Star Trek: Discovery The Wolf Inside (2017– ) Online

Yes, there you have it. The show is getting better and better! The chemistry between characters is gradually building up. We've got tension, action, bonds and actors glued to their characters. Sure, the story still leaves us with a lot of questions and some gaps here and there. But hey, there's four more episodes left!

That, plus a whole new second season to be excited for. Those of you who keep on bashing on this show, please don't call yourselves Star Trek fans anymore. You are just ungrateful, unrealistic and all you do is type nonsense and throw delusional marks on every episode. Just stop. The show builds up slowly but it is starting to shine. Give it a chance.

Straight-up full marks this week, and a great improvement from last week's poor script... this is the best episode Discovery has done so far, even better than Into The Forest I Go. It's easier to do a great episode like Into The Forest when it's heavily plot-driven and is about tying up storylines (with lots of action). This one was just a regular arc episode - but it hit it out of the park with a strong character core and excellent direction. The credit goes to writer Lisa Randolph (her first Discovery outing; according to her IMDB page, she started as an assistant on Homicide: Life On The Street and Oz before becoming a script coordinator for shows like The Shield and Dollhouse - her experience shows) and director TJ Scott (also his first Discovery gig), with the cast uniformly rising to the occasion. After how badly the dialog and plot were written in the previous episode, I was despairing of how the rest of the half-season was going to unfold, but after this installment I'm seriously impressed. It really shows that the quality of the series is incredibly dependent on who's writing individual episodes - there is a lot of slack in the writer's room but some great writers too, who need to be given more episodes. This episode actually realized my best hopes for the MU storyline - I really hope the next episode (which looks amazing) and the following ones keep delivering on it. This has the potential to go down as a classic arc as long as the writing doesn't fall back to the quality of episode 8 or 10. (Episode 8 in particular really hamstrung the end of the Klingon arc, I don't want the same to happen with this arc.)

The Georgiou reveal was well-handled and put at exactly the right place - the perfect mix of campy and portentious. The Voq reveal was also well-handled (Burnham told Discovery that he was Voq before she beamed him there, right?). This episode delivered easily the series's best character work so far - especially for Burnham (who has often not worked as a character) but also for Saru (both Sarus) and for Tilly (used meaningfully and substantively in her subplot). I'm intrigued as to how much Mirror Saru saw and heard given his timely intervention when Tyler attacked Burnham. Mirror Sarek and Voq (the Firewolf) worked well, and the presence of Andorians and Tellarites as an Enterprise callback was also welcome and realized effectively and understatedly.

Bonus half-stars for Tyler's chest hair and L'Rell's boobs, leading to a final score of 11 out of 10 overall.

So not a lot of surprises this episode. The Tyler/Voq "mystery" is concluded. We know who the Empress is which was no big surprise. But excellent writing and acting continue in episode 11. Saru's transporter room speech to Voq is as Star Trek as you can get. DSC continues to show that it is Star Trek though and through.

Getting Darker!

The last episode set a promising scene for a decent alternate reality romp and I wasn't disappointed. Tightly paced, this focused tale has the tightest direction seen in the series to date.

As promised in the last episode, we see a bevy of faces from the original pilot return in remarkable and unexpected form and our protagonist trying to come to terms with what she is expected to be in this universe and at risk of losing sight of her primary objective. Yet while she prevails, we see another succumb before our very eyes.

I'm sorry to those die hard trekkie fans from the 60s; This is not a utopian dream state promised by Gene Roddenberry. It is rooted *firmly* in the pre galactic federation, feudal age.

It's Star Trek, Jim, but not as we know it.

I struggled with the first handful of episodes of Star Trek: Discovery and am so glad I stayed with it. The quality continues to go up with "The Wolf Inside", making me anticipate the heights that this series may rise to.

This multi-episode visit to the Mirror universe first seen in the Classic episode "Mirror, Mirror" is deftly and respectfully handled. Solid writing explores it in new ways, while keeping familiar aspects such as the Terran Empire emblem, treacherous succession, the imperial hand motion, agonizers, etc. Burnham's inner struggle with the effect the culture has on her has pathos. The reveal of Tyler's true personality is terrifying and sad. Saru's appearance as a slave on the Shenzo is a brilliant variation on his Starfleet persona. Possibly my favorite part of the story was Burnham's desire to find out how the Rebels had been unified by a Klingon as a means to understanding how the same thing might be achieved in the Starfleet universe. Also fun was a Mirror universe version of Sarek, and a surprise return by Michelle Yeoh.

I don't understand the complaint that telling a story in the Mirror universe is a rip off of other Trek. It's non-sensical. The entire show "rips off" all kinds of Trek things because, duh. It's Star Trek. The much more important question is "does it explore all the familiarity of this universe in fresh and entertaining ways?" This episode is a landmark example of it's strength in doing so.

There's so much to like in "The Wolf Inside" I find myself wanting to list and list. Best to just make sure you watch it!

The strongest episode yet, "The Wolf Inside" adds more complexities and issues to the plot in a way that's far more interesting than the hollow action of the Klingon war.

The most predictable part is Stamets. He's obviously not going to die, so there's no tension when they're trying to revive him. Other than that, the plot gets really interesting. The fact that in this universe Klingons and other species are working together to fight the fascist regime. What exactly has been done to Ash to make him like this. And the fact that there's a slim possibility of peace in the original universe.

And what happened to Voq.

I loved "Mirror Mirror" in TOS. I loved all of the Mirror episodes in Deep Space 9. And I really liked the "Fairest of them All" episode of Star Trek Continues. I'm familiar with Jerome Bixby, the science fiction writer that wrote "Mirror, Mirror". He was a writer for pulp sci fi rags back in the 50's along with Heinlein and Niven. Of the Original Trek franchises efforts in regard to the Mirror 'Verse, the closest to what we have here is probably the excellent two part "Through the Mirror, Darkly" eipsodes of Enterprise.

However, in these last 2 Discovery eps, we see a Mirror 'Verse even more sinister than in those two Enterprise entries.

And we still had the Mystery of what had happened to Voq. Now we know, and it didn't even happen in the Mirror 'Verse. We remember that L'Rell brought Voq to meet her Family, and she intimated that in order for Voq to re-claim his place as T'Kuvma's Successor that he would have to do something that was pretty much unspeakable.

On the other hand, Michael and Tilly need to keep being people who they are not, which goes far beyond deception. There is also some odd reference to The USS Defiant, first seen in "The Tholian Web" and this brings us back to the Enterprise episodes.

At first I didn't quite understand why Defiant was being brought up, until I remembered certain aspects of those Enterprise Eps.

All I can say about that, is the Discovery's Spore Drive stomps over everything. Prime Universe, Mirror Universe, past, Present and Future. So the Trick here is getting Stamits Fixed.

We've been hearing about a mysterious, unnamed, Emperor. Wonder who that could be?

A much better episode than the midseason premiere. The opening 10-15 minutes with pure narration from Michael was a little bit ridiculous and slow-moving, but it did set up the rest of the episode.

It was hard to buy into the "twist" at the end though. We knew Tyler was not going to die, it would be shocking if he didn't fully recover by the end of the season.

This is my kind of Star Trek.

In the Mirror Universe, Burnham needs to show her violent face as commander of the ISS Shenzhou,. She has to execute some rebels via a transporter beam to space before being bathed by her slave, Saru.

While trying to get the data she needs back to Discovery, she is ordered by a representative of the emperor to hunt down the resistance led by Firewolf. Burnham personally leads it with Tyler. She is shocked and intrigued that multi species resistance against the Terrans is led by a Klingon. Firewolf is her universe's Voq and Burnham takes the chance to understand how a Klingon could behave in such a way which could maybe lead to a peaceful resolution in her own universe.

Firewolf is also assisted by a Vulcan, who turns out to be the mirror universe Sarek who performs a mind meld on Burnham. However seeing Firewolf unleashes what is inside of Tyler, he reveals to Burnham, the wolf within that he is Voq and he killed the doctor in Discovery. Burnham sends Tyler to be executed by transporter beam but instead makes sure he ends up in the Discovery with the important Data.

The episode ends with a further reveal, the appearance of the Empress, Georgiou.

This is an exciting and tense episode bringing the story arc forward and quickly dealt with the Tyler/Voq duality. Then it addressed it further with the Firewolf's tale of a path of hope.

Only 1 way to save the rest of the season... cut the parallel universe crap asap and get back to a 'normal' storyline. The way it is here is totally unbelievable. 1 star because of the ridiculous story (and still copied idea from star trek original). Besides that there are so many loose ends in this episode (as in most of them) that it is to cry for. Burnham can talk freely with Lorca out of his jail for a moment? Nobody else tries to take Burnhams place? Earlier it was said that everyone tries to improve at the cost of others. How easy it is to just shoot Burnham in the back. And than the kill of Culbers....

No.... pity I can't rate zero stars.

I've been watching Star Trek since the first episode aired in 1966. This is one of THOSE episodes. Yes, the ones that present a great story with a muddled script and more muddled direction. While I appreciate the convoluted and complicated storyline, it's just a mess.

This far into the series you would expect the main cast to understand their character they play. In some ways you can't blame them either when producers and investors like to bring too much bling into the show. This is the 2nd episode in the MU and now we get loads of small bit of nothing thrown at us. For some reason it is important to yapping about all characters alter egos throughout the episode. This takes like half the episode. Neither of the actors express any feelings nor depths to their characters . Still I can't figure out why the doc is not solving anything fast in a true ST manner. Whitey is lost and the Red now continues as the doc, so what? Are either of them interesting enough to ask for more info about them?, _Naah! Yes, of c. we got like 10 minutes left to tell viewers we bring the mighty Wolf in this episode and then we got rid of his clan. Episode ends. wow, that was some wasted minutes of my life. oh, the dead walks in the MU, I almost forgot to mention that. Mirror, mirror rebooted from the TOS all the way, but still TOS version is better.

-This episode was pretty good,the only bad things were the Michael punk era haircut (it looks silly too see this creepy man's haircut on an educated female) and Tilly's huge boobs and butt hanging dangerously under that very thight uniform (i still don't get why they choosed a tight uniform ,because the old fans hate them because they look unrealistic and make the stomach and the butt too look very ugly on the sedentary actors).The Klingons are still looking like a parody version of the burned Freddy Kreuger .The Andorians and the Tellarites are looking very good (i wonder why they never did the same minor changes to Klingons too,although i don't remember if the Andorians antennae are still moving like they did in Enterprise.The Terran uniforms are looking like the Klingons uniforms from The original series.I realise now the guy from Adventures in Babysitting forgot how to act,he always looks like an old grumpy lady,and Tilly makes the show too look very comic ,it's Tilly saves the day now,what a stupid stereotype,the same kind of stereotype which almost destroyed The Next Generation and ended Stargate Universe.I still hope one day somebody smart enough will come and will make a remake with the races like they looked in The Next Generation ,Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise ,just like the majority of the fans want.This show remains a good show but this is not Star Trek , its like drinking orange juice from a cola bottle and pretending it's a cola juice.This show splitted the fans in cannonites and nutrekkers and i hate the producers because that is the thing they liked the most in the remakes , a fan who watched the evolution of all things related to Star Trek can observe this kind of things,because the controversy always brings money and audience very fast but this type of productions don't resist in time.I really hope somebody up there in the Star Trek franchise would read someday about our complains and will make the right decisions with the Star Trek franchise once again for the first time since the end of the 90's.

First an foremost, let me pause and give thanks to those who really love STD and support it wholeheartedly. In spirit, I really do want to be one of you, but I am still waiting--what seems like an interminable amount of time--for this series to deliver anything worthy in terms of story and/or sci-fi. I still hope for a real Star Trek vibe, but this is clearly secondary. I am comforted in knowing that even iconic ST, such as STNG had a pretty horrific first season, so maybe this is all growing pains... I

Sadly, I cannot rate this too highly. It gets 4 stars because it had some semblence of plot , but all the usual problems of this franchise are still here and, at least for me, they continue to drag things down.

The major problems:. I need a story that makes sense, characters that act rationally, and characters that I care about.

In writing the show, it seems clear that they decided a priori on a number of building blocks: the plot twists (and twists within the twists), a few (however implausable) science fictiony devices that would make STD stand out from all other Treks (things like the Micelial Drive*), some interesting departures from ST canon (new and 'improved' Klingons, saltier language, a snarkier, biting, and back stabbing 'tude in what is clearly not your grandfather's Federation), and some historical twists (e.g. Spock had a step sister...). They clearly spent a great deal of time lot on the look of the show and decided on way-cool-dark-apocolyptic-sci-fi-modern with gaudy costuming and CGI to knock your boots off. They probably even decided on some pivitol plot points they wanted to put in and which little Easter eggs to subtley implant into the show to pique faithful ST fans' interest (is that a Tribble in Lorca's office? Awesome, dude! LL&P!!!). Oh, yeah. And throw in fan favorites: like strand 'em in a Mirror universe. Can't go wrong with that one...

They over thunk it.

As they concentrated on all this minutia in their brainstorming meetings, they forgot that the most important thing of any TV show--Sci-fi or otherwise: Story Telling. Oh, yeah, and that understanding characters through their actions (not just through paragraphs of prose) is probably number two. (See Burnham's monologue at the beginning of this episode. Totally unnecessary if they could just have portrayed this with action. (Expository information since last episode could have been done in the form of a Captain's Log. Instead of just telling us that she has a moral confict, she could have briefly told us of what abhorrent things she had to preside over as captain in the mirror universe and ended the log with a comment that she is not sure how long she could do this anymore... kind of like Captain Kirk did in TOS Mirror Mirror. OMG.)

The writers probably do the best with Lorca. Sure, they talk too much about him being a badass but at least they show it too. In characters like Burnham, they build her up to be a super-human, uber competent, and capable of Vulcan super-logic but then show her doing so many rash and stupid things that negate all the hype...

They undermine their own story by plot twisting their plot twists. You know: Ash is Voq then Ash can't possibly be Voq then Ash is back to Voq. Or how about Stamets is dead. Nope he's coming back. Nuh-uh, he coded stone-cold dead (exeunt medical team). Waaait a dogone micelial minute, he may be back again. Surprise! (Err, possibly....)

Tonight we were even blessed by some Burnham sleight of hand, which would have been better if you could actually have SEEN a hint of it if you were looking for it. I reran the scene 3 times after I was done. It was possible she planted the chip with the punch, but they kept us at a bad angle and kept her left hand out of camera range. Really? Did they plan the plant or decide to add it later, after filming the scene. Lesseee, Burnham would never space someone willingly so she arranges that Ashvoq (Voqash?) gets saved in the end. (Another conundrum, because it's not clear when she would have had time to do this.) But that's not enough. Maybe she transfers important data with it. Sure, yeah. That's the ticket...

And you can only manipulate your audience so much: If you keep twisting your twists, your audience stops trusting anything about the narrative. Morever, in the whole process of the whole nonsense, the writers continue to get lost in their own inconsistencie, which they will have to eventually explain.

I am not the kind of person to watch After Trek. The idea that you need after-game commentary to understand what just happened, gawk like a fanboy at the stars, or convince yourself that it was all genius when it wasn't never sat well with me. But I did catch about six or seven minutes of After Trek, where one of the authors explained VoqAsh's transformation, pointing to a long tradition of Klingons transforming spies into alien races and implying that Arne Darvin was a good example of this in TOS. So, no big thing that, you know, they transformed Voq to Ash... just a regular old episode of Klingon Extreme Makeovers.... (see my last review for details.)

Okay. The Trouble With Tribbles debuted on 12/29/1967. Ummm... Klingons back then did not require major surgery to look human. Most of them just had had to shave the beard and change the uniform. DNA was discovered in the 1950s, but the idea that you might be able to send a cheek swab to FindMyFreakinLostRelatives.com and they could tell you your ancestry--70% Klingon (30% Antaak, 25% Daa'maq, 15% G'logh); 20% Vulcan; 10% Human--was science fiction itself. By now, we could conceive of scanners that could do this. Klingons, back then, also spoke perfect English and it is not clear that Darvin ever had a physical exam before joining the diplomatic core, as both the tribble and McCoy using the scanner (e.g. 'Heartbeats all wrong, body temperature is... Jim this man's a Klingon...') pretty easily figured out he wasn't human. And remember, too, that TTWT was a comedy, so it gets a little comedic license. STD is truning into a different kind of comedy, but it takes itself so seriously that, well, none of this makes any sense.

That said, even worse than watching a teleplay that keeps accumulating lousy elements of science fiction, is watching an extremely talented actor such as Shazad Latif, absolute NAIL the schizoid conflict and subseuqent Voqian melt down only to have everything fall flat as a pancake because NONE OF IT MAKES ANY SENSE.

To wit: I get Voq's rage, but why on earth would he just blow his cover when he could do far more damage by keeping it all inside and letting it all hang out later; he attacks himself, which even he has to explain to Burnham as to why later, because--dude--even Voq knows he's in a mirror universe. Because if Voq's purpose was to inflitrate the Federation to get critical information back to his Klingon brothers and sisters, he just totally screwed it up by revealing himself in that way. And even if he couldn't help himself when confronted with his dovish, Klingon Doppleganger, you'd think he'd get it together and back pedal everything once he was out of the situation. He knows he's supposed to be a spy, right?

And then, of course, there's a practical point here. Why trash your most likable and most human character (e.g. Ash) in this way. It is simply a writers mind-(insert STD F-bomb here) and was never really necessary for the plot, whatever that really is anyway, and is just the writers toying with their audience.

So, once again, the whole thing makes zero sense from Voq's point of view. Which brings us back to how the heck did Klingon technology not only did major cosmetic surgery but was also able to do a personality transplant (at least for a time) on AshVoq, because VoqAsh can't seem to hold it together long enough to hold off violence. Maybe live-then-dead/then-live/then-dead-again/then-maybe-live Stamets can help explain this one or maybe he can bring back AshVoq without the Voq (micelially) so we can have at least one servicable character for the rest of the series.... The biggest trajedy in all this is that the writers didn't give us enough time and expository material to actually CARE enough about Ash, so if he's done for it won't be enough of a loss for us as an audience.

Next on the reveal (at least according to internet hypotheses), is that Lorca is really Mirror-Lorca. Okay. Ummm... I think we all guessed that mirror-you-know-who was the Terran Empress, but this Lorca thing would open up a whole new can of worms. It would be far better (and simpler) if Lorca is really Our-Universe Lorca, but I think that mens that the writers will take the muddier approach. So I guess we will have a lot temporal anomoly nonsense to explain and figure out why Lorca needed the Micelial Network to get them to the Mirror universe in the first place when jumped parallel universes without it previously. The whole thing bends around on itself, circling back on itself like a one-sided Mobius strip. My guess is that they haven't thought this through all that well, and the 'answer' will be avoided or totally unsatisfying.

And THAT is the problem with this series... too much focus on building blocks and not enough on how they all come together into a STORY. If you have to watch the show a dozen times to figure out what happened or can only get joy 'catching' all the inside jokes, there is a major problem. Canon/no cannon. Pure Trek/basterdized Trek. Heck, good/bad Sci-fi (was anyone really interested in inconsistancies in the original Star Wars?)... No one would really care if they just delivered a coherent story with characters that we cared about.

(And no. No Spock with a beard, but we did get Sarek sporting a Van Dyke... will wonders never cease.)

*If you still think the micelial concept has any hope, go back and relisten to Tilly's uber techno babble explaining it to Saru this episode. Even for Star Trek technobabel this makes absolutely no sense...

The Wolf Inside was a rather annoying experience. Mostly thanks to Ash Tyler's arc, which I consider poorly designed and even worse executed. Heck, just all those ever present mini flashbacks from his 'torture' alone ...

Otherwise not much happened. At least not much that made a lot of sense or was exciting to see. The part I probably liked most were the struggles Burnham expressed, about finding her place in the mirror universe, without risking to lose herself. Though that wasn't done brilliantly either. She drops some keywords, looks sad and suffers mostly silently. It's a nice idea, with some good scenes and images but overall the execution was underwhelming.

It generally seems that this show's current highlights are exclusively cliffhangers. "Oh did you see who X is?" "Wow, they ended up in Y! This will be SOO exciting in the following episodes!"

The problem is that it currently doesn't deliver much. With the exception of the very next cliffhanger of course.

I thought that when they went to the Mirror Universe, with Stamets incapacitated, that it might be a way to get out of the truly dumb idea that is the "Spore Drive". It was going so well. They were looking for a *different* way to get back to the "normal" universe--ie: same way Kirk/Spock and the Defiant before them got into/out of it.

BUT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.....back to the spores we go! The cosmic network of fungi that can take you ANYWHERE...including alternate universes! This spore junk is what makes me dislike the show so much. It turns it into FANTASY instead of SCIENCE FICTION. It's like those dumb "midocholorians" in Star Wars. They really need to drop this crazy "spore" mumbo jumbo. It's NOT SCIENCE FICTION. I see potential for this show, but this business with the cosmic fungi crap just drags it down.

Fortunately they did not spend too much time on the spore stuff this time and instead focused on Michael's adventures as the "Captain" of the Shenzou. The reveal at the end of who the "Emperor" of the Terran Empire was a nice one....I was not expecting that!

Considering their understand of DNA and more, and how everything is monitored, how could they possibly not know who committed a "hands on" murder?

It is well known the best series from Star Trek which is Deep Space Nine ,doesn't have a Jar Jar Binks character (the character has nothing to do with the actor's performace),like Neelix,Phlox (Dear Doctor killed his character for good,in my eyes),Tilly,the cybernetic smurf girl from Discovery ,Scotty from the Kelvin timeline and the list goes on and on.Nu BSG ,SAAB ,which are the best spaceships based series ever ,,Almost Human,don't have those kind of goofy characters,because the aesthetic of the characters it REALLY matters.For example Dark Matter is disliked by many fans just because of the android girl which is too androgin in their opinion,the wanted a Seven of Nine character instead.I think the profucers should treat the series just like a Boy-band or a Girl-band is treated ,just try to imagine Take That with an ugly geek instead of Robbie ,it will never work.