The Discovery crew confirms the origin point of the Burn was within a nebula... where a distress signal from a Kelpian ship seems to be emanating. But before they can investigate, the matter of Georgiou's health becomes dire. On a remote planet, she steps through a doorway that returns her to her own time and universe, there to make different choices that might change her fate.
In my view, the concept of the Mirror Universe is a well that empties quickly. The more Deep Space Nine revisited it, the less compelling it generally was for me. Discovery refreshed the Mirror Universe with a less campy, more serious take... yet so much of the first season revolved around it that I was ready when it was over to leave it all behind. (Emperor Georgiou notwithstanding.) Maybe I'm just cranky because I've become invested in the mystery of the Burn, and resent this two-part interruption now, just when we were getting to the climax of that story.
Still, I think another reason I wasn't thrilled with this episode is my opinion of what the Mirror Universe is good for. I see it a chance for the actors to cut loose and play something different; if we see they're having fun, that's fun for us to watch. And we did get that with "Killy" and the Mirror Universe Michael Burnham. Yet Georgiou is of course behaving as she always does, and the rest of the characters were barely featured and/or barely different. (Did anything about Stamets say "Mirror" to you?)
There's also something rather fantasy-tinged more than sci-fi about the scenario here. (Hmm... this is part of why some people dislike Q so much.) Georgiou finds a random mystic, steps through a magic door, and is now having a spiritual journey. The chances that any of this is actually happening seem vanishingly small. Since it seems this must be a vision, and since they've already told us a new Trek TV series built around Michelle Yeoh is in development, the stakes of all this feel quite deflated.
Still, there were moments where I felt myself able to give in and enjoy the little things. I mentioned the delicious fun of Killy and Burnham -- those performances by Mary Wiseman and Sonequa Martin-Green are everything I want in a Mirror Universe visit. Add to those a fun turn by CSI's Paul Guilfoyle as the mysterious "Carl." I may have questioned the magical conceit there, but at the same time I quite enjoyed the quirky character, perhaps precisely because he felt more appropriate to an episode of The Good Place than Star Trek. I also got a kick of David Cronenberg's Kovich dismissing the Kelvin movie timeline even more casually than those movies dismissed the original Star Trek universe.
Perhaps it would be better to reserve judgment on this episode until I've seen what Part 2 holds? Then again, I sort of feel like I can guess. Georgiou's problem was that she's both out of her time and out of her universe, so this is all a "quest" to prove to whatever power that makes the rules that she's different now, a better fit in our universe than the Mirror. Or something like that. Plus, after saying the name "Lorca" like 47 times, if Jason Isaacs doesn't show up in Part 2, then what the hell are they all thinking?
Barring a stupendous resolution next week that makes me rethink it all, though, "Terra Firma, Part 1" is easily my least favorite episode of the season. I give it a C+.
1 comment:
Nice use of 47 at the end there.
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