Context Is for Kings (103)

[GateWorld]

STAR TREK: DISCOVERY - SEASON ONE
CONTEXT IS FOR KINGS
EPISODE NUMBER - 103

Burnham is brought on board the U.S.S. Discovery by its enigmatic Captain, Gabriel Lorca, who tasks her with helping the engineering team. But after a catastrophe leaves Discovery's sister ship adrift, Michael is ordered to join a dangerous away mission.

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[DigiFluid]

Mysteries and monsters! Bit more PG-13 here than we're used to with Trek, I thought.

I'm glad they didn't just pull a Tom Paris here--have Lorca visit her in jail and stick her in a uniform 5 minutes later. It's good to see them not trusting her, that she'll need to earn that back.

I'm already intrigued by Lorca, amused by Stamets and Tilly, and fully annoyed by Landry. I think it's just the actress I don't like--I couldn't stand her as Tory in BSG either.

This whole 'energy connecting the universe' is a little floaty out-there for Trek; my instinctive reaction to it is that it would be interesting if it were a separate series, but in Trek it's leaving me a bit cold. The blessing/curse of this series being prequel to most of the rest of the franchise is we already know that the endeavour goes nowhere, so I guess the best course of action here is just to sit back and enjoy how they tell the story of how it doesn't work.

Bit cliche to have the captain have the monster in a cell at the end of the episode. I think it would've been more interesting if it had been the Klingon he secretly detained.

I did laugh really hard at the "is he shushing you?" moment though

[VampyreWraith]

I really liked this episode. Loved Jason Isaacs as Captain Lorca. I think Lorca is a really interesting character so far.

I agree about the PG-13ness of the episode (though I didn't mind it at all) and about the energy thing (it kind of reminded me of the Traveler stuff in TNG for some reason). When Lorca started explaining it to Michael I was hoping he was just trying to make it sound benign in order to convince her into staying and then I was like "well at least we know it won't work" (at least not without undesirable consequences).

[lopo30]

For me the entire series seems to go with the same route Expanse is going.
First of the episode start with the actors from Expanse then the story with the spores that is totally like Expanse but not the same story like the Expanse had that the spores in there were changing people.
Here they want to make a technology to fast travel trough galaxy in a tech that does not suit with the timeline they want to be in.

This all would have been avoided it they just would have made it as a REBOOT and not PREQUEL.
When you do prequel then you need to make all by fact that is known in past 50 years of star trek series.
You cant make anything that stands up so far like holographic telecommunication or travel 70 light years with a blink of an eye. Or that when human will grow up in a culture with a race that for one is a lot more advanced then humans and long history of holding control over motions. Thats all over 250 years in tthe future and she had 7 years experience to work in Starfleet. How is that so that you see a race that killed your family when you were like 5 years old or so and then lose your mind over that so hard core. Ok fire first i understand but when you want to catch the enemy and then kill him cause he killed your captain i just don get it.

[GodAtum]

Maybe it's early days but there are no likeable or memorable characters so far.

I would prefer an episodic format. The show needs to make sure it sticks to the roots of Star Trek and have episodes with humour and less action. I also think there is no wonderlust or exploration, the cores tenets of Star Trek.

What's the black badges? Section 31?

[TOIVA]

This was very far out from Trek. And like lopo30, I immediately thought of the Expanse. Then they were running from an alien, should I make that a capital A?

[knowles2]

Well this was better than first two awful episodes, still not good, but it was a slight improvement, the spore thing was way to much fantasy for my liking through. Micheal still completely unlikely. Tally is likable, I just hope she don't end up being a pawn manipulated by the Micheal the whole time.

[cosmichobo]

Given the apparent shock that the Klingons could cloak in the previous eps, I was expecting them to be working on a cloak - not to mention - we SAW 2 people walk out of the spore room and vanish..!

My other thought with all this was - what time frame are we supposed to believe this has all happen within? Court marshals - I'm sure aren't typically long drawn out affairs - just hang the bastard and move on... Yet the war with the Klingons almost sounds like it's been going on for ages, especially considering the Discovery and her sister Glenn are both conducting these experiements, presumably after some considerable time adapting the tech that the chief engineer and his dead friend were working on...

[DigiFluid]

The text right at the beginning of the episode said that this is 6 months later. This wasn’t Burnham’s sentencing transfer, she was apparently being transferred from one prison to another.

[Elite Anubis Guard]

Given the apparent shock that the Klingons could cloak in the previous eps, I was expecting them to be working on a cloak - not to mention - we SAW 2 people walk out of the spore room and vanish..!

I think that was just a time lapse.

[VampyreWraith]

Yeah, I don't remember anyone disappearing, if it's the scene after Michael takes her place in the room and starts working on the code, I think it's just supposed to be showing a time lapse.

[DigiFluid]

Er..yeah, that was pretty obviously (transparently? ) a time lapse, that she’d been working for hours

I don’t think they know anything about cloaking at all. When T’Kuvma’s ship first materialized in front of them, they were all confused because they couldn’t detect a warp signature. Nobody was talking about or looking for invisible ships.