Su'Kal

The latest Star Trek: Discovery finally got around to addressing the mystery of the Burn, a puzzle I had felt the writers deliberately ducking for several weeks.

The Discovery reaches the Kelpian ship sending a distress signal from the origin point of the Burn. There they find a single survivor, raised from birth by holograms, and with little awareness of the outside world. As a team tries to rescue him against a ticking clock of radiation poisoning, the ship (under Tilly's command) has a showdown against Osyraa.

Something was a little off to me in how this week's episode addressed its central mystery, as though the writers believed certain obvious plot elements to in fact be carefully hidden secrets. When Michael Burnham declares at the end of the teaser that "we may have just found the source of the Burn," I actually said aloud, "didn't you know you'd done that three episodes ago?"

It was the first of several reveals that fell flat for me -- not emotionally, but in the way the characters were so very far behind the audience. Of course Su'Kal's mother programmed all these holograms; she was the only one there to have done so. Of course Su'Kal caused the Burn somehow; he's the only one who has been here the whole time! (And it seems we're primed for yet another "shocking revelation" in the coming episodes: some trauma for Su'Kal seems to be the "mysterious" specific cause of the Burn; what could it possibly be other than the death of his mother?) 

There were other strange bumps in the writing, I thought. Saru knew the Kelpian in the distress signal was pregnant, but didn't think to correct misconceptions about that. Discovery has been outfitted with a cloaking device, but no one saw fit to mention that fact until now. Then there was the bizarre justification for the appearance of the Away Team being altered inside the holographic program: this was supposedly for consistency with the rest of the simulation... except that there already were Kelpians in it (removing the need to alter Saru's appearance), and the program seemed fine with having humans around, since it turned Saru into one (thus defeating the need to alter Burnham and Culber's appearance).

Of course, the real reason for the appearance swap was to get Doug Jones out of makeup for a little bit... and this was one of the places where, despite the episode's awkward construction, there were great elements within it. Saru was really having the emotional screws turned on him this week. Giving Jones the opportunity to portray that more subtly, to not have to emote through a thick mask of makeup, was excellent. At the same time, it wasn't necessarily a given that he'd be able to do that well; acting through makeup is a very different skill set, and there was no guarantee that Doug Jones would be as good at one type of performance as he is at the other. I look forward to seeing more of "reasonable call time" Doug Jones in the next episode.

There was a lot more great acting among the guest stars this episode. Bill Irwin is just a solid working actor who has popped up everywhere. He was wonderful as Su'Kal, capturing child-like innocence and working through the makeup effortlessly (or so it seemed). The various actors playing glitchy holograms also did a good job (each with their handful of lines), capturing the sense of error-ridden programs breaking down.

The visuals were also excellent throughout the hologram sequences, really portraying a sense of scope. The bizarre "Escher" room was vast and trippy. The "smoke monster" Kelpian was menacing and felt dangerous. The sweeping shots of a roiling ocean crashing on the rocks, the floating "video game" platforms sliding around in midair. It was all a real feast for the eyes.

And back on the ship, I enjoyed Tilly's first turn in the captain's chair. Sure, the logic getting her there was strained. I also wish that the season had done a better job making Osyraa feel more dangerous before now, so that the capture of the Discovery here seemed more inevitable and less potentially "Tilly's fault." Still, watching Tilly employ clever tactics, jujitsu Osyraa's verbal sparring back in her face, and generally commanding the respect of the bridge crew made for a lot of fun.

Certainly, the cliffhanger ending was effective, leaving multiple characters in a jeopardy I'm eager to come back to resolve next week. Overall, I'd give the episode a B.