David explains the effect Discovery Season 2 has had on his star trek fandom. Zach wants to know why Control was handled worse than Ultron. We discuss why season 2 feels like a badly written group project report in college.

Come back in a few weeks for our full season 2 recap roundtable!

David can't take it anymore, but Zach remains calm, cool, and critical. David defends Georgiou's supernova suggestion and rails against the hypocrites in the room (Cornwell). Zach reimagines the telling of this episode if the Spore Drive was damaged, and it makes a lot more sense.

David fears he's becoming a nitpicker, and Zach compares watching DSC to The Bachelor. Zach questions Saru's post-Vaharai competency as a leader and asks if his lack of fear hurts his ability to act rationally (Zach also pitches Free Solo as a comparison point to Saru). We get spun up on time travel storytelling and how stereotypically treacherous Control's motivations are. We hate the ending of the episode. It's bad.

Our disappointment, unfortunately, continues. Dave and Zach discuss why they feel this episode (and the season of late) are going down the wrong path. Everyone's a bit confused on the ever-expanding feature list of the Red Angel suit. Zach explains why the changes to Leland cheapen the character, and Dave pledges his unwavering commitment to optimism in the upcoming season finale. 

This episode really didn't stick the landing for us. David wants to know why anthropologists are building time machines just to test their pet theories. Zach teaches a class on time travel paradoxes, complete with examples involving a German child in the early 20th century. Not to poke fun, but if we designed ocular scanners, we would also put needles in the eyepieces.

We discuss how Airiam was misused in this episode as a one-off character, from her backstory through her apparent demise. Zach points out how this episode raises good questions about simulation and realistic fakes, and the challenges to understanding what is true in the world. David salutes Nhan, the one character who seemed to be focused on her job for the entire episode. Finally, we speculate about where the story will go over the last four episodes of the season and wonder if it can be told without a time travel paradox.

Zach complained and his wish was granted: an episode free of spore magic! David discusses the tragic, but beautiful ending to Pike's arc, as illuminated by this episode. We wonder if all might not be as it seems vis-a-vis the Squid Robots vs Red Angels, similar to the Kelpians and Baul. We loved the finale to this episode!

Zach wonders if Paul Stamets and the Spore Drive have become too powerful, like a Golden Gun for Star Trek storytelling. We really like Ethan Peck's Spock so far, and we're excited for more, but the decision his family makes has us wondering: is the Federation justice system complete garbage? Finally, David predicts the DC-Star Trek crossover event that literally no one wants.

This is a long one, sorry, we have a lot to get off our chests. Did the Baul do nothing wrong? That's not a joke, Zach and David seriously consider the question. Zach asks: how can the Disco crew mess up the prime directive when they debated it at length in episode 2? David shares his crazy theory about what the Red Angel is really up to.

Did this episode have a HUGH reveal or a HUGE reveal?

Roger joins the podcast again to discuss all of the flaws and features of episode five. Roger points out some uncomfortable similarities between Star Trek and Scientology. David fixes some of the more frustrating science in this episode with the transporter. We really hope this episode was a bridge to bigger and better things in future weeks.