Phasers Set To Stun: recapping Discovery: Labyrinths

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 to Stunt. Hello everyone, and welcome back to Phaser Set the Stun, where we continue to show our love for everything Star Trek in this ongoing series from the Film by Podcast, which focuses on every quadrant of the expanding universe of Trek, the covering television, animation, movies, directors, and more. Plotting the course as always as your core Trek grew. I'm David Burns, I'm Scott Hoffmann, and I'm Wayne Whited. Onward we go in the thirty second century with Star Trek Discovery and gentlemen, we are almost done with this series. Yeah we are. We're on the home scretch. Yeah we are. Yeah. Today we are discussing episode eight, Labyrinths Black Alert Spoiler the Head. So if you haven't seen this episode, please stop, go view it and come back to join us. All right, Wayne, what can you tell us about this episode? This episode was written by Lauren Wilkinson and Eric J. Robbins. And directed by Emmanuel O. C. Koefer. On the hunt for the final piece of the Progenitor's map, the USS Discovery travels to the bad Lands and the Eternal Gallery and Archive, a repository of cultural and historical artifacts from both the Alpha and Beta quadrants. But the Brain are hot on their tail, and Burnham is trapped within her own mind by doctor drex And being tested to see if she is worthy of finding the map piece. And the struggles don't end there, as conflict on the Brain Ship between Patriarch Rune and Mole see a shift of balance power within their faction. This internal Gallery and Archives, it's really a beautiful place. Oh yeah, you know, this is something we really haven't seen in Star Trek, with this massive library, you know, full of books and artifacts from like all cultures. You know. It truly reminded me of something from Harry Potter, it did, and I was fascinated by this library and the shots that we got in there. Oh yeah, it would be a great place to visit. I mean every time I kept seeing I kept thinking, you know, a car would be like a little kid in this place with his the way he loved archeology, and I would it be too. It was a phenomenal place. Good idea to keep all that information there in one one place. But it was great to see and I love what it looked how it looked like. But I feel like it probably has to have like hotel rooms. Oh h oh ye, right, because it's like, how can you spend like half a day there and just be like, well, I got by one book, I'm out of here. It's probably got plenty of facilities to keep people over. Yeah. The design aesthetic of it was beautiful, I mean, very lovingly put together, especially when you kind of zoom out and you look at it from that kind of labyrinth overlook that probably only existed in the mind. But yeah, still just brilliant attention to detail, it really was. It's a very classic Star Trek concept really. I mean, you know, you have this big cathedral like place in the sky full of all this information. I mean you could see that right in the original Star Trek. Yeah that's true. You know. I absolutely loved Iral. I love her so much. Yeah yeah, And you know what I loved about her character is that she was just you could tell she loved her job with a passion. You know. I wish I had that today. I do, but man, I don't blame it either. I would be in heaven if I had her position and got to explore all of those books and artifacts and everything. Man, she was literally in Hea. Yeah she's done that badass Effrosian Boise do the whole thing right, Just like, so you're going to be coming here. We're in the middle of the bad lands, pretty much the worst place in the galaxy you'd want to go. But if you don't want to die, just follow my directions and everything will be fine. And they go through the trouble to set up like a reading room for both of them. So it's like, we understand the trip that you're going through, so we're going to make it worth your while so that you don't have to, you know, spend time looking for toothpixing costco. Like, we tell you exactly where to go, exactly what you need to see, so you can get through your business and get on your way. Right. It's very similar to like if you would go to one of the like state or national archives, they'll set aside a room for you and they'll bring this stuff to you. So that's it's done. You know. I like that you mentioned both of them. How funny is it that not only did she have to go down to this place with Book with you know what was going on between the two of them, but then she has to deal with him too in her own mind. Right, Yeah, come on, are you kidding me? Could you not be? Tilly? Wait? Are you talking about when she encounters Library Book. Oh yeah, that's his new name, Library Book, shoulder pads and look like a sun double kiss. Well, I love the line that the the archive is. When she realized that his name was books, she goes that it's rare for a book to visit her, right right. She was probably bending on that all day, like, hey, you know what joke I just told these new visitors, it's about the library. Right. Well, you know, as as we've had in a lot of the episodes this season, the opening is absolutely incredible. Yeah, once again, you know, you get that close up shot of the of a Breen and you just slowly pull back and you just you know, the cameras starts moving through all of the military soldiers and stuff like that. Man, what an incredible shot. I feel like I'm saying that a lot this season. It might but it's right it's right. There's a lot of great visual effects this season. They've just blown it away with visual effects. Yeah, outstand it and I love I don't know who mentioned it last episode. I don't know if it's Uwane or Scott, but the voice of the Brain, it's just incredible. I love listening to them talk. And what I found interesting here too is once again you have the Primark who was speaking in brain, but then he says I'm going to start speaking in her tongue so that you know, basically that Mole could understand what he was saying, so you know, it didn't have to repeat it or anything like that. It's just so well done well. And I love the fact that they write it in such a way that there's always that intentional shift. Yeah, like we're not gonna you know, shortcut this for everybody and have us continuing to speak in you know, universal basic or whatever you want to say, but that there's always this like I'm going to do this because of so we never lose that poor Breen speech pattern, which is just it's it's intimidating in its own right. Even when they you know, speak uh in Mole's language, it still has that that undertone, that kind of threatening presence. And it's refreshing too because normally on Star Trek you get like a few seconds of them actually speaking their language, and then the rest of the episode there they're speaking English. It's it's nice to hear that that, you know, them speaking their own language, and then there actually to be a reason for them to switch to speaking basic English. Yeah, man, I gotta tell you, I got to hand at them all. Man, she had some guts, Yeah, them like that. That's crazy. Yes, and the how it resolves itself is pretty surprising. Yeah, it is Wow. That takes that takes some guts. I also thought it was interesting in that situation. The mystery of the Breen lieutenant is it Arisar? Yeah, I believe I think that. Yeah, I think that'said. She Moll kept giving these kind of knowing looks and knowing glances over to Rasar. And I don't remember if that's an established character that has some kind of connection to Locke, or that we have some kind of you know, we're supposed to know who this is. There's a lot of me that was wondering if that's a character that she knows that's in disguise somehow or if there's going to be some kind of switcheroo or something like that. But it seemed very interesting. There's even a little bit of a it seemed like there's a British affect to their voice at one point, and I was like, is that book in disguise or something? But I know that's not what they would do, but it's it was just so interesting to me. It's the way she acted this episode and the surprise at the end and everything that she did was really makes me feel that there's more to her story than we've been told. Yet. There's something else going on. She's got more motives. That's something that we hasn't been revealed yet, So I don't know, and I'm hoping that's where they're going. Way, I agree with you. I feel like there's more that they haven't fed us yet, and if not, I'm going to be disappointed a little bit. And but I'll be disappointed in a way that I understand that they're kind of rushed because we've only got ten episodes to you know, complete the story. But on the flip side of that, it gives me like, man, how much they could have explored this character more in the brain if we had another season. You know, yeah, we've been seeing you know, we've been seeing bits of her all through the season. And when we first were introduced to her in the early part of the season, you know, she seemed like the basic standard every day villain and you know that didn't really care who she was going to walk over or who she killed or whatever. But now we get this episode. You know, even when when the Bring Commander was you know, going against his word and was going to destroy the archive, the look that she gave him like she's developed some sort of consciousness and you know that that she she doesn't want that. I mean, that's completely different than what we had originally thought of her, you know what, eight episodes before. So I don't know what's going on there. I love it. I love this this character development that they developed. It I don't know where it's going. And she even flipped on him a little bit when he said he was gonna destroy Discovery. Remember, yeah, she even freaked out about that too. So it's like, wait a minute, you didn't want anything to do with Discovery or the people on there, but all of a sudden you have a change of heart. You're right, that's that's another layer that we didn't expect to see coming from home. So yeah, absolutely well done. And speaking of that scene when they fired on Discovery and Discovery, you know, does this moving off to whatever you call that? It's not warping, But that wasn't a jump. That was an incredible shot. How it made it look like they explore and then the jumped to the spot and it was like all smoking and yes, oh they barely made it out of there in one piece. I mean that was that was an amazing shot. Yeah, yeah, I like that the smoke effect most of all, Like they're they're not quite on target. They're definitely at a disadvantage, and they're getting everybody on what is it there, every available hand getting on the spore drive to try to fix it or get it underway. So it'll be interesting to see this whole kind of race aspect in the next episode. You know who's going to get there first. I did like the touch of the the artifact that they had for Book. I guess it was like the a cutting of the world root that was from his planet, which is no more obviously it was de storyed last season. Yeah, so the the emotions you got to see from him just for holding that in his hand, then the fact that he said, you can take that with you, you know, just let know about it later on. I love that moment. I really did. It was such a small moment in the episode, but it was a really emotional and impactful scene. It was. It was great acting by David Ahalla. I think it was also interesting to see, you know, it felt like a very genuine emotion, right of kind of that recovery of a precious thing that you thought was lost forever. I'd be interested to know what could be done with it, if it is a cutting from the world route, if there's anything that can be done to help, you know, revive anything or bring anything, well, regrow something. I mean, you know, we all believes there is right exactly. I was also pretty surprised that they were willing to let it go because there were there were certain hints about like if you follow a certain rules, otherwise we'll toss you in the what they call it the obu let. Yeah whatever. But they're like, yeah, sure, take it, and you know, if you don't bring it back, tell us what happened to it. It was like, Wow, that's a pretty forgiving library. All right, you don't have that in our world. Good lord, I know that bucket overdo worst Kid Come Lives? Yeah? Right? And I want to point out to the whole mindscape that that Burnham was in, you know, that it made her take a mental look at herself and her fears. You know, this made the episode for me, This this this bit. Yeah, I really found myself drawn into this story, just just glued to the screen. At first, I thought maybe this the episode was you know, kind of dragging a bit at the end, but this, this brought me back because because U s Nica Martin Green, her performance, all that emotion, that dry that she gave the character that you know, there was that one little bit where she she wipes away that one tier. You know, this showed why she's the star of this show. I just this is probably my favorite performance of her this season, if not maybe the whole series, the whole the whole element of her you know, you know, fear of not living up to her potential, you know, and you know she admits that, you know, it's even with her relationship with Book. You know, all of that you know, comes out in her in that in that moment and she doesn't realize that is what's going to win her to find that that final piece is. You know, she's admitting to everything that's going on inside of her, what she's been fighting, what she's been struggling with, and you know, weakness, being ashamed, whatever it was. You know, she's admitting that and coming to reality about it and finally facing those Yeah, I agree with you, Wayne. I thought that was an incredible moment and in a great performance on her post. Oh yeah, definitely that strength to own her vulnerability and to do so in a very captain like fashion. I thought the use of lighting was very subtle and very effective because it made that set seem smaller and smaller, which became more and more of a personal conversation the deeper it went. Right, even the choice to have a cut to doctor Culbert noticing that her what is it her cortisol levels were revealing that she was genuinely afraid, that she was genuinely scared. I thought that was great. I think it's a great way to make sure that the audience knows exactly how genuine this situation is, how genuine her feelings are. In that moment, great choices and once again You've got Rainer being put in a position that he has to struggle with at times. You know, he has to make that decision. You've got five minutes. If she's not back in five minutes, we've got to go. End of story. And then the whole thing of protecting the ship too, you know, putting the people in charge that really aren't normally in charge, but you know, go, you get the ship out of here, get it hidden so the brain doesn't see it, you know, and in believing in that crew again, Rainer coming to the rescue again at times and showing more growth if we talk about this every episode with him, and they have just done such an outstanding job with that character. They really, Yeah, for just for a season, who has so much to do, you know, closing out the series, telling a great story. It's incredible that the writers have been able to squeeze these these little character moments, these character growth in there. That's that's what's making this season for me. This is why I love it. Yeah, absolutely, I couldn't agree more. When all right, well, let's move on to some of our favorite parts of the episode. Which character did we think shine the most in the episode. I have a feeling what waynees is Wayne, go ahead and tell us please, oh for me, without a doubt. It's more it's Mole. She shined a lot this season. But and that's the sign of a well written villain, I guess. But it's this episode just was incredible for her. It's, you know, we're just necess certain anymore that she really is a valain. I'm not, you know, I don't see her that way anymore. I I you know, it's it's obvious that she really cares and loves for Locke. She really wants him back, and she'll do anything she can to get him back, and that's her reasoning for winning the Progenitor's technology. And she's never let anyone stop her. As we saw, you know, when Room goes against his promise and tries to have the archive destroyed, you know, she she's genuinely shocked and concerned. I don't know why. This is a very big character change. But then she starts up mutiny and kills Route and takes over control of the Breen, which really shocked me. I was not expecting that. No, but all together, it's almost as if there's more more to most plan than we've been led to believe and like she know, she's developed to conscious and you know that's why she's becoming a fascinating character this season. She's one of my favorites. Yeah, it's it's that layer thing. And we talked about that last episode about villains. You know, if you can make your villain really strong and you you want them as much as you want to see the hero on screen, then you've got to win. And if you care about that villain, and you obviously care about mol I care about Mole. Yeah, and you know, giving them layers that you just see and it's just it's fascinating and it really pulls you into that character. You are absolutely correct, why, Yeah, what I feel like they're shaping her as a chaotic protagonist. Yeah, and she's my pick as well for just owning that situation with the brain when I agree, it feels like there's larger designs that we're just starting to see. For example, she is not only wiping Erica with this to be able to live with Locke assuming that things go to plan, but she's going so much further to say, it's not just that we're going to get you out of this so they won't chase you anymore. I want to have a role in making shifts in your society that make it so that we never have to run again, and that nobody like us will ever have to run again, which which seems to be where she's positioning herself. And it's not really if you really think about it's not a bad thing what she's planning on doing right, right, And it's not a radical change. It's just a shift to say, Locke and I and those like us should not have to live in fear anymore. And maybe that's what we're seeing with the mysterious Lieutenant right, that there are other people in the Breen culture who feel the same way, and this is a way for them to just say, you know, I don't want to be on some Giant three at the end of this yep. I just want to be free and I want my you know, life made to have the same. Right. Yeah, we definitely can say that all three of us are picking Mole for this episode. I've got it down as well. But her character is, you know, I've mentioned this before, She's very intelligent and she uses situations to fit what she needs and if the situation changes, she changes with it. But she does it in a way that she could take advantage of it, and she does it every time. If you if you've noticed it for the entire season, if something, if she confronted with something and that she wasn't expecting, she changes with it and is able to utilize that to put her into a position of advantage. She does it every single time. And she did it here to the biggest in the biggest moment of the entire season that none of us saw coming, none of us. And you know, I mean she almost put her position to as a leadership there, right, yep, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely in a position of influence, yeah right, and needing to know who to back until she can revive lock and then see where they go from there. Yeah, absolutely, all right. So, if you could be any character in this episode, who would it be? In line, Scott, I'm gonna go with the library book. The avatar seems like such a an interesting position to be in, to be able to basically, you know, hold all these clues and the kind of mysterious guidance for Burnham and just had that real calm, cool demeanor the whole thing. Meanwhile, holding on to the answers. I'm thinking specifically of that scene where all the lights are going down. The light is practically out and book is just kind of leafing through the labyrinths of the mind. I thought that was such a nice subtle It's not adding pressure to the situation. It's just letting those revelations from Burnham unfold. And I don't know, it just seemed like a fun position to be in with everybody else under so much like life or death stress good pick yeah, good pick Wayne? What about you? Well? I thought it might be a weird answer, but after talking about her earlier, maybe not. I want to say, hire the archivist. I would love to be her because I mean, you know, the Eternal Gallery, it seems like one of the most fascinating places I've ever seen on Star Trek, and you imagine having the run of the place and being able to learn so much about everything in the galaxy would be a dream come true to me. I mean, I love reading about facts and events I never heard of. I do it actually every night, just before I get to bed, I just, you know, open up a book and that I've never read and just read facts. So I love to learn, and she's just in that perfect place to be able to do it. I want to be here. It's funny. I thought it was gonna be the only one that picked Hyrel and here here Wayne beats me to her. No, I can cutely agree with you. The first off, I loved Lina Watco. I believe is how you pronounce her name? Who plays hirel I love the the giddiness of her. I love how much she's like a child. She loves her job, she loves where she's at, and she loves when people come to visit the library. I mean, she's at the perfect librarian. You know, she loves what she does, and when she sees people enjoying it too, she gets enjoyment out of that as well. And Elena played the part perfectly man, and I fell in love with her immediately, like once she popped off too. You know, I fell in love with this is gonna be a really cool character to get to know, And sure enough it really was. And you're right, Wayne, I would love to just be there all the time because the stuff that you could learn just never get bored. It would never end, It would never end at all. Of everything that's in that place just just craziness. But just yeah, I completely agree. I feel like I would want to have whatever they're using in Insurrection, where it was this ability to kind of slow down time, to have that kind of yeah, with that kind of affect given to the reading rooms, so it's like, oh my god, I could be here for hours, but Ye've done a couple of minutes and you're done, right idea? All right, So I didn't catch any, But were there any Easter eggs in this episode? Oh yeah, there were a lot of a lot of really good ones. Well. I mentioned on last week's podcast that I thought the archives was the the Effrosian race, and it turns out I was right. You know, that's the same race that the Federation President was in Star Trek sixty on Discovered Country, and I believe doing my research, I couldn't find any other references, but I believe this is the first time that we've ever seen this race appear on any of the television series outside of the Star Trek six and today there was also one in Star Trek four, so that that's a first right there for the TV shows. Nice and then a big one and I caught this one in Rightwake's This made me chuckle. But when Burnham is sent in the mind scape. It's by they used a nucleonic beam. This is the same thing that was used when the Katan Probe sent all those lifetime memories into Captain Picard in the next generation of Inner Light. Exactly the same. And the way they were monitoring her on the floor reminded me so much of a card when he was on the floor in the bridge. Oh and another one that that also made me laugh is this was a quick shot. I had to go back and check this to make sure I actually read this. But one of the books that was listed that Marina Derek said checked out of the archive was The Comprehensive Guide to te Luxian Hairstyles, which they should have given a copy of that book to Neelix because he definitely needed it. You see his hair. Another one is jet Reno. She mentions that she once visited the planet Tyspirea. We've seen that once before. That was that Renaissance fair like planets that Lieutenant Commander Andy Phillips was from from on the you know, he's the officer on the US of Soritos in lower decks. That's the plan that he came from. Touch. Yeah, and this isn't so much of ansterra. This is something I found on the internet when I was doing the research, just to see a little bit of info. But during the filming of this episode, actor Patrick quak Chune, who plays Commander Reese, said, when he was filming his scenes on the Discovery Bridge, he was doing it while his wife was in labor with their first child. Oh god, oh good god. Wow. But that's a lot, Wayne, clearly I missed a lot, and you picked it all up. Good, well done, as always? Yeah, as always? All right, what are we looking at it? Episode nine? Guys, Like I said, we're almost to the end of this season, almost at the end of the series. So what do we think is going to happen? I believe the next episode is called Lagrange Point, That's right, and I guess it's directed by yes, Jonathan Frakes, mister finally Winnings. But there was that clip. Why I think we say this every time, but that clip really didn't show us hardly anything. I mean, didn't tell us anything about that episode. What was it? It looked like they've made partial repairs and they do a very nausea inducing jump to where the breed is was. It looked like they spun with the ship, but it didn't look like it went very well. No. You know, the one thing I do want to say, just from this episode and from looking at that clip, is the way is the Discovery is really taking a beating. It's making me start to wonder if the ship is actually going to survive the season. I don't know, it might not. You're right now, a freaking beating. It's really wrecked up now, yea. Yeah, there were some interesting things that I saw online. I forget where it was. It may have been on the Star Trek website, but references to Discovery is Discovery A m oh yeah? Is that kind of an interesting slip or is that something that's always been There's want I'm thinking too. I mean, if if the ship doesn't survive, you know, I was thinking, well, maybe they're going to show a new thirty second century version of the Discovery. The Discovery A. You know, it could happen, you know, it could and I guess along those lines, if they've decided to decommission Sport Drive Tech. Yeah mm hmm. You know. You know it was mentioned too that they went back and they filmed more scenes for that final episode, because you know, they didn't know at the time they were originally filming it that it was going to be the series finale. That could very well fit in those scenes. I could see them doing a shot of, you know, a whole scene where they're getting a new ship. Yeah. Absolutely, yeah, I'd be interesting to see at the end for sure. No, no, through again, man, we've only got two episodes left. I mean I think he's Yeah, I think he's back next next episode. I'm not certain, but I know he's supposed to be back. He is coming back, they said that. But I think he's go back next episode. I hope. So I really do missing Yeah, I do too, And you know, I appreciate everybody on the bridge, but I miss our core pilots. Yeah. Oh yeah. So hopefully they have a chance to you know, interact again. Yeah, we hope. So all right, well, Wayne and Scott thanks again as always enjoining me and discussing Star Trek. It's always fun. All right, long will he rain. As always, thanks to our listeners for joining us. Haling frequencies are always open for you to share your thoughts, comments and questions. You can email us at a film by Podcast at gmail dot com, or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and other media platforms. Let us know what you thought of the episode and you might get mentioned on an upcoming show. You can also find all the Phasers Set This downe episodes online at a film by podcast dot com, and if you're looking for more exclusive content and swag, send some Latinum our way through Patreon. See you next time for another episode of Phasers Set to Stun