It’s been difficult to judge Discovery so far, since the series has been in a constant state of flux. New characters, new settings, plot movement: the previous episode “The Butcher’s Knife Cares Not for the Lamb’s Cry” was the first time I could feel the series settling into a rhythm. “Choose Your Pain” continues that rhythm, unfortunately, in negative ways. The series’ problems are becoming glaringly apparent, and they persist from episode to episode: the opaque villains, the perpetually unclear and murky narrative arc, the needlessly dark tone. I’ll be honest: parts of “Choose Your Pain” made me want to quit watching Discovery. Whatever this series is, it’s not Star Trek anymore.
Two-Dimensional Thinking
The Klingons have been transformed into two-dimensional thugs for no real reason. In this episode’s A-plot, where Captain Lorca is captured and held hostage on a Klingon vessel, the Klingons are reduced to generic, stock villains, reminiscent of a hundred other latex-masked alien species we’ve met on Star Trek. All the nuance, the detail built up over fifty years of Trek history seems to have been disregarded in favor of cynical shock value. These are Klingons who beat up unarmed prisoners out of sheer sadism, when they aren’t turning them into sex slaves. (And yes, the episode really drives home that latter point.) The Original Series-era Klingons were erudite, sophisticated. Go watch their introduction in “Errand of Mercy;” it’s amazing how much of that episode is just Kor talking Kirk’s ear off. The TNG-era Klingons had a moral code based in honor and integrity, and the fact that they frequently compromised that code made them all the more fascinating. Even Enterprise gave its Klingon characters some nuance, like the memorable “Judgment,” which showed the Klingons’ legal, bureaucratic side by putting Archer on trial. It’s becoming clear that the differences in this series’ Klingons aren’t just cosmetic. When it comes to their souls too, they’re unrecognizable.
O No, Tardigrade, Tardigrade
Even Discovery’s technical / sci-fi aspects continue to stumble. Sci-fi audiences are used to suspending our disbelief in different ways. Either we accept the simple hand-waving approach of space fantasies like Star Wars (“The hyperdrive just works. So there.”) or the detailed, dense explain-it-all approach of TNG-era Star Trek (“Send a tachyon pulse through the deflector grid while increasing power to the inertial dampeners etc.”). Discovery is trying to combine those approaches in a way that falls flat.
In “Choose Your Pain,” we learn that there’s actually a network of fungus stretching throughout the galaxy. Where did it come from? Did it evolve naturally? Burnham talks about it as if it’s part of the Earth animal kingdom, but this is (apparently) a completely different lifeform. The Admiral refers to searching for more of the tardigrades. Where? We don’t know even know where Ripper came from. Despite its dense scenes of technical dialogue explaining tardigrade biology, the episode simply waves its hand when it comes to basic, important questions. It doesn’t work. It’s sloppy writing.
At the end of the episode, Burnham and Tilly release Ripper into space and permanent communion with the spores (?). They both have tears in their eyes; the episode clearly wants us to consider this a profound, emotional moment. But it doesn’t get there, because the whole network of half-explanations around the tardigrade/spore story neuters any emotional connection. And did the tardigrade have to be (maybe) sentient? It doesn’t have to be to earn our sympathy. As said in The Voyage Home a.k.a. older, kinder, gentler Star Trek: “My compassion for someone is not limited to my estimate of their intelligence.”
Who Are These People?
What defines Michael Burnham? What character traits make her distinct? She got a strong introduction in Discovery’s two-part prologue, and it seemed like the character would reflect a blend of Vulcan logic and human emotion, though leaning more toward the human side than Spock. But increasingly, it seems that she’s defined by her disgrace. And while characters are defined by their choices, they’re also defined by their wants. What does Burnham want, and how is she trying to get it? Ever since arriving on the Discovery, Burnham has simply been reacting to each successive situation. Much like this series, she lacks a center.
The episode also does damage to Saru’s character for no reason except to force conflict. When it becomes clear that Ripper is suffering from each jump using the spore drive, Burnham and Stamets take their concerns to Saru, who brushes them aside, ordering them to resuscitate Ripper for more jumps that will surely kill it. This is unreasonable from a moral and logical standpoint. Never mind tormenting an innocent creature, why jeopardize your greatest military advantage and potentially kill a (maybe) irreplaceable asset? Wouldn’t it make more sense to slow down and find a sustainable way to power the spore drive? The episode attempts to build an arc out of Saru’s first command experience. There are good moments, like when Saru asks the computer how to be a good captain, something Data might have done. But the arc has no real shape to it, ending by emphasizing the increasingly tired beat of Saru blaming Burnham for leading to Georgieu’s demise. We didn’t see enough of Georgieu to justify this level of hero worship. The series is telling us rather than showing, which makes the emotions ring false.
We also learn that:
- Lorca blew up his own crew (?) to prevent them from falling into Klingon hands. Then why didn’t he die with them? This story, if it’s not further explored (which considering how this series handles big questions, I doubt it), feels contrived for the sake of giving Lorca a Serious Dark Past.
- Stamets is in a relationship with the ship’s doctor, which makes them Trek’s first normalized on-screen human same-sex couple. (Wow, that’s a lot of qualifiers.) Too bad the doctor isn’t a better actor. And too bad the “cutest sci-fi gay couple” award has already been claimed by Bortus and Klyden on Seth MacFarlane’s The Orville!
- There’s a Starfleet guy named Ash Tyler, and… he exists. Honestly, he doesn’t make much of an impression.
The episode’s character bright spot is a guy named Harry Mudd, another prisoner on the Klingon ship who plays games of cooperation and betrayal with Lorca and Tyler. Original Series fans know Mudd from the episodes “Mudd’s Women” and “I, Mudd.” This version of Mudd has a darkness and cynicism that doesn’t jibe with the jovial, if unscrupulous, TOS character. But even if he does feel like a totally different person, I like this version of Mudd because he has an interesting, clear point of view. He gets a good speech to Lorca about how the “little guys” view “Starfleet’s war.” And it’s fun that Lorca leaves him behind; though I doubt we’ll see Mudd again this season, this has the feel of setting up a recurring antagonist.
Despite its good moments, though, “Choose Your Pain” is generally a dark, grim slog of an episode. Do you want to see guys getting the crap kicked out of them by menacing aliens? Do you want to see a guy repeatedly punching his captor in the face as revenge for sexual abuse? Do you want to see a giant tardigrade shed water and curl into a ball, looking for all the world like it’s shuddering and dying? All these and more in another grimdark episode of Discovery. I guess we’ve forgotten the Star Trek part.
Miscellaneous Notes
- The episode’s use of “shit” and “fuck” is jarring, and not in a good way. It feels like the series is trying too hard to be contemporary.
- Mudd is trying to escape so he can win the heart of the “magnificent” Stella, the same Stella that he’s trying to escape from in “I, Mudd!” It’s a great little detail.
- Did I mention that I really, really hated the “prisoner sex slave” plot? It’s not that it’s necessarily too dark for Star Trek, but the way it’s handled here is so glib and shallow, used purely for shock value. Unless future episodes explore the effects of this abuse on Tyler, which may or may not happen.
- Reference roundup: Rura Penthe from The Undiscovered Country is visible on the map of Klingon space. The computer’s list of great captains includes Jonathan Archer, Matt Decker, Christopher Pike, and Robert April. The last one is a particularly deep cut: April was the name of the Enterprise captain on Gene Roddenberry’s original story outline for Star Trek.
Previous episode: “The Butcher’s Knife Cares Not for the Lamb’s Cry”
Next episode: “Lethe”