Amph “Let's Fly!” - Star Trek: Discovery [Paramount+/Netflix/CraveTV]

The show has gotten markedly better since season 1. I just wish the whole thing wasn’t so visually defined by the JJ-verse. Everything is blue filters and lens flares and zooming cameras, rapid-fire editing and overly-yelly melodrama. With a subtler approach, ala Picard, this could’ve been a sci-fi classic of a TV show.

 

OK, so the DMA

Spoiler

is a technological artifact created by, apparently, a stupendously advanced civilization, but we can rule out the Metrons, the Ikonians and the Q right off the bat. So, perhaps the Borg?

 

Considering the guest star was Errinwright on The Expanse, I have my theories as to the origin of the DMA...

 

Don't think that the Borg created it. Doesn't fit their modus operandi.

But considering the end of the episode, i think it's possible that it was the bluegill parasites from TNG's "Conspiracy"

And Nagilum or V'Ger are also still possible...

 

So, in re: DMA...

Spoiler

The best theory I have right now is along the V'ger lines, but not the people who found a kindred spirit in V'Ger (widely considered to be The Borg in concept) and sent it back for The Creator but literally the evolved Ilea/Decker-version sending a probe back to check on The Creator...

 

Rang in the new year by catching up on Discovery...


The Examples

I haven't watched DISCO since "All Is Possible", so this one was a little boring for me. I did like seeing Shawn Doyle as another enjoyable Space Jerk.


Stormy Weather

This is a really nice "bottle episode". I immensely enjoyed all the interactions with the crew. The DOT-23's scream as it "died" was unsettling. Huzzah to Director Frakes!


...But to Connect

Another good episode. Really liked the conversations about and with Zora. Cronenberg is such a delight.

 

OK, I just had a completely random thought about the origin of the DMA. Given that Burnham used Scotty’s transporter trick from Relics to protect the crew from the heat of exiting the void at the end of Stormy Weather, it occurs to me that the creators of the anomaly might be the builders of the Dyson Sphere.

 

Or the Sphere Builders from Enterprise. Those weirdos might still be pissed that Archer shut down their Delphic Expanse of Twisty Delights!

 

I'd hope there's a previous canon continuity connection to the DMA (I also keep thinking V'Ger in there somewhere, the wide shot of the DMA looks very V'Ger-y), and I hope it isn't the "oops, our bad" mistake that last season universe alerting was. Not that I disliked it or anything it would just be kinda repeating what they already did.

Discovery actually on hiatus for about a month now but we're getting new Prodigy episodes to fill the gap.

 

DISCO Fans: "It could be V'Ger or the Sphere Builders or the Dominion or whatever it was that left Zora all alone for over a thousand years or..."

DISCO Haters That Love To Watch: "Probably the Michaelics from the Burnhamica galaxy! Whatever. It's gonna be dumb and stupid and a plot hole."

 

Yah the last episode where Zora was recognized as a new life form made me go back and watch Calypso short Trek (which is great), Zora comes off as considerably more darker in there. Makes me think that the series finale is Zora goes crazy, blows the entire crew out an airlock, and then sits around for 1000 till that guy shows up.

 

The Dyson Sphere was in the galaxy though, and the builders were living inside of it (before they died out). The Doomsday Machine, however, originated from outside the galactic barrier, I believe...

 

Yup:

SPOCK; She was attacked by what appears to be essentially a robot, an automated weapon of immense size and power. Its apparent function is to smash planets to rubble and then digest the debris for fuel. It is, therefore, self-sustaining as long as there are planetary bodies for it to feed on.
KIRK: A robot weapon that purposely destroys entire solar systems. Why?
SPOCK: Unknown, Captain. However, Mister Sulu has computed the path of the machine, using the destroyed solar systems as a base course. Projecting back on our star charts, we find that it came from outside, from another galaxy.
KIRK: What is the projected course of this thing?
SPOCK: If it follows its present path, it will go through the most densely populated section of our galaxy.
KIRK: Thank you. Stand by, Mister Spock. Kirk out.
MCCOY: This whole thing's incredible. A robot? A machine like that, who would build it?
KIRK: We don't know. An alien race, apparently from another galaxy.
MCCOY: But why?
KIRK: Bones, did you ever hear of a doomsday machine?
MCCOY: No. I'm a doctor, not a mechanic.
KIRK: It's a weapon built primarily as a bluff. It's never meant to be used. So strong, it could destroy both sides in a war. Something like the old H-Bomb was supposed to be. That's what I think this is. A doomsday machine that somebody used in a war uncounted years ago. They don't exist anymore, but the machine is still destroying.

 

Season Five, baby!

 

Oh Wow!

 

I think the Borg are the ones behind the DMA.

What i wrote on Reddit:

"It's possible that they left the galaxy some time in the hundreds of years between Voyager and Discovery and perfected themselves somewhere else. Maybe in another galaxy (M-33?).

Could be that they are harvesting the boromite to create Omega molecules. Maybe they either instantly assimilate the populations of the planets that are destroyed by their DMA or they left the assimilation business behind.

Another clue for them being species 10-C is that Vance didn't mentioned them at all when he listed the potential suspects (Q, Metrons, Iconians and Nacene). It's possible that nobody had the Borg on the radar, with them being gone for centuries...

Would be great if the writers completely overhauled them and made them at least as great as they were in TNG or even more fascinating. "

 

This last episode sooooooort of points in the direction of...

Spoiler

The people who built the Dyson Sphere that stranded Scotty in TNG... the area where 10-C live seems to be a GIANT version of an already immense Dyson Sphere...

 

The Dyson Sphere in "Relics" already looked kinda borgish...

Maybe they created it before going to the Delta Quadrant or the creators became assimilated. Especially if weren't from our galaxy and the Borg found them during their diaspora.

 

Or those pesky Sphere Builders are at it again.

 

I am absolutely in love with the End Credits score from Jeff Russo.

 

Discovery brought back a TNG era baddie species in a cameo that's a bit mindbending when you think about it

Spoiler

A Changeling. Although weren't they all supposed to go back to the Great Link at the end? Of course, it's been about 1000 years something could have happened. Or it was one of the ones that were shot into all corners of space and never made it back. Also apparently Changelings are cheats at casinos now, or at least this one was.

 

Sounds pretty exciting!

 

Story says "planning to enter negotiations" but the last Star Trek 14 was torpedoed by Pine trying to get a pay raise (or maybe it was also trying to get him and Hemsworth). Still, this is slightly more progress than usual and awesome to see the Kevlin timeline cast back together again... but I'll feel better when they're signed or even better when they're actually shooting.

 

Species 10-C stated by Discovery producers as a new entity, basically, so just don't get your hopes up.

It’s been quite a journey and it was very interesting for us in the [writers’] room to create a species somewhat unlike any we’d seen and to build mystery around the species. And I can say that in the episodes to come, yes, we will learn more, and the mystery will only deepen… It’s unlike anything we’ve done on the show before. And it’s unlike a species we’ve seen before. And it felt important to us to really dig deep with that and explore that in a way that felt right for our show and right for Trek, specifically in the world of Trek.

 

Good episode. Strong Mutara Nebula energy.