Star Trek: Discovery - Choose Your Pain

Five episodes in and I'm still not sure I like this show. I don't dislike it, but if this was the last episode I saw I wouldn't care. I'm certainly not invested in the overall plot, and I don't particularly like any of the characters. It's kind of like Killjoys in that way. I'll keep watching it but I'd never recommend it to anyone. It's just bland.

How many borg are on this ship?

This episode basically covers two issues. The first is that it turns out they're injuring the fungus-monster when they use the blink drive. The second is that the captain is captured and they have to rescue him. Obviously the dilemma of whether or not to use the blink drive plays into that since they need it to do the rescue. Also Harry Mudd is in it for some reason. He's a character from the original series and he's in this episode. So that's a thing.

Hey, remember that guy from those two episodes in the '60s?

As second-in-command, Saru is in charge while the captain's away being tortured, and he's a real dick about it and not listening to anyone when they tell him that the monster is being hurt by the blink drive. To be fair though, Michael's being a dick about telling him as well. So they use it anyway and the monster almost dies. They try to come up with an alternative but their only option seems to be to use a living creature, ideally one that knows what's going on and can cooperate.

There are four lights! Oh wait, my mistake, there are actually only three.

Saru tells them they have to keep using the monster anyway even if it kills it, because they can't do dangerous experiments on humans, but secretly the mycologist does the experiment on himself anyway and stands in for the monster, like he's the villain in a Marvel comic. Seriously, this is how half of Spider-Man's super-villains became super-villains. And now he seems like he might be crazy or possessed or something, because of course he is.

I'm sure this has nothing to do with why later Star Treks don't have blink drives.

Meanwhile the captain meets Mudd, gets tortured, and teams up with some other Starfleet guy to escape. They leave Mudd behind though because he was spying for the Klingons. And they fight the Klingon captain, who I don't think we know? But they burned her face and left her alive so I'm guessing she's going to come back as a recurring antagonist. I liked her outfit, but as a character she seems to be very much the femme fatale cliche, so I don't like that.

That's a really cool costume.

This episode was fine, I guess, but like I said, I don't really like any of the characters and there's not really anything about the story to grab my attention. Also I feel like I'm constantly expected to side with the wrong people. Like when Mudd blames Starfleet for provoking the war by their constant expansion and colonisation, he's absolutely right. But he's a bad guy and I think we're supposed to disagree with him. The show's pretty easy to watch, but it doesn't have much else going for it.

I like this woman's hair though.

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