{"id":42025,"date":"2017-10-17T06:21:33","date_gmt":"2017-10-17T10:21:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=42025"},"modified":"2017-10-16T22:39:08","modified_gmt":"2017-10-17T02:39:08","slug":"star-trek-discovery-choose-pain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2017\/10\/star-trek-discovery-choose-pain.html","title":{"rendered":"Star Trek Discovery: Choose Your Pain"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>Episode 5 of the first season of Star Trek: Discovery begins with Michael Burnham having a dream in which she, rather than the giant tardigrade, is serving as the link between the ship\u2019s navigation system and its spore drive \u2013 causing her intense pain.<\/p>\n<p>Precisely when Michael is concerned that each jump harms the tardigrade, Capt. Lorca is abducted by Klingons, which necessitates that the Discovery make multiple jumps. In a Klingon prison cell, Lorca meets\u00a0Harcourt Fenton Mudd. Mudd comments on the\u00a0intelligence of the Klingons and their tactic of having prisoners \u201cchoose their pain\u201d \u2013 whether a beating will be inflicted on you or someone else. It prevents bonding \u2013 and Lorca notes that\u00a0Mudd is remarkably free of bruises. Later, Mudd reveals that Lorca was the only person to survive from the last ship he commanded. Lorca adds that he in fact killed his crew, rather than have\u00a0them be captured and tortured. Mudd says that \u201cconfession is good for the soul,\u201d adding that it is too bad that none of them has one any more. In rescuing him, Dr. Stamitz is hooks himself up to the propulsion system. Towards the end, there is a wonderful reconciliation between Saru and Burnham. Saru gives Burnham an order, to save the life of the tardigrade, since it may be sentient, and he has \u201cno claim on its soul.\u201d She does this \u2013 by setting it free.<\/p>\n<p>Rainn Wilson does an incredible job of playing Harry Mudd \u2013 although he looks significantly older than he appeared when <a href=\"https:\/\/trekmovie.com\/2017\/05\/25\/rainn-wilsons-harry-mudd-to-appear-in-more-than-one-episode-of-star-trek-discovery\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">we encountered him \u201clater\u201d in the Original Series<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The episode is concerned with an inclusive ethic of life, features a same-gender couple among the crew, and talks about the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/io9.gizmodo.com\/and-now-star-trek-discovery-has-lost-its-soul-1819493876\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">soul<\/a>\u201d within a largely secular framework. I still feel that the series feels more and more like Star Trek with every episode. Do you agree?<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-42027\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/719\/2017\/10\/star-trek-discovery-episode-5-photos-750x480.jpg\" alt=\"star-trek-discovery-episode-5-photos-750x480\" width=\"750\" height=\"480\"><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Episode 5 of the first season of Star Trek: Discovery begins with Michael Burnham having a dream in which she, rather than the giant tardigrade, is serving as the link between the ship\u2019s navigation system and its spore drive \u2013 causing her intense pain. Precisely when Michael is concerned that each jump harms the tardigrade, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":42027,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[2715,14914,14905,14915,9929,14912,11819,14911],"class_list":["post-42025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-star-trek-science-fiction","tag-discovery","tag-harcourt-fenton-mudd","tag-michael-burnham","tag-mycelium","tag-rainn-wilson","tag-spores","tag-star-trek","tag-tardigrade"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Star Trek Discovery: Choose Your Pain<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Episode 5 of the first season of Star Trek: Discovery begins with Michael Burnham having a dream in which she, rather than the giant tardigrade, is\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2017\/10\/star-trek-discovery-choose-pain.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Star Trek Discovery: Choose Your Pain\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Episode 5 of the first season of Star Trek: Discovery begins with Michael Burnham having a dream in which she, rather than the giant tardigrade, is\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2017\/10\/star-trek-discovery-choose-pain.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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