I struggle to think of a Trek character more Star Trek than Saru. DSC has its (sometimes severe, sometimes not) flaws, but it has an impressive track record of occasionally absolutely nailing how to make some of the trekkiest Trek characters.
It's going to be interesting where the series ends up in the inevitable reevaluation once a few years have passed.
They're also paying attention to when they need to renegotiate contracts. After the strikes, studio leadership has really doubled down on not giving an inch on writers' and actors' salaries even if it means cancelling a successful show. It's more valuable to them to keep workers in a state of perpetual gig work than anything they'd make from the show.
I loved this issue. If they ever decide to canonize anything in the comics, I hope it's this one.
The shape of Hy’Rell’s head bumps resemble those of Xindi-Primates, first appearing in ENT: “The Xindi”, one of six intelligent Xindi species that were native to Xindus.
I believe it was mentioned in an interview that she's an Efrosian, which would be the first time we've seen one since TUC! The hair and the blue eyes seem consistent.
Reno partying with Hysperians –– now that is a show I want to watch
Man, you have to watch the one with Giant Spock ("The Infinite Vulcan")
Enterprise’s mirror universe episodes also have that Dr. Mengele version of Phlox. Of course, I’m always happy for an excuse to pretend that Enterprise didn’t happen.
It's okay man, chronophages happen to the best of us
evolved to be more sensitive to light, resulting in everyone tending more towards malevolence, and barbarism, and queer coded villainy.
You know, I spent the whole episode sort of wondering if they were going to try and speculate that all the species of the Mirror Universe are campy jerks because in that universe the Progenitors were campy jerks. But I suppose I'm glad they didn't try and explain it, and it's still just a little pastureland for the actors to go chew scenery.
I still don’t get it. It doesn’t really make sense to me. If it takes a lot of focus and concentration to maintain the solid form, why is one considered weak for doing so?
They seem to be saying that the solid form is a sort of defense mechanism, like a snail shell or an opossum playing dead (or maybe an environmental one, like that it prevents the jelly form from losing too much moisture in a warm environment). It's difficult to maintain, and implies you're in a position of retreat or weakness. Now that the Breen presumably have no predators and no environmental necessity for the solid form, it's seen as a cultural taboo.
While I'm a little bummed the Breen aren't the space-arctic-wolves I imagined them as during DS9, I think it's an interesting idea. I do always like when they describe how cultural practices in a particular species comes from how they exist in the ecosystem of their home planet, like the Kelpiens (Saru and the Kelpiens being for me, Disco's most successful addition to Trek canon).
”The last recorded exploration was over a century before Doctor Vellek was even born.” That does potentially raise the question of how Burnham would have been so familiar with Lyrek in the previous episode, though of course she and most of the rest of the Discovery crew might have been alive before Doctor Vellek’s birth.
We've seen that in her one year as a courier, Burnham learned everything about every planet because of secret criminal space knowledge. Even if the last recorded exploration was that old, presumably space pirates with their gritty streetsmart know-how have some sort of Mos Eisley medieval market nearby.
What a bizarre three ships to start with