User Reviews

How do you communicate with a species when the species is unknown and the Universal Translator is useless? Though we all flamed the prior episode, the outcome of that episode - the species communicating with pheromones - served as the key to this outing.

Smartly written - did not pull out old tropes or plot gags to fill in the blanks. This episode reminded me of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" in how it solved the communications void between humanoids and the Ten-C. That, of itself, could have been drawn out longer.

The detraction to this episode was General Andoya. She asked for Booker and Tarka to give diplomacy a chance, and she witnessed it just starting to work when she went off the rails and provided the assistance to them to enable Tarka's escape.

All in all, a very smart episode - this season has been quite well done. Glad we have not dissolved into a screaming child and implausible CGI.

One episode to go.

All the other episodes just left me wanting for it to end, having to split each episodes in multiple viewing sessions.

This episode while it had the usual touchy felling moments that are annoying as hell (the commander, in the process of dealing with something that could literally wipe out everything... gets time to talk for a few minutes about feelings, that ship apparently is garbage and got the fact that somebody is there because of...feelings, they don't discover that the main engineer is missing in a crucial mission for quite some time, etc)

while all of this is super stupid and annoying, this episode actually had some good points even though not some stuff didn't make sense

it's like a dog could have the possibility to end mankind willingly and we would have it in a cage that he can eat thrue.

Loved the detailed progression of first contact. Totally credible and well-explained. I would have given it an 8, but for the relentless and unnecessary drama, especially the screaming scene.

Another talky-talk, feely-feel episode where we learn that 10-C communicates via 32nd century emojis.

Instead of wasting a whole episode on trying to figure out how to communicate with them they simply could have brought a telepath on the mission in the first place...

Season 4 in a nutshell: Earth is destroyed in less than 5 hours, we can't afford to waste time! So lets go to my quarters to talk and yell and hug and play with the cat...

Also the writers stole the episodes idea for communication from SG-1 Torment of Tantalus. They used a small number of basic elements to communicate in that episode. The writers of Discovery simply replaced the elements with emotions.

The ship's chief engineer, one of the most important person on the ship missing for a whole day is so unrealistic. The crew is so blind that when they ask Zora where Reno is, and Zora replies that she's in the same room as they are, they just accept the answer and move on without thinking...

There was a whole episode about how incredible Zora's sensors are. Now in this episode she's so ignorant she doesn't realize Reno's life signs standing in one place in the middle of engineering for 24 hours is a red flag. People on a busy ship during a critical mission don't stay in one place for more than five minutes. Also her combadge was below the floor which is also a red flag. Because the ship has cameras Zora easily could have checked if Reno was even there. Zora is totally useless until the plot requires her to be useful...

Book gets his ass kicked on his own ship. He's ignorant and constantly makes bad choices. He's character has been a disgrace this whole season!

Tarka is a roller coaster. One episode he's dooming the whole galaxy with his actions, the next episode he has a sad back story trying to justify his actions. When this is done three times in a season it gets really boring! Also his character motives don't make any sense. He just wants to emigrate to another universe, at the cost of everyone else dying???

The other ignorant character is Ndoye. Tarka's plan in the past always made things worse. And now that he has a new plan Ndoya trusts him? How can she be a general of a whole planet when she's so dense???

The writers messed up the Kardashev Scale. Starfleet is Type 2, and 10-C should be near Type 3.

The writers played the same cards this season as in the previous. In season 3 we were given the Burn that killed billions of people and was later revealed that the one who caused it was a emotionally unstable Kelpian kid. And the season ended with we can't be mad at a kid for causing a bloody catastrophe.

Now in season 4 millions of people died because of the DMA and was later revealed that the ones who caused it were emotional space whales. And the season ends with we can't be mad at those for causing a bloody catastrophe...

At least we have Picard. The creators of that show listened to the viewers and corrected the mistakes the previous season had. Unlike Discovery...

This is old school sci-fi hardcore Trek, and I can see how this can be polarizing.

It's got less pew-pew-shields-down-to-ten-percent style excitement an action. Instead, it's much more cerebral and intellectually interesting. I can see how others will find this a snooze fest.

But for us hardcore sci-fi geeks: WHAT AN AMAZING TREAT! I just lament that it took 11 episodes of filler to get here. This episode really goes back to the core of what Star Trek is all about: exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations.

This is Arrival on the small screen and it's quite fantastic! It lacks the complexity of the Heptapod language concept, but I can't fault the writers for that. This is a small screen budget and greater time constraints.

The Tarka B-plot is annoying though understandable. Without it there is no tension in the story and nothing to resolve. This too I can overlook.

Here are some thoughts that I wrote down as I was watching the show:

Discovery wanted to enter the hyperfield, the hyperfield took them inside. Why the false tension? I can understand the initial fear from what looked like an attack. But once they got inside in one piece, it should be obvious Discovery wasn't under any threat. The least the writers could do was to show a DOT accidentally destroyed by Ten-C, to misdirect viewers.

Zora detected a problem with her system (hint: Book's ship) she couldn't identify. Instead of trying science, Stamet's first thought was to get Hugh, the shrink, to help her feelings! This was before the scene where he tried a bunch of diagnostics that didn't work.

Reno was taken prisoner on Book's ship last episode. She hid some sort of device under her sleeve. The problem was, why on earth would it need a Liquorice to function properly? Yeah she explained "the acid conducts electricity" yada yada. Why wasn't that comms badge working on its own? It's a comms badge, right? It... communicates? If anything, it's more likely to short the whole thing...

Remember when Burnham refused to raise shields to not give a bad impression? Once they were taken inside, her priority was to restore shield and weapon(!). What the hell!? Logic 120%! They have life support, they weren't under threat!

Once they were inside the hyperfield, their weapons were disabled (understandably), their ship scanned (understandably), but Ten-C didn't attempt to communicate. General Ndoye came to the conclusion that they should attack...

Oh god this is only 15 minutes into the episode!

How was Book's ship still cloaked and hidden from Discovery's sensors if "nothing is working"?

OMG Reno is also lesbian? Good lord I couldn't have guessed that! What a big reveal! Such character development! Man, now I can really empathize with a character that vanished from the show for the majority of this season!

Then comes the "Arrival" scene. Minus the cinematography, the suspense, the atmosphere, the music .... The same scene, but devoid of anything artistic.

All that back and forth between Book and Ndoye... why didn't Zora catch everything? Their comms might be encrypted, but it's not like there weren't microphones everywhere on the ship? They used to be able to give voice command from anywhere! And why on earth would Book have Discovery's access codes? Burnham shared this with her boyfriend as a responsible Starfleet captain? I was so mad when I wrote this: a BOY-friend!? Why wasn't she also lesbian? The lack of LBGTQWERTY representation for the main character is abhorrent!

Surprise! Tarka's plan in taking the power source involved the annihilation of Ten-C, blowing up Discovery, and causing a subspace rift that would tear Earth apart. Yet two episodes ago we learnt that his partner powered the transporter using only geothermal energy... Why would he need a power source so strong that could create black holes (DMA) out of thin air?

Now that Tarka was clearly the bad guy, Book got to "redeem" himself. As if anyone would buy that crap. Another reviewer last week predicted Book's redemption would be that he's the only one who could communicate with Ten-C, because he's an empath... Nope. That would have been convenient and contrived, but the writers were certainly able to come up with far worse ideas.

If you remember Tarka "teaching" Saru about yelling, Saru and Burnham yelled at each other this episode. (Literally, of course.)

Saru holding that translator lantern thingie was hilarious.

What's the point of the engineers figuring out Book's ship being attached to Discovery, when everyone could already see them burning through the "orb"?

Thank god this season will be over next week.

Credit where it's due. This is at last a good episode. It's not mindless action. They have to think their way through this. How did this episode happen? It's actually good. It's finally actually pretty good. This is the very first time I actually smiled at the end of an episode since the first eps of Season 3 and some of the Captain Pike stuff in Season 2. Most eps I've rated between 4 and 5. This is the only 8 I've given.

It's about space characters doing THEIR JOBS. No excessive navel gazing about feelings. No unearned tears. It's real stakes. Real fears. This is a powerful new lifeform. They are discovering a frightening, awe-inspiring civilization. And they have to learn to communicate with it.

This might be the closest thing Disco has to TNG's Darmok. Not just running and jumping and shooting. No easy fix with a universal translator.

They finally lost the perpetually feelings thing.

(I find it hard to believe there's like no cameras or something to detect an entire SPACESHIP attached to your hull. A stardestroyer sure. A ship of Discovery's size compared to Book's ship is preposterous.

I'm not loving the touching feeling ship computer.

The direction: 7.5 out of 10 Acting: 7 out of 10. (Mainly Book gives a solid performance) The scale of these creatures is finally awe inspiring. I finally feel awe when watching Disco.

Don't let it end this way captain. (ST6)

By the Way. Check out that amazing Strange New World's teaser. Now that's the Star Trek I've been waiting 20 years for. Please let it be good.

I hate agreeing with the absolutely ridiculous vitriolic DISCO haters that post on this site. But frankly, this show has been faltering severely in seasons 3 & 4.

Even though this season hasn't done anything terribly offensive, it's just been barely serviceable. But this episode was GOOD. I mean--is this a spoiler?--this episode is basically Close Encounters of the Third Kind but considerably more sophisticated and science based. As the episode played out I was thinking two things:

1. This is it. THIS is what I've been waiting for all season.

2. It's too late in the day. You can't save all your good stuff for the last episode or two. It's not enough to save a season that barely had a pulse.

I'm rooting for you DISCO. I'm cheering you on and hoping like crazy you get back to the quality of the first two seasons.

Well, we waited 11 episodes for this? We didn't even get a clear shot of The 10C besides some blurry visuals and some flashing colours and lights. The way of communication was a clear rip-off of the latest version of the movie Arrival.

And we get it, it's all about the feelings. If I'd done a drinking game for that word, i would have died of alcohol poisoning this episode and this season.

There was a lot of standing around and there was no sense of urgency whatever. Yet again characters are taking their time to discuss their personal feelings in the heat of the moment, completely taking the viewer out of the urgency of the situation. They really need to time these quiet talks better. Some shots of people nervously running around, some people panicking over images of the DMA approaching Earth would have helped to give everything a much better sense of urgency. Imagine seeing some Earth and Nivar ships and outposts already being destroyed because of the debris field of the DMA, that would make everything so much more intense.

The Booker and Tarka subplot concluded as we all could have predicted a couple of episodes ago. Booker regretting his teaming up with Tarka and Tarka taking the reigns to make the situation even worse.

The bridge crew was included for some bonus lines without any additional character development and one character brings up an anecdote from times past. Can we please get some actual development for these people?

Burnham was in full whisper mode yet again and was key in solving most of the issues they encountered in their attempt at communication. Can someone else please be the hero for once?

All in all I wasn't moved by this episode. There is no sense of urgency whatsoever and my expectations are that everything will be nice and peachy at the end of the next episode. Not a single familiar crew member will perish and Burnham will turn out to be the Hero of the Universe.

My suggestions: let some bridge crew members perish, let Earth and Nivar suffer at least some actual damage and let other people than Burnham do some heroic things. Discovery survives but is severely damaged and reaches Earth with its last breath. That would certainly spice up the final.