Discovery S03E02.
Well that was... hum. The entire episode was so forgettable I have nothing much to say about the plot, but there are some points that drove me nuts - again. I am however willing to concede that I can no longer be objective about this and that no matter what this show would do I'd start nitpicking and not liking it. So take the griping with a grain of salt. Also, unmarked spoilers ahead. Not that it makes much of a difference.
Some parts of the alpha quadrant have apparently devolved into a wild west style setting with extremely inefficient energy weapons (Georgiou takes multiple phaser blasts and can still literally kick ass afterwards). More talk about how dilithium is necessary for warp drives and that there's no warp without dilithium.
I mean it's pointless to point out that dilithium in 'Trek is used as the matter/antimatter reaction equivalent of nuclear reaction control rods, not directly for the warp drive, because who cares at this point.
They also keep talking about warp drives even though Courier Book blabbed something about the quantum slipstream drive in the first episode. But whatever, really.
Oh, and a thousand years into the future nature has provided the 'Trek universe with an entirely new periodic table because Tilly scans for metals necessary to complete repairs and find many that she doesn't even know.
It's also pointless to point out that 'Trek had at least in part a tradition of sticking with accepted real life scientific principles beyond what was necessary to make the setting work (i.e. FTL, artificial gravity and polarity Treknobabble). Who cares at this point that the only way you'd get really new and astonishing stable elements on the periodic table is to entirely rearrange the laws of physics. Well maybe that's what happened to the dilithium. Bet the hippies didn't expect the Age of Aquarius to look like that, ey?
Honestly how hard is it to say that you've found compound materials or alloys you had no clue existed? Your high school physics so bad that the only thing you remember is the periodic table?
Had a fun reaction to seeing the Discovery bridge crew as well. "Oh, yeah... huh, who's that? Oh, right. Oh, look, it's Lt. Barclay's really terrible replacement. Cyborg lady with the artificial brain. Who the hell is that guy, was he here before? Oh right and there's the weirdo engineer lady from the crashed ship from last time. Whatever her name is."
In contrast I've been rewatching DS9 lately and I just saw Crossfire, which is an episode that's largely about Odo and Kira and Odo's feelings for her and how he gets friendzoned really bad. Nothing much happens in the epsiode (other than an attempt at the First Minister of Bajor's life) but it was still better than every episode of Picard and Discovery combined. It's 99% character interaction and 1% action, not the other way around.
"For a minute there, I thought you were talking to me as a friend."
The lost art of character development in action. A single scene in a regular episode that is somewhat unspectacular otherwise with heartfelt delivery between two actors that are mimically limited by their make up is so much better than anything nu Trek has come up with so far.
Since this is a wild west episode it had to end with a traditional standoff when the bad guy shows up and tries to shake down the poor miners because they were trying to help the Discovery crew. They kill one of the miners with their super weird inefficient laser guns and want to rob Discovery's dilithium supply.
Zareh is clearly attempting to impress Tilly with his aged Billy the Kid spiel.
Saru immediately cows to Zareh (great name by the way), the assigned courier to this trade route and negotiates for... well their repaired communications thingie and maybe a hostage release. But there's no plan, no idea how to stop them, nothing. He's just really negotiating in earnest with a character he should by all means know will never stick to their deal.
Then Georgiou shows up and kicks everyone's ass (after getting shot repeatedly with the really bad weapons). They then proceed to execute Zareh by exposure to the elements. I mean Saru doesn't kill him immediately like Georgiou wants to but then they kind of agree to let him leave during night time on foot on a planet where the ice comes alive at night and destroys everything on the surface. Sure, why not. They're even nice enogh to give him some supplies.
Finally when the Discovery repairs kind of fail and the living ice threatens to crush everyone on board Michael shows up and tells them she's been waiting for them for a year. Uh, okay. Also the cyborg navigator keeps hearing telepathic interference after she's hit her head. Oh, right, you only know it is supposed to be telepathic interference when you turn on the closed captions, because they really say [Telepathic interference] in front of the subdued Audio the cyborg navigator (oh right, they got names last season, hers is Detmer) hears.
Oh, right, lest I forget, there's this wonderful scene where Doctor Culbert makes wakes up Stamets and puts him in a regeneration thingy. Then Stamets leaves to help with repairs. He and weird crash engineering lady with spinal disc herniation sit next to a Jeffries tube. Engineering lady tells Stamets how to repair a broken whatever in the tube. Stamets argues that she should crawl in the tube and she says nah, back's damaged she can't move.
They then talk about getting some help from someone else and Stamets flies into a testosterone filled stupidity where he can't have asking for help in front of a woman (or whatever) and crawls up the tube himself.
What the hell guys. This is a repair job that's crucial to Discovery escaping the parasitic living ice that wants to cover everything at night (except for the mining outposts apparently), both people there are in no physical condition to do it and yet they don't call for help that is clearly available and able? This isn't Spock fixing the warp drive of the Enterprise and sacrificing himself to save the ship and the people on it. This is just unbelievable stupid.
Unbelievably stupid like the entire show. Gah.