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”