Star Trek: Short Treks -- Season 1 Episode 3 (The Brightest Star)

I remember seeing the coming attractions for Star Trek: Discovery.  I hadn’t seen Saru’s race and was intrigued by his claim that he could sense death and danger.  It turns out that he was the only member of his species in Starfleet.  We do learn quite a bit about his species during the second season.  To set us up for this, we were given a Short Trek between the first and second seasons.

This episode gives us a brief glimpse of what it was like for Discovery’s firs officer to have to leave his planet.  He always knew he didn’t belong.  When he finds a communications device, he’s supposed to bury it.  Instead, he learns how to use it and ends up contacting and meeting a then-Lieutenant Philippa Georgiou.

This short episode doesn’t get into the details of the Prime Directive.  It shows what life was like for Saru before Starfleet.  He didn’t really fit in and wasn’t content to live a simple life.  His father and sister were.  But Saru knows that there’s more out there.

It makes it a little easier to identify with the character.  I’m sure there are a lot of people now that would go out into space, given the chance.  We’re at a point that we’re just talking about going to Mars.  Could you imagine going to different solar systems?

It’s a little strange seeing this after the second season of Discovery aired.  I know that Saru does make it back to his home planet.  It must have been a tough decision not knowing that, though.  Given that his people aren’t warp-capable, Saru could never bring that knowledge back.

From what I understand, the Short Trek episodes are coming out on DVD in June.  I took the opportunity to watch these while I had access to CBS All Access, but it would be nice to have another option.  There are two “seasons” with the possibility of others.  I don’t know if future seasons will be released individually or if CBS wants to release ten episodes at a time.  Maybe they’ll include them with Discovery episodes.  Either way, they’re fun to watch.

IMDb page

Star Trek: Discovery -- Season 2 Episode 7 (The Sound of Thunder)

Saru is a bit of an oddity.  He comes from a pre-warp culture, but serves in Starfleet.  He was granted asylum many years ago, but we didn’t know much about the details.  Along comes The Sound of Thunder, wherein one of the Seven Signals is found above Saru’s home planet, Kaminar.

Kaminar is home to another race called the Ba’ul, who hunt the Kelpiens.  This makes visiting the planet tricky, since the Kaminar have warp drive.  Normally, Starfleet would avoid the Kelpiens altogether, but since they already know about interstellar travel, it might not be so bad.  Plus, they need information on The Red Angel.

So, Saru returns to his village with Michael Burnham.  He meets his sister and starts asking questions.  They’ve seen the signal, but not the angel.  Oh, and Saru’s presence has triggered some sort of alarm.

Saru has undergone an evolution his people believe impossible, but it’s not and the Ba’ul seem to know it.  What’s the deal?  Fortunately, the ship came by a vast amount of information that proves useful.  The Ba’ul do actually know more than they’re letting on.

The only thing really cliché about the episode is that Saru steals a shuttle and sacrifices himself.  I suppose there aren’t too many options.  We could have the Ba’ul beam him off or invade the ship and take him anyway.  That’s about it.

There’s also some tension between Saru and his sister.  Since he just disappeared, his village was left to assume that he had been taken by the Ba’ul.  She also realizes that he’s there for a reason and that reason isn’t to catch up.

My big complaint is that Culber is having such a hard time readjusting to life on Discovery and no one is doing anything to help him. The guy literally came back from the dead.  He’s also jumpy to the touch and has been through an ordeal, which might indicate some sort of psychological issue.  You’d think someone would have him talk to a psychologist.  Yet, there’s no indication they even have one on the ship.

However, it appears that what’s happening to Saru is natural and expected.  It’s still not clear exactly how it will play out, but it will be interesting to see what happens.

IMDb page