Greetings, dorks! Welcome back to Star Trek: Allegedly, the weekly recap show where I bring you up to speed on CBS’ latest endeavour exercising its legal right to mercilessly flagellate my favourite cultural institution with a broken pool cue until money falls out, aka Star Trek: Discovery.
(For you chronologists, here’s a link to a complete episode list).
Okay. In our last instalment, I was pretty harsh on the conclusion of the two-part series premiere. That’s largely because this is a garbage show made by garbage people. That said, I don’t want you to think I’m some professional naysayer with standards so unrealistically high that they cannot be sated. Firstly, I’m still retaining my amateur title so I can compete in the naysaying Olympics; and secondly, I do genuinely want this show to be good.
While the premiere itself was a unilateral clusterf**k, devoid of pretty much any artistic or cultural value, I would be remiss not to mention that I do still see several open avenues leading out of this narrative nosedive. The biggest thing they have going for them is that, based on the post-premiere, rest of the season trailer, the details of these first two episodes seem largely irrelevant beyond establishing that our protagonist is a convicted criminal and Starfleet pariah. Other than that, nothing in the pilot actually sets up the plot, tone or (most of the) characters for the forthcoming episodes. If completely forgetting the previous 90 minutes of content makes the further adventures of — *shudder* — Michael Burnham more rewarding, that is a sacrifice I am willing to make, surgically if necessary.
(Please send all elective lobotomist recommendations via our Contact Us page)
The point is, despite my abject hatred for everything I have so far seen, I’m still rooting for this turkey. I can’t not root for Star Trek, even when it keeps spitting in my eye and taking my lunch money. So with hope in my heart and a good stiff drink in both hands, here we go…
Episode 3: “Context Is For Kings” or “Lucius Malfoy’s Interstellar Mushroom Highway”
Today’s episode opens on a prison transport shuttle. Our “hero,” Michael Burnham, sits quietly as the other convicts converse about everyday con stuff, like how they’re being used as disposable slave labour, y’know, like the Federation do. One of them makes a point to casually brag about his murder of three Andorians while strongly suggesting that he also raped them, either before or after they were dead. In case you hadn’t noticed, this ain’t your father’s Star Trek. Or your Star Trek, for that matter. In fact, I have no idea who this is for.
One of the cons reveals Michael’s identity. Turn’s out another con lost her cousin when the Europa blowed up. Huh, small galaxy. And the atmosphere turns hostile — y’know, more hostile. The show insists on carrying on with the misplaced idea that Michael was responsible for the battle, and therefore the war (covered extensively in my last recap). I mean, I know these cons aren’t meant to be pillars of nuanced understanding, but they really seem to be laying it on thick.
Anyway, the prisoner jamboree is interrupted as the shuttle is suddenly consumed by a horde of tiny space-lice. The pilot casually steps out into outer space, at warp speed, to clean them off with a push-broom or something. Too bad she somehow immediately fails and goes tumbling out into the void. Oh no! What will befall our beloved detestable convicts?!
Don’t worry! In a move pulled from precisely one episode ago, a Starship shows up out of nowhere to haul their asses out of trouble with a tractor beam before the audience can possibly feel any tension. *Phew* That was a close one, guys.
Ok, I don’t hate everything about this introduction to the titular U.S.S. Discovery. On one hand, the Enterprise was constantly performing daring rescues of distressed ships in distress. So, it’s kind of cool to see that happen from the other side of the experiential equation. On the other hand, all of that other s**t I said about how it’s stupid.
This leads us into the opening credits, which I still don’t really want to talk about.
The rescued convicts are lined up in front of the Security Chief, Commander Landry (first name, Tom, if there is any justice in the world), played with a distinct swagger by Battlestar Galactica vet, Rekha Sharma. She calls them all garbage and makes a special point of rubbing it in our infamous mutineer’s face, before escorting them all to the brig. This scene is actually pretty ok and leaves me wondering if this show has made a dramatic and much needed course correction. Maybe I won’t need to keep dreading these recaps.
(Note from the future: Hahahahahah AHH-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!)
As they are escorted through the ship, the convicts come down with a sudden case of expositionitis. They theorize that the dearth of silver uniforms means this must be some sort of science vessel, but the presence of mysterious, heavily armed and armoured officers with black badges (!!!) means it ain’t your father’s science vessel!
People coping with being long-time Trekkies will note that these guys are probably Section 31, the goofy, nebulous Black-Ops division of Starfleet that first appeared on Deep Space Nine when they started to run low on ideas. So basically, Discovery is almost certainly a military intelligence vessel of some kind. That sounds hopeful and inspiring.
Before hitting the brig, Landry takes the convicts to the mess hall for a hearty meal because “Starfleet says [she] has to feed the animals.” She truly gives no f**k’s. I’m starting to think this ain’t my father’s Star Trek.
After sharing a brief, awkward moment with Kayla — one of the Shenzhou’s formerly nameless crewmen who now has a crazy metal plate in her head — Michael must figure out which table in the lunch room to sit at. Surprisingly none of the crew want to sit with Starfleet’s first mutineer, so she tucks in with the cons. But surprise, they don’t want to sit with her either, and for no clear reason other than generally being dirtbags, decide to f**k her s**t up in a cafeteria filled with armed Starfleet officers. It is… a poor decision, and Michael “F’n” Burnham Suus Mahna’s them into next Tuesday!
Her performance seems to earn Michael an audience with the captain, and the rest of the cons a one-way ticket to the brig… which is almost certainly where they were headed anyway. On the way to the captain’s ready room, Landry brings Michael through the bridge, where she makes very serious and dramatic eye contact with Saru (now wearing a gold command uniform), before he turns away, presumably in disgust. Again: small galaxy!
Finally, we meet Captain Lorca (Jason Isaacs). In the darkened room, he speaks to Michael without turning to face her. He explains the lack of light as a requirement of a recent battle injury — and honestly, it sounds exactly like the kind of lie a vampire would tell. He then offers her a fortune cookie.
All of this is, of course, in service of his master plan to enlist the services of the indomitable Michael Burnham — because who wouldn’t want this unstable criminal on their team? He proposes a nominally reasonable arrangement wherein Michael can resume some Starfleet-lite duties helping his crew with something over the three days it will take to clear the pesky space-lice off of the shuttle. As a Federation citizen and human being with body autonomy, Michael decides to politely decline the assignment. Lorca then reminds her that there are no free rides and she is basically a goddamn slave. So that’s solved, I suppose.
Michael is then confined to quarters until it’s toil time in the replicator mines or whatever. At least she has this one evening of respite to herself. But wait! As soon as Burnham lays her head on the pillow, a new character, Cadet Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman), busts into the room without warning. Tilly is one of a growing breed of sci-fi supporting characters of late: quirky, socially awkward, and implied to be somewhere high-functioning on the autism spectrum. These traits will only ever be played up for humour, or low calorie emotional growth moments, and will conveniently disappear when they would ruin a scene.
Y’see, the reason Tilly just bursts into the room is that she is Michael’s roommate. That’s right, this highly organized military vessel decided that Michael “Too Dangerous For The Brig” Burnham should bunk with this glorified Sesame Street character, and it should be a surprise! For her part, Cadet Tilly was informed that she was getting a roommate — a fact that just fills her with glee, because she thought her unspecified “special needs” (autism? allergies? snoring?) would preclude her from having one — BUT, no one told her she would be moving in with the most hated human in the Alpha Quadrant, Michael F’n Burnham!
Of course, none of this makes any sense in the context of a starship. It would, however, make sense if your writers were relying on tired tropes from the myriad of college dorm scenes they’ve seen before instead of actually thinking about these characters or their environments for even, like, a second — hypothetically speaking, of course.
Anyhoo, things start to get weird when Tilly catches on to exactly who she will be sleeping mere meters away from. Michael’s starfleet prison jumpsuit doesn’t, in any way, play into that realization, btw. “I wonder how they’ll resolve this scene” one might wonder to oneself, if one was stupid and had never watched this dumb show. ST:D knows you don’t need to resolve scenes if they cut them short with a BLACK ALERT! That’s right, the 13 year old’s were up all night trying to crack this one! What could possibly be cooler than a Red Alert!? Man, this really isn’t your father’s Star Trek!
So, some blobs of water or something materialize in the air, before falling and then disappearing, and then we’re out. I guess that’s what a Black Alert is. I’m glad we all made it through alive.
The next morning First Officer Saru escorts Michael to engineering for her assignment. Naturally, they speak about the battle and the way things went down. This is a good scene. Saru is really the only character so far who feels like a real person. He displays genuine fondness for Burnham, but also has a clear understanding of his duties. He points out, in no uncertain terms, that he thinks she is dangerous. It’s all perfectly rational and emotionally complex. Both Martin-Green’s and Jones’ performances here are very solid. It’s a frustrating reminder that they have all the pieces required to make something good.
In engineering, after some more awkward, high school cafeteria-style seating politics — literally the entire creative team of this show must be teenagers — we are introduced to yet another main character, Chief Engineer Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp). Earlier this year, CBS made much hay out of the fact that he would be the first openly gay main character on Star Trek. Good. It took too long, especially for a show as famously progressive as Trek. I would be remiss, however, if I did not mention that, within seconds of his entrance, Staments dramatically brushes literal glitter off his shoulder. I s**t you not. It even makes a magical tinkly sound.
Staments and Burnham immediately get off on the wrong foot, and engage in the kind nonsensical, bitchy, introductory back and forth people write when they grow up watching Buffy The Vampire Slayer. (That’s right, I said it. F**k you. Fight me.) After a whole lot of these meaningless but speedily delivered jabs, Michael gets saddled with some coding busywork. As she works, Staments has a conversation with a disembodied, holographic head. The head seems to be some kind of complimentary engineer on another ship, the USS Glenn. Both engineers are working on the same experiment, but the head is… experimenting better? I dunno. It mostly gives Staments the opportunity to whine consistently throughout.
Michael returns to Staments to tell him the code – which she has deduced involves quantum astrophysics and biochemistry – contains a flaw. She asks to know more about the project so she can further investigate. As a trained Starfleet officer, Staments takes her findings into account and carefully weighs them against security concerns— oh, no, wait, he doesn’t. He gets all snippy and leaves in a huff, disappearing behind a mysterious door locked with a breath scanner, aka high-tech sci-fi shorthand for when you want to makes sure someone can easily bypass a lock for plot reasons.
Anyway, in the very next shot, Burnham stands over a snoring Cadet Tilly in their quarters. She collects some of her roommate’s saliva on a space-cloth, and 3 shots later she’s inside Staments’ chamber of secrets. Way to go, top secret, military intelligence ship. And what’s in there? A garden? The set of a still mid-production Avatar 2? Not answers, that’s for damn sure.
They cut away to Captain Lorca receiving a classified communique. He hightails it down to engineering, to let them know that the Glenn, Discovery’s sister ship, has experienced a Black Alert (!!!) incident and all hands have been lost. Discovery will investigate and remove all sensitive equipment before it falls into Klingon hands. Never one to pass up a bitching opportunity, Staments immediately starts complaining about needing a team to do the “cumbersome, annoying science part” of the mission. (I know he’s sad he lost his friend, the head, but it’s still no way to address the friggin’ captain.)
Once again, this feels like Discovery trying to throw a bone to the peace and exploration wing of trekkie fandom. Someone verbally objecting to blatant militantism over scientific discovery. Setting up Lorca as the military man and Staments the scientist. So, great, we get the insufferable Lt. Staments. Thanks, show. We’ll just wait and see how much science actually happens.
The captain says he can take a team but it must include Burnham. When Staments objects, Saru, who is also there for some reason, says that she is the smartest officer he has ever known. Again, it’s a nice delivery by Jones. I feel like it would be really impactful if we didn’t already know Burnham pretty much exclusively behaves like an irrational mess.
The boarding party is made up of Burnham, Staments, Landry, Tilly, and an unnamed pilot and security officer. I’m sure those last two’ll definitely make it out of this mission just fine. Maybe this is my father’s Star Trek!
On the way over, Tilly apologises to Michael for the earlier lunchroom seating drama, and throws her quirky awkwardness into overdrive by trying to compliment her roommate for not caring that “everybody hates [her].” HILARIOUS. So quirky! Also, Staments takes another opportunity to be just crazy rude to Burnham. I guess it would be understandable if it felt in any way related to her mutiny, but it just feels like Staments doing Statements — i.e. putting her down for not knowing the things no one will tell her, you know, the fundamental driver behind all scientific discovery.
Anyway, Staments reveals that he is technically an astromicologist, and boy does he want us to be impressed by that. I guess space-mushrooms are a very big deal in this nutso bonkers future. He turns the technobabble up to 11, and throws in some dimestore philosophy as well. Apparently, truth is in the veins and muscles of the universe. He sounds like he’s on mushrooms right now. He continues to yammer at Michael like she is a spy, trying to steal his research for “that warmonger, Lorca.” This is how he openly talks about the captain. No one really reacts, but Landry gives a brief look like she’s considering shooting him. Don’t do it, Landry! Shoot me instead!
With the landing party now aboard the Glenn, the show immediately transitions into a third rate Alien ripoff. It’s dark. Their space-flashlights are just terrible. The Glenn’s crew are all dead and mutilated, and there’s something lurking around in the shadows. It’s probably most reminiscent of unfamous stupid film, The Relic. They also find some Klingon remains.
Just as the party starts to realize there’s something big, clawed, and scary on the ship with them, Tilly notices something in the shadows. She trains her phaser on it and orders is to show itself. But it’s not the monster. No. It’s the true hero of this episode, and possibly the entire show. I call him “G’ag’it of House Shhhh, the Shushing Klingon!”
See, homeboy tries to warn all these bickering apes that s**t is serious and they need to shut their fool mouths. But do they listen? What do you think? And who pays the price? That’s right: G’ag’it. F**king humans.
So G’ag’it gets dragged off into the darkness by something I can only describe as a really pissed off Okja. The rest of this sequence is your standard escape the monster action fare. The super advanced phasers don’t work on it for… reasons. The redshirted security dude bites the dust. Staments’ buddy, well, the holographic head’s real head got hella f**ked up by the Black Alert incident. They find some kind of gizmo and bring it back to Discovery (I guess that’s Staments’ beloved science in action). Finally, everyone is saved by the brave ingenuity of Michael F’n Burnham as she quietly recites passages from Alice In Wonderland to herself.
And with that, six minutes after it began, so ends our brief foray into a completely tonally different show. Back on the Disco, Michael is summoned to Count Lorca’s lair— I mean ready room. On the way, she has another interaction with Saru. Again, it’s well acted, but his whole “you are such a good officer and I really like you, except you aren’t, and I don’t” shtick is starting to wear thin.
In the ready room, Lorca extends an offer to Michael to become a member of the crew. He doesn’t try to bite her neck or anything, but I assume that comes later. Michael expresses concern, seeing as how she’s serving a life sentence for being the most hated human in existence, and not the kind of person one typically invites on very important, classified missions. Lorca intejects with words I imagine emblazoned in Sharpie on the top of the writer’s room whiteboard: “Don’t worry about Starfleet.”
Apparently, he can do whatever he needs to do to win the war with impunity, even if it’s recruiting the 22nd century equivalent of, I don’t know, Edward Snowden? Bowe Bergdahl? No. Burnham’s crimes are really too stupid to have a real life equivalent. Anyway, she refuses on principle, because deep down, she’s still a Starfleet gal, and doesn’t want to be part of whatever secret cosmic mushroom cannon they’re developing that would definitely violate the “Geneva Accords” — funny, didn’t seem to bother her much exactly one episode ago when her beloved Captain Michelle Yeoh was stuffing dead Klingons with photon warheads like it was Thanksgiving, but I digress.
Now is not the time for dwelling on gaping logical inconsistencies. Now is the time for forced exposition! Lorca smirks at her concerns like the undead lapdog of Satan he is, and then beams them both directly into engineering, the other distinct set they bothered to build. Lorca decides to lay out Discovery’s mission flat out, and render Burnham’s brief foray into saliva thievery and espionage completely pointless.
I’m gonna take a moment before I continue, to freshen my drink. You probably should too.
Ooookay. Y’see, the universe is built around an interconnected web of fungal spores, famous and skilled actor Jason Isaacs manages to deliver with a straight face. And Discovery is developing an “organic propulsion system” that allows them to travel… through(?)… on(?)… via(?)… those spores to achieve (I think) instantaneous transportation anywhere in the galaxy.
Excellent. This explains much of the mysterious goings on around the ship. They are all insane. Can I go home now?
In his final appeal, Lorca tells Burnham that “universal law is for lackeys, context is for kings.” Which, as far as weak repackagings of the notion that things aren’t black and white go, is pretty forgettable. It reminds me of Burnham’s nonsense, fake-poetic line about sculpture from the first episode. It also comes across as extremely tone-deaf. Appealing to someone through the idea that they might become an antiquated dictatorial figure and rule over others seems decidedly un-Star Trek.
He closes by offering her another fortune cookie like some kind of knock-off Morpheus. Where did he get that? Did he bring it from his ready room? Was it in his pocket? How did it not get crushed? Has he been holding it in his sweaty palm this whole time?
Anyway, she takes it.
Back in her quarters, it’s time for Mike to bond with her roomie. Tilly reveals that she is going to be a captain one day, and is a huge fan of Captain Michelle Yeoh (war criminal). Michael, in turn, talks about how her foster mother, Amanda Grayson, used to read Alice In Wonderland to her and her son (!!!) when they were little on Vulcan. She now uses the book as a reminder that not everything is logical. Which I feel is a lesson the audience of ST:D will really need to take to heart, if they plan on staying tuned.
The episode closes with the Discovery blowing up the Glenn and resuming its mission. Landry and Lorca watch from a Discovery viewport. We then learn that, at Lorca’s behest, Landry has beamed up the cranky Okja monster (hey, that might have been helpful while they were running for their lives). It’s now in some sort of crazy space alien zoo that is apparently on the ship somewhere. It’s a lot like the one Superman has in the Fortress Of Solitude. Except Superman rarely seems like a malevolent Dracula.
Final Thoughts
This super dumb episode was peppered with a couple of flecks of ok. I continue to enjoy Doug Jones as Saru, and I definitely appreciate the classic “sister ship” setup for a Trek episode. It saves money and time by allowing sets and models to be reused, placing all the heavy lifting on the story, or in the case of this show, “story.”
This series is a whole lot of uneven nonsense that not even a Klingon-eating hippopotamus-pig can save. Trek trying to ape Alien isn’t new, but at least Voyager had the good sense to retain the gimmick for a whole episode.
Everything about the spore-engines is terrible, garden variety sci-fantasy mumbo jumbo. It’s certainly not relevant to our real-world relationship with technology, and it’s not even mining some lesser explored avenue of Trek cannon. Before the reveal, I briefly considered that they may be working on some sort of proto-Genesis device, but alas. It’s very difficult to imagine how they will satisfyingly reconcile this with the future we know is coming, as ST:D’s rotating cast of showrunners keep assuring us they will. I feel either a failed experiment, or massive retcon coming up.
I guess they could accidentally fling themselves into the distant future, to be lost from all preexisting Trek history, but that seems like a longshot.
And just like that, I’m back to being only two episodes behind.
Special thanks to @incinerae, who’s immediate, palpable distaste for Cadet Tilly definitely seeped into this review.
I AM GORP THE MALCONTENT!
