Star Trek: Discovery -- Season 3 Episode 5 (Die Trying)

Getting what we want isn’t always what we expected.  It’s certainly not easy.  For the first part of Discovery’s third season, the title ship has been looking for Federation and Starfleet headquarters.  It’s been made more difficult by the fact that there’s no warp drive.  They have a spore drive, which isn’t hindered by The Burn, but information seems to be scarce.

In Die Trying, the ship finally arrives at headquarters, but the crew doesn’t get the warm welcome they expected.  Instead, they’re met with suspicion.  It’s understandable.  At the end of Season 2, it was revealed that Discovery is listed as destroyed in action.  All mention of the spore drive is erased from any official record.  No one will speak of them again, and this comes to bite Discovery in the hind quarters.

Admiral Charles Vance is in charge of Starfleet.  He basically tells Saru, now the captain of Discovery, that the crew will be debriefed and split up.  The ship will be retrofitted and whatnot.  This doesn’t sit well with the crew, but it’s a pretty realistic response.  Starfleet doesn’t have many ships left.  Federation membership has gone from 350 planets at its peak to 38, a reduction of almost 90%.  Vance and Co. aren’t in a good spot.  So, yeah.  It’s not the cheers and balloons anyone expected.

That’s not to say that anything bad is going to happen.  It turns out that there are some refugees that are in dire medical need.  A solution presents itself that’s uniquely suited to Discovery’s abilities, which gives the crew a chance to shine.

There’s a lot going on in this episode, but that’s not what’s important.  Sometimes, it’s what’s not said that draws my attention.  Vance states that Starfleet’s mission has changed over the years, which is probably why there are so many ships docked at headquarters. 

There’s also the giant distortion field, which acts as a giant cloaking device.  Starfleet has gone on the defensive.  It’s not stated exactly what that means, though.  Why have all these ships if you’re just going to keep them docked?  I realize that The Burn has rendered warp drives useless for the most part.  They want to conserve dilithium, which is at a premium now.  It’s also not clear how many other ships there are.  There would seem to be a few ships out and about.  Still, that’s a lot of ships.

Then, there’s the debriefing.  As I said, it’s understandable that Starfleet is suspicious of a crew from the past that just drops by, especially considering that time travel is now illegal.  Vance isn’t going to do them any favors, considering.  Of note is Georgiou’s debriefing.  She manages to disable her two holographic interrogators, leaving a mysterious gentleman named Kovach to question her.

Kovach seems to know all about Georgiou, like that she’s Terran.  How?  We don’t know.  He does know all about The Mirror Universe, stating that no one has crossed over in 500 years.  Maybe this guy is Section 31, which might make sense.  Maybe he’s from the other side, himself, but that would raise more questions.

There are a lot of nods to other series.  Most notable is the USS Voyager-J.  It seems to bear a striking resemblance to Janeway’s Voyager.  There’s also mention of a new Constitution-class vessel.  This makes me wonder if Starfleet is recycling old designs.  If so, why?  Is there some need for smaller ships?

For that matter, holograms seem to have regressed a little since Voyager’s time.  The holographic characters seem to have less personality.  I’m kind of hoping for a visit from the EMH from Voyager.  It might make for some nice commentary.

I miss the episodic format of the other series, but I kind of don’t.  Discovery is striking a nice balance between contained storylines and the bigger picture.  We get the obligatory “We don’t know squat about The Burn” segment, but there are also a lot of new things going on.  This episode moves the season along nicely.  I will say that, five episodes in, there’s no Disco shown.  I’d call that a good thing, knock on holographic wood.

 

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Star Trek: Short Treks -- Season 1 Episode 1 (Runaway)

I finally got around to getting CBS All Access, or at least the free trial, and I’ve already watched the first two seasons of Discovery.  After watching the new Twilight Zone, I came across the Short Treks and realized that I could now watch them.  They haven’t previously been made available on DVD, so All Access was my only option.

The first episode is Runaway, and served as a prelude to Such Sweet Sorrow, parts one and two.  It focuses on Ensign Sylvia Tilly and Me Hani Ika Hali Ka Po meeting for the first time.  Po stows away on a shuttlecraft bound for Discovery.  She has the ability to turn invisible and goes undetected until meeting Tilly in the mess hall.

Rather than report the incident, the two talk and become friends.  Each has a tendency to run away.  We learn from a conversation between Till and her mother that Tilly would rather run away from the challenge of climbing a wall.  Dear mother feels that Tilly won’t withstand the pressures of the command training program.  Po tells Tilly that she’s running away from being queen of her people.  The two realize that running away isn’t the solution.

The episode comes off like an extended outtake.  Like, it was some dialogue that was cut from a main episode.  One of the advantages of streaming is that the rules aren’t as strict.  There’s no real time limit, since you’re not trying to fit into the network’s schedule.  If you have a perfect story for 15 minutes, then do it.

The Short Treks would seem to be perfect for someone who has a short break and wants to watch something.  It’s not long and it’s not too deep.  It deals with one narrative that probably wouldn’t work as an hour-long episode.  We get to see a little character development for Tilly and we get to meet a new race.  (I kind of get now why Tilly was a little better in the second season.)

No new sets are built for the episode.  It deals with two characters, one of which is new.  This was released between Discovery’s first and second seasons, but isn’t really necessary to enjoy Discovery.  When I watched Such Sweet Sorrow, I knew that I was missing something, but I could still follow that episode’s story.  Watching this now is more like finally understanding what Tilly and Po were talking about.

I kind of wonder why CBS doesn’t make stuff like this available for free.  It’s not a full Discovery episode and releasing one or two episodes on YouTube might encourage people to sign up.  It’s also not the kind of thing that’s dependant on a larger story arc, but it does give you an idea of what Star Trek: Discovery looks like.  It’s the perfect free sample.

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Star Trek: Picard -- Season 1 Episode 8 (Broken Pieces)

Once again, we start with a flashback.  Commodore Oh is leading a group of Romulans in The Admonition.  They get to see exactly what happened to an unnamed ancient civilization that fell victim to artificial intelligence.  Most of the Romulans go crazy.  Not Narissa or Rhamda, though.  Rhamda is affected, but not to the point of killing herself.  Narissa seems to make it through unscathed.

As for the story’s present, Jurati has to face up to the fact that she killed Bruce Maddox.  Granted, it was on orders from Commodore Oh, but she still killed someone.  Oh’s involvement might not be enough to keep her out of prison.

We also learn why Rios’s captain killed himself.  It had to do with the fact that the captain was ordered to kill two synthetics, one of which happened to look like Soji.  It’s a bit of a coincidence that Rios was on the ship to make first contact, but it is an interesting one.

Meanwhile, all of Raffi’s conspiracy theories are proven correct.  There was a plot behind the Mars attacks.  For this reason, she contrasts really well with Picard.  Picard wants to see the best in everyone.  He’s come to expect it.  Meanwhile, Raffi tends to see the worst.  It doesn’t help that she’s proven correct, but it also doesn’t deter Picard from trying.

He’s the only one on the ship that doesn’t take a pessimistic view of the Federation, even though Starfleet let him down in a big way.  He’s coming to realize that that’s no excuse not to try.  In a way, he also gave up.  Instead of going out to make things better, he retreated in to a vineyard.  (He basically made alcohol rather than just drink it.)

I have to wonder if the ancient race mentioned in this episode is the Tkon Empire.  It’s said that they lived thousands of centuries ago.  (Picard says 200,000 years ago, but I’m not sure where he got this number.)  The Tkon Empire existed over 600,000 years ago and had the ability to move stars.  It’s said that a race would have had to have moved stars to have an eight-star system, as the most stars to occur naturally would seem to be seven.

Elnor is still on the Borg cube, but he now has Seven helping him.  It’s not clear if they’ll meet up with Picard and crew.  I guess I’ll be finding out soon enough.  As soon as I finish writing this, I’m off to watch the two-part finale.  It should be an interesting one.

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Star Trek: Picard -- Season 1 Episode 6 (The Impossible Box)

So, it’s time for Picard to finally meet Soji.  There’s just one problem standing in their way and it would seem to be a minor one.  Picard has to get permission to be on the Borg cube.  It technically belongs to the Romulans.  Fortunately, Raffi is still on the ship and she has a connection at Starfleet which gets them in.

The catch is that Picard has to go alone.  He’s not looking forward to it, as he was assimilated many years ago, but that’s the price of admission.  The Romulans are pretty strict about security, so they have him beam over to a remote location.  Maybe they’re paranoid about him being around sensitive information.  Maybe they just want to make him wait or feel isolated.  Either way, he has a panic attack before the director of the Reclamation Project shows up.

The director happens to be a former drone Picard helped many years ago: Hugh.  (Of course, we already knew this from previous episodes.)  Hugh is the first person in this new series who seems happy to see Picard.  He’s more than happy to help Picard find Soji.

Unfortunately, she’s not in her quarters nor is she showing up on scans.  Fortunately, she finds Picard.  Unfortunately, she doesn’t seem to have the same instinct to trust Picard.  (Soji takes a little convincing.)  Fortunately, Hugh has a way for Picard and Soji to escape.

It’s not clear why they couldn’t transport off the cube directly.  I assume that was the plan, as Picard didn’t know about the Sikarian Trajector technology.  It does allow for a nice reference to Star Trek: Voyager.  (I am kind of wondering how Sikarians reacted do being assimilated.  It’s a good thing Voyager didn’t stick around.)

However, it took Picard only half the season to meet up with Soji, who is only starting to come to terms with what she is.  Narek was right to hold off, though.  Trying to kill Soji did activate her, which probably wouldn’t have ended well if he was still trying to get information out of her.

The series seems to be moving along pretty well.  I’ve come to use 24 as the show by which I judge other serialized shows.  24 could be a little jerky in that every episode ended with an overly dramatic cliffhanger.  Star Trek: Picard doesn’t do that.  There is a sense of a chapter being completed, but it seems more natural.  By this episode, we’re getting a much smoother experience.

There are a few questions, such as why Elnor didn’t go with Picard.  Elnor is sworn to protect Picard.  Separating serves no obvious purpose.  It’s also not clear in this episode exactly where Picard is going or why, but at least that will be revealed in the next episode.

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Star Trek: Discovery -- Season 2 Episode 11 (Perpetual Infinity)

We were given a lot to process in the previous episode of Discovery.  It was assumed that the mysterious Red Angel was Michael Burnham.  The assumption wasn’t far off.  It turns out that The Red Angel is actually her mother, Dr. Gabrielle Burnham.  This is a big shock, considering that Dr. Burnham and her husband were killed by Klingons, leaving Michael to be raised by Sarek and Amanda on Vulcan.

Gabrielle has been living more than 900 years in the future.  In that future, Control has taken over and killed all organic life on every planet she’s seen.  She’s been making trips back to Michael’s present so that she might prevent this.  Unfortunately, Gabrielle can’t stay in the present for more than a few minutes.  She’s sucked back, making meaningful change difficult.

This is where Discovery comes in; they’ve found a way to trap the Red Angel.  The bad news is that this only delays the inevitable.  It becomes apparent that Gabrielle will eventually return to the future.  Even worse, she doesn’t want to talk to Michael, her only child.  That’s how focused she has become on preventing this disaster.

Control is after some important information.  The data can’t be deleted.  The best plan is to move it into Gabrielle’s suit and send it into the distant future, where it will be permanently hidden from Control.

With three more episodes left, one can assume that the plan doesn’t exactly work out.  Gabrielle does go back to the future by episode’s end, leaving the crew to find some other way to deal with Control.

It occurs to me that since Control is a computer program, it could effectively wait the 930 years.  But that would be 930 years for humans to deal with Control.  It might also have served as the impetus for Control to wipe out all life anyway.

We also learn that Gabrielle didn’t just make a few trips to the present.  She had logs for over 800 trips.  She even hints at Captain Pike’s fate.  It’s no wonder she’s so focused.

There’s also the question of whether or not Control will become The Borg.  Both seek perfection.  Both are capable of assimilation.  “Struggle is pointless,” as Leland puts it.  Gabrielle has invented time travel.  Discovery has a spore drive that can go anywhere in an instant.  It is conceivable.

Alas, it doesn’t look like this is going to happen.  I’ve already finished the season and it looks like Control will be dealt with some other way.  Then again, anything’s possible.  I’ve noted before that nothing ever truly stays dead in the Star Trek universe.

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