Star Trek: Discovery -- Season 3 Episode 13 (That Hope Is You, Part 2)

There’s usually been a clear distinction between good and evil in Star Trek.  The Federation, such as it is, is good.  The Emerald Chain is bad.  Most of the people in the 32^nd Century are doing their best, but that’s not always good enough.  Starfleet admits that it’s had to be reserved in the wake of The Burn, but it’s still a remnant of what it once was.

That Hope is You, Part II wraps things up for the third season.  Starfleet and The Emerald Chain are negotiating, but that’s not meant to be.  Saru is finally able to get Su'Kal off the ship and to a safe location.  We even get an epic battle between Osyraa’s crew and the Discovery crew.

I kind of feel like the season was a stretched-out episode.  We had a lot of stuff at the start of the season and a lot of stuff at the end of the season, but the episodes in the middle seemed to move the action along pretty slowly.  I feel like this would have been, at most, three episodes in another Star Trek series.  It’s something that might have played out while other stuff happened.  Yes, we get a nice neat bow and a nice lead-in for the fourth season, if COVID ever lets that happen.  It just seemed so prolonged.

Part of it is that the Emerald Chain seems like the bad guy that was invented just for the series, much like the Ferengi were for The Next Generation.  As I mentioned in the last review, another part is that we never get to see much of what’s going on with the other races.  The entire season is focused on The Burn, and the cause is a bit of a letdown.  After going through a dozen episodes, I expected something grandiose.

Making Burnham the captain at the end makes sense.  After all, this was supposed to be The Michael Burnham show.  This doesn’t mean that Saru won’t be made captain once he returns.  (It’s reported that Saru will come back, but it’s not clear in what capacity.)

I do hope for a fourth season.  This could serve as a series finale or a gateway into something grander.  What wasn’t pure action was maybe setting this up.  Osyraa might not get her day in court, but the Emerald Chain will have to ask itself some tough questions.  Former member worlds are rejoining The Federation.  Since Gray wasn’t a figment of Adira’s imagination, there’s a promise that they might return for next season.  I’m not sure how that will play out.

From the looks if it, COVID will delay the fourth season, rather than prevent it, which is good.  I would hope that the next season would return more to individual stories and maybe give us a better look at the 32^nd Century.

 

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Star Trek: Discovery -- Season 3 Episode 9 (Terra Firma, Part 1)

Georgiou is in a bad spot.  Her molecules are disintegrating and she has issues trusting people.   Not that it matters, though.  No one knows what’s happening to her, so there would be no way to help her.  Discovery gets a visit from Kovich, who basically states as much.  He didn’t cause the problem, as some might have suspected, but he does have some idea what’s going on.  It’s the one-two punch of crossing universes and jumping ahead in time.

That’s when Discovery’s computer chimes in.  You see, it was given vast quantities of information from a giant sphere and is now maybe sort of semisentient or something.  Anyway, it offers up a suggestion.  Go to a particular planet where Georgiou has a 5% chance of being cured.  It’s not clear what that means and Kovich isn’t quite enamored with that level of AI, but there Georgiou beams down with Commander Burnham.

They walk to a spot offered up by the ship’s computer.  It’s not clear why they couldn’t just beam down to that spot.  (Yes, it gives Burnham and Georgiou time to talk, but still…)  Anyway, they meet Carl.  Carl has a door.  When I say door, I mean just a door.  It sort of brings back memories of The Lost Room.

Carl has a proposition.  Georgiou can go through the doorway.  She’ll be free of the affliction that ails her at the moment, but that doesn’t mean she can’t die.  Carl is a little vague and enigmatic about it, but she takes him up on his unusual offer.

This is where it gets weird.  If you’ve read other reviews of this episode, you may have seen comparisons to City on the Edge of Forever and The Q.  These are not unwarranted comparisons, as Georgiou finds herself in what is ostensibly The Mirror Universe.  It reminds me of The Next Generation episode Tapestry in that Georgiou is likely being given a chance to resolve some issue from her past.  We’ve seen fragments of this in flashbacks.

Carl is also holding a newspaper.  It’s tomorrow’s paper, a la Early Edition.  In tomorrow’s paper, Georgiou is dead.  That can be changed, although Carl won’t give out any specifics.  Georgiou has to figure that out on her own.  (Being that this is a two-part episode, we’re going to have to wait.)

Much of the episode takes place in The Mirror Universe, but there are a lot of things going on.  Admiral Vance offers Captain Saru some advice.  We also find out that the ship emitting the distress call is Kelpian.  It was lost about 100 years ago, so there’s no expectation of finding anyone alive, but there is an incomplete message from a member of the crew.  I get a sense of a twist coming up.  Again, we’re going to have to wait to find out more.

Oh, and the Kelvin timeline is now cannon in the Prime timeline, so there’s that.

I’m hoping we’ll get to see Carl again.  It’s not clear who or what he is.  There’s no shortage of omnipotent beings in the Star Trek universe.  He might be Q.  He might be associated with The Guardian of Forever.  Most likely, he’s something new.  I’m curious about how Discovery knew to go there in the first place.  (It’s entirely plausible that it was Carl speaking through Discovery.)

I’m mostly curious what Carl, the door and The Mirror Universe have to do with Georgiou’s problem.  This is why I’m inclined to believe that she’s not actually in The Mirror Universe.  I’m thinking this is an exercise in enlightenment.  I half expect Burnham to say that Georgiou walked right through the door.  We’ll just have to wait and see.

 

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Star Trek: Discovery -- Season 3 Episode 5 (Die Trying)

Getting what we want isn’t always what we expected.  It’s certainly not easy.  For the first part of Discovery’s third season, the title ship has been looking for Federation and Starfleet headquarters.  It’s been made more difficult by the fact that there’s no warp drive.  They have a spore drive, which isn’t hindered by The Burn, but information seems to be scarce.

In Die Trying, the ship finally arrives at headquarters, but the crew doesn’t get the warm welcome they expected.  Instead, they’re met with suspicion.  It’s understandable.  At the end of Season 2, it was revealed that Discovery is listed as destroyed in action.  All mention of the spore drive is erased from any official record.  No one will speak of them again, and this comes to bite Discovery in the hind quarters.

Admiral Charles Vance is in charge of Starfleet.  He basically tells Saru, now the captain of Discovery, that the crew will be debriefed and split up.  The ship will be retrofitted and whatnot.  This doesn’t sit well with the crew, but it’s a pretty realistic response.  Starfleet doesn’t have many ships left.  Federation membership has gone from 350 planets at its peak to 38, a reduction of almost 90%.  Vance and Co. aren’t in a good spot.  So, yeah.  It’s not the cheers and balloons anyone expected.

That’s not to say that anything bad is going to happen.  It turns out that there are some refugees that are in dire medical need.  A solution presents itself that’s uniquely suited to Discovery’s abilities, which gives the crew a chance to shine.

There’s a lot going on in this episode, but that’s not what’s important.  Sometimes, it’s what’s not said that draws my attention.  Vance states that Starfleet’s mission has changed over the years, which is probably why there are so many ships docked at headquarters. 

There’s also the giant distortion field, which acts as a giant cloaking device.  Starfleet has gone on the defensive.  It’s not stated exactly what that means, though.  Why have all these ships if you’re just going to keep them docked?  I realize that The Burn has rendered warp drives useless for the most part.  They want to conserve dilithium, which is at a premium now.  It’s also not clear how many other ships there are.  There would seem to be a few ships out and about.  Still, that’s a lot of ships.

Then, there’s the debriefing.  As I said, it’s understandable that Starfleet is suspicious of a crew from the past that just drops by, especially considering that time travel is now illegal.  Vance isn’t going to do them any favors, considering.  Of note is Georgiou’s debriefing.  She manages to disable her two holographic interrogators, leaving a mysterious gentleman named Kovach to question her.

Kovach seems to know all about Georgiou, like that she’s Terran.  How?  We don’t know.  He does know all about The Mirror Universe, stating that no one has crossed over in 500 years.  Maybe this guy is Section 31, which might make sense.  Maybe he’s from the other side, himself, but that would raise more questions.

There are a lot of nods to other series.  Most notable is the USS Voyager-J.  It seems to bear a striking resemblance to Janeway’s Voyager.  There’s also mention of a new Constitution-class vessel.  This makes me wonder if Starfleet is recycling old designs.  If so, why?  Is there some need for smaller ships?

For that matter, holograms seem to have regressed a little since Voyager’s time.  The holographic characters seem to have less personality.  I’m kind of hoping for a visit from the EMH from Voyager.  It might make for some nice commentary.

I miss the episodic format of the other series, but I kind of don’t.  Discovery is striking a nice balance between contained storylines and the bigger picture.  We get the obligatory “We don’t know squat about The Burn” segment, but there are also a lot of new things going on.  This episode moves the season along nicely.  I will say that, five episodes in, there’s no Disco shown.  I’d call that a good thing, knock on holographic wood.

 

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Friday the 13th: The Series -- Season 1 Episode 12 (Faith Healer)

One of the complaints I’ve had so far about Friday the 13th: The Series is how characters will accidentally figure out how a cursed item works.  Sometimes, this is explained by having the cursed item call to or possess someone.  This doesn’t appear to be the case with Faith Healer.

The episode starts with Stewart Fishoff, the aforementioned charlatan, plying his trade on a man who appears to be blind.  You may be saying that I should give Stewart the benefit of a doubt.  Well, cue Jerry Scott.  Jerry has gotten good at debunking such things.  Jerry approaches the blind man to reveal that his cataracts are nothing more than contact lenses.  Stewart leaves the building in a hurry, as the crowd quickly turns on him.

Stewart eventually finds himself down a back alley in a pile of trash.  From that pile of trash, he picks up a pristine glove.  He tries it on.  Just then, he finds himself cornered by one of his would-be victims.  She’s covered in some sort of growth, which she came to Stewart to get rid of.  He instinctively puts his hand on her head, revealing how the glove works.  She’s now cured.

The problem is that Stewart now has the affliction.  Or rather, the glove does.  Stewart runs away only to be stopped by a police officer.  Again, Stewart reaches out and touches the other person.  This time, the police officer becomes covered in the woman’s growth, only to die from it.  So, yeah.  The glove transfers a medical problem from one person to another, thereby killing the second person.

This gives Stewart the chance to go legit.  Does he?  Well, basically.  He continues to be the scumbag that he is.  The only difference is that he doesn’t need an accomplice.  He actually can do what he claims.  It just so happens that the folks at Curious goods happen to be watching the TV when Stewart comes on.

Being that Jack is the one to have procured most of the cursed antiques, he recognizes the glove.  Jack tries to get the glove from Stewart directly, but finds himself thrown out by Stewart’s security.  Fortunately, Jack has a friend.  That friend happens to be Jerry, who only needs moderate convincing to help retrieve the glove.

It turns out that Jerry has ulterior motives for doing so; he’s dying and figures it couldn’t hurt to try.  We get to see a very gross growth on his chest, which I think we’re to assume is cancer.  This may also explain why he debunks.  Jerry tells Jack that in all the years of debunking, he’s never found anyone who shows a glimmer of promise.  If Jerry’s not healed, at least he’ll be able to stick it to Stewart one last time.

Just as one running theme on the series is accidental discovery of a cursed item, there’s another, more prominent theme.  Those that live by a cursed item often die by the same cursed item.  Stewart dies when he can’t transfer gunshot wounds to another person.  Jerry then comes into possession of the glove and subsequently dies when he can’t pass his own affliction on to someone else.

One of the things that I’m noticing about Friday the 13th is that a lot of the episodes are focusing on the horror aspect rather than any sort of moral issue.  Here, we have the guest antagonist as a scammer.  Stewart just wants the money.  Very little dialogue is spent explaining exactly what he does.  It’s really more a coincidence that a faith healer actually gets the powers he claims to have.  Could you imagine if it was just some random person?  It seems like it’s more to explain key plot points, like making it easier to have Stewart figure out how it works.

Speaking of which, David Cronenberg directed this episode.  Yes, that David Cronenberg.  The same guy who directed The Dead Zone.  It seems a little odd.  By the time this episode was produced, Cronenberg had already directed a few big movies.  I’m not sure if he just wanted to direct a TV episode or if he liked the series.

There is one unanswered question that I’d like some information on:  Why only one glove?  Don’t gloves come in pairs?  It’s stated that the glove was created to heal people, but there’s no mention of whether or not it was created as a pair.  I would think that if there was a second one out there, someone would have said something.  Still, who makes just one glove?

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The Dead Zone (1983)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

Christopher Walken plays John Smith, a man who has everything. He has a beautiful girlfriend. He also has a job as an English teacher. He’s doing all right until one night, after dropping his girlfriend off at her house, he gets in an accident. He wakes up in a hospital. When he remembers what happened and realizes that he’s without bandages, he asks what’s going on.

It turns out that he’s been in a coma for five years. His girlfriend has moved on. His job is no longer there. He finds that everything is either gone or slipping away. While in the hospital, he touches a nurse. He sees a burning house and calls out the name of the nurse’s daughter. Smith tells the nurse to run home and save the girl.

It turns out to be a long and painful road to recovery. He’s initially bound to a wheelchair, but with a lot of hard work, he’s able to walk with the help of a cane. He can’t return to his old job, but he is able to work as a tutor. Through it all is his doctor, Sam Weizak, played by Herbert Lom. Smith is able to demonstrate his abilities by figuring out where his long-lost mother is. (Dr. Weizak was separated from her during World War II.)

Smith is able to help others, like a boy who can’t seem to function. He also aids the local police department in finding a serial killer. Dr. Weizak advises against it because Smith ends up with terrible pains and reports that he feels like he’s dying each time. He can’t, though. He wants to help.

I should warn you that I’m about to divulge how the movie ends. Now is the time to stop reading if you’re not into that kind of stuff. Smith realizes that he has one last mission to accomplish. Martin Sheen plays Greg Stillson, a candidate for Senator. This guy’s a certifiable nut job and everyone knows it, but he keeps getting voted into office because he has that certain charisma that says, “I’ll do what I promise no matter what.”

Smith has a vision in which Stillson goes on to become president. This president isn’t anything like what Sheen plays on The West Wing. This president is suicidal. Instead of waiting for a diplomatic solution, he ends up launching missiles at the enemy, thus ensuring the end of humanity. Smith must kill Stillson, even though he’ll never get away alive.

The movie is very depressing. We see Smith eventually stripped of everything. This is a man that could be any one of us. (After all, he’s named John Smith.) Any one of us could be in an accident. Any one of us could see our girlfriend marry another man and have a child. Granted, not everyone has the ability to touch people and know details about them. As we watch Smith slide into a life he wants no part of, we have to empathize with him. I don’t think any of us would want that life, even if we had the ability to help people.

Walken does an excellent job as Smith. He portrays the frustration perfectly. Sheen also does very well as the sociopath candidate. It seems natural that the movie would have to end with one of them dying.  This is definitely not a movie for children. I don’t think that anyone under the age of 16 or so would be able to deal with many of the issues dealt with in this movie. I don’t think many adults would, either. 

The Dead Zone - Official Trailer