Burnham joins her mother and Tilly on a mission to track down a Qowat Milat adherent who murdered a Starfleet officer and stole a vast supply of dilithium. Is there a "lost cause" that can explain the behavior? Or does it even matter in the face of the crime? Meanwhile, Stamets and Book seek the help of Vulcan scientists in analyzing the dark matter anomaly. And Gray is placed in his new golem body, but Adira is alarmed when the procedure appears not to work.
For those not vibing with Discovery's tone, there was plenty of ammunition in this episode. Even though this installment took a little bit of a break from the galaxy-threatening anomaly (pushing it back into a "B plot"), this was still Star Trek WITH THE CAPS LOCK ON, in that even the simple one-off mission saw Burnham saving an entire species from extinction. And in that plot, you had to overlook the illogic of Tilly being brought along at all, the wisdom of leaving phasers at home for a sword fight, and more.
On the other hand... Tilly being there made the story line a whole lot more fun, less dour than it might have been simply at the surface. I enjoy the presence of a character who is not completely put together and unflappable in all circumstances, and cracking jokes to cope feels authentic for Tilly (more so than for some of the other characters).
In the franchise's long history with mindmelds, we've seen them used a lot to speed plots along -- as a sort of science fiction hypnosis, as was the stated premise here. But the real impact of this mindmeld with Book was more in keeping with the most successful uses of mindmelding in Star Trek: as a way to expose buried conflict and emotion within a character. I found it powerful (and a good performance by David Ajala) that Book found his first measure of peace within the impossibly huge tragedy he's facing. And Stamets' place at the edges of the story was quite interesting too. He's grown from the most prickly character on the show in season one to thinking about protecting Book in this situation -- and I appreciate that the characters are growing in this most epic space opera the franchise has ever presented.
Gray's story line was strong for its almost complete lack of subtlety. This is a story that features a transgender actor portraying transgender themes in classic Star Trek metaphor. The sci-fi trappings deal with a disembodied consciousness being placed in a synthetic body. The dialogue -- the actual words being spoken -- quoted almost directly the language I often hear used to describe the transgender experience. Gray could not continue living as he was; he was willing to risk it all to change for the better; once in his new body, things felt as they never had before -- correct. This is just classic, perfect Star Trek, finding a way to talk about a current, real-world issue behind a veneer of science fiction.
But yeah, on the other hand: this was essentially as quiet and introspective as I think Discovery ever gets -- not very. The quieter moments really came only in the B and C plots, and still amid a lot of whizbang visuals. I'd love to see the show find a way to "downshift" even more for an episode, lest it wear the audience out by the end of the season. But still, there were elements in all three story lines here that I appreciated a great deal. I give "Choose to Live" a B.
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