DJariya

Giantrobo

Can't wait to watch ep 3. Had to get my Halo Season Finale in 1st though.

Deftones

Rebecca Romijn is so good in this. She has become a pretty good actress.

Mike86

Haven’t watched this one or episode two yet, but this sounds like a classic Trek type plot.

Josh-da-man

I'm surprised they addressed the "Noonien Singh" in the room so quickly, and in a way that nobody was expecting.

So with Una being an Illyrian, I would think that means she isn't a human, and that would have shown up in her medical profile. I'm assuming that the Illyrians aren't human colonists, since they first appeared in an Enterprise episode.

printerati

I was fully prepared for this episode to piss me off after Una hid her reaction to the virus from everyone at the start of the episode, and was relieved when it turned out that she was hiding something else entirely.

It seems difficult to believe that she’s never had a bioscan that would reveal her true nature after being in Starfleet long enough to rank up to First Officer. I suppose she could be genetically engineered to pass for human, but it seems like she wouldn’t be nervous about going to sickbay for an examination (and again about getting blood drawn) if that was the case.

milo bloom

Well, I'm thrilled to have confirmation of the decades old fanon of Una being genetically engineered. That probably goes back to the fan fiction from the 70s IIRC.

The episode itself was a bit rote, doing their own riff on The Naked Time/The Naked Now, but with enough changes to be different. The pacing seemed a little languid for such a critical issue happening, but I may like it better in a rewatch.

Which is something I'm already wanting to do - rewatch all three episodes already. I haven't had the desire to do that with Disco or Picard, even if I generally enjoyed them.

It's hard to overstate how different this series is, how it's hewing so much closer to the Trek of old while still doing new things.

dstrauss

i want that jacket.

milo bloom

I tracked it down, Number One being an Illyrian and genetically modified came from the 1989 novel Vulcan's Glory, written by none other than DC Fontana.
As a novel it was only ever considered beta canon, but SNW now makes it official.

dhmac

One thing that bugged me in this episode was the claim that the virus traveled on light. Given what light is, that's just an absurd idea. I know Star Trek from the beginning has frequently had outlandish ideas but nuTrek writers again and again seems to not know the difference between scientific believability (the basis of sci-fi) and pure magic.

milo bloom

With the idea of the energy creatures on the planet, the idea of the virus being a light based kind of energy life form makes a little more sense.

Josh-da-man

The virus being passed around through light is kind of sketchy from a scientific standpoint, but not nearly as egregious as the cause of the Burn from Discovery season three.

I think the episode actually felt a lot like a Davies/Moffatt-era episode of Doctor Who -- with the Illyrian ghosts and the light virus, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Josh-da-man

I read that after the episode, and downloaded an ebook of Vulcan's Glory by D. C. Fontana so I could do a quick keyword search and didn't find any reference to "Illyria." I'm guessing that any backstory there is just about her being genetically augmented (or whatever term they would have used), and not necessarily tied to "Illyria." The book came out in the late 80s, which was well before the prohibition to genetic augmentation was brought up in Deep Space Nine.

I think the first mention of Illyria was in Enterprise's third season, though I'm not 100% sure those are the same Illyrians from "Ghosts of Illyria." I need to bust out my Enterprise blu-rays and re-watch that episode.

And then there's this Illyria...

Eric F

What I found odd is that they appeared to have no interest in investigating what appeared to be intelligent creatures that exist on the planet surface. It just never came up again after they left. Science vessel? Exploration?

Also, why didn’t the doctor put his daughter in stasis? At least a throwaway line like, “stasis doesn’t stop the progression of the disease” could have been helpful.

Giantrobo

The doctor keeping his daughter in a buffer and puts the whole ship at risk...thats some fuckin' New Trek Dumb Shit. I get it now....

Eric F

From what I recall Scotty on TNG was the first person capable of storing people in the pattern buffer long term, and he was the only one to survive by sheer luck. He said something about cellular degeneration or something like that.

milo bloom

Scotty tied his into a diagnostic system so it was constantly being checked for errors.

It did seem a little bit of a stretch but they at least tried to explain it a bit by saying he had to bring her out regularly. And it can help explain why he’s not CMO later on in TOS, if he gets in trouble with Starfleet.

And I have to say that I don’t have as much of a problem with this type of canon bending in the service of a good story point as opposed to how Discovery started out of the gate looking like a TNG era ship, having the wrong uniforms and the whole mycelial network thing.

It would have been so much simpler to have it set post TNG and it would have been accepted so much easier.

General Zod

3 episodes in and already with the deep dark secrets crap among the crew. The doctor/daughter thing was pretty lame. You'd think he would have asked for help first and then violated all the rules second. Seems like he has a good relationship with senior staff so not sure why you risk everyone's life because you're afraid to ask for a favor. Whatever. It's a new show and they are character establishing so I get it. Also the Illyria thing is interesting.. as long as they only bring it up now and then it's fine. Spock reading during an ion storm that's likely to kill them and who knows what trying to break in was completely unrealistic.

Having said all that it was still entertaining. I like the talk about the Eugenics War even though it was supposed to have happened in the 1990's. My least favorite episode of the first 3 so far though.

General Zod

They were never even mentioned in that episode. Just "alien ship".

milo bloom

You don’t really understand Spock, do you? That was *peak* Spock behavior.

0073735963

Loved this Illyria. Lol.

“Would you like me to lie to you now?”

On topic, I am really enjoying this show. Glad to have Anson back after Hell on Wheels and his arc against Chief O’Brien in that show.

Dscarpad

well Dr Bashir hid it success fully for years as well

Dscarpad

yes and Fontana should have been given credit for it too, Trek and CBS owes much of Trek Legacy to her

printerati

He isn't a different species, though.

DJariya

Robert Meyer Burnett also noticed this and he was pretty livid the novelist didn’t get a on screen credit.