askryan

Totally, thank you. Star Trek is goofy as hell sometimes. I think if the Kelpian kid had been a plot device isolated to a single episode, no one would have batted an eye if it were on TNG or VOY. But as the reveal of a season long mystery, it was a big woof for a season and a concept that I was really into.

That said, season 4 really picked up that briefly dropped ball. I think the last two episodes of S4, plus the one with the debate at Federation HQ, will go down as Trek classics once Disco ages a bit.

I've seen people suggest adding alcohol, but I think the idea is to simulate that Klingon coffee would have a sharpness or bite to it, rather than assuming that raktajino on the show would actually have alcohol. I played around with some recipes for fun and I actually mixed a few together and found something pretty delicious. I mix Turkish coffee, a small amount of whipped milk, cayenne pepper, cinnamon, and a little honey.

Frankly, the scene that introduced Stamets and Culber together I think was intended to surprise the audience in a different way –– Stamets is a huge jerk the previous few episodes and set up as a semi-antagonist, and that bit shows him in a very different light, as the audience/Burnham starts to thaw on the Discovery crew.

The Orion ship that arrives to collect Tendi is inspired by the one introduced in “The Pirates of Orion”, but appears to be a more modern iteration of that craft, as well as being significantly larger.

There have been a number of references to that episode this season, but STILL no one has said "Oreeeeon" or worn a silly green jumpsuit/helmet combo. Like what are they even doing?

If Locarno had kidnapped like Harry Kim or Geordi or some shit and put them on that viewscreen like he did Mariner, we would have had a full episode’s worth of them interminably trying to find a way to play along and send a secret message out and agonizing over the situation, when just yelling “this guy’s an idiot and his plan is stupid” is genuinely a vastly better plan.

The information broker has had cosmetic surgery to resemble the puppet Balok used to appear intimidating in “The Corbomite Maneuver”

I don't think it specifies in the episode that the information broker had cosmetic surgery, does it? I wondered if this episode was trying to semi-canonize the Dassik. I don't really care either way because that bit was hilarious.

Are you implying that there’s a joke in a Canon Connections post? Inconceivable.

I loved this one. I'd read a Ryan North comic about Shaxs doing pretty much anything, but nice to see him in action fighting fascists.

With all the "Pirates of Orion" references in this one, they really missed the boat not having at least someone pronounce Orion the insane way they do in that episode.

The Bill thing at least is a joke about TNG season 1 - they had Troi call him Bill and it was in the early series bible that Picard would call him William and he would be called Bill by "close female friends." I hate these shorts (although I'm glad they exist for the animation, at least), but that was a pretty funny callback.

Freeman said she planned to take them to Earth to have them figure out how to keep everyone alive, but my guess is that inside, she was using this to pass the buck to someone else and privately was pessimistic about the chances of figuring out a way to separate them without Janewaying them. That feels like a very Freeman thought process. But yeah, they ought to have said something on screen.

Weird way to spell Link Hogthrob.