It all took a particularly hard toll on Burnham. It began with her having to watch a trio of executions by about the grisliest means I could imagine in Star Trek -- spacing via transporter. (It makes you not want to trust being beamed anywhere by anyone in the Mirror Universe.) But the real torment was in carrying her relationship with Tyler farther, having her specifically articulate that he was the one tether holding her to reality, and then cutting the tether. (More on that in a bit.)
Even the good instincts people had in the Mirror Universe had dark streaks, as shown in that first communication between Burnham and Saru. Each lied to the other, Burnham withholding her encounter with Saru's doppleganger, Saru withholding the sudden and gruesome death of Culber. Each did it ostensibly to spare the other some pain, but ultimately both withheld information that could have been very useful to the other.
We got to meet the "resistance" of this mirror reality, and it was pretty great. First, there was more location shooting (supplemented by digital matte effects), creating another very credible alien world. Gone are the days of dressing a sound stage with ferns bought at the local hardware store, and it's great. More fun still were details for the fans, including an updated Tellarite and Andorian (though neither as redesigned as the Klingons), and the too-perfect goatee sported by Mirror Sarek.
This story line served for the best possible reveal of the Tyler-is-Voq story line that many fans had anticipated. Many shows and movies have done a Manchurian Candidate type of buried personality; only Star Trek could add the uniquely sci-fi twist of having the personality revealed by a confrontation with your own doppleganger. For anyone left who might have doubted that actor Shazid Latif was playing both roles, we got a last few technically sophisticated split screens to put two of him in the same scene (and have him fight himself!) before the big reveal.
That reveal served as a final twist of the knife for Burnham. Voq remembers everything he did as Tyler -- he just renounces it at all. Given Burnham's private confession of a few episodes earlier, that she'd never been in love before this, that makes it an especially painful ending to the relationship and a particularly horrible time for her. She's lived a life of repressing emotion, and can in no way be prepared for the ones now storming inside her. That said, though, if you pause for a moment to think about what Lorca is going through during all this time, you suddenly (however inappropriately) can't help but feel that Burnham needs to suck it up
One aspect of the Voq reveal rubbed me the wrong way a bit, though -- the flashback snippets of Voq/Tyler's memories spliced in. Showing us the gratuitous Klingon boobs again seemed unnecessary, while showing Culber's neck being snapped again just seemed cruel.
Stamets spent another episode lost in a semi-comatose state. Tilly tried to be sly slipping in the information that fungii are a mingling of death and life, but it wasn't sly enough for us not to anticipate "dead" Stamets being resurrected. One option would be for the same tech to somehow be used to revive Culber down the road, though I think another less far-fetched option might simply be that Stamets' access to the spore network somehow serves as a bridge for him to connect with memories of Culber at any time. But first, it's helped him connect with his Mirror counterpart, a development that intrigues me for the next episode.
At the very end came the reveal that the Emperor is Georgiou. It's of course the perfect choice to tighten the screws on Burnham, but a possibility I'd dismissed because of the gendered honorific "Emperor." Alright, Discovery, you got me on that one.
All together, a strong offering I'd mark a B+. I remain eagerly baited for what comes next.
1 comment:
Needs tagging as Star Trek
Post a Comment