Phasers Set To Stun: recapping Discovery: Face the Strange

0:04 Space the Final Frontier. Join us for a bold conversation our prime directive to recap our favorite Star Trek shows, both new and old, to engage in debate about all things Trek. Prepare to energize with Phasers Set Too Stunted. Hello everyone, and welcome back to Phaser Set to stun where we continue to show our love for everything Star Trek in this ongoing series from a film by a podcast which focuses on every quadrant of the ever expanding universe of Trek by covering television, animation, movies, directors, and more. Lot in the course, as always, is your Core Trek crew. I'm Scott Aufman, I'm David Burns, and I'm Wayne Whiten. All right, and thanks for joining me again. Guys. We're continuing our bridge of the newest voyages in this franchise with Star Trek Discovery Season five, the final season. Today we're covering episode four, Face the Strange. Before we get too much further.

1:10 Black Alert spoilers ahead. If you haven't seen the latest episode, please go and check it out before you come back to join us. Dave, let's talk about the latest episode. Can you remind us what happened? In this one, yeah, absolutely, As you said. This episode four Face the Strange, written by Sean Cochran and directed by le Rhodes. Burnham, Rayner, and Statements are caught in a time bug that has been placed by Mole and Lock, warping them back and forth between different periods of time on the Discovery. It is up to all three of them to figure out how to make this stop in between the constant time fluctuations avoid making any changes to their future, and they must do it quickly as they are still racing to beat Mole and Lock to uncover the ultimate mystery. All right, let me start off with you, Wade, what were your first impressions of this one?

1:56 Uh, I really liked this episode. I think so far my favorite because there's a lot to like in the episode. You know, I thought the pacing, the editing, the directing of the episode was fantastic. But really it all boils down to three things, and that's the characterizations of Burnham, Rayner and Stammets, which, I this is their story and I thought they were fantastic in this episode. You know, it really showed how far these characters have grown since their first appearance. And you know, we get to see a lot of different timelines and them in those timelines of Discovery. You know, the whole production was just was fantastic, you know, the way they recreated, uh, the individual timelines, that's that's kudos to the different departments working on on this. Plus we got to see some new some old characters come back. You know, it's a great episode. I'll just leave it at that. Yeah, I totally agree. I think it was.

3:00 It didn't seem like anything was wasted in this one. Didn't feel like anything was out of place, and it definitely wasn't what I was expecting from last week's trailer with the creepy spider crawling over all over the place exactly. I am going to go ahead and say that I called it last week because I was saying at one point they should do a clip show, and they did the best way of doing a clip show that I've ever seen. Like they go back into all these periods, we're uh revisiting a lot of key points in Discovery, But there wasn't any Like I said, it didn't seem like there was any kind of wasted scenes, right, useless exposition because they had this neat little rewind button that got set every few minutes, so there wasn't a lot of time to spend too much, too much scenery in any one kind of time period. So one of those This is one of those episodes that like, once it started, it was over with before I realized it, because I was so involved in the story and what was going on and how they were going to get out of it that I completely off track of time. And this is so far is their best episode this season with that without question, definitely agree. Yeah, and there's so many good scenes in this episode. But I gotta tell you, I might give away what I'm gonna talk about at the end, but Rainer really stole stole the show on this one. I thought he was fantastic in this episode. But one of the scenes that I absolutely loved was Burnham getting on the turtle lift and Linus

4:31 was getting in there with her and he looks at her and you get this awkward, like few seconds of like what's gonna happen here? And you look good and red, Yeah, red really is your color color. There were a lot of good funny moments. I love the different ways Stamments used to to get everybody out of engineering, you know, especially his last one. I'm grumpy. I laugh. I'd get the hell out of there too. Came in and yelled that that was a great callback. I like how they they kind of made fun of the franchise in a way at some point when he was like, get out, there's a spore overload or something. You'll grow mushrooms in your lungs, and he's like, I'm kind of worried that my team doesn't know that that's a thing that's going to just be a scientific exposition. Even that first scene with mullum Lock, I think the poisoned Latinum was very clever. I didn't see that coming, but it gives us a little bit more of a look at the two of them who feel like they're on the run, that they've got history with the Emerald chain, and it seemed kind of interesting that they was it them who mentioned the Breen Yeah again right, which makes me think that maybe Locke isn't Breen. Possibly. I mean, it could be that he's still on the run from his own people, but they definitely have connections somehow, because they've mentioned it every episode so

6:05 far this season. I mean, if they don't come or don't show up, I don't know what they're leading to. Yeah. Now, I was just gonna say, I think it'd be kind of a funny lower Dex moment if they finally do see the Breen. The Breen take off their helmet and they all look like carry Fisher. Yeah, because it looks like Busch hel ed Fisher closed. I want to I do want to call it another really cool transition from when I'm all withholding that. Uh and it transitioned into the spider scrambling. Yes, that was a really cool transition. They are editing these episodes, I tell you what. They are so good at it. Yeah, very efficient. Yeah, And I have to the only nitpick I really have for this episode and this this actually made me laugh. I found this to be one of the funnier parts of this episode is those transporters.

6:55 Did Burnham and Rayner really transport into the next room to have a conver station? I mean it's like thirty feet away? Come on, now, how lazy is that? I mean, what's wrong with the door? Doesn't it work anymore? I mean Wayne, I literally yelled at the TV when that happens, like, are you ever that lazy? Really? Yeah? And it feels like if they had not done that to go back to the bridge, they would have been in this predicament, right exactly. It just seems so silly. We finally saw those transporters backfire on them, right, like, maybe stop otherwise this is like five years before the future we see in up with by and large, and everybody's just these giant, overgrown babies to float around in chairs and don't have any exercise whatsoever. Yeah, it was also great to see some moments that we haven't necessarily seen before, like Discovery being built but in the dry dock. Yeah, yeah, that's cool.

7:51 That was That was a cool moment and it was well handled. To say to the guy like, oh, it's a surprising inspection. He's like, okay, well, everything's fine. Fine. Lot that they were building Discovery on in San Francisco, I mean right there and you could see the Golden Gate Bridge. I mean, I don't know exactly what was going on back then. What was the twenty third century? How were they held they put ships and stuff, But it just seems odd that they woul build their ships on the planet. But you know, all right, I'll accept it. Yeah, it's because they had to get all the mushrooms from the Planet Girl as many as they could in San Francisco. There were there. There's a line in there that really made me laugh with when Rayner and Burnon were talking and they found themselves on the bridge when they're the Red Angel, you know, yeah, and he looked at you. So we're going back in time when the Discovery was going into the future. That is confusing, Yes, yeah, yeah, I thought that was an odd an odd choice, but you know, he did a good job with that. I like that we're seeing more of the Rainer and Burnham dynamic, yes, yeah, and seeing how they play off of each other, especially that line of dialogue where he says, but what if I'm right? Mm hmmm. I think that's going to be very useful in the future to see how he's kind of a foil for that. Yeah, but still, you know, not changing the dynamic, but just in introducing an element that helps it go a little bit further than it was before. But it really helped his character grow here because remember the last episode where he just had the you know, give me, give

9:24 me who you are in twenty words less you know, he was listening. He does know his crew because look what happens in this episode towards the end. It gets him out of the past Burnham. Yeah, you know, he basically told them who they were and how he knew them, and that's how he got out of it. So he does care. Yeah, that's exactly what I was what I was going to say too. I mean, you know, he there's so much character development with him. You know, he really has learned a lot about Burnham, and there's been a big change in their relationship and the way he looks at the crew. Huge stuff for the character. Yeah. Yeah, and then we've got a third time traveler Stametz. Yep. I thought the explanation gave me kind of a mystery science theater, you know, I should really just relax and enjoy the show.

10:15 But when they said, oh, he's outside of the time stream because of the mushrooms, and I was like, I'll give you a pass on that because I don't understand the signs well enough to say no. But it's been a confusing science in the first place. But yeah, i'll excite we will allow it. Yeah, exactly, But no, he had some great moments. I loved when he met Reno at that one point and she comes up to and she's like, hey, doctor, doctor Truffles, I knew that thing that I asked for, and then calls him on it and says like, are you stuck in a time loop? Just kidding your fine A. Reno is awesome in herself. I love the character of Reno, and I know that character plays that character, that actor plays that character a lot, but I don't care because she does it so extremely well and anytime he's on screen, I know we're in for a treat. Yeah. Absolutely, yeah.

11:05 I've liked Reno from the first episode. That was an incredible episode, Like keeping those people alive, the way they did absolutely amazing. And it was nice to see the character of Arriam again. You know, we haven't seen her since her character is killed off in season two. But I got to tell you the way Burnham just just comes out and says, you know, oh you're dead. You know you talk about ripping the band aid off. I mean Drake's yeah, yeah. I mean she kind of was stuck in a corner there. I mean, she did the right choice, right, and I don't That's why I don't take fault with it, because she didn't have a choice. I mean, time was running out they needed to just yeah, you know, so just spit it out. Yeah, and that whole scene on the bridge where she was talking to everybody like no one's wanting to believe her, you know, and you know she's basically having it out saying, look, you got to listen to but you have to understand I am from the future, and going on and on. I love that entire scene. Oh yeah, yeah, Well it's very clever to have that happened in the Lorca timeline, right because I don't think at that point they knew about the mere universe Shenanians. No, not at that point now, but considering what kind of things had happened up to that point, it makes total sense that they would kind of they wouldn't just believe it at face value, right, that they would, you know, kind of suspected. I think it was a great use of two Burnhams. That was a great scene.

12:28 That was brilliant and such a contrast between the two es. Yeah. Yeah, amazing performance by Sinequa Martin green In there. It was kind of a surprise, and it it went from an episode where it was like, well, don't interact with your past selves or the universe will explode kind of the temporal that it. And then at one point they were like, oh, well there's this thing and if we go to warp it'll be fine, so just just go. It would be QUI if we don't. But the fight sequence there, I thought was was great. It would be of T two when you've got the two terminators that kind of like, you know, they're surprised at how well matched they both are, and then just and the whole thing with the nerve pinch. I think that was a great call.

13:13 Yeah, yea. And yeah, the character of Rim, that's that standalone episode of AMS where you learn about Ariam's backstory. I think it's a standout episode for Discovery. And to see that character come back and be featured in this way and knowing that Ariam would respond to what Michael was saying in that way is great writing. I mean, it's kind of shocking, and I'm glad that everything was wiped out because that would be a therapy session for the entire Bridge crew. But yeah, yeah, really that was the character.

13:54 You know, it was very interesting. You know, I thought it would it could lately have led to a really interesting character, but they never really done much with her, you know, until the final episode. It's a nice seeing her again. But yeah, it's a pity that we never got more of her to learn more about her. Yeah, I agree. You know, it's always very interesting about how each one of these Star Trek series always deal with some kind of time travel or any anything like that. And I tell you, each one of them has a unique way of telling us. So it never gets tired, it never gets boring. Because I found this when I once I learned that this was what was going to happen, that there's traveling through time. I'm like, well, here we go again, We've got another story about time travel. My god, how many times have they done this? And Star Trek without it exactly, But you know, it was very interesting to watch it the fact that they were always on Discovery, they were just in just different time periods with Discovery. But it was also the effect that they had when the time was getting ready to change, how you know, that was such a cool effect that they used to signal that was happening, and how they she was able to figure out the how much time they had during each period. That was really well, was well written. Yeah, it was yeah, well, and I appreciated the jump to the future as well, when it was just Zora and the nothing left on the bridge but dust right and getting to see it doesn't go into specifics about what happened with the progenitor technology, but how quickly things fell apart,

15:26 and you know how devastating that can be. And it gave them a look of what could happen if they fail on their mission. Yep, right exactly, And another mention of the breed. Yeah, the problem is with them getting in their hands. I wonder how much of the Deep Space nine connection we'll get with that, you know, if it gets further beyond the breed to dominion or anything else. It's clearly where we're heading, right, because they cannot keep mentioning this and it keeps coming up if they're not going to do something about it, right, Yeah, I agree? So yeah, yeah, Well, maybe the next episode will be a cave episode. That seems to be what we're missing. We've done clips, we've done time table, what else? Yeah, Oh, I'll bring that up later, you believe me. There is something else, and I'm well, any other favorite moments, No, there's there's just so many in this episode. I did like the whole episode. Yeah, the whole episode. I like took the end when they're like, you think the crew is gonna understand this, and when she's like, with this crew, I think they will get as soon as we say time bug. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That was a good line. Well, let's get onto which character we felt shine of the most. Dave you want to start, Yeah, I already gave mine away. Rayner, I feel like he truly grew in this episode as a member of Discovery and with his relationship with Burnham, and you know, talk about again where you know, even though un Tillie didn't think he was understanding

16:59 who the crew was or he wasn't getting to know them, he does and he proved that in this episode. And I think, you know that's why I picked him to be who I thought shine the most in this episode. Yeah, Wayne, what about you? Yeah? I mentioned him too, But I agree with David Rayner. I really do think he shined the most. And you know, this was a two for with him Burnham really and uh, you know at the start, he's he's stubborn, he's hard headed. He mentions that he thinks Burnham's too relaxed with her crew and he even goes too far when he's talking to her and saying exactly what it's on his mind. But he had a lot of character growth here in this episode when you know, he realizes just how Burnham and his crew are, how effective they are working together, and he gets to save the day by crushing the time bug the spider. So I love him. Yeah, even that scene with the statements when he realized what he was saying and doing and they oh, I better back down and help. Just that moment with those two characters right there, it showed how much Rainer has already grown. Yeah, I'm going to give this into Michael Burnham, both of them, because this was one where it's not Burnham leading the away mission. It's Burnham truly as the captain of the ship. I think that's something I've been wanting this season, is to see you know, Burnham as the crux of that and being able

18:33 to bring all different aspects of the crew together. I think there was a great moment when we already talked about when she's on the bridge and she she connects with so many different people, Like when she says to wash Kun, you know, I don't want to get that right cross again like I just did, because I don't lay me out knowing how well can acted Michael is, but also seeing how far Michael has come on the journey with seeing you know, proto Michael or whatever you want to say. I think the acting range there was phenomenal because it seems like Sneki just fell right back into character like it not a day had passed, and it really shows how far this character has come in the journey, especially with how things were handled. There's a lot more maturity that you're seeing there, and I think that was just a great spotlight for why Michael is A is a great Captaine. And I got a lot of vibes with from this episode in her character station, just like I did with all good things in the card. Very very similar.

19:51 You know, here we have a case of the actress actor actor actress, the actor actress playing character seven years later, very very similar and both were very very well done. Yeah, absolutely agreed. Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna guess at this one, but I want to hear it from you. If you could have been any character in this episode, who would have been? And why Dave You're gonna start? Yeah, I'm flipping the coin on this one, I'm going with Burnham because she gets to explore her past again and she gets to fight herselves. Come on, we all got him in there are sometimes we all wanted to fight ourselves, true, So I had to feel, like, Wayne, what about you. I'm choosing Burnham too, you know, because until this point I never really realized how far her character evolved and for the better. She's truly taken command of the Discovery, especially after seeing, you know, the position she was in back in the first season. You know, she was a prisoner, accused of being a trader, involved in the depth of her captain and crew on our old ship.

20:53 You know, it's really hard to believe that now she's a captain and just has come so far and has helped reform the Federation after the burn That's a long way to come in the five or so years that the show has been on, and you've got to be proud of an accomplishment. So I'd want to be here. And it's it's funny too, and I think they chose, not just for the story wise, to have her meet her old self in the troublelift like that and have that fight. But you get to see the contrast between the two characters, how much she has grown right here, not just in look, but just in maturity. And it's a great thing to do for in its final season, I'll look back to see exactly how far the show has went. Yeah, absolutely, Scott, what about you, Well, I'm gonna flip it too, I'm gonna say so to experience this episode from his perspective, so from a from a professional standpoint, seeing what he knows as history, unless this has all been classified and he hasn't been through it, which again of doubt, he's seeing history unfolded in front of him. Right. All these things that he's heard about in the past, he's experiencing at first hand. So that's got to be a little bit of a shock to him at the moment to say, like, oh my god, I'm experiencing some pivotal moments here. Personally, it would just be interesting to understand the emotional journey he goes through of understanding more about the Discovery crew and how it works and how he can kind of fit into that dynamic. I can see him becoming more of a part of the crew and

22:27 him accepting his role on the crew as much as you can see them accepting him, even though it's reluctant at times. He's really showing the value that he can bring to Discovery and I think that's a great journey to be on. Well, how about some easter eggs? Wayne? Which one's catch? And there wasn't too many of them in this one, but there were a couple, including one big one. One thing I want to mention is I noticed a lot of similarities to this episode to another episode of Certric Voyager called Shatter, where it was during it's seventh season. In that episode, Commander Chicote is also being thrown back and forth through different time periods of Voyager after they hit a time rip, very very similar to this, and both episodes are very well done. If you haven't seen the one, go back and watch that. Another thing I also noticed is this is the first episode to not credit Doug Jones as part of the cast. He was not listed in the main credits. He doesn't appear at all in the episode. We do hear his voice, but that that was actually a clip from an earlier episode.

23:30 He didn't actually record anything for this, so we know we have an episode where he has nothing to do, and I hope this is the only one, because I like that character. I want to see more of him. But the big and pretty much the only one that I was able to pull out of this episode. It deals with the time bug itself, the cren of Phage. They identify it as being a Krenim, which that is means it's from the same planet as a race from the Delta Quadrant which had mastered the ability to manipulate time cause a lot of trouble for Uss Voyager during a two part story called Year of Hell, which was back in Boyger's fourth season. You know, that's another great two parter and a nice callback and connection to that series. Plus, they also mentioned the Temporal War and apparently the Krintim have a major part to play in this, which that's something one of the storylines from Enterprise. I was going to ask about the Temporal War, So that's something that was in Enterprise. That was one of the main storylines of Enterprise. We didn't actually learn too much about it, and it was never fully resolved. They kind of left hanging at the end there because the series was canceled, but they were leading up to something big interesting.

24:48 All right, Well, have we seen the trailer for next week. We saw a clip from the episode. Yeah, I saw a clip. Episode is called What Mirrors. I believe it's called oh yeah, what I have not the trailer? What do we see? So what I saw was what Book and Burnham were on a shuttle it looked like, and they were moving through I don't know, some kind of atmospheric missed whatever it is, and anomaly and they get a glimpse of Mollenlocke's ship and lots of debris, lots of debris, and Burnham sees something but then it stops right there like okay, because enough to tease you, Well, yeah, interesting, and I think I may know what's coming next after that what she sees, because I'm going to come out and just say it right now. This is my prediction from seeing this clip. But you know, we had seen in the trailer that aired that was shown right after the first episode, a really really quick shot at the USS Enterprise. It's definitely the Enterprise because you can clearly see the one seven oh one if well, if you freeze the frame. Now those shots from the trailer, the nebula that it was coming out of matched thebular that was in this clip. And this will sneak peek as well as the shuttlecraft which was in those shots as well. So we're seeing the Enterprise in the next episode. There's no pubt of it. But here's my here's my question I'm going to throw to you both. The episode is titled Mirrors.

26:15 So are we seeing the Enterprise that we are very familiar with or are we seeing a Mere Universe version of the Enterprise. That's a good question. Interesting, Yeah, I mean, based on that, it feels like we might have two separate teams in the Mere Universe. So if they encountered the Enterprise, but you're seeing how Michael and Booker are kind of parallels to moll in lock right relationship wise, and then you might have the two of them needing to either team up or somehow deal with Mere Universe. Maybe maybe where they landed. Since this episode didn't really give us any new clues necessarily that scanned the area and nothing was there. Maybe it's that the coordinates are correct, but the universe is wrong. Could be, and it takes a crossover.

27:11 It's an interesting way to go because I mean, it's great, it'd be cool if they are visiting the Mere Universe, again since that's kind of how the show started in this first season. But what an odd way to go. I was would not expect that during this season. So we'll just have to wait till next week and see or this week. Yeah, I'm curious. Well, I'm excited to see it on that based on that teaser at least, wait me too. All right, Well, I think that wraps it up for us. I feel like there's a lot more to say, but I think we just enjoyed it so much. That's all there is. Go watch it. Yeah, exactly for sure, and it seems like we're headed in the right direction. Yeah, I can safely say it feels like we're headed to the right place. Yeah, definitely. As always, thanks to our listeners for joining us. Healing frequencies are always open for you to share your feedback and thoughts some questions on social Follow us on Facebook, Instagram. You can email us at a Film by Podcast at gmail dot com, find us online at a film by podcast dot com, and if you're looking for exclusive content and swag, send some Latinmrway through Patreon. We'll see you next time for another episode of Phasers. Said to stud