Episode 5.8 "Labyrinths" Discussion Thread

Decent episode overall and...reposting Scenario here....

3) The Federation and Breen arrive around the same time. Huge standoff with the fate of the galaxy at stake. Various Breen factions are at each others throat. Moll uses the machine to raise L'ak from the dead. He fulfills the prophecy that the Breen's true ruler will rise from the dead. The factions unite and L'ak and Moll will become king and queen of the Breen. Unicorns and fairies and everyone lives happily ever after.

***

I don't know if we're going to get to a point where all the factions gather, or something.......but I'm signing off on this as the end. It's EXCEEEEEEEEEEEDINGLY likely at this point.

DSC is a show that's unwilling to do anything else.

Every Star Trek talks about the character's feels, and that's what any show is supposed to do. It's what builds the characters as people up so that you can invest in them.

But DSC has always had ridiculous notions when it comes to timing and depth. They pick the stupidest forking times to say, "Now, behold as I unpack my feelings." The timing is almost always deeply awkward. It's almost always in the middle of something far more important. It's like if you did a re-edit of "The Changeling" where Kirk and Spock have most of their, "My son, the doctor" conversation after Nomad checks Kirk's medical records and before Kirk meets it in Engineering. There's almost always something going on that's more important, like Michael stopping to tell her unconscious self a story when she has literal seconds to get herself somewhere to save her future.

I often want to, "Michael. I understand this is a heavy moment, but can we RESOLVE this situation first?"

And then, even if the timing's right, we have the likes of Sisko, Picard, and Janeway with:

"I feel ____________ about this."

"This is why I feel __________ about this."

"These are my values, and this is the lesson I've taken from what we've gone through"

Discovery? That's not enough. That's rarely, if ever, enough. They have to drill into their and each other's psyche to the point that it really starts to feel like a session in a therapist's office.

I don't want my heroes to be perfect. I also don't want to dig down to the subatomic level regarding all the ways they're broken. I think some of the fun of investing in a fictional character you visit an hour a week is fleshing that out for yourself over time.

Take Intendant Kira, for instance. Yeah, a murderous lunatic. But she's also deeply lonely. It's hugely unlikely that she could ever genuinely return the feeling to another person because also she's a malignant narcissist, but there's a part of her that genuinely wants another person's undying love and unwavering loyalty in the face of anything.

It's there. It's on the page and into the performance. I took both a certain way,and made this connection with her character. She feels more real because *I* built this point in her character that I could relate to based on what I've seen.


Discovery would have them putting down a rebellion on the station with Klingon shock troops massing at the mining levels before Garak and Kira step off to the side in the middle of everything to have this chat, with Kira's eyes misting while she tells me that about herself and laments the fact that, with one of the rebels she's about to kill, she had what she thought was a genuine moment of warmth during a threesome a month ago.

It's very odd storytelling.

It's what I've felt about Discovery from the start. Its almost a great show. It just continuously shoots itself in the foot. The episode is okay. Weakest of the season but there have been worse. I liked the ending.