Notes on Season 2 Episode 4
Is it believable that in just a few short months a former teacher at the elementary level Telaya got over her (likely) PTSD enough to learn everything about how to become a dark matter cartographer after having not even been a scientist and become good enough to pass for one on a starship?
Apparently Telaya is emitting a beacon to the Krill ships?
Taxi Driver and one version of The King and I films have something in common: Jodie Foster starred in both. Could this be a hint that she will appear in a future episode?
Why is the tactical display two dimensional? Ships could also travel up or down, but that display would have no way of showing that. Really should be a holographic display.
When the Krill appeared to be torturing Telaya, why didn't Ed demand to see her in the same room? Because use of virtual reality was an obvious possibility.
Apparently Telaya went through quite an extensive surgical process to look human. How could her appearance have been reverted to Krill so quickly?
So Telaya, a mere school teacher, managed to not only escape Union space, but also get all the way back to a Krill planet. Kind of strains credibility.
Great to see another space faring race in the Chaktal! Now it becomes more interesting than just us against the bad guys. Many more story possibilities come into play.
This episode reminded of Star Wars. They take off in escape pods and land in a place that looks like Dagobah, Yoda's swamp planet.
It also reminded me of Star Trek Enterprise because they run through the woods in the dark. Those kinds of scenes are really old style and pretty boring because you can't see much and it doesn't matter anyway. It didn't surprise me to find out this was written by Braga. he should really leave this kind of scene in the past.
Telaya does trust Ed. The proof is that when he tells her about the length of the day on the planet they're on, she doesn't question it, doesn't ask to see the readings, just accepts it.
It seems odd that the Krill have no standard way of dealing with sunlight and that such devices are not stored in the escape pods. In their line of work they must need to be on sunlit planets constantly. Surely they have invented some devices to help them cope with this.
I didn't really get the joke when Gordon is doing the Rorschach test. Is he just too nervous to answer?
How cool was it that Gordon tried to use a version of The Corbomite Maneuver from TOS!
Good stories come in threes so I'm betting there will be a third chapter in the Ed and Telaya saga.
Overall a fun and thought-provoking episode. The idea that change can begin with just one person is a very nice one (could even apply to the current government shutdown), though I wonder if it was wise of Ed to do. The teacher is not that important a person in Krill society and probably won't have the ability to effectively advocate change in Krill society.