• Home
  • Movies
  • Music
  • TV
  • Video Games
  • Wrestling
  • Topics
  • Latest Comments on Cult of Whatever
Search
Cult of Whatever logo
  • Movies
    Featured
    • The Living Daylights: Timothy Dalton as James Bond

      The Living Daylights is still awesome, thirty-five years later

      By Matthew Martin
      | March 28, 2022
      Movie Blogs
    Recent
    • The Muppet Christmas Carol: Michael Caine as Scrooge

      The Muppet’s Christmas Carol remains the gold standard for the book

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 20, 2022
    • Nightmare Before Christmas 1993 1

      2022’s Christmas Movie Watchlist!

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 18, 2022
    • Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio Poster

      REVIEW: GDT’s Pinocchio is my favorite film of the year!

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 14, 2022
    • Troll: Ine Marie Wilmann as Nora

      REVIEWS: TROLL and TROLL HUNTER -A giant creature double feature!

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 5, 2022
    • Harry with The Hendersons

      Harry and the Hendersons is still awesome, thirty-five years later

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 1, 2022
    • Fantastic Four Poster

      The five best “rogues galleries” in superherodom! (part 3)

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 28, 2022
  • Music
    Random
    • Queen 2 Album Cover

      QUEEN's catalogue, from bottom to top

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 1, 2018
      Music
    Recent
    • The Beatles: Get Back

      What GET BACK reveals about the Beatles

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 15, 2021
    • Simon And Garfunkel at Feyenoord Stadium in Rotterdam1982

      The Boxer is a song about being conned

      By Matthew Martin
      | July 4, 2021
    • Lady Gaga: Chromatica Album Cover

      Lady Gaga’s discography is totally out of order

      By Matthew Martin
      | June 3, 2021
    • Michael Jackson Thriller Album Cover

      Thirty years ago music fans said “Nevermind” to Michael Jackson

      By Matthew Martin
      | March 21, 2021
    • Queen II Album Cover

      On Queen’s The Miracle, and the importance of track ordering

      By Matthew Martin
      | February 16, 2021
    • Linda Paul Mccartney 1976

      50 years ago, McCartney dropped “Lennon” and went solo…

      By Matthew Martin
      | June 5, 2020
  • TV
    Featured
    • Big Sky S03e05: Kylie Bunbury, J. Anthony Pena and Katheryn Winnick as Cassie Dewell, Mo Poppernak and Jenny Hoyt

      Big Sky S03E05 Review: Flesh and Blood - Glamping!

      By Salome G
      | October 22, 2022
      TV Blogs
    Recent
    • Big Sky S03e10: Gang

      Big Sky S03E10 Review: A Thin Layer of Rock – Break time…

      By Salome G
      | December 11, 2022
    • Rick And Morty: S01e03

      Is Beth from Rick and Morty a bigger sociopath than Rick?

      By Jason Collins
      | December 7, 2022
    • Big Sky S03e09: Dedee Pfeiffer and Cree as Denise and Emily

      Big Sky S03E09: Where There’s Smoke There’s Fire – Stalling

      By Salome G
      | December 1, 2022
    • The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special: Dave Bautista and Pom Klementieff as Drax and Mantis

      REVIEW: The GOTG Holiday Special is a sweet prelude to next year’s finale

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 27, 2022
    • The Midnight Club S01: The Gang

      The Midnight Club S1 Review – A series of unfortunate events

      By Salome G
      | November 24, 2022
    • Big Sky S03e08: Reba McEntire as Sunny Barnes

      Big Sky S03E08 Review: Duck Hunting – I love a weirdo.

      By Salome G
      | November 19, 2022
  • Video Games
    Featured
    • Arkham Knight

      Batman: Arkham Knight - A fitting end to a trilogy

      By Tom Farr
      | July 18, 2015
      Video Game Reviews
    Recent
    • Splatoon 3 Screenshot

      A trio of Nintendo Switch reviews!

      By Matthew Martin
      | September 28, 2022
    • Nintendo Switch Logo

      Looking ahead to the Switch 2: Predictions and Wants

      By Matthew Martin
      | August 15, 2022
    • Legend Of Zelda

      Can a Legend of Zelda movie work?

      By Matthew Martin
      | April 6, 2022
    • Super Mario 64

      Which system had the better launch: A battle of four Nintendo consoles

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 1, 2021
    • Luigi's Mansion

      Happy twentieth to Nintendo’s underrated gem, the Gamecube

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 18, 2021
    • Metroid Dread

      Metroid Dread – Post Game analysis and sequel needs

      By Matthew Martin
      | October 29, 2021
  • Wrestling
    Featured
    • AEW All Out 2022: Keith Lee. Anthony Bowens, Max Caster and Billy Gunn

      AEW All Out 2022 - Review and (wild) Speculation!

      By Matthew Martin
      | September 5, 2022
      AEW
    Recent
    • WWE WrestleMania 38: Cody Rhodes vs. Seth Rollins

      Was 2022 the wildest year in wrestling history?

      By Matthew Martin
      | January 4, 2023
    • AEW Full Gear 2022: Young Bucks and Kenny Omega Elite Entrance

      AEW Full Gear 2022 – A needed reset at the end of a tough year

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 22, 2022
    • WWE Survivor Series 1997: Bret Hart

      The Montreal Screwjob – Twenty Five Years Later

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 8, 2022
    • AEW Grand Slam 2022: Jungle Boy and Rey Fenix

      AEW GRANDSLAM 2022 showcased the present and future of the promotion

      By Matthew Martin
      | September 25, 2022
    • AEW All Out 2022: CM Punk

      AEW All Out Fall Out: All the CM Punk drama that’s fit to print!

      By Matthew Martin
      | September 5, 2022
    • AEW Dark: Ricky Starks (22/09/20)

      The future of the AEW World Championship

      By Matthew Martin
      | August 14, 2022
  • Topics
    • site logo
    Latest
    • Was 2022 the wildest year in wrestling history?
    • The Muppet's Christmas Carol remains the gold standard for the book
    • 2022's Christmas Movie Watchlist!
    • REVIEW: GDT's Pinocchio is my favorite film of the year!
    • Big Sky S03E10 Review: A Thin Layer of Rock - Break time...
    • Is Beth from Rick and Morty a bigger sociopath than Rick?

    Star Trek Discovery S04E06 Review: Stormy Weather – Sharp focus

    By Chris Airiau
    | December 23, 2021
    TV Blogs

    Discovery’s “new” crew member

    Season 4 of Star Trek: Discovery delivers another episode that feels like a classic Star Trek experience while keeping true to its sentimentality and feeding the season plot. The USS Discovery flies into a subspace rip left by the DMA after the events of “The Examples” to gather scientific data. Data (sorry, not that will help them).

    The title of this episode takes its name after 1933 jazz standard, “Stormy Weather”.1 Just a classy musical reference, right? Nope. Those who know the Short Trek “Calypso”2 may understand who this episode refers to before series-only watchers: Zora, Discovery’s onboard sentient AI.

    Some backtracking may help understand what’s going on here. This is a development that has been building since before season 2 began. The true beginning of Zora is in Season 2 episode “An Obol for Charon” when the USS Discovery absorbs the hundreds of thousands of years of information from the sentient entity they call the Sphere.

    The Sphere data first exhibits its will when it refuses all the crew’s attempts to delete it. Season 2 turns out to be a war for this data, with Starfleet’s Control seeking to consume this library of information that is helping Discovery’s onboard computers become sentient. In effect, the emerging Sphere/Discovery sentience forces the Discovery crew to travel into the 32nd century.

    In Season 3, DOTs appear as robotic drones to assist the Discovery. They don’t have a big role in the season, that is, until the finale. In “The Hope That Is You, Part II”, DOTs help the crew fight off Emerald Chain pirates. One sacrifices itself to save Owosekun.

    Zora’s voice and emotions are a recent development in Season 4, and they take center stage in this episode.

    Focus through the storm

    This episode, at its core, is about retaining focus through the storm of emotion. Zora is overwhelmed by an exceeding number of crises. Book’s anger distracts him from his loyalty. Even Owosekun tries to leave ops to assist in dire repairs. Each of them need a crutch, “a little help from [their] friends,” to sail through their rough waters. 3

    Inside of the subspace tear, the walls of nothingness are closing in on everyone, eating up whatever it touches. What a great analogy for nihilism and apathy. Who doesn’t feel this enveloping them when the doomscroll hits? I suppose some people (cough) are more sensitive to this story than others may be.4 I, for one, am very pleased (and only a little nervous) to see existential crises develop into dangerous spatial anomalies.

    Gray is the first to reach out to Zora, using a human connection to focus the computer’s overloaded senses. Zora then relies on Captain Burnham’s encouragement and personal sharing to make it through the hardest moments.

    Star Trek Discovery S04e06: Ian Alexander as Grey Tal

    For the most part, Book goes it alone, as he is wont to do. Stamets helps by giving him work to do in engineering, eventually leading to the Spore Drive shocking his brain. Dr. Pollard and Dr. Culber are there for his medical needs. And then, Book hallucinates (or not?) his deceased father. The conflict between them is based on his father’s disdain for Book’s5 weakness and his insistence that their anger drives them. In the end, it’s Book’s own fortitude that pulls him through.

    Saru shares his own anger with Book—this stuns Book, it’s pretty funny—in the aftermath of their escape. Saru’s dialogue at this moment ties a nice little bow to the message of the episode.

    The Galactic Barrier

    So Book’s brain shock? Turns out Stamets reconstructs the energy signature to discover that the DMA has traveled through the Galactic Barrier. The species piloting the DMA are from another galaxy.

    Star Trek Discovery S04e06: David Ajala as Cleveland Booker

    I suppose the “Galactic Barrier” won’t mean anything to those who haven’t seen any of the three Star Trek: The Original Series episodes that reference this spatial phenomenon:

    • TOS S01E03 “Where No Man Has Gone Before” (the second pilot episode)
    • TOS S02E21 “By Any Other Name”
    • TOS S03E05 “Is There In Truth No Beauty?”

    The first explains that the barrier prevents entrance or exit from the galaxy. The third features a crazy attempt to travel past the barrier. Both deal with a great deal of ESP stuff. Though the season three episode has a pretty cool alien—from the Milky Way. Only “By Any Other Name” features aliens from another galaxy attacking the Enterprise.6 It’s probably one of my favorite TOS episodes.

    What logic is there in these attacks, then? Destroying Kwejian eliminates the possibility for pilots who could pose a threat. J’Vini moved the moon generation ship in fear of the anomaly. Could it be the “supernova” in the mausoleum pictograms was the DMA? I’m not sure about how destroying that asteroid belt achieves a military goal, though. Creating tension between Federation and former Emerald Chain, perhaps?

    In any case, I’m hooked for next week.

    8/10 – Focus is key, and it’s on prime display in “Stormy Weather”. The beginning of Zora’s story—the prequel to “Calypso”—unfolds in a novel, gentle AI story. David Ajala just kills it like he does every week, and we’re within breathing distance from our intergalactic antagonists.  

    Notes

    1 Perhaps Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra’s versions are more famous, but Ethel Waters first sang “Stormy Weather” in 1933, written by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler in 1933.

    2 Written by Pulitzer Prize, Nebula, and Hugo Award-winning author, Michael Chabon. Seriously, check this one out. This short film gives some strange depth to the fate of Zora and the USS Discovery.

    3 You could say, these are no “Fairweather Friends”. Yeah, so it’s a musical review this week. Zora sings, so I can link a bunch of music, right?

    4 If it’s not clear yet, Star Trek: Discovery is a cheerleader for every fan of its show. Each episode dives into a type of psychological struggle everyday people are forced to confront and varies this conflict with nuances of severity between its characters. The end goal is not to belittle these struggles, but to demonstrate that everyone needs a shoulder and kind words to make it. All that packed through the lens of crazy science fiction stories.

    5 And we learn Book’s given name, Tareckx. The subtitles suggest this is also Book’s father’s name.

    6 I realize it’s futile to get my hopes up, but I would love to see a real-form version of the Kelvan. The timing almost matches too, if a second team came, returned, and came back with the DMA as their armada.

    Star Trek Discovery S04e06: Ian Alexander as Grey Tal

    Share this article:

    Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit

    Tags

    Star TrekStar Trek Discovery

    You might also like

    • Star Trek Discovery S04E05 Review: The Examples – Dilemmas…

      By Chris Airiau
      | December 16, 2021
    • Star Trek Discovery S04E04 Review: All Is Possible – A wise move?

      By Chris Airiau
      | December 9, 2021
    • Star Trek Discovery S04E03 Review: Choose to Live – Says the murderous space nun

      By Chris Airiau
      | December 2, 2021

    FIND THE TOPICS YOU WANT...

    TV Topics

    Recommended for you

    • Big Sky S03E10 Review: A Thin Layer of Rock – Break time…

      By Salome G
      | December 11, 2022
    • Is Beth from Rick and Morty a bigger sociopath than Rick?

      By Jason Collins
      | December 7, 2022
    • REVIEW: The GOTG Holiday Special is a sweet prelude to next year’s finale

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 27, 2022
    • The Midnight Club S1 Review – A series of unfortunate events

      By Salome G
      | November 24, 2022
    • Doctor Who 2022 October Special Review: The Power of the Doctor – Lackluster

      By Jason Collins
      | October 25, 2022
    • Can the Doctor regenerate into a previous incarnation?

      By Jason Collins
      | October 23, 2022
    • Is the Tardis more sentient plant or machine?

      By Jason Collins
      | October 10, 2022
    • Star Trek Strange New Worlds – Season two wishlist!

      By Matthew Martin
      | September 14, 2022
    • Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Every episode ranked! (Part 5/5)

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 30, 2022
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Affiliate Disclosure
    • Cookie Policy and Settings
    • Terms of Use
    • Photo Credits
    • RSS
    All Cult of Whatever articles, logos, illustrations and graphics are copyright CultOfWhatever.com. All other trademarks, logos and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. © 2021 CultOfWhatever. All Rights Reserved.
    • facebook
    • twitter