Star Trek: Discovery -- Season 1 Episode 13 (What's Past Is Prologue)

Nothing is ever simple in television.  It’s bad enough that your car breaks down, but it only happens on the way to a meeting, rather than on the way home.  It’s also raining and the only available tow truck will be there in three days.  Oh, and your mechanic just left for a long vacation.

Such is the case with Star Trek: Discovery.  The crew is trapped in the Mirror Universe.  They’re not sure how it happened, but they know they can use the spore drive to get back.  The problem is that they also have to stop the Mirror Universe’s Terran Empire from overusing spore technology and destroying all life in every universe.  To do so would probably leave them stranded, unless they can come up with a better plan.

We also find out that Captain Lorca was from the Mirror Universe and that the Mirror Version of Georgiou is the Emperor over there, at least until Lorca stages a coup.  He wants Burnham to stay, but that’s not going to happen.  Unless, of course, Burnham can use it as leverage to let the Discovery go home.

Saru, who’s becoming a very good captain, gets the crew to work towards a better option.  (Whatever else happened in the first season, there is at least some character development.)  The episode ends with three major events:  Lorca dies, Burnham saves Georgiou and the Discovery makes it back to the Prime Universe…Nine months after they left.

There’s a part of me that feels like the story is coming together.  Saru and Burnham seem to each have their own character arcs that are progressing nicely.  We see Saru becoming a leader and Burnham becoming comfortable to being part of a crew again.  Then, there are certain things that seem either overly sentimental or done for the sake of progressing the plot.

Why save Emperor Georgiou, for instance?  Trek is no stranger to letting people die.  Heck.  Georgiou has died once already.  Well, Lorca dies and it looks like they’ll be needing an evil character later on.

Then, we get to Tyler.  We know he’s a Klingon sleeper agent.  He does have his uses, but he’s allowed to roam freely, maybe because he looks human.  L’Rell is kept in confinement, but she’s Klingon on the outside.  Whatever Tyler’s fate may be, why not keep him locked up?  Isn’t he as much of a threat?

I do think the story is progressing, but it’s doing so it fits and starts.  This is a trend that I’ve seen with streaming series, though.  Since the shows aren’t confined to a broadcast network’s schedule, the writers have more leeway.  Episodes can be 30 minutes or 75 minutes, as the story needs.  The modern series had 26 episodes per season.  Discovery seems to be happy with half that.

This is also the first series to start out serialized rather than episodic.  The Klingon War spans over a season.  Going into the Mirror Universe takes a few episodes.  This can be good if handled well.  Here, it would seem to have been done to draw in those long-time fans.

Discovery uses the continuity, but takes liberties with it.  Yes, it draws on the previous series, but one would think that the Mirror Universe was new in Mirror, Mirror.  Yes, the appearance of Klingons has changed before.  I’m just hoping that subsequent episodes will put some detail on those broad strokes.

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Star Trek: Discovery -- Season 1 Episode 4 (The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry)

I recently realized that my local library has the first season of Star Trek: Discovery on DVD, thereby allowing me to bypass paying for CBS All Access to watch the show.  I just got the second DVD, so I’d like to review this episode before watching the next few episodes.  The episodes so far would seem to flow more evenly from one to the next, so this will allow me to keep the storylines straight.

This one starts shortly after the previous episode.  Michael Burnham has just come back from the Discovery’s sister ship, the Glenn, with useful technology and a tardigrade-like creature who has been dubbed Ripper.  She and Commander Landry are tasked with figuring out how to weaponize Ripper so that the crew might defeat the Klingons.  After all, Ripper took on a bunch of Klingons alone, as well as giving the away team a run for their money.

Burnham does make a major discovery:  Ripper has some sort of symbiotic relationship with the spores.  He’s also not that aggressive when not provoked.  All of Ripper’s actions thus far have been in self defense.  Furthermore, it would appear that Ripper can help navigate the ship for long jumps.  Discovery can use the spores for shorter jumps with some degree of accuracy.  To do the math for longer jumps requires some sort of supercomputer.

It’s not clear exactly what Ripper does or how Ripper knows where to go.  It’s not possible to communicate with the large creature, although the large creature does appear to be in pain when the drive is in use.  Captain Lorca uses Ripper to get to a colony that mines 40% of the Federation’s dilithium to protect it from a Klingon attack, so some discomfort isn’t his concern.  In fact, Burnham seems to be the only one who does show any sort of concern, ethical or otherwise.  She’s able to demonstrate that there’s no threat.

The ethics of using an alien creature without consent really isn’t dealt with in this episode.  The entire thing seemed a little too convenient.  I’m assuming that Ripper was trained by the crew of the Glenn.  Much like Star Trek’s The Devil in the Dark, it’s possible that a Vulcan was able to mind meld with Ripper to communicate what was going on.

So much is still unknown about Ripper.  Part of me feels like I’m missing something.  Maybe this will be explained in later episodes. I expect someone to leave a comment, “Didn’t you see when someone said X?”  I feel like the episode could have used a little more exposition.  It’s too bad for Ripper that his one advocate is someone who’s already on shaky ground with the rest of the crew.  However, this would be a very good reason for eventually discontinuing the use of the spore drive.

I definitely want to watch the next four episodes.  Maybe I’ll find a few of my answers.  At this point, though, I’m only expecting more questions.

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Star Trek: Discovery -- Season 1 Episode 3 (Context Is for Kings)

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was dark, but it was still Star Trek.  It showed that things weren’t always rosy in the idealistic Federation or Starfleet.  Being so far from the center of Federation space had implications.  Rules were stretched.  Sometimes, people did things they weren’t proud of.  But, it was still Starfleet.

Discovery started out dark, but seems to be coming around to something that looks like Star Trek.  It’s been six months since Michael Burnham turned against her captain and got her old ship destroyed.  She’s since been court-martialed and sent to prison.  While being transferred to another facility, her ship runs into trouble and is aided by the USS Discovery.  Burnham and her fellow prisoners are brought aboard temporarily.

Burnham finds several of her former crewmates are now serving on the Discovery, including Saru, who got promoted from science officer to Captain Lorca’s first officer.  Saru would be more than happy to help Burnham…get right back on that shuttle.  For the time being, he’ll have to settle for being polite to her.  He realizes that whatever else she might have been, she’s now someone who can’t be fully trusted.

Still, Lorca has a plan for Burnham.  That plan includes sending her to the Discovery’s sister ship, the Glenn, to retrieve classified technology.  When the away team arrives, they find the ship damaged and the crew badly mutilated.  Add to that Klingons that were viciously attacked by something.  The team gets what they need and discover the mysterious creature, which is resistant to phaser fire.  The crew makes it back to the Discovery.  The episode ends with Lorca offering Burnham a place on the ship, telling her what the secret project really is.  Oh, and it also turns out that he somehow got the vicious creature onboard.

I will admit that the show is getting more to the point where my questions aren’t as pressing.  The creature looks like a giant tardigrade, which is unusual, but I suppose not impossible.  Given that so many alien species look eerily human, it’s easy to imagine that a microscopic Earth-bound creature might be the template for a large creature of unknown origin.

Also, it’s revealed that the secret project is a new method of navigation that allows the ship to go anywhere instantaneously.  One might wonder why none of the other series had this technology.  That’s what Star Trek does.  One thing I remember from Star Trek: Voyager is lots of one-off technology.  (Voyager even had a species that had a personal cloaking device, if you can believe it.)  This aspect of the series is actually the most believable.

The one thing that gets me is that Burnham, who is usually quiet and logical (and is now more so after six months in prison) is given Cadet Sylvia Tilly as a roommate.  Tilly is a Chatty Cathy.  When she says that she talks when nervous, she’s not kidding.  I suppose that there’s a certain irony in this.  The one person that will actually talk to Burnham won’t…stop…talking!

I am kind of wondering what this black alert is.  It seems unnecessary.  Isn’t it enough to have red alert and yellow alert?  I guess I’ll find out what that is eventually.  (I just got the second DVD of the first season from the library.  Please explain if you can keep it spoiler free.)

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