Discovery travels to Book's home planet. There the crew must deal with a threat from the leader of the Emerald Chain, Book must deal with a feud involving his brother, and both must face an environmental catastrophe on the planet. Meanwhile, Culber tries to explore Georgiou's mental lapses, Tilly steps into her duties as acting first officer, Adira reveals some personal truths, Detmer overcomes her self-doubt, and a new revelation about the Burn is uncovered.
Star Trek: Discovery has struck a different "serialization vs. episodic" balance in its third season that I've quite enjoyed -- and yet it struck me quite forcefully in this episode just how episodic it's actually become. That's a weird thing to say when so many ongoing plot threads were touched on this week. I think it's that normally, a main plot is used to mirror or highlight something going on personally for one of the characters. Here, the main plot felt largely independent (depending on how much you read Book as a "main character" now), while all the character subplots took place in the margins.
This episode tapped into that classic Star Trek feeling in presenting a huge problem for our heroes to solve in an hour. Book's homeworld has been ravaged for years, but one visit from Discovery is the answer to it all. That sounds possibly disparaging when I don't really mean it that way; this is old school Star Trek storytelling, where not everything comes with an implicit (or explicit) "to be continued." Not all modern TV needs to be dark and serious, and I'm ok with this throwback element. (After all, Discovery is hardly "light" now; they did show us severed limbs as someone was devoured by a monster this week.)
Nevertheless, I did feel like there were some "growing pains" in many of the ways this episode was trying to expand Discovery's format. They're trying to round out Georgiou's character, so she isn't just a means of darkly comic relief (and someone you call upon for great fight choreography). They need to do this for the good of the show. But right now, a more vulnerable Georgiou feels a bit awkward, because it's not the character they've built so far.
We need a Big Bad for the season, but Osyrra didn't make the strongest impression here in her first appearance. Sure, she's ruthless, killing her own nephew for his failure. But she's not very effective -- not yet, at least. Discovery seemed to thwart her fairly easily, and without paying much of a price, which undermines her credibility as a long-term villain. (Or maybe we're trading up to a Bigger Bad at some point?) Ryn's role in this story felt a bit off too; Osyrra wants him solely for a secret he could reveal? How does she know he hadn't revealed it already? (I mean, he hadn't -- but how did she know? And why didn't he?)
I guess Detmer's issues have really been personal after all and not a science-fiction contrivance? To me, that feels like growing pains for the show too. I like the idea that not everything needs a technobabbly explanation, that people can have real problems. But I feel like back at the start of this season, the table for this story was set in a more ominous way that implied something different. Did the writers mean to imply something different, or are they still learning how to tell stories about "just regular problems?"
Something also felt a little rough to me in Adira's assertion of their preferred pronouns. Not the easy matter-of-factness in which Stamets and Culber accepted it; that's exactly what I think the moment ought to have had. But there did seem to be some level of discomfort in Adira revealing this, and no real insight into any personal struggle they had in reaching this point. I also don't believe there were any examples of any non-LGBT characters properly employing Adira's preferred "they/their," so once again the LGBT characters were sort of pinned in a story silo off to the side of everyone else, which feels to me like a bit of "othering" that sightly undermines the well-meaning message I believe the writers intended.
I mean, "growing pains" were even part of the comedy in this episode: Saru's quest for a catch phrase.
Like I said, it probably sounds like I was more down on this episode than I actually was. I do like the story direction overall. And when there are moments that do bump me, the cast here is always good enough to carry me through easily enough. But there was pretty clearly a lot of setup here for the final story push ahead.
Overall, I'd say the episode was a B for me. Perhaps one of the weaker episodes of the season, from one perspective -- but still better than average in a season I've really enjoyed.
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