Tag: discovery review

Star Trek: Discovery – “Will You Take My Hand?”

by Alex Reed, posted in Star Trek Essays, Star Trek: Discovery Reviews

Thud.

In the review for “Vaulting Ambition,” I wrote, “If the conclusion to this season soars… it may redeem a season full of confusing tonal shifts and tangents. If it lands with a thud, thus will land the season.” “Will You Take My Hand?” despite being decent, low-key, and even reasonable at times, proves that the writers of Star Trek: Discovery had no idea how to end the season’s main story arc. It results in a season that, in retrospect, looks jerry-rigged, like one of Scotty’s brilliant improvised devices to save the Enterprise from danger. The key difference: it doesn’t work.

The Calm Before the Thud

The bulk of the episode takes place at an Orion outpost on Kronos, as Burnham, Tyler, Tilly, and Mirror Georgieu snoop around. The production design is good, even if the trope of Sleazy Space Outpost is hardly original. I was mostly reminded of Enterprise’s pilot episode “Broken Bow,” though we’ve seen similar settings all the way back to Mos Eisley. These scenes, with their sleuthing tone and smattering of character moments, feel like a mid-season episode, which is not a complaint. Tilly is a delight, and whoever thought of the “Tilly gets high” scene deserves a medal. (The rest of the writers, not so much.) Tyler also has an interesting role. As he and Burnham watch a Klingon game of chance where the players roll giant dice on the floor (again, great design), he snaps into Klingon mode, joking and jostling with the other players, speaking the language. It’s perhaps the series’ most effective demonstration of Tyler’s dual personality. Though he claims to be rid of Voq, obviously some part of Voq manifests himself here.

Burnham’s story about the fate of her parents is good in the moment, but in hindsight feels out of step with the rest of the episode. We learn that both parents were killed by Klingons in the family home while little Burnham, hiding in a closet, had to listen. Nothing new as far as genre tropes go, but it does contextualize the way Burnham instinctively recoiled at Tyler when his Klingon identity was revealed. My only question: why save this information for the last episode? Learning this key element of Burnham’s past might have shed additional light on her actions. The only outpost scene I didn’t care for was Mirror Georgieu hooking up with the prostitutes. She calls over a male prostitute, and I knew, I just knew that a second later she was going to call over the woman too. Because bisexual characters are always evil. It’s a lazy, offensive trope, and totally unnecessary.

The Thud Lands

Nevertheless, the episode was basically working for me. Until it had to tie up the season arc. And oh boy. I’m not exaggerating when I say that was the most stunning anticlimax I’ve ever seen.

Every plot development is laughably easy and all the story’s problems are basically waved away with a magic wand. Consider:

  • Burnham learns that Starfleet has developed a superweapon and is contemplating genocide against the Klingons. I could deal with this if it had any kind of setup, or if the season really stopped to contemplate what it means, but the escalation of the stakes goes too far, too fast.
  • The episode builds to a confrontation between Burnham and Cornwell, where Burnham decides to go rogue and stop the plan. Cornwell’s response to this act of mutiny? “OK.”
  • Burnham beams down and confronts Georgieu, who is about to execute the plan by dropping a drone down a hole in the rock (a ridiculously small-scale catalyst for this large-scale plan). Georgieu’s response when Burnham tells her to back down? “OK.”
  • Then Burnham hands control of the superweapon, and therefore the fate of the entire planet, to L’Rell (!), telling her to use that power to unite the Klingon houses. Excuse me? Who’s going to believe L’Rell’s threat without a convincing demonstration of her power? The shot of the Klingon ships turning away from Earth made me LOL. This all takes place in five minutes of screentime, by the way.

This reeks of desperate improvisation. With all the buildup we’ve gotten, and the awkwardly-shoved-in Mirror Universe storyline that took up four valuable episodes, I just cannot believe that this lame conclusion was part of a carefully-mapped out plan for the season. I would love to know what was going on behind the scenes of Discovery. I can make an educated guess that Bryan Fuller’s departure must have thrown the plans for the season into turmoil, and it was left to others to step in and pick up the pieces. They tried. The Klingon war storyline clearly wasn’t working, and they were right to discard it. But the ending of a story often determines whether the journey was worth it. This one wasn’t.

Suddenly we’re in denouement mode. These scenes have a nice tone, but they ring hollow because of how quickly and conveniently the season’s conflict has been resolved. Burnham and Tyler say goodbye. It’s nice, it’s fitting, but I still feel nothing for their relationship. Burnham has heartfelt conversations with her parents that feel as if they’re paying off story arcs that never happened. (Or at least should have been distributed throughout the season rather than all being shoved into “Lethe,” which is a long time ago in story terms.) There’s an awards ceremony for the Discovery crew, which is nice… in the moment. Burnham gives a speech about upholding Starfleet ideals that’s stirring… in the moment. Are we supposed to just forget what Starfleet was about to do? Condone the genocide of an entire race to save itself? And are we supposed to view Burnham’s solution as admirable? She just created a dictator with life-or-death power over an entire planet, which is about the most un-Starfleet decision I can think of. Instead of facing up to the darkness that was just revealed, we’re sweeping it under the rug so we can move on to the next season with a clean slate.

Even after all that, I was willing, just barely, to give the show the benefit of the doubt. And then the Enterprise shows up. Just when I thought Discovery might actually move on to something new, it hits us with a sadly predictable smack of nostalgia. This moment seems to want to be a reward, a punctuation mark on the season. But what does it say about your series when the entire season builds up to a reference to an older, better series? With that one move, Discovery may have finally lost me.

Fanboy No More

Nostalgia is a curse. What were once my favorite sci-fi franchises, Star Trek and Star Wars, are both lost in it. The ending of this episode reminded me strongly of a similar moment in Star Trek Beyond. After a decent, unmemorable sci-fi adventure, the film delivers a moment of nostalgia, when new Spock reveals that old Spock gave him a picture of the original Enterprise crew. It’s a touching moment. But walking out of the theatre, I thought, “How sad is it that my strongest reaction to the movie was that moment?” A gesture toward older, deeper, richer adventures. Rogue One was similar. My strongest reaction to that movie was a thrill at the sound of the X-Wing engines whooshing by. The freaking engine noise got me more excited than the film’s actual characters.

Since 2001, Star Trek has stopped looking forward. Enterprise was a prequel series, so that was built into its design. Though I felt that series came up short, that wasn’t because it was a prequel. Trek had simply been on the air too long and it needed to take a break. Star Trek (2009) looked backward to the original characters, but reinvented them for a new generation, offering a promising chance to move forward in an entirely new universe. Then immediately, Into Darkness remade Wrath of Khan (badly). Discovery could’ve been set at any point in the timeline, and it became another prequel series, leaning on tired old Trek warhorses like the Mirror Universe. I’m not interested in nostalgia. I’m interested in new life, new civilizations. For the first time ever, the ending of a Star Trek season has left me totally uninterested in the next one. Discovery may turn out to be a good series. But its first season feels more like an imitation, a gesture toward what Star Trek was, than the real thing. I used to be the type of fanboy who gobbled up everything Trek. But now, I’ve acquired the more jaded attitude of the casual TV viewer. If I hear it’s good, I’ll come back. If not, I won’t.

Miscellaneous Notes:

  • Mirror Georgieu is a spectacularly bad captain, sneering at the bridge crew all over the place. I briefly forgot that her Mirror Universe identity was supposed to be a secret, since it seemed so laughably obvious.
  • The “space whale” joke falls flat. Are we supposed to know what that is?
  • “You were asleep and I’m an Orion.” Alien characters stereotyping themselves: this short-circuits the definition of the word “problematic.”
  • “Kelpian is tough.” “You may find me unpalatable.” “You require seasoning.” I can’t decide if the food innuendoes are great or terrible.

Previous episode: “The War Without, The War Within”

Star Trek: Discovery – “The War Without, The War Within”

by Alex Reed, posted in Star Trek Essays, Star Trek: Discovery Reviews

I’d like to begin this review how I concluded the last review. With a shrug.

“The War Without, The War Within” isn’t bad, but it’s not hugely compelling either. It feels more like classic Trek than most of Discovery, taking its time for slow dialogue scenes between pairs of characters. You mean we actually get to watch these characters act like people? Seeing as pretty much every episode of Discovery careens ahead like a freight train, a slower, calmer episode like this comes as a nice surprise. But it also can’t shake off Discovery syndrome, where every quiet character moment must be balanced with a BIG CRAZY TWIST.

Taking Time to Talk

Among the episode’s notable two-person scenes:

  • Tyler runs into Stamets and tries to apologize for killing Culber. It goes about as well as you’d expect. It’s a good moment, though, well-played. Of course Stamets has nothing to say. How could he?
  • Burnham and Tyler have it out over their relationship, which is less good. The scene is overacted and stilted, filled with trembling voices and tears rolling down cheeks. It underlines how the Burnham / Tyler romance was dictated by the plot rather than emerging naturally from character. There’s a particularly cringeworthy moment when Tyler accuses Burnham of taking his recent exposure as a Klingon spy as an “excuse” to back out of their relationship. In what universe is that good for a relationship?
  • Tilly encourages Burnham to talk things over with Tyler. The Tilly / Burnham friendship has been one of the understated bright spots of this season. Too bad Tilly is so often lost in the cacophony of the plot.

However, we also need to discuss the foolhardiness of Saru’s decision to let Tyler wander the ship freely. This is a dangerous man, with an alter ego Klingon personality that could leap forth at any moment. In fact, the entire crew treats him much too cavalierly. The way they react, you would think he got sloppy at the office party, not recently got exposed as a surgically altered Klingon who tried to kill the first officer. The scene in the mess hall is laughably simplistic. Everyone gets quiet when Tyler enters the room, then Tilly sits next to him, the ice is broken, and everyone starts smiling and chatting. What is this, high school? Even when Discovery tries to focus on character, it bungles the details in favor of narrative convenience.

Action Quotient Fulfilled

Of course, this wouldn’t be a Discovery episode unless we shoved in some action sequences. Cornwell and Sarek beam onto the bridge with phasers drawn (of course), and Sarek mind-melds with Saru to figure out where the Discovery has been. (I thought the mind meld was a closely kept secret in the time of TOS? I’ve long since given up on fitting this series into the established timeline.) Also, the crew has to grow more spores for the drive, which they accomplish by shooting pods at a planet and doing some tech stuff. It looks pretty, but I have no idea what actually happens. How did Discovery manage to have all this tech on hand? Because we must keep the plot moving at all costs, of course!

There are some tech and overall plot elements that work, and some that don’t. Charting the surface of Kronos by spore jumping inside the planet is a neat plan. It’s also an interesting idea that the Klingon houses have fractured, and each is attacking the Federation to fulfill its own pursuit of glory. In a better series, this would be explored for dramatic benefit (think what Deep Space Nine would’ve done with the idea of competing Klingon houses), but instead, we throw away this interesting political scenario so we can romp around in the Mirror Universe for four episodes. In a Serious Briefing Scene, Cornwell and Sarek decree that the Mirror Universe will be kept secret, since knowledge of alternate universes would apparently lead to mass hysteria. This purports to explain why Kirk and crew didn’t know about the Mirror Universe, but wouldn’t Starfleet captains at least be briefed about this potential security threat? Plus, Picard, Janeway, et al, regularly discovered alternate universes and no one made a fuss about keeping them secret. It’s really the writers’ convenient way of saying, “We wanted to use the Mirror Universe, so shut up.”

It All Comes Back to Logic

There’s a moment in this episode that exemplifies Star Trek: Discovery. Having just learned that Lorca was from the Mirror Universe, Admiral Cornwell pulls out her phaser and vaporizes Lorca’s tray of fortune cookies. I laughed. It’s a punchy, unexpected moment. But then a voice instantly spoke to me, “As you know, Mr. Chekov, no one can fire an unauthorized phaser aboard a starship.” It was Valeris from The Undiscovered Country, after she tried a similar trick and set off the security alarm. Back then, Star Trek bothered to think through the rules of its universe. It asked basic questions like, “Can someone just randomly fire a phaser on a starship? Mmm, probably not.” Discovery doesn’t care. Rules and logic don’t matter. Only the moment matters. In The Undiscovered Country, multiple people come running into the room asking, “Did someone fire a phaser?” In Discovery, everyone shrugs and thinks, “I wonder what more crazy shit will happen today.”

The episode ends with Mirror Georgieu placed in command of Discovery for its climatic run on Kronos. Look, another BIG CRAZY TWIST! At this point, I’m suffering from twist exhaustion. But I can predict with certainty that there will be several more before the end. To quote Voyager’s “Muse,” which was itself a reflection on the nature of Star Trek storytelling: “Find the truth of your story and you won’t need all those tricks.”

Miscellaneous Notes:

  • The episode uses vocabulary from the transgender community in reference to Tyler. The doctor says he’s “presenting” as Tyler, and his operation is referred to as “species reassignment surgery.” I’m not sure this is a great allegory to draw since Tyler’s experience was so horrific.
  • Even in its attempt to provide clarity on L’Rell and Voq’s plan, the episode muddies the waters further. So they intended to capture Discovery and use the glory from its conquest to unite the Klingon houses? This plan skips so many intermediate steps that it makes my head spin.
  • In my mind, Discovery is apocryphal. I simply can’t reconcile this series’ relentless grimness with the sunny, colorful world of the Original Series that supposedly takes place ten years later.

Previous episode: “What’s Past is Prologue”
Next episode: “Will You Take My Hand?”

Star Trek: Discovery – “What’s Past is Prologue”

by Alex Reed, posted in Star Trek Essays, Star Trek: Discovery Reviews

“What’s Past is Prologue” concludes the Mirror Universe arc pretty much how I expected: an action-packed romp that’s shallow but pretty to look at. I’m not sure if Discovery has found a groove or if I’ve adjusted my expectations to its level. If that sounds like a backhanded compliment, so be it. I enjoyed watching this episode. It’s fun if you turn your brain off. The trouble is, the reason I love (or used to love) Star Trek is that I like leaving my brain on.

What I Liked A.K.A. The Good in the Mirror

Let’s give credit where credit is due: this climactic episode summons the full impact of quick cuts, bright flashes, and solid punchy sounds to deliver some spectacular action scenes. The fight in the Emperor’s throne room is riveting, with swift, brutal fight choreography. It’s hard to believe that Kirk’s fight with the Gorn in TOS’s “Arena” takes place in the same universe. (Laughably, “Arena” is supposed to take place ten years after this episode.) So the punchy stuff is good, and the starships whizzing around is also good. The episode’s climax, where Discovery destroys the spore generator and rides a mycelial wave back to “our” universe, is genuinely exciting and makes great use of intercutting. The visualization of the spore network is particularly gorgeous: a series of infinitely branching tunnels, with Stamets barely picking the right path each time. No wonder it’s such a strain on him.

Characters also have good moments. With Burnham gone and Lorca evil, Saru gracefully settles into the captain’s seat and gives a nice inspirational speech about how the ship isn’t Lorca’s anymore; it belongs to the crew. Burnham and Georgieu have some good interplay, particularly Burnham’s line: “You lost a daughter and an empire. I lost a captain and a life.” With all this talk of the Mirror Universe as destiny, it seems that fate has balanced the scales for both of them. Mirror Lorca is a two-dimensional villain, which (deep breath, repeating myself from last week) is disappointing considering the extended setup and potential squandered etc. But he has an interesting speech where he lays out his philosophy: “The strong and the capable will always rise.” He believes the universe would be better if everyone accepted that the strong and capable should rule. At least he has a philosophy, unlike the boring-as-shit Kol from the first half of the season. (“Who?” asks half the audience.)

The episode also lays on the references to contemporary issues pretty thick. Not only does Lorca accuse Georgieu of “letting aliens spill across our borders,” but literally concludes a rousing speech with “make the Empire glorious again.” Along with the Klingons and Vulcans, that makes three alt-right populist factions on this series! Also, Stamets, Tilly, and Saru have a scene that practically screams “CLIMATE CHANGE” in capital letters. They discuss how the Terran plan to harness the spore network is resulting in its destruction, gradually draining precious resources that cannot be managed “sustainably.” “How could they be so shortsighted?” Saru sighs dramatically. (“GET IT?” screams the script.) Though both these scenes are obvious and heavy-handed, I appreciate the effort.

What I Didn’t Like A.K.A. What’s Behind This Mirror?

Scratch the surface and you won’t find much beneath. Once you get past the superficial whiz-bang, the fact remains that this is a series riding on spectacle and big twists, trying to distract us from the fact that it was never built on a solid foundation. Throughout its entire run, the series has kept careening ahead, never giving us time to settle down and bond with these characters. Remember TNG’s “Encounter at Farpoint” and how it devoted entire plot-irrelevant scenes to watching Riker and Data hang out in the holodeck? Or Picard and Crusher tentatively acknowledging the death of Beverly’s husband? When I try to think of similar “hangout” moments in Discovery, all I come up with is Tilly and Burnham running through the halls in “Lethe.” (The party in “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad” doesn’t count because it’s wrapped up in the time loop.)

I like Saru and Stamets and Tilly and Burnham. But so frequently, they’re swept away by a torrent of plot incidents: pieces on a constantly shifting chessboard. And as for the Mirror Universe characters? Except for DS9’s “Crossover,” MU people aren’t meant to be real people, so they can only go so far in engendering our sympathy or disgust. By spending four entire episodes in the MU, the series has hung a lot on Mirror Lorca and Georgieu, and they can’t sustain the weight because there’s nothing there. “They’re just evil” is pretty much all there is to them. This show’s much-touted narrative arc has proven to be its own worst enemy.

Now we’re back to “our” universe with Mirror Georgieu in tow, plus presumably some Tyler / L’Rell stuff to work out (neither appeared this week). With only two episodes to go, Discovery has precious little time to wrap things up, or God forbid, extend important story arcs into the second season. Because I’m already eager to leave spores, secret identities, and the whole bloody Klingon war far behind.

Miscellenous Notes:

  • Saru has a great captain’s log voice! An important prerequisite for a Starfleet captain.
  • I admit that Lorca’s ironic death by spore generator was satisfying.
  • Mirror Landry shows up. Unfortunately, you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between her and Regular Landry, because the latter honestly felt like a Mirror Universe character to begin with!
  • We’re back to the Klingon war stuff. My reaction: a shrug. Just a shrug.

Previous episode: “Vaulting Ambition”
Next episode: “The War Without, The War Within”

Star Trek: Discovery – “Vaulting Ambition”

by Alex Reed, posted in Star Trek Essays, Star Trek: Discovery Reviews

At a trim 38 minutes, “Vaulting Ambition” is the shortest live-action hour of Star Trek ever made. Considering the content, I didn’t mind. With this episode, Discovery slips back into its old tics, the tics that have held it back all along: grimness and narrative murkiness. What’s funny is how tonally similar this episode feels to earlier efforts like “Context is For Kings” and “Choose Your Pain,” except those were set in “our” universe and this episode is set in the Mirror Universe, a realm that usually offers a darker contrast to “our” universe. Perhaps the show is trying to make a broader point about the fallibility of “our” universe, but I think that’s giving it too much credit. The show is what it is, and the similarity of the two universes says a lot about its tonal baseline.

Let’s Get to the Point… Another Twist

We’ve known all along that there’s been something off about Lorca. In “Lethe,” his old lover Admiral Cornwell barely recognized him. In “Despite Yourself,” he randomly banged his head against the wall. Now we have an explanation; Lorca was from the Mirror Universe all along. Was I surprised? Yes. Was I disappointed? Yes. However, the episode plays the reveal of this secret well. Mirror Georgieu gradually leads Burnham to the realization that mirror Terrans are sensitive to light, a trait which Lorca has displayed all along. And in a parallel scene, Lorca is presented with a comrade from the Mirror Universe, who his guard threatens to kill unless Lorca says the name of the guard’s sister, who he apparently raped and killed. At first, we the audience think that Lorca doesn’t know the sister’s name, so the tension comes from our knowledge that the poor comrade is doomed. But when Lorca reveals his true colors, killing the captor (who has already killed the comrade), our expectations are subverted. It’s a nice way to pull the rug from under us. But my problem isn’t so much with the execution as with the implications of this twist.

Before, it was possible to read Lorca as a damaged man with a traumatic past. We assumed that the destruction of his ship and crew left a deep imprint on his psyche, making him increasingly guarded and paranoid. Though Lorca was sometimes a frustrating enigma, I assumed that an insightful answer to this puzzle was coming. Now we know Lorca was… just evil. Because he’s from the Mirror Universe. That is disappointing. By definition, the least interesting explanation for a character’s bad behavior is “they’re evil.” This twist hand-waves away all of Lorca’s potential complexity and turns him into a two-dimensional villain. Also, the shock factor is seriously hurt by coming on the heels of the Tyler/Voq reveal in last week’s “The Wolf Inside,” which landed with more gravity and had more interesting implications for the character in question. Discovery is revealing itself as a series about flash and spectacle, where big twists substitute for character insight.

It’s a Spore World After All

Last week, I assumed that mirror Stamets had contacted our Stamets through the spore network for a nefarious purpose. It turns out not to be nefarious (necessarily). He just wants to escape, after being trapped in the spore network due to an experiment gone awry. This storyline works decently, but like most of Discovery’s storytelling, it takes a confusing turn. Stamets encounters Culber in the spore network, who informs him that he’s dead, and the two have a final conversation. All this wants to be very emotional, and the actors try their best, but I simply couldn’t get past the basic question: what the hell is Culber in this scene? He can’t be a figment of Stamets’ imagination, since he conveys new information about the spore network (it’s afflicted by some kind of disease and its demise may lead to the “annihilation of everything, everywhere,” whatever that means). The only real explanation is that this is Culber’s “soul.” So the spore network is like a dreamcatcher for souls? We’ve dealt with katras before in the Star Trek universe, but this is a step too far. I simply couldn’t feel for Stamets or Culber because the encounter between the two didn’t feel real.

Other stuff happens in “Vaulting Ambition,” but the Lorca revelation and Stamets/Culber scene are the centerpieces. Both are interesting, but problematic, like the series at large. Discovery is generally watchable from week to week, with high production values, good acting, and the occasional good moment. But its endgame is not at all clear. If the conclusion to this season soars, like the half-season ender “Into the Forest I Go,” it may redeem a season full of confusing tonal shifts and tangents. If it lands with a thud, thus will land the season.

Miscellaneous Notes:

  • There are two other story threads going on here, which I file in the Other Stuff category. One is the Burmham / Georgieu interplay, which I found uninteresting. There’s always been something missing in this relationship, going back to the first two episodes, which never really let us feel these characters’ respect and admiration for each other. In the Mirror Universe, the dynamic is supposedly more extreme, with Georgieu functioning as a surrogate mother for Burnham. But there’s nothing to latch on to here, nothing to care about.
  • Also, L’Rell is able to soothe Tyler/Voq using some kind of sci-fi thingy. We still have no idea what L’Rell’s plan or motives are, which also makes it impossible to care.
  • Both Stamets exit the spore network, but the episode implies that their identities are switched. Yet more characters that aren’t what they seem.
  • Burnham and Mirror Georgieu eat Kelpian for dinner. Gross.

Previous episode: “The Wolf Inside”
Next episode: “What’s Past is Prologue”

Star Trek: Discovery – “The Wolf Inside”

by Alex Reed, posted in Star Trek Essays, Star Trek: Discovery Reviews

From its slow, somber opening sequence to its series of punchy twists, “The Wolf Inside” is quite a ride. The narrative murkiness of Discovery’s first half-season is gone, replaced by confident storytelling that knows where it’s going and makes sure that we’re along for the ride. Despite my initial reservations, this Mirror Universe storyline is going in a good direction, and striking a tone that distinguishes this visit to the MU from previous series. The tone of MU episodes has generally been campy, mustache-twirling fun, from “Mirror, Mirror” to the majority of the DS9 episodes to Enterprise’s “In a Mirror, Darkly.” Only Deep Space Nine’s excellent “Crossover,” with its grim tone and compelling look at political and power dynamics, really took the Mirror Universe seriously. Though Discovery flirts with the self-aware mustache-twirling, especially in last week’s “Despite Yourself,” overall it embraces the “Crossover” approach, which is to its credit. “The Wolf Inside” does take itself seriously, which makes its major twists land with conviction.

Fear of the Other

The episode’s commitment to sincerity is evident right away in its great opening sequence. A series of slow, somber shots accompany a log entry by Burnham that lays out her psychological torment. Playing the part of her alternate self is weighing on her. Every time she must act cold and cruel, it eats away at her soul, piece by piece. This log entry sets up a compelling, complex tension, since there are actually two ways Burnham could crack. She could slip up and act with mercy at the wrong moment… or slip up and act without mercy, having let the brutality of the Mirror Universe get to her. It’s a welcome layer of psychological depth that we don’t usually see in the MU.

This A-story rolls along nicely. Burnham is ordered by the as-yet-unseen Emperor to destroy a group of rebels. She attempts to manage the situation so that it appears that she carried out her orders, but the rebels go free. Beaming down to the rebel encampment with Tyler, she discovers that the rebel leader is actually mirror Voq (the albino Klingon last seen way back in “The Butcher’s Knife Cares Not for the Lamb’s Cry”), and mirror Sarek is basically the camp mystic. It’s a nice way to use these two characters, and the scene has some effective tension, but I did have a few questions. Burnham’s goal is to figure out how mirror Voq manages to hold the rebellion together, so she can learn how to negotiate with the Klingons in the original universe. Burnham can’t figure out how these disparate species are working together, but the answer seems simple; they have a common foe. Why is Burnham so amazed that different species are working together? Isn’t that what the Federation is? I’m also not sure how Sarek missed the fact that Burnham is from another universe, even after mind-melding with her. In any case, the plan nearly falls apart when Tyler’s mental conditioning kicks in, and he attacks Voq. We’ll come back to that.

More Spores

The B-plot on Discovery also clicks. The crew has discovered that Culber is dead, but they believe that Stamets must have killed him in his spore-induced delirium. Tilly tries an experimental plan to heal Stamets that features lots of hard-to-follow technical gobbledygook but basically boils down to: inject him with more spores. This storyline highlights just how far Tilly has come; in fact, she’s become one of my favorite Discovery characters. In her initial appearance in “Context is For Kings,” it almost seemed like she was on the spectrum, and I’m not sure if that was intentional or a result of clumsy writing. But the series quickly downplayed her awkwardness and instead emphasized her youthful drive and determination to improve, with the occasional bout of nervousness as she steps into a new situation. The result is a character that’s easy to root for. She asks Saru to sponsor her for the command track, and I really felt for her, getting that small victory, then seeing her plan fall apart. One thing’s for sure: Tilly has come farther in eight episodes than Harry Kim did over half of Voyager!

It Twists So Good

Finally we get to the big one: the twist that’s been building (in retrospect) all season. Burnham confronts Tyler about his reckless attack on Voq, and through more torture flashbacks, we slowly come to a horrifying realization. Tyler is actually Voq, surgically altered in brutal and painful ways to appear human. The Tyler personality has been grafted over Voq’s real personality, and over the course of the episode, this human identity seems to wear off. Now we know where the hell Voq has been for the past seven episodes! This certainly puts a new spin on the Tyler / L’Rell relationship. There are still lots of questions to be answered: who came up with this plan? Did Voq volunteer for the job? Was Tyler/Voq actually abused or is that just how the “Tyler” personality perceived it? Was the Tyler/L’Rell sex actually consensual? And we still don’t know the purpose of L’Rell and Voq’s plans. Normally, it would make sense to place a Klingon spy aboard a Federation ship, but L’Rell and Voq weren’t even working for the war effort. And why make Tyler/Voq a sleeper agent? I trust that answers to some of these questions are forthcoming. In the meantime, the reveal makes for a great scene.

After that, it’s one twist after another. Tyler/Voq is about to kill Burnham, but she’s rescued by mirror Saru (more on him below). Tyler/Voq is set to be executed for his attempt on the captain’s life, and for once, Burnham’s emotional desires line up with her need to stay undercover. The episode plays the execution scene straight, making us believe that Burnham really wants to kill Tyler/Voq, paying off the tension set up by the log entry that Burnham will give in to the cruelty of the Mirror Universe. But actually, the Discovery rescues Tyler, along with the key plans that may offer the ship a way out of the Mirror Universe. As if that weren’t enough, the Emperor shows up to kill the rebels and chastise Burnham for failing to follow orders, and the Emperor turns out to be… Georgieu! I should’ve seen it coming. Michelle Yeoh has too much presence to only appear in two Discovery episodes. Another awesome costume, too. That cape!

Overall, “The Wolf Inside” fires on all cylinders. It moves the plot forward, it’s entertaining, it contains some nice character beats, and the Tyler/Voq reveal even (somewhat) provides clarity to past episodes. If the series can pull off a nice ending to this Mirror Universe storyline, it’ll prove that this trip down memory lane was well worth it.

Miscellaneous Notes:

  • The opening log sequence reminded me of a similar sequence in Star Trek Beyond, which is a good thing. In that movie, Kirk’s initial log entry describes life aboard the Enterprise, and Kirk’s weariness at nearing the end of a long mission in space. Both log entries provide much-needed moments of calm and reflection, bringing emotional depth to the characters. That sequence in Beyond was the first time that the Abramsverse felt like a real place, with people going about their daily lives rather than dashing from one crisis to another.
  • So was the “Tyler” personality that we came to know a manufactured identity? Stolen from a real person? Why does it wear off over the course of this episode?
  • Visually, the episode is absolutely saturated with amber and blue, an annoying graphic design trend in recent movies and TV. See this link for more. Once you learn about this trope, you can’t unsee it.
  • The series did a great job at concealing the twist that Tyler is Voq. I assume that Shazad Latif was under the prosthetics as Voq all along. Thanks to the heavy makeup and the disguised voice, I never would’ve guessed. However, this makes me wonder if the Klingons’ appearance was redesigned solely to sell this twist. If that’s the reason, I would be annoyed.
  • Mirror Saru is basically a slave aboard the Shenzhou. His personality seems to match with the Saru we know. There’s a nice beat where Burnham starts to treat Saru kindly, but must disguise that impulse in order to stay in character.
  • The B-story ends with yet another twist in an episode chock full of them (not a complaint). Mirror Stamets appears, contacting our Stamets through the spore network for some nefarious purpose. It’s inferred that he’s the reason that Tilly’s plan didn’t work. I look forward to seeing where this goes.
  • Maybe it’s because they’re both Asian women, but I wonder if Georgieu’s appearance is a deliberate nod to Hoshi becoming the Terran Emperor at the end of “In a Mirror, Darkly.” It would be fun if the next episode threw in a Hoshi reference.
  • I giggled at Sarek’s goatee. I guess it’s mandatory for Vulcan men in the Mirror Universe.

Previous episode: “Despite Yourself”
Next episode: “Vaulting Ambition”

Star Trek: Discovery – “Despite Yourself”

by Alex Reed, posted in Star Trek Essays, Star Trek: Discovery Reviews

It’s 2018, Star Trek: Discovery is back for another half-season, and it feels like a completely different show. Again. In a universe already filled with temporal and spatial anomalies, Discovery is an anomaly of its own. It can’t decide what it wants to be. The rest of the Star Trek series basically know what they are: a starship and its crew exploring space (or a space station at the crossroads of the galaxy). When Discovery launched, it promised a different kind of storytelling: a serialized arc about a disgraced Starfleet officer aboard a ship at war. After several major shifts in that arc, including diversions into standalone time-travel shenanigans (which I liked, mind you), the series has jerked us in yet another new direction. One of my favorite things about Star Trek is how many different tones and types of storytelling it can encompass: drama, comedy, action/adventure, horror, etc. But in previous series, all these shifts in tone were contained within the steady framework of the series’ premise. Discovery has felt so messy because its premise keeps shifting, and its transitions between tones are more jarring.

So what about that new story arc?

Mirror, Mirror… Again?

I confess: as soon as I figured out we were in the Mirror Universe, I groaned. Haven’t we gone to this well enough times? Look, I think “Mirror, Mirror” is easily one of the best episodes of the Original Series. Deep Space Nine expanded on the Mirror Universe in interesting ways, but it had already started to wear out its welcome by the series’ end. Enterprise found an original angle by setting its story entirely in the Mirror Universe. But now? What is so interesting about the Mirror Universe that we have to keep returning there? Seeing evil versions of our characters (or in this case, our normal characters acting evil)? In a series that has mostly avoided the nostalgia crutch, the decision to use the Mirror Universe again feels like a tired throwback.

However, even though I was frustrated with the concept, what’s here is solid and well-executed. Some moments are even great. Tilly’s attempts to impersonate her evil self are laugh-out-loud funny, and her gold power suit is badass. The episode nicely sidesteps the trope of making the female Mirror Universe costumes just skimpier versions of the regular uniforms. And in one particularly good expository scene, the episode ties the Terran Empire into the season’s larger themes. “Their entire society is built on fear and rejection of the Other,” Burnham explains. Just like the Klingon and Vulcan movements for cultural and racial purity, the Terran Empire is explicitly rooted in xenophobia. In our current political moment, it does feel like “decency is weakness.” It remains to be seen how the season will tie together these alien / Terran alt-right movements, but it does seem to be building toward some kind of grand statement.

Tyler Terror

Meanwhile, Tyler’s story is getting more compelling all the time. “Despite Yourself” continues the effective technique established in “Into the Forest I Go,” with quick, jarring flashbacks of Tyler’s torture. An intense scene between him and L’Rell raises some interesting questions. She snaps him into a fugue state with a code phrase, but he doesn’t finish the sequence by stating his Klingon name, indicating that his brainwashing (or whatever it is) isn’t complete. L’Rell’s alarmed expression tells us that it isn’t part of her plan (whatever that is). Shazad Latif turns in his best performance to date, showing us Tyler’s slowly building sense of panic, like he’s trapped inside his own body. Dr. Culber even raises the terrifying possibility that the Tyler we see, and that he experiences, isn’t even the real Tyler. And then, in a truly shocking moment, Tyler snaps Culber’s neck: tragically, while Stamets is right there, in a spore-induced delirium. Though I continue to find the Burnham / Tyler romance “meh” (it hasn’t been quite as interesting as it was in the playful, romantic “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad”), the question of what Tyler is and whether he can control himself makes for more than enough intrigue.

As Burnham takes control of the ISS Shenzhou, walking a razor’s edge between acting evil and remaining good, Discovery heads into the unknown, with a solid start to its latest storyline. I’ve given up at trying to guess what this season will look like. How much time will we spend in the Mirror Universe? Will it tie into the larger story arc of the Klingon war or feel like a distraction? Only time will tell. At least we’re not in the agony booth like poor Lorca. I’ve always wondered just how much those things hurt.

Miscellaneous Notes:

  • What the hell is L’Rell’s plan anyway? What can she hope to achieve with Tyler at this point, with the Discovery in a completely different universe? Does she merely hope to escape, or use Tyler for a greater purpose?
  • Stamets is out of commission for this episode, still lost in whatever realm the spores catapulted him into. But it will be heartbreaking when he comes back to reality and realizes Culber is dead. I’d really begun to care about their relationship.
  • The episode’s only true WTF moment: when Lorca bangs his head against the wall to draw blood. I repeat the question from an earlier review: what is this guy’s deal?
  • On a pure action / badassness level, the episode’s best moment is when Burnham arrives on the bridge with the corpse of Connors and the crew begins a slow clap for her. The fight scene in the turbolift is very well choreographed. And it’s a nice twist of the knife (pun intended) for Burnham, having to kill the alternate version of a colleague she already blames herself for killing.
  • The episode is directed by Jonathan Frakes, William T. Riker himself, who also directed two Trek movies and 14 episodes of TNG, DS9, and Voyager. The direction is good, except for an early scene where the camera spins around a table like a merry-go-round. There’s disorienting, and then there’s nauseating.

Previous episode: “Into the Forest I Go”
Next episode: “The Wolf Inside”

Star Trek: Discovery – “Into the Forest I Go”

by Alex Reed, posted in Star Trek Essays, Star Trek: Discovery Reviews

“Into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.” So goes the quote from famed naturalist John Muir that inspires the title of this week’s episode. This half-season of Discovery, which is being promoted as “Chapter One” by CBS, has been all over the place. Even though individual moments have worked, Discovery’s narrative threads have often failed to cohere, and attempts at standalone storytelling have often functioned better than “arc” episodes. But with “Forest,” Chapter One climaxes in satisfying, clear-cut fashion. It doesn’t solve all the show’s problems, but it does deliver the first bonafide great episode of Star Trek: Discovery, a show that has often lost its mind, but may have finally found its soul.

The Big Bad

Now that we can see the whole picture of this half-season, it looks similar to a season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with a Big Bad (or main antagonist) whose rise and defeat provides the season’s narrative backbone. My biggest complaint about the episode, which really reflects on the season as a whole, is that Kol is revealed to be a pretty boring villain. All he wanted was to use the Ship of the Dead to rule over the Klingon Empire blah blah. And we never found out what the Ship of the Dead actually is. Oh well. It was satisfying to see them both blow up.

On a plot and action level, “Forest” clicks better than any episode of Discovery so far. The stakes are clear: saving the peaceful planet Pahvo from annihilation. The conflict is clear: Discovery vs. the Big Bad Klingons. And the tactics are clear. In a series that has often struggled with clear explanations for its pseudoscience, “Forest” is based on a cool tech concept: that to calculate a way around the Klingons’ cloaking ability, the crew must plant two sensors on board the Klingon ship, then make 133 spore jumps around it to calculate the ship’s position from various vectors. This is not only explained clearly, but depicted clearly through some cool effects shots of the Discovery warping around the Klingon ship like a buzzing insect.

What’s even better is how this action scenario puts pressure on the characters, testing them in unique ways. Stamets must endure the physical hardship of coordinating all those jumps, with the agony of knowing that his lover Culber must watch him suffer. Tyler must fight the psychological impact of encountering his tormentor L’Rell on the Klingon ship, struggling through the shock and PTSD symptoms. And Burnham must fight Kol and recover the insignia of her beloved mentor Georgieu. The tension created by all these conflicts playing out at once makes for a nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat second act.

The Director’s Touch

Except for last week’s baffling L’Rell subplot (indeed, it’s quickly confirmed that Admiral Cornwell did not die), the directing on Discovery has been solid. But “Forest” is the first time that certain effective directing choices really jumped out at me. Director Chris Byrne brings a stylish flair to the action that elevates the episode. (Impressively, this is his first directing credit, after serving as AD or Second Unit Director on Hannibal, 12 Monkeys, and American Gods.) Great directing can only do so much with bad material, but in this case, the directing elevates good material to great.

Among the episode’s standout directorial moments:

  • The deliberate blurring of the hallways when Tyler and Burnham first sneak around the Klingon ship, an innovative way to convey a sense of danger and disorientation.
  • Two match-cut visual effects transitions: the image of the second sensor fading into the computer graphic on Saru’s console, and the planet Pahvo fading into a close-up of Stamets’ eye.
  • The jagged, visceral flashbacks to Tyler’s torture and abuse.
  • The depiction of the universal translator and well-handled shift from Klingon subtitles to English.
  • Finally, the episode’s biggest “look-at-me-this-is-cool” moment: snapping into slow motion when the Ship of the Dead explodes. Lorca and Burnham both get “badass-slow-motion-walk-away-from-explosions” shots! It works because the slow motion is used for a specific purpose: letting us feel the impact of events that would pass by too quickly in real time.

How a story is told is just as important as what’s being said. Byrne’s work on this episode demonstrates the enhanced tension and excitement that inspired directing can bring.

Tyler Cam and a Predictable Zap

After four episodes of dancing around, “Forest” finally, finally deals with Tyler’s abuse at the hands of L’Rell in a powerful, emotionally resonant way. The flashbacks place us in Tyler’s head so we can feel his pain, confusion, and panic along with him, an intimate view into a character’s perspective that was sorely missing with Saru last week. The episode make a choice that I certainly did not expect by actually showing flashes of (horrifying) sex between L’Rell and Tyler. This verges on exploitation for shock value, which was my original complaint about this storyline in “Choose Your Pain,” except that the episode provides a powerful scene where Tyler opens up to Burnham about his experiences. The dialogue directly acknowledges L’Rell’s sexual abuse of Tyler, and the performances hit home. Arguably, it took the series too long to get to this point (it’s a little disingenuous to brush aside Tyler’s trauma for the sake of the romantic hijinx in “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad”), but in the end, it makes the brave choice to confront it directly. When Tyler visits L’Rell in her cell, there are hints that L’Rell still has power over him, and she still has an agenda to enact. Though L’Rell’s motives remain frustratingly unclear, at least the series has acknowledged the L’Rell / Tyler power dynamic.

In the end, despite a few innovative stylistic choices, “Forest” has a very traditional plot structure. The crew works to solve a single problem, there’s a climax, then a resolution. But in a series that has twisted and turned narrative structure with such mixed results, it’s a relief to get a dose of the traditional. The denouement scenes are what you’d typically expect from a season finale, such as a nice scene where Lorca offers Stamets Starfleet’s highest commendation for his work on the spore drive. However, when Stamets and Culber started talking about the nice long vacation they’re planning to take, I instantly knew something would go wrong (another old, old action trope). Sure enough, Discovery’s attempt to make one last jump with the spore drive zaps them into the unknown. Season 1.5, or Chapter Two, or whatever you want to call it, seems to be going in a new direction, with Discovery lost in space much like Voyager and various Enterprises before it. But with the series’ uptick in quality lately, and especially this satisfying mid-season finale, I look forward to seeing where it will take us in 2018.

Miscellaneous Notes:

  • The way Discovery is zapped into the unknown reminded me strongly of the video game Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force (still the best Star Trek game out there). Even the debris field looks almost exactly the same, only with purple clouds instead of the game’s blue clouds! Though “lost in space” is a common sci-fi trope, if the similarities continue, I might have to cry foul.
  • After Lorca talks to Starfleet, he picks up a fortune cookie. Missed opportunity to have him open the cookie and the fortune is something ironic: “Your journey will soon go on another path,” “Your past will catch up with you.” The possibilities are endless.

Previous episode: “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum”
Next episode: “Despite Yourself”

Star Trek: Discovery – “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum”

by Alex Reed, posted in Star Trek Essays, Star Trek: Discovery Reviews

I always chuckle the first time I see a new Star Trek: Discovery episode title. They’re memorable, but they just try so hard. They remind me of the way I wrote in middle school; everything, including the titles of the most mundane school essays, had to be big, epic, grandiose. “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum” is the second time a Star Trek series has used an entire Latin sentence as an episode title, after Deep Space Nine’s “Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges.” Coincidentally, both have to do with war; Discovery’s title translates as, “If you want peace, prepare for war,” while Deep Space Nine’s as “In time of war, the law falls silent.” However, when comparing the two episodes, and series, Discovery falls short. “Bellum” (I don’t even know the best way to abbreviate this title) is largely flat and mediocre. After two episodes of stronger episodic storytelling, we return to the Discovery of previous days. Not as dark and grim, but just as murky and confusing.

Teddy Bear Syndrome

What the hell is happening on the Klingon ship? It’s almost as if the episode doesn’t want us to care. This B-story manipulates our sympathies and confusingly withholds information so many times that in the end, there’s nothing to do but admit defeat. The fractured narrative reminded me of a short film I watched in a Film History class as an example of how not to construct a narrative. I dub it Teddy Bear Syndrome.

The film is a 1907 silent short called The Teddy Bears. At this point, just over ten years after the first public film screening, filmmakers were still figuring out the grammar of visual storytelling. The close-up, the pan, cutting between different locations, etc. The Teddy Bears is basically the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Cute, family-friendly… until Golidlocks enlists the help of then-current President Teddy Roosevelt, who shoots Mama and Papa Bear dead and puts Baby Bear on a leash! The film is a joke on Roosevelt’s fanaticism for hunting, but it’s a jarring experience because of the way it shatters our sense of audience identification. We come to identify with the bears as our protagonists, then they’re killed, and we’re expected to shift our sympathies onto their murderer.

The Klingon storyline in “Bellum” works the same way. First our sympathies are with Admiral Cornwell against L’Rell. (By the way, we discover that this is the same character who was Tyler’s abuser in “Choose Your Pain,” and before that, ally to albino would-be savior Voq. The storyline has skipped so many steps in between that it’s impossible to track L’Rell’s movements or motives.) Then L’Rell (maybe?) wants to defect, and she gains our sympathy. Then she (maybe?) kills the admiral and loses our sympathy. Then there’s another twist that Kol (maybe?) sends L’Rell to die. By this point, who are we supposed to side with? Who should we care about? The admiral’s “death” scene is depicted so confusingly that it verges on just plain bad filmmaking, as L’Rell (maybe?) kills her just because some other Klingons happen to walk around the corner and see them (maybe?) on their way to the shuttlebay to escape. This far in, I don’t think there’s any salvaging the Klingon storyline. The series has screwed it up too thoroughly, by making everything confusing and giving us no one to care about. The best we can hope for is that it ends soon.

Saru’s (Almost) Big Moment

The A-story is better, but never takes flight the way that it wants to. Burnham, Tyler, and Saru investigate a planet that may hold the key to penetrating the Klingons’ cloaking technology: a giant crystalline transmitter that’s been sending signals through the galaxy. First off, why is this elaborate solution necessary? We’ve seen plenty of ways that various Trek crews have been able to work around cloaking technology (in The Undiscovered Country, the crew even jerry-rigs a solution in the middle of battle). But also, how can one transmitter on one out-of-the-way planet, a structure that’s not much bigger than a redwood tree, see through the movements of the entire Klingon fleet, presumably spread out across many light-years? Just like the reboot movies, Discovery forgets the most basic fact about space; it’s really big.

The emotional core of this story wants to be Saru’s journey. I say “wants to be” because the story is never really about Saru. We’ve already learned that Saru comes from a prey species, bred to possess an ever-present sense of fear. Through contact with the native lifeforms on the planet, this fear is removed, and Saru gets to experience a few hours of blessed relief. Then when contact is broken, the fear returns. Saru has gotten a glimpse of paradise, then had it snatched away from him. This seems like powerful stuff on paper. But there’s so much going on in the episode, and crucially, Saru becomes the antagonist for much of it, that there’s no chance for the audience to really get inside his head, feel how he feels.

The other characters take a backseat. Stamets confesses to Tilly that he’s experiencing mental lapses caused by using the spore drive, but he doesn’t want to report them for fear of putting his partner, the ship’s doctor, in a difficult position. It’s a good scene that raises the question of how shipboard romances can be problematic. Tyler and Burnham have a brief bonding scene on the planet, with some clichéd “war movie” dialogue about, “What are you gonna do when this war’s over?” It’s decent, but after last week’s original angle on their romance, it feels shallow.

The episode does take a good stab at creating an original sci-fi setting. The idea of a planet where all life forms vibrate in harmony, soon to be threatened by other creatures’ warfare, is decent. But otherwise, there’s not much to say about “Bellum.” It’s a shame that the Saru story couldn’t have gotten fuller attention; it’s hampered by the requirement of tying it in to the ongoing story arc. Despite its success with more contained stories, Discovery has yet to prove that it can pull off satisfying narrative arcs.

Miscellaneous Notes

  • I know I’ve asked this question before, but what is the Ship of the Dead? Who built it? Why does it have cloaking technology, and why didn’t the rest of the Klingon fleet have it before? We’re long past the point where I’d expect the series to provide answers.
  • A scene between Tyler and Saru finally acknowledges Tyler’s abuse at the hands of the Klingons. But the impact is blunted because 1) that abuse is only hinted at, not discussed openly, and 2) it turns out that Tyler is just stalling Saru for time. I still can’t get a handle on Tyler’s character. What defines him, besides his desire for revenge against the Klingons?
  • After noting at the end of last week’s review that Discovery’s war elements don’t feel urgent, this episode opens with a battle scene. It’s fine. I find myself missing the phasers of Trek past. The reboot movies reimagined phasers as pulses of energy rather than solid lines. Somehow, the latter feels punchier.
  • I’m not necessarily against classic-Trek references, but the “needs of the many” thing in the Burnham/Tyler scene just felt forced.
  • We see Trek’s new Toronto filming location on full display. Instead of alien planets looking like rocky Southern California deserts, now they look like Southern Ontario forests!

Previous episode: “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad”
Next episode: “Into the Forest I Go”

Star Trek: Discovery – “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad”

by Alex Reed, posted in Star Trek Essays, Star Trek: Discovery Reviews

Before Star Trek: Discovery was released, the writers teased that the season was structured along the lines of current binge-worthy TV: one long story where each episode functioned as a chapter. But with these last two episodes, I’m starting to suspect that Discovery came together more haphazardly. Like last week’s “Lethe,” “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad” (another contender for the Flamboyant Episode Title Award) ignores much of Discovery’s long-term plotting in favor of a mostly standalone adventure, and it’s better for it. With this episode, the series finally finds its sense of fun, and the crew’s chemistry clicks. Viewed as a whole, the season has made for a clumsy story arc, but that matters less when individual episodes are as solid as this one.

Time Loop Nonsense

Mention a time loop episode, and every Trek geek will think of The Next Generation’s “Cause and Effect.” While “Magic” does build from the general conceit of a time loop, it has its own identity that gives the story a fresh spin. “Cause and Effect” was more about the crew’s problem solving process: how they figured out they were in a loop, and how they figured out an escape. It played the premise seriously, even eerily. “Magic” has a lighter touch. At its core, it’s a Burnham character story, just with some bells and whistles attached. One of the episode’s freshest choices is making Stamets the one who remembers each loop. Normally in these types of episodes, we follow the character who’s moving through time, figuring out the situation along with them. But here, Stamets figures out the tech / sci-fi stuff in the background, allowing us to focus more on Burnham.

Like “Lethe,” “Magic” does a lot to reestablish Burnham as the heart of this series. The episode begins and ends with a personal log that connects us to her status as an outcast. As I guessed last week, the shipping between Burnham and Tyler comes to the fore, and it actually works well. Burnham struggles with the fact that, having been raised by Vulcans, then occupied an Executive Officer position where she could keep the crew at arm’s length, she never acquired natural human social skills, especially when it comes to expressing attraction. Through the various time loops, she tries different approaches towards Tyler, eventually deciding that her feelings are too complicated to deal with right now. “I’ll be here,” Tyler says magnanimously. I’m glad the series isn’t shoving these characters together too quickly. Like in real life, it’s nice to give the relationship time to develop.

Time for Mudd

After “Choose Your Pain,” I doubted that Harcourt Fenton Mudd would return this season. I stand corrected. The episode’s use of Mudd is a lot of fun. Even if he’s much more murderous than his Original Series incarnation, he makes for a memorable villain: the kind of guy who will kill you fifty times, but a different way each time just for kicks. In a macabre but amusing montage, Mudd kills Lorca a variety of different ways, including beaming him into space while sitting in the captain’s chair eating a burger!

My biggest issue with the episode is that it’s tough to follow the details of Mudd’s plan, and the crew’s counter-plans against him. We skip so many time loops, and portions of time loops, that we’re often left to connect the dots ourselves. But this is part of the episode’s design. Unlike “Cause and Effect,” which clearly and logically lays out all the steps that enable the crew to escape the time loop, “Magic” has a “just go with it” feeling, and it works on that level. Ultimately, the episode isn’t about the details of Mudd’s plan, because…

“Magic” is a Comedy

When you read Shakespeare, there’s an easy way to tell whether the play is a comedy or tragedy. Does it end with death (tragedy) or marriage (comedy)? “Magic” commits to this latter course with the most traditional comedy ending imaginable. The crew finds out a way to summon Mudd’s “beloved” Stella and her rich arms-dealing father, maneuvering Mudd into a marriage that will keep him out of the picture. Even if the dots don’t connect (in the vastness of space, Stella and her father happened to be within a few hours’ travel of the Discovery?), it works on a character and thematic level. The transition into the Stella scene is a little jarring, since the episode has spent so much time emphasizing the action / tech elements. Even in its best moments, Discovery is still clumsy at managing its tone. But if you view the entire episode as a comedy, it works better.

For in the midst of the frantic jumping between time loops and frequent explosions and deaths, the episode finds time for some genuinely sweet, romantic moments. For one, it’s nice to see a party on Star Trek that actually feels like a party, unlike the cocktails-and-classical-music feel of TNG-era Trek. (Deep Space Nine’s “You Are Cordially Invited” pulled off a similar feat with Dax’s bachelorette party: another comedic episode that ended with a wedding!) Tilly has a fun role as “that friend you would never have guessed is into partying.” And Stamets and Burnham have a lovely scene where Stamets tells the story of how he met his partner, emphasizing that you have to be open and honest for relationships to work.

I’m glad to see Discovery finding a better balance between its serialized and episodic storytelling. Even in Deep Space Nine’s final season, deep into the Dominion War, the series still found time for an entire episode where the crew plays baseball. The war elements of Discovery don’t feel that urgent so far, but that’s fine by me. When the show can deliver fun high-concept sci-fi with genuine character building like this, story arcs take a backseat.

Miscellaneous Notes

  • The episode even plays a remix of “Staying Alive” every time the time loop resets! (Just like the use of “I Got You Babe” in Groundhog Day.) All part of the spirit of fun.
  • Burnham’s arc is very reminiscent of Seven of Nine’s quest to learn social skills. Though Voyager mined this terrain pretty thoroughly, this story is grounded enough in Burnham’s character that it works. Every Trek series features an outcast looking at humanity from the outside, and the character beats are bound to feel familiar sometimes.
  • I hope Stamets keeps his new spore-induced personality. The character has really grown in the past few episodes.
  • Nice subtle insert of a same-sex couple dancing in the background during the party!
  • Discovery likes to pepper its dialogue with explicit thematic statements (“and the moral of the show is…”). Normally, this makes for ponderous dialogue, but it works when the themes are worthwhile, like Burnham’s last statement: “Step outside your comfort zone, because where you belong may be just around the corner.”

Previous episode: “Lethe”
Next episode: “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum”

Star Trek: Discovery – “Lethe”

by Alex Reed, posted in Star Trek: Discovery Reviews

Let’s call this the “I spoke too soon” review.

After last week’s “Choose Your Pain,” I was frustrated with Discovery. Its problems were mounting, and the series seemed committed to its perpetually murky narrative and grim tone. This week’s episode “Lethe” doesn’t so much solve these problems as sweep them under the rug and start over. Let’s list the annoying or problematic elements from previous episodes that “Lethe” completely ignores:

  • The tardigrade / spore drive plot
  • Tyler’s sexual abuse
  • In fact, the entire Klingon storyline
  • The Georgieu hero worship and strained Burnham / Saru relationship

Not only that, but this episode is completely free of gratuitous references to the Original Series! It’s almost as if it came from a different writing staff. (Which may not be far from the truth. We know that creator Bryan Fuller left the show early on, partly due to scheduling conflicts, partly due to creative differences, and after that, reports trickled in of Trek veterans like Joe Menosky, Kirsten Beyer, and Nicholas Meyer being hired. Perhaps this episode is when the cavalry arrived, though that’s just an educated guess.)

At long last for Discovery, “Lethe” makes sense all the way through and is grounded in real substance. We get an A/B story structure where both stories are based in character and mostly work in a self-contained fashion.

Sarek’s Sophie’s Choice

Last week, I noted that Burnham had gotten a little two-dimensional, without a clear objective to define her. This week puts the character back on solid ground with a very strong A-story about her relationship with Sarek. The episode makes good use of the mind-meld relationship between the two established in “Battle at the Binary Stars.” When Sarek’s shuttle is damaged by a Vulcan extremist suicide bomber (more below), Burnham senses that he’s in danger and helps guide the Discovery crew to rescue him, all while reliving one of her and Sarek’s most painful memories.

On paper, this sounds like classic Trek. Change the names, and this story could’ve been done on The Next Generation, Voyager, etc. That’s not a complaint, though. The mind-meld scenes are executed with 21st century visual flair, and what we learn about Burnham and Sarek is strongly rooted in the themes of this series. The big reveal, and it’s a good one, is that Sarek was pressured into making a choice between Spock, his son, and Burnham, his adopted daughter. In scenes of intriguing implicit racism, a Vulcan bigwig makes it clear to Sarek that the Vulcan Expeditionary Force, their equivalent of Starfleet, will only accept one human or part-human member. Sarek chooses Spock, a decision made all the more painful when Spock defies his wishes and joins Starfleet. So Sarek and Burnham both lose. This leads Burnham to an important realization: she’ll never be the person Sarek wants, and she’ll never get out of him what she needs. It’s a solid, emotional character core that really helps Burnham grow. It’s not just her logic and emotions that are in conflict, she realizes. It’s her emotions themselves. That’s just part of being human, Tyler says with a dashing shrug. Finally, Discovery gets around to that “exploring-the-human-condition” thing that’s such an important part of what Star Trek is.

Captain Paranoid

What’s Lorca’s deal, anyway? His B-plot in “Lethe” is intriguing, but retains the murkiness of previous episodes. Lorca’s air of mystery is beginning to move from fascinating to frustrating. Even his Serious Dark Backstory from last week (apparently leaving his crew to die) isn’t mentioned. The conflict plays out between Lorca and Admiral Cornwell, who pays Discovery a visit. We learn the two were romantically involved, and they hook up, which is refreshing if only due to how awkwardly previous Trek series have dealt with sex. What doesn’t work so well is the subsequent scene where Lorca starts awake and pulls a phaser on Cornwell. She’s shocked that he keeps a phaser under his pillow and swears to have him removed from command since he’s a “broken man.” The scene is jarring, perhaps unintentionally (a problem more in the directing than the writing). The onscreen drama works fine, but underneath it, there’s still the unresolved question: why is Lorca so paranoid that he keeps a phaser under his pillow? There’s withholding information to create tension, and then there’s stalling for time. Discovery has played the “Lorca-might-be-crazy” card one too many times. Whatever dark secret he’s carrying, I guarantee it would be more interesting to learn it than to continue dancing around the point.

The rest of the characters, though, get good showings:

  • Each episode seems to make Tilly more earnest, disciplined, and endearing. I’m almost embarrassed that I complained about her so much in “Context is for Kings.” This episode features a nice mini-arc of Burnham teaching Tilly to excel. There’s a great scene at the end where a newly humbled Burnham admits, “There are many ways to the captain’s chair.” Tilly: “I know. I’ve found my own way.”
  • Last week, Stamets injected himself with a substance that allowed him to commune with the spores. So this week, we get Spore Stamets, who’s a lot more blissed-out and giggly than regular Stamets. His scene is a delight.
  • Though Shazad Latif is quite charming, I’m still not sure what to make of Tyler’s character. Young and dashing…? The episode is clearly setting up a romance between him and Burnham. Though the actors have good chemistry, I don’t see where this comes from on a character level.

The big plot development at the episode’s end is that Cornwell takes over Sarek’s secret negotiations with the Klingons, then gets kidnapped. Though I saw that coming a mile away, it’s interesting to see Lorca’s non-reaction. He makes the rational choice not to go rushing after her, though the audience’s instinct may be to hate him for abandoning her. From the trailer, next week’s episode looks to be unrelated to the ongoing story. A time loop! Harry Mudd returns! If it’s at least fun and delivers more solid character work along the lines of the Burnham / Sarek A-story, then I’m looking forward to it.

Miscellaneous Notes

  • Sarek’s shuttle is nearly destroyed by a young Vulcan suicide bomber who announces that he’s part of a Vulcan isolationist group who wants to leave the “failed experiment” of the Federation. Make Vulcan Great Again! Combined with the subtle but firm xenophobia of the Vulcan bigwig (he refers to Sarek’s children as “experiments” and has the memorable line “diversity must be titrated”), this episode reveals an interesting new facet to the Vulcans. Characters like Spock may follow the IDIC (Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations) philosophy, but it turns out you can twist logic to justify racism. In classic Trek tradition, Discovery is mirroring our times, and the rise of far-right anti-immigrant movements in the US and Europe today. I hope the series draws the thematic connection between the Vulcans’ and Klingons’ calls for “racial purity.”
  • The episode is visually gorgeous. The Vulcan vistas, the stylish mind-meld effects, the candy-colored nebula. In this aspect at least, Discovery has excelled.
  • It’s hilarious that the replicator chips in with the nutritional benefits of whatever the crew orders.
  • It’s also hilarious that almost every Trek episode that shows the crewmembers “training” has them running through the halls. Are there no treadmills in the future?
  • The episode is co-written by Joe Menosky, who wrote for The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager, including the all-time classic “Darmok.” It’s tough to guess, but the episode’s writing has a sure hand that could’ve come from a Trek veteran.

Previous episode: “Choose Your Pain”
Next episode: “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad”