PTSD. So I have no reason to doubt he would have gotten the works and possibly a new and experimental process.
Since, Starfleet almost certainly keeps detailed records of its personnel, most likely if Tyler is Voq, then Voq assumed the identity of a real person who was KIA. Possibly this might have taken the operation a step far in its complicatedness; I mean they would have to mimic a particular rather than a generic human.
But its a better story if Tyler is simply broken - possibly have some sleeper bits. Him suddenly being ‘Voq’ would be enough for me to stop watching - I wouldn’t even finish the episode.
I can ignore the federation blue things on the bridge of a klingon ship being ignored - I like that they fit just perfectly with the floor decor and that the perfect placement wasn’t in the captains chair - I can fan wave alot of things - but that would really just be enough.
I was kind of half kidding when I originally suggested it but I would like if the twist was he was a human Agent posing as Klingon and is now home instead of vice versa.
Which is more likely? Tyler is really Voq or Lorca is really Mirror Universe Lorca? I can take one lame imposter twist, but two is really pushing it.
I wasn’t buying the Voq=Tyler bit at all, until the last conversation he had with L’Rell in the brig. Her “I won’t let them harm you” or whatever rattled my certainty a bit. The other thing that’s starting to worry me is that if he isn’t, where the hell has Voq been? My wife is convinced he is, but I maintain that the show is trying to mislead us to think he is, and IF he is, it’s a really stupid plan: alter him physically, and wipe his memory, and allow him to escape with Lorca (who was a valuable prisoner), get him onboard the discovery and then… what?? why??
And if they could beam an away team onto the Klingon ship to place sensors… why not bring a bomb while you’re at it? no need to fight them after getting the intel. Just blow them up. (you don’t even need a rapidly growing tree like over on the Orville.)
But the elephant in the room for this episode is the ABSOLUTE STUPIDITY of “One more jump.” No! You just forced this guy to suffer possibly irreparable damage to get the war-winning info you needed. Fine. But now, to do it AGAIN, just for giggles? OK, on the off-chance that they are being chased and warp speed isn’t enough. How about waiting until you see Klingons coming before committing to that? The story would have been much stronger if he made that jump because he had to (possibly even against captain’s orders), not just because. Bleah. Soured us on the whole thing.
Also, I’m still rolling my eyes at the “La Boheme” reference…
I assume that they did not want to trigger the internal sensors. Also, if Kol had provided the cloaking technology to other Klingon ships/houses, then those cloaked ships are still a problem. (I think they implied that the Federation was losing the war because of this cloak advantage.) Planting sensors and doing the 170 micro-jumps enabled them to make a sensor map of any ship equipped with the same model device.
Lorca got talked into it by the engineer. I suspect that the engineer has a hidden motive. (Maybe he doesn’t want to become a rat in a Starfleet lab, so he decides to jump to an alternate universe?)
I understand that they needed the sensor map, but AFTER that, why not blow the thing from the inside rather than fight it? If the Klingon ship has internal sensors that can detect explosives but not boarding parties, they have pretty crappy sensors.
If so, the proper response from Lorca (no to mention the Doctor) should have been, HELL NO!
The boarding party’s life signs were masked via the glowy thing on the chest. One step away from the Orville’s masking tech.
Why the Klingon sensors didn’t detect the additional crew members is a different story.
No problem, put a glowy thing on a bomb.
Lorca changed the destination of the final jump. This is one amongst many sites who noticed:
Lorca hesitated and looked displeased when they talked about pinning a medal on him at Starbase 46. Maybe he thinks/know they’re going to get him off the Discovery - probably with a promotion to admiral - because even though he’s been successful so far, he’s somewhat reckless and disobeys orders regularly. And suddenly the guy who talked about nothing but winning the war was waxing on about how they could use this to learn about the universe. So maybe Lorca did sabotage/alter the jump to keep his ship under his control now that he feels he did enough to win the war.
Of course that would make the scene where he wasn’t going to ask/allow Stammets to jump really sloppy.