Discovery 3x07 - "Unification III"

[lizbee]

Sorry I'm late! I was busy having feelings about Vulcans and also [spoilers for The Mandalorian].

Comments

[starlady]

That was a way better use of the Qowat Milat concept than all of Star Trek: Picard. And it's deeply pleasing that "Ni'var" was originally coined in a zine by a linguist.

[sabotabby]

I was not feeling it at first because I thought the Admiral seemed wildly inconsistent, and I felt like Saru's decision to appoint Tilly as his Number One made zero sense. But then we got into Vulcan-Romulan politics and I'm here for that. I would have liked almost the whole episode to be T'Kal-in-ket, though, as it could have gotten really intense and silly Vulcan rituals rule. Also if Burnham learned something during the past few incidents and I dunno, talked over her strategy with someone else first.

Lookit Grudge, what a good girl.

Kinda awkward naming a ship that blew up the Yelchin.

[gatheringrivers]

"Killy"'s getting on the command track!

Maybe we'll see her get some confidence yet!

[strangesistas_writings]

First I'm going to mention the stuff I loved. Which was everything with Ni'var from its existence to the quorum, to the Qowat Milat, and Saru and the President of Ni'var being attracted to each other. It was great to see Michael's mom back and while it's a bit disappointing that her mother had to do all the painful parenting in front of a room full of strangers it felt helpful, healing and loving.

Of course Michael and Book need their own paragraph. I love the way their relationship has developed and the fact that we're getting more of it next week, it's kinda refreshing that they actually knew each other for a full year before becoming intimate. I know people can have sex whenever they want but given how quickly tv couples sometimes fall into bed these days it's nice to think they spent a year getting to know each other and even though we didn't get to see it they feel like two people who spent a year getting to know each other. And it's so clear how much Book cares for Michael and how important she is to him, if anything happens to Book I'm going to burn CBS' corporate office to the ground.

What I didn't like. I hated the way they wrote Tilly and this business with her promotion and at least for me they've really messed over Michael and Tilly's friendship. One of the weaknesses in Discovery is a tendency for the care and support in relationship to flow from POC characters to white characters but not the other way. The first episode suggests some awareness of this with Michael's remarks about being "reflexively supportive". So much of Michael's entire life has been about what she can do for others, even when she's an orphaned, grieving child her adoption isn't about Amanda and Sarek providing a good home it's about Spock learning empathy and then when she became inconvenient Sarek gave her back. Michael and Tilly's friendship looked at lot like that this week.

Now I read some meta about what might be motivating Tilly and it was actually pretty interesting but unfortunately it was all speculation and inference (good spec) since Tilly and Michael never get a chance to actually talk, instead they just had the rallying scene. For me that scene felt manipulative and hollow since it would be human nature for at least one of those officers to be bothered by an ensign being promoted like this even if it is acting 1st officer.

What I took partially from the meta and my own synthesis of it is that Tilly hadn't realized the extent to which she depended on Michael until Michael says to her that she's thinking of leaving. I find this perfectly reasonable giving that their relationship started with Michael mentoring her. And while I think some of the other crew undertook this mission to the 32nd century to save Starfleet, human creation, life, explore the future, etc....I find it perfectly believable that Tilly undertook it to go with her best friend. That's touching but ultimately not that great for her as a person. By taking the role as acting 1st officer she's taking those first few steps away from that dependence. I think that's great but I also think that they needed to have a conversation about this, a conversation where maybe Michael is initially frustrated, hurt, feels betrayed all the normal stuff you might feel in this situation and Tilly can express her actual motivation instead of that dumb ass rallying scene at the end.

Anyway those are my thoughts, everything but Michael and Tilly was great, hopefully the show will actually have them talk.

[mekare]

Adding my short comments here instead of making another rewatch post:

They filmed that afterglow conversation soooo beautifully.

Tilly and Michael doing science! Love it!

Yay Vulcan! I am so looking forward to the T‘Rina/Saru storyline! I loved that the first time round.
Love their conversations.

Did not love how Gabrielle basically manipulated the quorum into becoming a therapy session for her daughter.

Aaaaah Tilly!!! Say yes! Hugs!

And another lovely Michael/Booker bookend to the episode.