Thanks for the link, very interesting tidbits in there. Ironically enough, I did watch After Trek this time. By pure chance while looking at my onscreen channel guide late at night, I realized they do air After Trek locally, but only after the Discovery rerun late Sunday night, not after the prime time one earlier in the day. I found the host much less annoying, mainly because I think the novelty has worn off for him so he's not geeking out as much as he was on the first show. I do feel the questions are very softball though and must be screened before being posed because no one is asking them the hard questions, that's for sure.
Onto the finale itself.
Not a bad episode or way to wrap up the season overall, but it felt very anticlimactic. The return from the Mirror universe, the time jump, and the turn of the Klingon war all had a very ominous feel to it all, but they fixed everything in two hours of airtime and the finale itself didn't pack the punch that it should have. It definitely set things up for an interesting Season 2, but I felt something was lacking.
I too enjoyed the scene where Philippa beats the tar out of L'Rell, just in case we had forgotten how utterly ruthless the character was. The entire charade with her being Prime Philippa was dropped pretty quickly and that was ok because there was no way she was fooling anyone for very long. The majority of the ship was still none the wiser, but I thought the idea was silly to begin with because what, they don't expect the rest of the crew to eventually tell everyone else in Starfleet that Cpt. Georgiou miraculously survived and was on Discovery? Bit of a minor plot hole there. Will be interesting to see if she shows up again. Probably partnered up with the new, uber-evil and psychopathic Harry Mudd.
Just when it seemed Burnham was having second thoughts about her repudiation of Ash, he goes and backslides into full Voq mode again and the whole things ends for her right there. Honestly, I don't think I could ever get over the creepy factor that your lover is a surgically modified Klingon body wearing a flayed human's skin. Memories and personalities be damned, that is just too much yuk factor to accept. Then again, this is Star Trek and minds are very open in this setting. At any rate, I'm glad they found a fitting role for him, though yeah, he'll obviously be back to haunt Burnham again.
Yep, the Orions got updated and reinvented, because hey... like that article says, they have this artistic talent on the show, so why not keep changing things over and over again, because we love having no consistency in what is supposed to be an established universe? At this point, after the Klingons, Tellarites, and Andorians having facelifts, the Orions merely warranted a mere shrug from me at this point. Would be funny if that one dude met Balok and went "Hey... you look awfully familiar!" Also, while we are in homage department, did you catch the two large Ceti eels in the frying pan shot when they beam down to the enclave? It lasts for a split second but I would never mistake those critters for anything else. Their appearance is etched in my mind forever, so horrific were they when I fist saw them.
The weakest part of the entire finale for me was the complete lack of follow-up on the effects of the war. We are left to assume that L'Rell's threat works. We see the Klingon ships pull away from Earth, but what happened with the rest of Federation space? I still remember the tactical map, and they had nothing left. Were the Klingons conquering these worlds or just bombing the crap out of everything and moving on? Either way, it would take many years to recover from devastation like that, which brings me back to my earlier bone of contention of them making this such a major event that then apparently leaves no traces in just nine years' time from now. Remember all the Starbases and Federation outposts that the Enterprise visits in TOS? Apparently that stuff is built very cheaply and quickly because everything was nearly destroyed in this big war, yet it's all there again in less than a decade. Major plot hole. Also, I guess the Enterprise and its sister ships were all hiding somewhere because they clearly survived this war that supposedly decimated the fleet?!? Ok. This is definitely a screw-you-continuity Prime universe then.
The big Enterprise reveal: I actually had no idea it was going to happen, but was very much beginning to wonder where this ship would be found in the middle of all this. As soon as that distress call came in at the end, even before the registration number begins appearing on the screen, I knew it had to be the Enterprise. I was 100% positive it wasn't going to look the same as it did in TOS, so I wasn't bitterly disappointed when I was proven right. Though it looks way more modern than it should, at least the look is consistent with Discovery and the other Starfleet vessels around. As much as it would have pleased us old fans, the old Enterprise would have looked glaringly out of place now. Even the Defiant in ST: Enterprise looked outdated already, although I loved seeing it without any 'fancifications' added. If anything, I will consider myself happy that it essentially looks like a blend of the TOS and movie-era Enterprises, rather than that bloated monstrosity they came up with for the JJverse movies. Just being thankful for the small things, I suppose.
The article pretty much spells out that we should forget about seeing Spock, and I concur. I think recasting yet again could go wrong very quickly, and they can easily come up with an excuse that he is not on the ship at this time. It would just be too distracting to see him in this setting. As for the Spock-never-mentions-Burnham thing, I share your skepticism in thinking that the explanation is going to feel forced and stupid somehow. My bet is they don't even know what they're going to do yet and are just trying to sound clever for the viewers' benefit. I can smell nervousness and uncertainty a mile away.
What I'm most curious about is who the new captain is. The fact that they are picking this person up in Vulcan seems to point to the obvious race of the character, but I think they will try and surprise us. I noticed they danced around answering whether it would be a new old character or someone we don't know. If it somehow turns out to be Prime Lorca magically returned alive and well from the Mirror universe, I think I will turn the TV off and be done with this show.
Final though: retire the Spore drive, PLEASE! It is too Deus Ex for the show to continue abusing it.