Hmmm…again more of the same – we have (very, grudgingly one might argue) incremental progress in the “Search for Spock” but have at least one ‘save the world’ scenario along the way. No offense, but I think we need to get things back on track, everyone. At least last year we had Malfoy and the Klingon war/back story as a common thread, but they aren’t doing enough to push the Spock story forward, IMHO.

I like the fact that they are (yet again) drawing out Section 31, but at the same time, it begins to risk credibility when it seems like S31 has all the great toys and tech that could have won the war with the Klingons – then why was the Federation on its knees at the time? This was a minor problem in DS9 days too – hard to know….

Time will tell..

candybowl

Hmmm….Once again, Discovery giveth, and taketh away. On the one hand, we get the teaser of Number One coming to visit at the start of the episode (in the form of Rebecca Romijn – nice!) but despite the V’ger-esque main plot, we get a bit of a distraction with the parallel Tilly/spores plot, which IMHO wasn’t nearly as well executed (even though I actually enjoy Tig Notaro’s character well enough, kind of a blue-collar Scotty with even less respect for authority).

But I’m still unsure why they (the writers, not the actors) arguably strayed from the main longer-term plotline (going after Spock) to detour to these weird, arguably derivative minor side stories? The one involving Saru was completely predictable, guys? Come on.

The acting is still great, hoping for more for other members of the bridge crew as we go….onward….

candybowl

candybowl

Also finished this book a few days ago – this is the biographical story of the Constutional Convention, held in Philadelphia over several brutally hot months, where many (but certainly not all and some only sporadically) Founding Fathers and other wise men debated, re-debated, wrote, pontificated and argued over the ultimate form of our resulting Constitution and Bill of Rights. We all owe them a lot, even if the document wasn’t perfect by any means (ignored slavery, womens’ suffrage and some other key areas that have been mostly amended since. While there are certainly areas to the narrative the author points out are lacking (as he notes, we rely today much more on Madison’s extensive notes and some letters from other attendees but are still largely in the dark about outside meetings and gatherings that took place in and around the Convention all summer long by various groups) – I’d actually like to read more, if it existed…..

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candybowl

I think this episode was an improvement over the last one – some good unexpected stuff happening, they broaden the story to not just be about ‘the search for Spock’ – although there’s more than a bit about that, too – and some good action too….they are pushing the envelope a bit (not completely in a good way) with the Section 31 stuff, but i’ll remain in check on that one for now…

candybowl

read this short anthology over the past few weeks. These are really good stories (one is an essay) and although I haven’t read much of her fiction, I liked these a lot. Time for more…!

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Candybowl

saw it last night – pretty good, definitely throwing in weird angles to the story, which the main plot of was otherwise a bit meh – Star Trek (and sci fi ad nauseum) has done the ‘old society confronted by modern space society’ – or whatever you want to call it – many, many times.

Still, I also like how they are *finallY* giving other bridge crew something to do – not just being ‘red shirts’ on missions (look it up) but actual dialog – keep it up! Of course Burnham keeps up the great work as the center of the show, but they are definitely letting her character grow too..

Finally, creating a main season multi-episode plot thread around Spock isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and that they are trying to create back story around Capt. Pike (thankfully NOT Capt. Kirk) is also cool – the plot thickens, as they say…

candybowl