This is a transcript of our fourteenth season two recap, available here.
Saru [from episode]: Goodbye. Captain Pike.
Captain Pike [from episode]: Goodbye my friends. My family.
re:Discovery theme plays.
Ben: Hello and welcome to re:Discovery, the Star Trek recap podcast which promises not to shave off its cool beard without warning when you’re already having all the feelings. I’m Science Officer Ben McKenzie and as always, I’m joined by Captain Carla Donnelly. Captain I need to ask you what did you see happen to Discovery?
Carla: It just went boom Ben.
Ben: Well I’m going to have plenty of feelings and questions and they might go boom too as we discuss Such Sweet Sorrow, part two of the big finale of Season 2 of Star Trek Discovery. There’s no denying it’s epic and emotionally satisfying on so many levels but it leaves us with so many questions. And maybe it doesn’t wrap up as many loose ends as it thinks it does.
Carla: WHAT?!
Ben: Yeah, we’ll get to that, all right, but we start where we left off: the Section 31 fleet under Control’s, um, control has Discovery and Enterprise surrounded and Captain’s Pike and Saru are sending their crews to battle stations. The plan remains the same: get the new Red Angel suit working so Burnham can open a wormhole to the future taking Discovery and the spheres advanced A.I. data far into the future, out of Control’s grasp. Enterprise and a fleet of hundreds of armed shuttles and repair craft will hold off the enemy until the suit is ready and keep them from getting between Discovery and the wormhole or following it through. That’s all easier said than done as Controleland reveals he’s not outnumbered: the Section 31 ships detach hundreds of tiny drone fighters. It’s time for an epic space battle! There’s lots of phasers and explosions in space and soon both ship’s bridges have fire, smoke and bits of rocky debris all over them in true Star Trek things-are-serious fashion.
Carla: Pew pew pew!
Ben: Everyone is in on the fight including Po aboard a stolen shuttle. Aboard Discovery Reno and Tilly raced to meet the science team with the now charged time Crystal catching up to them just as Stamets is impaled by debris from damage. In the shuttle bay Spock powers, up the suit and gets into a shuttle to guide Michael. Discovery drops her shields for a moment and the two head out to a safe distance to initiate the wormhole, a fleet of other shuttles providing cover. But while the shields are down Controleland beams aboard Discovery and enters the bridge, shooting the bridge crew before heading off to find the sphere data! But no one dies; Michael’s vision isn’t quite coming to pass. Michael and Spock land on some debris at a safe distance as a photon torpedo lodges in the Enterprise’s saucer – another part of Michael’s vision. Number One and Admiral Cornwall head to the torpedo to try and disarm it. Meanwhile Discovery’s shields on the verge of being disabled, and they won’t last long without them – or be able to go through the wormhole. Just as all looks grim, Tyler arrives with the cavalry L’Rell’s massive Cleave ship plus a squadron of Ba’ul fighters flown by Kelpians including Saru sister Siranna. WHAT?! Michael can’t get the suit to fly into the future though and realises it’s because she needs to go back in time and set the red signals to prepare everything for this battle. Evolving the Kelpians into warriors getting the time Crystal recruiting Reno and Po to make it work and establishing a safe harbor in the future: Terralysium. Aboard Discovery, Georgiou and Nhan team up for an epic fight with Leland, while Tilly takes Stamets to sickbay before heading off to fix the ship’s shields. Hugh has returned to Discovery to be with Paul, and puts his husband in a healing coma, promising they’ll be together from now on, as a family. At the same time aboard Enterprise, Number One and Admiral Cornwall discovered the torpedo is 15 minutes from detonation and the closest blast door, which will prevent the blast from completely disabling the ship, is jammed open. Michael finishes programming her jumps, and leaps into the past…
Carla: In the incredibly psychedelic sequence that is possibly my favorite in Discovery thus far-
Ben: Mmmm.
Carla: – we see Michael make her five jumps as the Red Angel. We get to see her point of view which doubles as a nice recap as she leaves her bursts all over the galaxy. On Discovery Nhan, Controleland and Georgiou are fighting it out in a corridor that is sporadically losing gravity. The fight sequence is essentially unreal and bore many squeals of delight from me. We truly do not deserve Michelle Yeo. Georgiou lures Controleland into the spore drive lab – but why? Cornwall and Number One are trying to no avail to deactivate the torpedo. Time is running out. Pike orders Number One back to the bridge and he takes her place. Katrina Cornwall tells Pike that she can close the blast door manually from the inside. There is 90 seconds left and no other options. Pike tries to bargain with her but they run out of time. Pike leaves and watches with utter dismay as the torpedo is detonated, Cornwall sacrificing her life for the Enterprise crew. Pike informs all hands that the Admiral has been lost.
Michael returns from all of her jumps. Spock’s shuttle is broken, he cannot return to Discovery, and therefore cannot come to the future with Michael and the crew. In a tear jerking scene, the two say their forever goodbyes. Michael in older sister mode counsels Spock to “find that person who seems farthest from you” and to accept those who reach out to him into his life. Michael promises Spock that the seventh signal will be for him to let him know that she’s okay. They tell each other “I love you” before Spock is beamed to the Enterprise. In the lab Georgiou lures Controleland into the spore drive and magnetizes as it slowly splitting him apart nanobot by nanobot. In a show full of great screams, Alan van Sprang’s last time on camera was truly epic. We’ll miss you Leland.
Okay. It’s go time. Michael flies outwards to open up the wormhole. The crew’s saying goodbye to Pike and the Enterprise. A montage of Siranna, Po, Spock, Tyler had me blubbering like a baby. Discovery speeds towards the sixth signal: the guiding light to the wormhole, the crew facing towards their future.
Cut to San Francisco. Tyler, Number One, Pike and Spock are being officially interviewed individually by Star Fleet. They all swear that Discovery exploded and Spock suggests to maintain the safety of the Federation that all reference to Discovery and her crew become wiped from the record and be punishable by treason if ever spoken of again. Tyler is officially promoted to Commander of Section 31. The episode wraps with Spock’s narration. Many months passed with no sign from Michael and the crew. Spock is reinstated onto Enterprise and we see him sparkly and clean shaven in his blue science uniform on the bridge. It was a beautiful moment that passes the baton and also has sent our crew into the unknown future.
Ben! Are you excited that Discovery is cleaved from cannon now and it’s creating a new future for Star Trek?
Ben: Oh yeah, absolutely. And I was so happy that everybody, well, pretty much everyone made it. I mean obviously a lot of people died, but only one like, you know, named character. They got off pretty lightly in that respect. I was sure lots of people were gonna die.
Carla: But I was also like so surprised that there was all these other people that were going that we didn’t know about.
Ben: Yeah. I was really surprised by that too because when she meets the bridge crew in the corridor in the previous episode they’re like “We’re coming with you”. And that’s a big deal, because it’s like this is a one way trip into the future.
Carla: No!
Ben: “We want to come with you because we’re your family, we’re your friends.” And then there’s all these other people and I’m like “What are you doing here, you didn’t sign up for this! You’re supposed to be out there in a shuttle blowing shit up with lasers, not hanging out on Discovery!” And the sickbay is full of people the science lab is full of people.
Carla: I know! Are they supposed to be going or are they just like casualties of war? Like literally and figuratively.
Ben: Yeah I don’t know. I just don’t know.
Carla: Because we know that Hugh came back on purpose. But what about everybody else in the medical bay?
Ben: Yeah I thought they were all supposed to be gone. But maybe the bridge crew was speaking on behalf of a large portion of the Discovery crew, because it’s not clear how many… I mean clearly all of the people who were piloting shuttles are not on Discovery so they’re not going.
Carla: Right.
Ben: But are they the only ones who left because you don’t see any Discovery crew on the Enterprise at any point nobody’s wearing Discovery uniforms they’re all wearing the new Enterprise style uniforms so I guess?
Carla: Who knows who’s going.
Ben: Yeah and it doesn’t make… I mean I was a bit confused because the original plan was they were going to have Discovery fly through on remote autopilot right but it would never have made it because it would have had the shit blown out of it by all of the Section 31 ships. So they clearly needed a crew, but I thought it was just going to be that skeleton crew of just the people that we know.
Carla: Right. And I thought they were all just going because they love Michael, like, not just ’cause they love Michael obviously. And this is the thing that I really love about this like tying the whole theme of misfits, and chosen family, you know. Like, that actually… That move was one of the moves that made the most sense to me out of the whole Discovery storyline, that they were all going to go with her.
Ben: Oh yeah.
Carla: I was so still so surprised and heartened you know.
Ben: Yeah, yeah. But yeah when I saw like the sickbay full of people I was just like…
Carla: Yeah, what the fuck? What is going on? I mean…
Ben: I mean it makes sense they had that the doctor stayed like well otherwise people are going to die. But where did all these people who are in the sickbay come from?
Carla: I know!
Ben: Yeah. So I was a bit surprised by that. It’s questionable but I guess that means that I guess we’ll find out when they when we get to the other side in Season 3. We’ll find out how big a crew complement Discovery has and where they’ve really ended up because it’s…
Carla: We don’t know about that either.
Ben: They’re not really sure. I mean they kept talking in the last episode about how they weren’t sure where they were going to end up. So, yeah… I guess we’ll find out.
Carla: Well also because Mama’s suit didn’t really work properly the first time so…
Ben: And this is a copy of that one. So yeah. Yeah.
Carla: And Michael you know it’s not an old hand, so to speak, at operating it. So let’s see where they end up.
Ben: Yeah she just got that one YouTube video that she watched. A YouTube tutorial from her Mum: “How to fly a time travel suit.”
Carla: Dude can we just get into like how… I don’t want to keep harping on about the red bursts, but when does she, I mean obviously the seventh one is coming from the future. So does she… You know there’s a point where they all bleep at the same time.
Ben: Yeah. Yeah.
Carla: When the fuck does that happen?
Ben: We don’t know.
Carla: In the future. From the future.
Ben: This is what I mean when I said that I feel like they don’t tie up all the loose ends in this episode.
Carla: You think that’s on purpose?
Ben: No I think it’s not. I think they’ve just overlooked. I think they just gone we don’t care because it was very emotionally satisfying. I want to say that upfront like I didn’t get to the end of the episode and go “I’m so annoyed about these continuity errors that I can’t enjoy this!” because it was very emotionally satisfying.
Carla: Yeah.
Ben: I did feel like there’s a lot of things that don’t make sense about what happens in this episode. For number one last episode they very clearly established that the time crystal is overcharged and once you make a jump with it that’s it, it’s going to blow up. She makes, like, at least six jumps.
Carla: Yeah!
Ben: How the fuck does she do that?! I mean maybe you could argue that going 950 years in the future is a big jump that’s going to blow it out and maybe it’s easier to go into the past or it’s easier to only go back like you know less than a year, because I don’t know that we know exactly how long it’s been between the bursts. I think it’s I think it’s like it feels like about six months’ worth of time. Which isn’t just because that’s about… no longer, that’s longer than we’ve been watching the show. But every now and then they do mentioned like that was months ago. And I think it’s only it’s relatively real time it’s like a few months have passed. So maybe it’s not a big deal to jump back a little bit in time. But they don’t establish that. They say that “you make one jump. That’s it that’s all you got” and then all of a sudden he’s like “shit I need to make five other jumps.” But it can’t be just five, because as you say who goes back and does the coordinated you know seven bursts. And she can’t do it now because she doesn’t know where the seventh one is going to come from.
Carla: That’s right.
Ben: So she must do it later.
Carla: She’s doing it from the future.
Ben: Yeah. Which means the thing must be working, right? Like they must still find a way to repair it, or something, I don’t know. But then also she makes more than one jump to each location because the burst happens and then vanishes. And then she goes back to the same place, like on the Hiawatha, there’s the burst which leaves them there. And then by the time they’ve got there and they’ve done all their stuff she appears again to see herself.
Carla: There’s so much wonky about this also like where the fuck does the red burst come from?
Ben: Well yeah, they don’t establish that either.
Carla: What is that? That’s a part of her suit?
Ben: And did she watch like 16 other YouTube tutorials to know how to use the advanced stuff in the suit? Because if it was her in the suit the whole time… this is the other thing.
Carla: (laughs) There’s so much wrong with.
Ben: Well remember when we were talking about the plan to trap the Red Angel? And they’re like “well she always turns up to save you. Yeah it must be you. Yeah”. Then it’s not her mum.
Carla: Yeah.
Ben: But.. And it works because her mum does show up to save her but her mum is not the one who showed up previously to save her.
Carla: I know.
Ben: It was her!
Carla: Yeah.
Ben: It doesn’t make any sense. And then…
Carla: When they showed that I was like “what! what are you doing?!”.
Ben: Yeah, you’re fucking it up guys. And also yeah she must… she’s somehow learned to use the awesome advance technology in the suit because it’s also revealed she’s the one who goes back to Kaminar at the end of that sequence and destroys all the Ba’ul technology. And I’m like “how the fuck do you know how to do that?” So yeah I think they thought this will tie everything up nicely and you like no it doesn’t actually make sense guys.
Carla: There’s always a bit of like “it’s temporal!” Shrugs emojis, guys.
Ben: Yeah it’s still there’s still some gaps there though. I don’t know.
Carla: But I tell you what they I think they really got right.
Ben: Yeah. What was that?
Carla: Which was I love, I love where Spock’s story ended. Like really that passing of the baton to him going now on to his adventures again on the Enterprise and what they did with his character and his development as a person, and where he’s now leaping off into where he goes into canon from now. I thought that was really awesome. What about you? Or did you think it was cheesy?
Ben: No I liked it. I did like it. And there’s that nice bookending where the whole season begins with Michael talking about Spock, and then ends with Spock talking about Michael which is kind of a lovely symmetry there that’s really nice. But I don’t know I, I also, her advice to him I felt was a bit on the nose.
Carla: It was bit crammed in there. (laughs)
Ben: Well I mean I was I just didn’t know like I was listening to it and I actually didn’t immediately go “oh I understand what that means”. I’m like, “Who the fuck are you talking about?”
Carla: Kirk.
Ben: Who’s the person farthest from you? Is he really?
Carla: They’re pretty polar opposite.
Ben: Or is it Bones?
Carla: Oh, well.
Ben: I mean they do have a very intimate relationship. He shares his katra with him. (both laugh) I don’t know. It’s kind of both of them but it’s…it makes sense. I mean they do become best friends later on, but it also… I don’t know, I feel like this was not the moment for that. Like I didn’t want them… It felt a little bit like cheapening the friendship he has with Pike.
Carla: There was quite a few things shoehorned in there but I don’t think it really did because I’ve said it before… I think it really sets up why he was so like crazily devoted to Pike like you know like almost crazy romantic way. You know for everything that happened in that episode which is just so out of character for everything else that he does. You know I thought it did a good…it was a good way of kind of explaining that.
Ben: Yeah and we get a good sense that they’ve been through some shit together and they really yeah that bond is strong and I mean and it’s impressive that they managed to do that when Spock was not in most of the season.
Carla: Yeah. That’s true.
Ben: Or at least a good half of it you know and when he did first turn up, he was not okay.
Carla: Did you think they were actually going to go?
Ben: Did I think Spock was going to go?
Carla: No. Like did you think they were actually going to make it through the wormhole?
Ben: Yeah I did. I did.
Carla: I didn’t. I had…
Ben: Oh really.
Carla: I realized that I had so much distrust for this whole portion of the franchise, I was like until they actually went through, and even then I was like have they really gone? Like until the…
Ben: Well they’ve done it in a way that means we can do whatever we want next season. You don’t know what happened. Yeah like maybe they end up in the past.
Carla: And then also like when Stamets copped the hit to the chest I was like I thought he was going to die.
Ben: Yeah I thought he was going to die. ‘Cause like I said-
Carla: So then I was like NO.
Ben: -the death count was so low among the main characters.
Carla: Yeah.
Ben: And I guess this is a show where it’s not it’s not that kind of show. You know it’s not Game of Thrones, it’s not a J.K. Rowling end-of-the-series novel, right. It’s not like we’re going to kill off all your favorite characters but I did feel like to make this epic we had to lose some people and we only lost one and it was a character who was never part of either crew in the first place. I mean I like Admiral Cornwall. But I wasn’t like, “oh, I’m so sad that she’s died”. And also it really felt like “I’m going to die so you don’t have to”. And that kind of felt a little bit like oh boy you know he can’t die anyway.
Carla: Yeah. So what was with her cryptic like “this isn’t where your story ends”? Like…
Ben: How do you know that?
Carla: I know.
Ben: What are you saying?
Carla: And he’s like… are you picking up what I’m putting down. He’s looking at her like “what the fuck” everything has got double meanings now for him poor thing.
Ben: I do have to say that whole bit that whole storyline with the torpedo is ridiculous. Like why didn’t you just make more of the important bits of the ship out of whatever that blast door is made out of like that is… It’s like the joke that’s on Red Dwarf…
Carla: What you couldn’t like pull it and roll under the door? Like.
Ben: Yeah well also Yeah. Because like it didn’t…
Carla: I mean surely Pike could have helped.
Ben: It closed fast but not that fast. Like you’d at least have a go. Like even if you lost a couple of legs it’s better than getting blown up into space right. (both laugh). But I mean it’s not like she’s going to go back for a hat or something. But like get one of those robot repair drones in there, it’s got arms, it could pull the thing!
Carla: Right?!
Ben: I don’t know. I thought there was a lot of other solutions that felt a bit contrived.
Carla: Like someone’s got to die.
Ben: But seriously one blast door protects all that side… Pike stands on the other side of that door when it goes off, and he’s fine, and the whole front of the ship gets blown up. And I’m like “There’s no other things made out of whatever that blast doors made out of on any of that part of the ship? This is ridiculous.”
Carla: Right.
Ben: So I thought that was a weird solution and I was not yeah I just felt it just… I got back into it emotionally it was fine emotionally it made sense I was onboard but just from a logical point of view I was just like this is nonsense. There’s a joke in Red Dwarf about this situation where they’re like why don’t they just make the whole spacecraft out of the thing the black box is made out of? And, um… Yeah. I don’t know.
Carla: I realized that I pretty much spent the whole episode like I was just waiting to see if they went because I didn’t trust that it was going to happen. And there were so many times at that point where I was just like going to fast forward to the end to see whether it happened or not. And then I was going to be able to watch the episode.
Ben: (laughs) Carla I am I am shocked by this.
Carla: I’m so dirty. But yeah I am pumped. Did Georgiou went with them? So I don’t know what happens.
Ben: Well she’s got yeah because she’s got to get back somehow.
Carla: Well we know she’s going to be in the Section 31 show but well do we really? like they’re saying there’s a Section 31 show and they’re like putting pictures of her all around but…
Ben: She’s supposed to be the star.
Carla: Oh so they…
Ben: The captain right.
Carla: Right.
Ben: So there’s some storyline that’s going on.
Carla: Yeah and Tyler, well he was, his rank is commander of and I’m not sure if he’s been made captain.
Ben: Well they kind of put him in charge.
Carla: Yeah…
Ben: But they don’t have any ships anymore.
Carla: I mean they say they’re going to say “we’re going to make it official”. Oh yeah that’s right.
Ben: They blew up all their ships. Yeah. That was the whole Section 31 fleet.
Carla: I think I read that that’s sort of like oh yeah that’s the article that you sent me with like they’re going to make it underground they’re going to explain they’re going to bridge that gap between what Section 31 was now to the underground organization that it becomes by Deep Space Nine and yeah…
Ben: Which makes sense. I mean here it is very much like an official black ops wing of Star Fleet whereas later on it’s like Star Fleet like doesn’t even know what they’re doing.
Carla: Yeah.
Ben: And I think that I mean look there’s 100 years of 110 years or so of time for that to happen in. So that’s fine. That’s not I don’t see that as a problem and I think that could be quite interesting how they show that evolution depending on… I mean we also don’t know exactly when the Section 31 show is set.
Carla: That’s true.
Ben: We don’t know much about it yet. So, it could be set in the Discovery era, maybe it’s set 50 years later we don’t know. It could be set any time. It’d be nice if they set it 50 years later because they probably just like in that same article which we’ll link to in the show notes Kurtzman was talking about how you know now they’ve freed themselves from the constraints of the canon that they were enmeshed in. They don’t want that for the Section 31 show. I mean that’s even worse for that show because they’re trying to operate on the fringes and stuff. Yeah. So I don’t know. It’ll be interesting to see what that and what happens with that and how they get Georgiou back for the for that show. But if the red I mean if the angel suit could do several jumps…
Carla: Yeah. Yeah. If they could get it working properly.
Ben: Well I mean they could go to…
Carla: Cause mama bird’s obviously got it working at full capacity from the future. Yes, so she has the ability, she can be wherever she wants.
Ben: They just need another time crystal. They could go back to Boreth. I mean but then this one hasn’t blown up yet so we don’t know what’s happening with it.
Carla: And that’s the other thing I was like if they’re in the future.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: Why would she set the red burst like three months later? Like why would she make him wait for three months?
Ben: Yeah, they’ve got a time machine.
Carla: They could. She could have just done it like then.
Ben: And how could she guarantee she could do it anyway because the suits not supposed to work. So yeah there’s a lot of questions here and maybe some of those are like things they’ll answer. But I feel like if you’re going to jump 950 years in the future to escape canon, you don’t even want the canon left behind by the previous season of the same show, you want to free yourself from that.
Carla: Well maybe I just won’t even be explained. That’s it it’s over.
Ben: Well I hope that they do. Just because there’s a lot of baggage that is there. I think for the people left behind. They’re all like clearly it all makes sense to them and they’re not worried about it but they don’t know everything that happened. So, I think it’s for it’s for us the viewers particularly people like me who like continuity and get enmeshed in it. I mean I look and I enjoy it. So, figuring this out could be fun. And if they give us even some hints in the next season, I will be happy to try and stitch those things together. But yeah, I think they have left a few things. More so I mean yeah it is. There are a few other questions too.
Carla: Well shoot because I don’t have much more for this except, I’ve got one note that says crab man’s head is huge.
Ben: It is huge.
Carla: We saw it in profile. Jesus Christ. I loved the split screen.
Ben: Oh, that was great the three way split screen.
Carla: It just made me yearn for more of it. So hopefully there’s more of that in the new season.
Ben: I also have a question about this about what we learn about Control in this episode because they talk about the fact that all of the ships are being coordinated from one place and you’re like “okay great. That kind of makes sense”.
Carla: Isn’t that Leland?
Ben: Yeah but also that makes… But then why would you do that. Yeah it is Leland but that doesn’t make that I mean I had some questions about that I’ve ret-conned it, not ret-conned it I’ve continuity explained it myself I have a head canon for why this makes sense because if you are a super advanced A.I. who can control multiple starships at once you wouldn’t put yourself in one place and make yourself vulnerable you’d distribute yourself across all the ships you’d make copies of yourself or you’d have bits of yourself here and there you wouldn’t exist in a single physical location where you could be blown up you’d have backups upon backups and you’d be transmitting yourself across places but then I thought well if it’s going to be Leland I mean yeah for narrative purposes we need a face for the enemy and Leland is a great face because he’s so punchable, but not the actor, the actor’s delightful, but you know, because he’s doing evil sort of work.
Carla: Of course.
Ben: Although I think it’s quite mean how they keep calling him Leland, like there’s that great bit where Saru says “Now this is going to look like a human, but it’s not a human.” And I’m like “Yeah, you tell ’em Saru!” But then they just call him Leland as if he’s the same person. And he’s, like, he doesn’t exist anymore, he’s just a body being controlled by nanotechnology. But I guess what I came up to was that Control is so advanced that it can’t live in the computers on the ships. It can only live in the advanced nanotechnology and control the ships from there, so it’s got like a subroutine that’s controlling all the ships, but its actual consciousness is too advanced to live in those computers, it can only exist in the human brain augmented by nanotechnology, since it’s hard to escape from where it was before. So, I don’t know. But then it existed in multiple places because we know that it can do that because it did it with that other guy.
Carla: I think like as it evolves it gets bigger you know what I mean?
Ben: I guess so. And they killed it because it was a conscious being. I mean it was evil and was going to kill everybody. And I guess it makes sense that it was Georgiou that did it because although Nhan was bang up for it.
Carla: Yes, she was, she was ready.
Ben: I liked that they teamed up. That was cool. Yeah yeah yeah. And they had the epic fight in the corridor.
Carla: Dude that was crazy.
Ben: It was awesome. We can come back to that and Short Chats. I’ve got something I want to tell you about.
Carla: I don’t have anything else for this. You go to Short Chats. do you have anything else?
Ben: I got a few other things. Do we really believe that Discovery is going to be kept a secret? Like there were a lot of people at that battle and not all of them are Star Fleet crew, like the Klingons know about it, the Kelpiens know about it…
Carla: Klingons don’t care.
Ben: Klingons don’t give a shit. Oh, and the Klingons, know about do the Klingons, know about Tyler? He’s on the fucking bridge of their ship.
Carla: What the fuck.
Ben: We got told that would bring the whole empire down.
Carla: And they’re like the D7’s coming, didn’t get to see it!
Ben: No, I didn’t get to see it.
Carla: That was mean!
Ben: And I was so confused about how like how evenly matched up that was because it’s like we’ve got two much bigger starships and we’ve got this fleet of like 200 like little repair craft and shuttles that we’ve equipped with phasers and shit and you’ve got 30 medium size ships plus your hundreds of you know automated drone fighter things which are cool but I’m like also aren’t the Section 31 ships equipped with all super advanced technology that the rest of Star Fleet doesn’t have the cloaking devices and super advanced weaponry and shit like that? Surely, they should just be able to blow the shit out of them but they don’t and they only launch one photon torpedo the whole time and it doesn’t go off immediately unlike how advanced is this technology. So, I think that that was a bit weird and I think it would have been fine except they called attention to it by having the photon torpedo be such a big plot point.
Carla: I’m not sure Section 31 is armed to the teeth though. I think they’re supposed to be nimble, small and nimble.
Ben: I guess that makes sense.
Carla: And they’re not supposed to be drawing attention to themselves with going into battle or having weapons or anything like that. Third that kind of made sense to me.
Ben: Okay. Yeah I buy that I buy that but I mean they should have had at least I guess I guess the other mitigating circumstances they don’t want to destroy Discovery so they can’t like blow up the Enterprise so badly that it destroys Discovery and wrecks the data on it. But also, you know what else I want to know. Where was the sphere data in all of this? Like it was it was protecting itself when it was on Discovery by itself. Why is it not helping is this pitched battle?
Carla: Didn’t Georgiou say that she transferred it to that thing that she was holding in her hand.
Ben: I don’t know if that’s true though because would it let itself be transferred.
Carla: I don’t know.
Ben: Yeah that’s a good question.
Carla: That was what I was what I thought.
Ben: It does want to be copied.
Carla: Because it wasn’t on the computer. That’s why Leland was Leland was trying to find it and it wasn’t there.
Ben: Yeah. It doesn’t seem to care who has it as long as it exists. Yeah like that which makes sense. That was the spheres motivation. I want my knowledge to live on after me. So, I guess it doesn’t care who copies it where as long as it’s not being deleted.
Carla: Oh, know that thing was a transmitter so Georgiou was like I’ve transmitted it somewhere. Yeah. And then Leland is like “oh you put it in the spore drive because that’s the thing you want to protect the rest of or some shit”. Yeah. So, she’s transmitted it somewhere. Who knows?
Ben: Oh no. This this this directive from Star Fleet you can’t talk about this.
Carla: Well I think its question about that like they’re getting interviewed and it’s like well none of this shit that they’ve been doing exists on any logs anyway. I’m like that’s fucked up.
Ben: Yeah. Like it’s the future. Like surely the computers are recording everything that happens.
Carla: Like aren’t they checking in? Aren’t they like do you know what I mean?
Ben: Well they weren’t checking in because their communications were jammed which is why they didn’t get any backup.
Carla: But any of it about the red bursts, about the angel. I guess they didn’t they just didn’t know that they were building the suit.
Ben: Yeah well, they probably didn’t report that because they didn’t want…
Carla: Or the missions to get the time crystal or anything like that.
Ben: Yeah well, they didn’t want Control to know that they were doing it. Yeah because Control didn’t know like they didn’t, they didn’t specifically. Yeah, they went after Michael but they didn’t make Michael a priority because…
Carla: So, they went fully dark?
Ben: Yeah, I think they did yeah. Which makes sense. Yeah. Because who knows how Control is maybe listening in?
Carla: So, while not fully docked because Admiral Cornwall was onboard so she obviously knows what’s going on with her armada.
Ben: Yeah but they couldn’t communicate.
Carla: Exactly. And now she’s dead so.
Ben: Yeah, they did say it at some point they only had ship to ship communications they couldn’t contact Star Fleet. So yeah, I guess that makes sense.
SFX: Swoosh!
Ben: Now it’s time for re:Discovery Short Chats, where we talk news, trivia and anything related to Discovery, and also any questions you have for us. You can still follow our socials and get in touch even though this is pretty much our last episode. Captain, we got a few questions and comments about the ending of the series, as you would expect.
Carla: Sure. Yeah, we did. Yeah we got a comment from Adam Ford, long e-mail but basically the question was “do you think Star Trek TV show can work well within a novel in chapters format, which is like the new TV format, or is the Star Trek concept too closely associated with the previous story by story format that the previous six series observes?” So, I’ve actually been thinking about this a lot because the one, the one anachronism that it has is that because it’s on CBS it’s cut for commercials and I really noticed that.
Ben: Yeah. Because it’s like got four acts each episode and there’s like a fade to black every time.
Carla: There’s a cliff-hanger. There’s a cliff-hanger each, you know, each cut which I just find so antiquated and hilarious.
Ben: Does that mean that there’s ads on CBS All Access?
Carla: Not on All Access I don’t think.
Ben: Do they also broadcast it on actual CBS?
Carla: Yeah.
Ben: Oh, I didn’t know that.
Carla: Yeah.
Ben: Ah there you go. Okay. What have you been thinking about the episodic sort of story of the week format?
Carla: Well it’s funny because I didn’t notice that until you put it quite early on.
Ben: Oh right.
Carla: I just feel like that format would be odd now. And also, like back when it was like a 22-season episode, season commission, you know you would get you big blockbuster episodes then you get a whole bunch of shit in there as well because they had no budget. You know sometimes it was creative and it was really interesting. A lot of the time it was like quite bizarre and terrible.
Ben: It’s really hard to pump out 22 quality scripts a year ever with a writer’s room.
Carla: Especially sci fi you don’t like that especially back then required quite significant investment in terms of practical effects or digital effects. So now I’m just like I love the episodes are as long as they go for. And you know there’s never one set episode length and you know we have a shorter season but the quality is a lot higher but I do kind of miss a bit of the cheesiness. What about you?
Ben: Well I mean I think you can have it a bit both ways I think.
Carla: We did have that last season with some of the standalones.
Ben: We did a little bit. I mean they did tie back in but I but I think you had that one you had the really strong arc at the end of the sort of well towards the end of the Mirror Universe. So I think you had like smaller arcs in the first season but they didn’t have a lot of standalone episodes. It was a bit more of a hybrid show. I think if you look at no one will be surprised when I mentioned Doctor Who. If you look at Doctor Who now like the modern Doctor Who is a kind of hybrid model. Some seasons more so than others. There’s still very definitely a separate adventure of the week but then there’s also a bit of a meta narrative over the top. And you get like episodes that really do standalone. But the character development and little bits of the episode will push it along. And so I think you can hybridise it you can do a bit of both and maybe I mean if they’re stuck in the future and they can go anywhere and see anything maybe that’s what Season 3 will be like maybe they will have crazy adventures because they’re essentially on a five year mission in the future.
Carla: I do miss it. I think you know it gives different writers opportunities to develop characters in you know more linear ways and more lateral ways I should say the adventure of the week was also like less stressful like I feel like this you know full novelization thing is like really super stressful. I think you can still have cliff-hangers in that and still sort of keep people guessing and wanting to see it each week. But I just mainly I miss it from the character development because I felt like those adventures of the week really did significant as I said lateral development of the characters. So I miss that.
Ben: Easier to focus on different characters each week too.
Carla: Yeah and give them a different thing to do. You know. Yeah just a couple more comments. From Lachlan Kingsford: “So did that look like 2001: A Space Odyssey to you?”
Ben: Oh what when she’s going through the wormhole.
Carla: Whoa.
Ben: Yeah that was cool. Just the sparks like flying an empty void.
Carla: Oh my god it was cool.
Ben: Yeah yeah.
Carla: And also, like you know the slice of time. Spinning around so fucking great.
Ben: I also thought actually when Discovery went through the wormhole that also that also seemed a bit 2001 like with all the colours and people being blurred it was very Star Trek: The Motion Picture as well actually.
Carla: You could easily just put the 2001: A Space Odyssey score over the top of that.
Ben: Surely someone’s done that. Going to have to find that on the Internet.
Carla: That’s it. I just want to do a correction. Don’t know if Reno is leaving on on I’m on some kind of psychedelic drugs. I’m sure I read it somewhere but I could not confirm that. So, I really hope that she’s staying because she’s on Discovery looks like she’s being positioned to have more of a presence next season.
Ben: So yeah well Stamets is you know in a coma. That was a bit weird how the one love scene they get is like Hugh going “It’s okay Paul. I’m putting you in a coma, go to sleep now” (both laugh). Uh yeah, I did that, I cried though. Yeah, I cried. I cried. I was so happy.
Carla: It felt it felt really genuine.
Ben: It did.
Carla: And I’m like “Okay great. I’m good. Let’s put let us, let everyone put the past behind us”.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: Yeah.
Ben: I think my misgivings about how they did that progression of their relationship in little bits were really overcome by how much both actors but particularly Hugh as an actor really just sold it and gave it an emotional reality that I was just like “oh I’m so happy but it’s so sad that you’re back together. He’s a look… he’s not dead but he’s not well. But I’m going to look after you. Oh beautiful”. Yeah. I cried. It was great. It was great. Now I had a couple of things that I wanted to talk about. I mentioned earlier I wanted to talk more about that cool fight sequence in the corridor. This totally reminded me of the Fred Astaire dance sequence from the film Royal Wedding. Have you seen this Carla?
Carla: No.
Ben: It’s this very famous he’s dancing in a house and he dances up the wall and onto the ceiling. And they do it by having a camera mounted on the floor but the whole set revolves. Yeah, I’m sure that’s what they did with this. I will post a link to it in the show notes.
Carla: There’s a few Michel Gondry film clips back in the day that did it.
Ben: Oh yeah. Yeah, you’re right. But I think Fred Astaire was like the first big one is from then I think it’s from the 50’s sometime.
Carla: Would have been psychedelic.
Ben: It’s pretty cool. I really dug that and it was just yeah – how great to see that done as a fight sequence. Now I got. Here’s something else for Short Chats. Carla. What does this ending mean for Zora?
Carla: Yes soo.
Ben: Where is she?
Carla: A lot of talk on “teh interwebs”.
Ben: Yeah tell me.
Carla: That even Zora could be a thousand years in the future from that point.
Ben: So, she could be two thousand years in the future?
Carla: Correct.
Ben: Wow.
Carla: Yeah.
Ben: And then there’s still human beings like with tattoos having wars. That’s a bit sad for them.
Carla: Well you know. But stupid is as stupid does.
Ben: And then they go back in time. Well the other possibility I thought of was that maybe Georgiou figures out a way to get back to her time using Discovery but leaving you know the Discovery crew without Discovery but then leaves it somewhere where they can find it and tells it to stay there. A thousand years so that it’s there when they need it so they can just get it back again.
Carla: Yeah that’s a good one.
Ben: So I don’t know if that’s…
Carla: Also another possibility is that Zora is already there and she can make herself known.
Ben: Oh yeah.
Carla: In the new season.
Ben: Yeah. Which would be another point in favour of her being in evolution of the sphere data. Who knows. I think they’ll be very if she does show up in the next season. I think the crew will be very wary of her. (both laugh) They have not had a good time with artificial intelligence they’ll be like “get away from us!”. Now there’s so many other Star Trek things happening Carla.
Carla: I’m not up to date on any of it. Give me the info.
Ben: Well just the TV shows. But we know so little about them we know this like at least four other shows going on. It’s crazy. So we’ve got the Section 31 show which we don’t know what’s happening with it. Hopefully Tyler is in it. I do want to say that he’s been left behind and I love him. I want to stick around so I hope he’s in the Section 31 show would make it would be weird if he wasn’t. We got the Picard show we know about that. We got Lower Decks the animated comedy show about the low ranking folks on a starship. We’ve got there’s been talk of a Star Fleet Academy show.
Carla: WHAT.
Ben: About younger Star Fleet people being made by a couple people who were involved with some teenage shows like I forget which one I think there might have been producers on The O.C. or something so there’s that which would be a bit like Wesley Crusher school days.
Carla: Is this like it geared to a younger audience kind of thing?
Ben: Teen audience yeah.
Carla: Yeah ok.
Ben: But I haven’t seen much about that.
Carla: I would watch the shit out of that.
Ben: Yeah I’ve only seen it mentioned a couple of times but if it hits the same spot as something like Riverdale or Sabrina like but with sci fi instead of fantasy I think that could be really awesome. And now of course there’s heaps of talk about a spinoff with Pike and the Enterprise crew and…
Carla: But is it real talk or is it just internet chatter?
Ben: Well I mean Kurtzman said he’s heard the fans that they’re keen for it. I personally am in two minds about it. I’m like we don’t need that.
Carla: No we have enough.
Ben: It would be fun. I mean I certainly like Spock and Number One and Pike I think they’re all great characters played by great actors doing great job but I don’t. I would be worried that you know it would be detrimental to whatever Discovery’s doing although now that Discovery is like off in the far future they’d be so separate and you’d have this one show that was like we’re playing in the canon sandpit and the other show that’s like we’ve gone off to do something fucking crazy. I don’t know. I’m in two minds about it. I don’t think we need it. I do want to see Anson Mount in more stuff but it doesn’t have to be Star Trek. I’d love to see Rebecca Romijin (“Ro-Main”) as you have taught me it’s pronounced not “Rom-jin” because I’ve been misreading it all these years so I’m very sorry Rebecca. If you listen I’m also sorry for calling you by your first name, we’re not on first name terms. You just seem really cool. But yeah. So I just there’s heaps of Star Trek stuff happening but we have no dates for any of this other stuff starting so we don’t know when it’s going to happen.
Carla: It’s fucking cool like I’m into it. And I love the breadth of it. I’ve got serious side eye on a new Enterprise show like they’ve struggled so hard with Discovery I think they’ve learned a lot of lessons that they’ll be able to kind of just easily transfer onto a new spinoff. But in terms of getting the appropriate you know writers room, show runner and stuff like that I think they would really struggle to get that magical combination that if they do this as a pre-Enterprise like their fans would be feral. And I think that I just don’t see that really kind of happening anytime soon.
Ben: You mean you don’t think they want it.
Carla: Oh no they would just be so all over combing like…
Ben: Oh yeah.
Carla: Look at what happened with this. Like this was just a shit show, you know what I mean in terms of fan reaction but I think if you’re going to put something that’s like that which is what is the gap of the next eight years or whatever in the Enterprise’s timeline as a show like it’s just going to have a level of scrutiny that on the one hand I’m sure they have a lot of canon there that they can just be paint by numbers, but at the same time anything that slightly deviated from that or you know what I mean like it would just…
Ben: Well I mean the thing is they’ve already there’s not that much talk about what happens to the Enterprise and Pike before you know actual Star Trek: The Original Series and they they’ve they already covered all the stuff we know about.
Carla: Because why they don’t take the comic book stuff or anything like that?
Ben: None of that is considered canon.
Carla: Yeah.
Ben: Yeah. And I also even if it was I think the TV show producers would be well advised to ignore it when they’re doing their own thing and just do what’s best for the TV show. Yeah because you can’t keep up with all that stuff and…
Carla: How much money do they have as well? Like really to do it well.
Ben: That’s a lot of shows. But I mean that’s also a point in the favour of maybe they’re thinking about it because why else would you build this, I mean the Enterprise bridge is not just a refit of the Discovery bridge. It’s pretty cool separate set and…
Carla: It is only one set though like…
Ben: I guess so yeah and the corridors could be just a redress of the Discovery ones so who knows. I don’t think they need to do it. I think if they do it I’ll certainly watch it because it’ll probably be cool. But yeah I think who knows?
Carla: I’m also at Star Trek overload a little bit because I’ve been watching Enterprise in tandem with this.
Ben: Yeah me too.
Carla: And I’m just like with all the new shows.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: Are we going to be at saturation point? I don’t have much more time to watch TV beyond that if I’m honest. (both laugh)
Ben: I’m not watching that much else at the moment, so I mean I’ve finished season 4 of Gotham and season 5 and on the streaming services yet. Most of the shows that I really care about are not making new seasons at the moment so you sort of you know. The other thing I did want to ask is, how wise is this to put Discovery a thousand years in the future? How different does it need to be for them to fulfil this promise of we’re going a thousand years in the future, canon’s behind us you know what’s going to happen? How can they possibly live up to that? I’m a bit worried about it.
Carla: Well I don’t know. Look every Star Trek show has a primary an alien enemy show and a general overarching mission or you know issue. The only thing that really differentiates to me all the Star Trek shows is the time that it’s set because of the technology that they have available to it. The aliens are different in the way that the aliens operate a different but all of those storylines pretty much followed the same trajectory.
Carla: The only thing that’s really cool and the thing that keeps you like hooked is the different kinds of technology that they have.
Ben: Right.
Carla: So that’s where I think that this that’s where the money makers going to be in this new show. Is the imagining of the future at that point in time, we’ve seen little glimpses of it in Voyager. We had a couple of episodes that were set up a thousand years in the future.
Ben: Oh right.
Carla: Yeah. So I mean they’re disaster ones but…
Ben: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Carla: So it’s all technology based and caring about the crew. Yeah. So we already care about the crew.
Ben: They’ve got that in their favour for sure.
Carla: Yeah. So
Ben: Okay. All right.
Carla: What do you think?
Ben: Well I mean Discovery has its technology already and what they’re going to be coping with is being a thousand years behind everybody else is in the future. And also they’ve got to paint Doctor Who had this problem as well where they put when they did the future and the modern series they went like five billion years in the future and five billion years in the future looks like retro-futuristic flying cars like it’s kind of like a bit bullshit to be honest. I’m like “you went five billion years in the future and the best you could imagine was some aliens who look kind of cool but are basically humanoid aliens and some flying cars. Is that is that it is that all you got?” Like. Why. Why go that far in the future if you’re not going to try and come up with something like mind blowingly different, like and I am I’m a little worried about that. I mean look who knows what they’re going to do. Maybe it will just be really awesome and I’m being pessimistic for no reason but I think I’m just worried that they’ve set themselves up to do something. Yeah it’s a super cool and there’s no way that they’re going to be able to realize it but they could. They might surprise me.
Carla: But that was the best part about Voyager.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: You know a holo-novels, the Doctor…
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: And sometimes it’s like it’s just that twist on what the technology that we already have you know but even still of all the Star Trek that we have they’re all within a couple hundred years of each other. You know the time-the main timeline you know so this is so far beyond that. I hear your um your anxiety.
Ben: They still have pre original series level technology even if it now looks like what we would imagine it should look like.
Carla: But I’m also saying to you is that Star Trek is inherently formulaic. (both laugh)
Ben: Yeah okay sure. Sure. I shouldn’t expect to like it suddenly it’s going to be an anthology show or something. Yeah. Do you think that’s going to bring back Short Treks?
Carla: I don’t know, who knows about anything? Yeah I think that really goes back to the previous questioners question which is you know like they’re really struggling to imagine Star Trek now. Like the last time we had a season show was I think the last season of Enterprise was 2005. That’s before internet 2.0. Right. So like you went from having essentially the same formula to for most of the, except for the original season, for most of the Star Treks that we know. And now I think we have seen those teething problems in understanding how it fits into the digital landscape now. So maybe this is their opportunity to really bring their A game in a way that’s fresh.
Ben: Yeah. Well look whatever happens I’m bang up for it. I’m excited and I can’t believe we have to wait like a year.
Carla: Yeah. Well or who knows? I think Picard is due out next year. So yeah, we definitely don’t have anything this year.
Ben: No no.
Carla: But what about us Ben? When’s our next episode going to be?
Ben: Well this is a good question because I’m sure you listening want to know what’s the future of re:Discovery? We haven’t gone a thousand years in the future but we probably are going to go a little bit into the future. We’re not going to do an episode next week but we do want to do a wrap up don’t we Carla?
Carla: Yeah. We might wait a couple of weeks to say I actually want to either re-watch the whole season again or listen to all of our episodes or both. Before we do a wrap up so maybe three weeks or something but keep us in your podcast feed is what we’re saying.
Ben: Yeah, we’re not totally disappearing but we are going to have a break certainly from having weekly episodes and we’ll figure out what we’ll be doing next because we got a few other things on don’t we Carla? We should tell people about those.
Carla: Oh yeah, we can plug them.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: What. What do you want to talk about first? indiepodfest?
Ben: Let’s talk about that. Yeah.
Carla: Yeah. So, we’re having an independent podcasting festival in July. Yeah, the first one in Australia.
Ben: That’s going to happen in Melbourne. We’re going to be celebrating the art and craft of making independent podcasts. We’ve already been talking to potential guests. We’re going to be crowdfunding it. We don’t have any source of external funding so watch out for that. We’ll post about it on the social media and if you can’t come to Melbourne if you’re too far away or if you’re busy that weekend there will be an opportunity for you to support the festival and get access to audio of the proceedings there. So yeah, we’re real excited about that we’ve been working real hard on that for months now.
Carla: For a long time.
Ben: And we still got a few months to go. Yeah well that’s pretty good. But if you want to hear our voices on a regular basis you still can. Carla you’ve still got podcasts going.
Carla: Oh, I have one that’s basically completed it’s about this filmmaker Steven Soderbergh so it’s called Club Soderbergh. So, we’ve covered all of his films to date except for High Flying Bird. So basically, we’ll put out an episode every time he makes a new film but essentially, we’re…
Ben: You’ve finished with the bank catalogue.
Carla: Yeah, we’ve finished with the back catalogue. We will be doing we’ll be doing that live at indiepodfest. So, they go twofer.
Ben: Yeah. Come along.
Carla: And I have a theatre slash performing arts criticism podcast which is very different to this but if you like going to the theatre and you like my opinions then perhaps, you’ll also like my other show Across the Aisle.
Ben: Yeah it is a great podcast. I enjoy it.
Carla: Thanks Ben.
Ben: Yeah. Yes. Well you do a good job, you and Phillip. I feel like I’m there in the theatre with you.
Carla: Oh, that’s beautiful. That’s what we want.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: And what about you? Prachat!
Ben: Yeah. Pratchat is still going so if you’ve not listened to it that’s my monthly Terry Pratchett Book Club podcast. We are reading every single Terry Pratchett book, a bit like Club Soderbergh, we’re covering his oeuvre. We’re covering his canon yes but he did write an awful lot of books. So, it’s going to take us about six and a half years to do them all. We’ve only been going for about 18 months we’ve still got about five years to go.
Carla: Oh my god.
Ben: And we do some bonus episodes were recently recorded our first live episode at a convention here in Melbourne. We’ll be doing the next Australian Discworld convention in Sydney in 2021 so that’ll be fun. I’m really looking forward to that. It was a great time. So, there’s that. That’s coming out of new podcast because my audio drama night terrorists is now being broadcast on the BBC on the radio. Oh my God so fancy. So, if you want to listen to that you can it’s being broadcast weekly on Sundays at 6 p.m. U.K. time and you can look it up on the BBC website. It’s being broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra which is the digital spin off of Radio 4.
Carla: It just means that you’re so cool. Well isn’t that what the kids say these days.
Ben: I don’t know.
Carla: You’re so extra. (both laugh)
Ben: I thought that meant fancy. Does that mean I mean I’m fancy? Glamourous?
Carla: I think it means like bombastic.
Ben: Oh yeah.
Carla: Or like amazing.
Ben: I guess that could be me.
Carla: Yeah.
Ben: Yeah you can listen to that on the on their site. You have to wait for it to come out each week. So, it’s a bit like Discovery. It is about time travel and it’s an it’s a comedy show. It’s kind of. We always say it’s a bit like sort of early Doctor Who if the doctor was a cranky Australian woman played by Susan from Neighbours. But it’s good fun. And we’ve done a new podcast to go along as a companion to it.
Carla: I love that you’re recapping your own podcast weekly. Benjamin!
Ben: It’s more like, it’s more like After Trek or um or The Bridge or what’s the name?
Carla: I don’t know what it’s called.
Ben: The bridge thing.
Carla: You can’t find it.
Ben: But the podcast is called On the Terrace. Are we plugging anything else? What else can we tell you about?
Carla: I think that’s it for now. That’s enough.
Ben: This is good. This is a long episode.
Carla: That’s okay.
Ben: Let’s say it’s a fun time to end the podcast.
Carla: But otherwise we will be back in your ears sometime in the next month doing a recap of our entire experience of doing this and the season and we’ll have more information for you at that point.
Ben: Yeah. So, until we see you next.
Carla: Live long and prosper.
Ben: Don’t get sucked into a wormhole.
Ben: You’ve been listening to re:Discovery. You’ll find links to all the creatives involved on our website, rediscoverypodcast.com. We’d love to connect with you. Find us on Twitter and Facebook as @reDiscoverypod.
Splendid Chaps: re:Discovery is brought to you by Splendid Chaps Productions. Find more entertainment for your ears at splendidchaps.com.