Mike Vago's discussions

Come on, Randall, we all lived through every horror of 2020. JUST LET US HAVE THIS ONE THING!!! 

Not if their balls have been tasered, they don’t.

The cause of—and solution to—all of the afterlife’s problems!

Given that no one remembered the 1918 flu epidemic until there were sudden parallels to be drawn, I suspect the Covid pandemic will be forgotten by future generations until suddenly it affects them somehow. Read more

That’s why cocaine and speed together is called a speedball, and cocaine and alcohol together is called a “2020".

If one thing a lifetime of watching sci-fi movies has taught me, advanced technology is impossible without inexplicable gaping chasms everywhere.

> show absolutely defers to Burnham to the point where it’s embarrassing Read more

The thing is, the original premise of the show is literally “what happened before Kirk”, and I think we’re seeing what someone like Kirk would be like before being captain. And Kirk clearly was constantly proven right, given that he ended up the youngest captain in SF history. Read more

Except Saru didn’t step down so Michael should run the ship, he stepped down to help Su’kal adjust to life on Kaminar (ending the season with a nice parallel to Stamets and Culber’s de facto adoption of Adira). Saru’s spent the whole series torn between his ambition/devotion to Starfleet, and his missing Kaminar and… Read more

And we actually learned Ina’s name! 

Yes, this is the first time ever on Star Trek that a ship gets fired on way more times than is realistic and survives because our heroes are on board. Read more

If you had just bought a Mac all you’d have to do is stick a straightened paperclip into the universe and it would sort itself out.

In fairness to Disco, no one’s really figured out pacing for the 10-episode streaming season. (see also: the first round of Marvel shows) I imagine if you stripped all the standalone episodes out of a season of DS9 and just ran the story-arc ones end to end, the pacing there would be weird too. (and as much as I love… Read more

I’m torn between thinking it’s a little much to have a lead character whose insubordination is always justified, whose hunches are always correct, and who’s insane gambles always pay off... Read more

They were fun to write (and frankly, easier), so I’ll probably come back to the format a couple times a year. 

That’s a great one. Adding it to my to-do list!

I enjoy this show a lot and have spent a lot of words defending it, but your very logical analysis of why there must be a Starfleet mole just tells me you’ve put more thought into these storylines than the writers have.

And at least Tilly loses the ship to the Federation’s most feared threat, and not, as you said, a videogame. 

Yeah, but we also accept that Superman can turn back time by spinning the earth around because he’s Superman and that’s the kind of story a Superman story is. It’s not about somebody struggling against limitations, it’s about someone wronging rights in an unrealistic but satisfying way. Read more

The cloaking added so little to this episode I feel like “we have a cloaking device now, right?” had to be a Chekov’s Gun for one of the follow-up episodes (which I haven’t seen yet, so don’t spoil anything!)