Thursday, December 31, 2020

Star Trek: Discovery 3x11 “Su’Kal” Review

rating: ***

the story: At last! The secret origin of the Burn! But of course it’s complicated!

review: “Su’Kal” has importance to the season, of course, but it also echoes a franchise story archetype fans have sometimes grumbled about. When Enterprise did it (“Oasis”) it was assumed to be a ripoff of an earlier episode, Deep Space Nine’s “Shadowplay.” But it’s a story that literally goes back to the very first pilot, “The Cage,” in which Pike becomes embroiled in a fantasy constructed for someone else.

What helps “Su’Kal” stand out is how Burnham and Saru are involved. Burnham’s role is fairly comedic; she’s assumed to be a hologram, and so she adopts that approach. Saru’s is more personal. The source of the Burn is apparently a ship that was crewed by Kelpians. The lone survivor is one who has lived in isolation for decades, his only companions instruction holograms. When Saru leads an away team to visit this unexpected glimpse back to his people, he and the rest of the party are integrated into the program to look less threatening. And this means Saru does not look like Saru.

He looks a lot like, well, Doug Jones.

All that’s good. The subplot is the return of the Emerald Chain, who continue to be underwhelming foes even as they follow another franchise trope of the ship being quickly and easily taken over by the enemy. (Burnham and Book will surely rescue them next episode!)

The upside of that is seeing Tilly in command. It’s sort of like Sulu in the Kelvinverse Star Trek. It salvages the material. Hopefully to be improved upon next episode.

criteria analysis: 

>franchise - Classic franchise tropes revisited!

>series - A big moment for the season has arrived, a culmination point headed toward the climax.

>character - Somehow this is the first time Saru has gotten a spotlight without the problem being directly related to him. Just indirectly!

>essential - If it weren’t for that darn underdeveloped antagonist...

notable guest-stars:

Oded Fehr

Star Trek: Discovery 3x10 “Terra Firma, Part 2” Review

rating: ****

the story: Georgiou’s fate revealed.

review: If the first part was all setup, the second is all delivery. If there’s any disappointment it’s that it doesn’t take up the whole episode.

So this is Mirror Georgiou’s moral reckoning. The delicious part is that you might expect her to succeed in turning the Mirror Universe around, but she doesn’t, and the biggest swerve is that just as when we see her die for her efforts, we end up back on the other side of...

The Guardian of Forever!

Yeah! That’s who Carl was all along! It’s a great bit of franchise continuity going all the way back to one of the first classics episodes, “City on the Edge of Forever,” and finally reclaiming the idea as a continuing piece of Star Trek lore. All the talk about temporal accords this season are of course also acknowledged. And the whole thing feels like classic material itself, how Carl’s presented, how he’s used, and what he allows Georgiou, and viewers, to experience.

The episode does allow us to spend more time just experiencing the Mirror Universe, reveling in the chaos the dastardly Lorca created in his wake, getting to see a few old faces (some in surprising ways!) along the way. We see the relationship between Mirror Georgiou and Mirror Burnham play out in ways that please and disappoint them both. A central relationship of the series thus receives closure, a number of ways.

If I have one quibble, the farewell Georgiou is given doesn’t address how different Georgiou must have seemed to anyone who didn’t know this one came from the Mirror Universe, which unless I’m forgetting something should have been...everyone, basically, except key personnel like Burnham and Culber. 

But if you’re going to have Michelle Yeoh in a TV series, eventually you give her her due, which is what all of this was about. And, I guess, giving her a way to get back to the possibility of that long-gestating Section 31 series, talked of since the end of the first season, but now at least two series fallen behind. And probably three, since we have seen far more rapid progress even toward Pike’s spin-off. Anyway.

criteria analysis:

>franchise - Mirror Universe fans should easily be able to eat this up. As well as fans of the Guardian of Forever!

>series - A kind of series wrap for the character(s) of Georgiou.

>character - A fine final series statement on Georgiou.

>essential - Absolutely. This was classic material.

notable guest-stars:

Michelle Yeoh

Paul Guilfoyle 

Rekha Sherma

Oded Fehr

Star Trek: Discovery 3x9 “Terra Firma, Part 1”

rating: ****

the story: Turns out Georgiou needs to return to the Mirror Universe.

review: Basically another of those stories the series essentially had to do, like finally concluding the mycelial network business (still had to look that up in order to spell it correctly) last season, which is to say, finally determining if Mirror Georgiou (y’know, the one we ended up spending the most time with) was actually worth spending all that time with.

To find out, she has to go back home, and be forced to decide whether she learned anything spending all that time in the prime universe or faced with a second chance if she would make different decisions.

And so basically “Terra Firma, Part 1” (and its concluding chapter) brings the Mirror Universe full circle, forcing someone from that side to decide to become a better person. Deep Space Nine, in its many visits, made strides in that direction, though it was mainly concerned with the long road of humans reclaiming a sense of self-determination. Enterprise, in its two trips, reveled in the atmosphere. Discovery was initially content to do much the same.

And “Terra Firma, Part 1” is much the same, though it hints at what follows. Instead it’s the setup, and as such allows us to see the Nirror Universe, once more, in its classic context, to see things like Captain Killy being Captain Killy (perhaps all the more interesting since Tilly meanwhile is finding her own command path). 

We also meet an intriguing figure who gets Georgiou there in the first place, memorable in this appearance alone, before we learn anything else (but that’s a good development from the second part, too).

criteria analysis:

>franchise - Any return to the Mirror Universe ought to at least provoke some interest, let alone one with some ambition.

>series - A story thread from the first season reaching its culmination...!

>character - At last Georgiou fully in the spotlight!

>essential - While the second part has big things to accomplish, and nails them, this one feels bigger, and is.

notable guest-stars:

Michelle Yeoh

Paul Guilfoyle

Rekha Sharma

Odes Fehr 

David Cronenberg 

Star Trek: Discovery 3x8 “The Sanctuary” Review

rating: ***

the story: Book’s brother is tangled up with a mast organization called the Emerald Chain.

review: This is the kind of episode that feels like it ought to work better, but it falls on the weak side since most of it is accomplished in perfunctory terms. On the one hand it’s not just a Book spotlight (he has been either absent outright or marginalized for long stretches of a short season), but a look into his family, even though the results don’t feel overly personal or pivoted around that family. It’s a clear example of the predatory nature of life after the Burn, but represented in the most generic way possible.

So yeah. Talking about “The Sanctuary” after a later episode in which the implied fallout has indeed occurred doesn’t even make it feel any more important. The Emerald Chain, and the green Orion lady representing it, doesn’t advance any further than what you see here. There’s nothing to ground it other than “they’re bad guys.”

And again, there’s so much the episode attempts to accomplish a first viewing of the results are underwhelming. Book is a unique character, and he bears the further unfortunate distinction of essentially filling the shoes of Ash Tyler, who if anything became far more interesting the longer he stuck around, and whose subsequent absence this season only grows harder to accept. If this were a Tyler episode, it just seems as if far more would have been accomplished. Book merely duplicates the same “I’m a really good guy doing really good stuff in very harsh circumstances” vibe we’ve already seen in, yeah, his first appearance.

Maybe a more concise summary will explain this better:

criteria analysis:

>franchise - I honestly don’t think there’s enough grounding here to entice a casual fan. That’s what’s missing here.

>series - On the other hand, if you’re a Discovery fan there’s plenty to enjoy.

>character - Even if you discount the effectiveness of Book’s material, there’s also additional emphasis on the Georgiou arc about to reach its crescendo in the next two episodes, which itself gives Culber more of that extra emphasis he’s enjoyed this season

>essential - And between any of that and the Emerald Chain indeed resurfacing a few episodes later, it’s probably well worth taking note of.

notable guest-stars:

Michelle Yeoh

Oded Fehr

Saturday, December 5, 2020

Deep Space Nine Forgot About: The Jem’Hadar

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine did just about everything right. It certainly helped set up modern Star Trek as it exists in Discovery and Picard, and even before that it was used as the definitive example of everything Voyager and Enterprise didn’t do well enough. In short, it was a series of immense depth, not just in terms of serialization or an arc that could be traced from first to last episode, but giving every element as thorough a spotlight as possible. 

And every element had some kind of resolution. Even if Armin Shimerman was a little disappointed that Quark was still merely a bartender at a space station at the edge of the final frontier, despite everything he experienced across seven seasons, exactly where he’d begun, there was no longer any real doubt about whether or not he was a good guy (even if Odo wouldn’t admit it). You can pick anything at all from the series and trace the course of its evolution, or illumination.

Anything but the Jem’Hadar.

The Jem’Hadar were introduced as being of considerable importance, in the final episode of the second season. The episode’s name is even “The Jem’Hadar.” They were the face of the Dominion we were allowed to see as such right from the start, its fierce foot soldiers whose battleships could take out the same class of Starfleet ship as Picard’s Enterprise. In the episode, of course, is a Vorta, subsequently revealed as representing the voice of the Dominion and later embodied quite ably by a series of Weyoun clones (who of course are given their own moment, too, in “Treachery, Faith and the Great River”).

It isn’t until the third season that the Jem’Hadar are individualized, “The Anandoned,” the first of a small collection of Jem’Hadar we get to meet and...and never see again. We meet others in “Hippocratic Oath,” “To the Deathl (both in the fourth season), and “Rocks in Shoals” (part of the opening war suite of the sixth season), which is the last time the series makes a real effort with them. Technically there’s also “One Little Ship” (later that season), but you would have to be pretty generous to include it.

And nothing in the final, seventh season.

Now, I get that there was a lot to accomplish that season, being, again, the final one. The final ten episode war suite makes room for a second set of anonymous antagonists, the Breen (often referenced previously, never seen, turn out to be fully encased in armor), who of course also don’t receive a single distinct representative.

In their significant appearances, the Jem’Hadar were consistently presented as inherently capable of so much more, that they weren’t just strung-out junkies genetically modified to be the grunts of the Founders. And teased, every time, to be more than ready to be so. 

To put this in perspective, the series also famously featured the Ferengi, who even in Deep Space Nine were considered a joke, despite every effort the series made to change this perception, so that every spotlight was “a Ferengi episode” (an insult). By the end, the Ferengi had made considerable strides to move past their misogynistic and greedy ways, with Quark’s brother Rom rejecting every traditional notion and somehow becoming Grand Nagus (leader) in the process.

There’s no equivalent arc for the Jem’Hadar. There isn’t an arc at all. Each individual spotlight effectively restates the same thing, that they’re not as bad as they seem, and that given a real chance they could be so much more.

And they were simply never given that chance. That’s six out of seven seasons where they were part of the storytelling, and it never happened.

That’s possibly the most glaring oversight and shortcoming of the whole series.

It’s like “Balance of Terror” somehow concluding the Romulan commander was just a villain after all.

When people debate whether Deep Space Nine followed the basic tenets of the franchise, they are actively choosing to either support or ignore what anyone who actually watched it would be able to tell you, that it absolutely did. And in fact, probably did better than any Star Trek series or film before or since.

Which makes this exception all the more glaring. This was a series that went out of its way to make its point, to hit its spots, which got away with it in large part because the studio heads weren’t really paying attention, being far more concerned about how Next Generation ended (and entered the world of film) and Voyager began. That left the writers with a tremendous amount of leeway. Even when the studio strongly suggested to make the proceedings look more familiar (add Worf, the Klingons in general, in the fourth season), the writers used it as an opportunity to restate how dire the Dominion threat really was.

Which, again, included the Jem’Hadar. Theoretically. Or just keep them as muscle. Never let them get their victory. Even at the end of the series, the characters are more concerned about what the Breen might get if the Dominion wins than if the Jem’Hadar stay loyal. Because, well, losing them would absolutely cripple the Dominion. The Breen were opportunists. The Cardassians were clearly only after their own interests. And the Vorta were no fighters. Take away the Jem’Hadar?

Strangely, in another series this would have been a no-brainer. Picard realizes, in Next Generation’s “I, Borg,” that if you separate a drone from the hive mind, you have potential for considerable mischief, at the very least, among the collective itself. In Enterprise, Archer works furiously to turn Xindi scientist Degra into an ally during its third season (“Stratagem”). And of course “Balance of Terror” itself. Even Voyager knew this during the midst of its Kazon arc when Chakotay befriends a young warrior in “Initiations.”

And nowhere were the stakes higher or fraught with greater potential than Deep Space Nine and the Jem’Hadar.

Well, I guess they couldn’t win them all.

Wednesday, December 2, 2020

Star Trek: Discovery 3x7 “Unification III” Review

rating: ****

the story: Burnham visits Vulcan, I mean Ni’Var!

review: Sometimes I really have to face the fact that as far as resilience goes I always expect characters to give up, which is what I seem to think my choice would be. “Unification III” is in some respects a story about whether Burnham would give up (on Starfleet) after what happened last episode. Spoiler alert: she does not.

The title, when I first saw it listed for the season, seemed to suggest it would be some sort of follow-up to the two-part Next Generation episode “Unification,” where Spock, well, attempts to work at reuniting Vulcans and Romulans. And that’s exactly what it is. Except, like a lot of things this season, it’s something that already happened. They’re back, haltingly, together, and yes, they renamed Vulcan! (But to be fair, as iconic as it is, being Vulcan from the planet Vulcan was literally the most simplistic world-building...ever.)

So when the crew travels there to learn more about an abandoned project that seems to have been the reason the planet left the Federation, convinced that its failure was a huge sticking point in the loss of easy access to warp drive (if not the cause itself), it’s pointed out Burnham would probably be an ideal emissary, being the adopted sister of Spock.

Then the episode essentially becomes a referendum on Michael Burnham.

The most unexpected, and most unexpectedly welcome for me, development is that it also becomes Burnham’s reunion with her mom, the one who originally piloted the Red Angel and was possibly lost forever. Well, she wasn’t. She traveled to Ni’Var and joined the Romulan sect introduced in Picard absolute candor, warriors for lost causes). And for me, she feels far more natural and welcome a presence, so I’m very glad this happened. (Might even smooth over future viewings of the second season!)

But yeah, it’s really Burnham coming to peace with herself, the stuff that’s happened this season, and really the whole series. It’s that kind of episode. It’s wrapped up in stuff that’ll interest viewers in a more general sense, with something even better in the center. This is how I define a classic.

Some fans quibble how Saru decides naming Tilly as his new first officer. But looking back on how career advancement did (and didn’t) happen in Voyager, I think it’s worth reconsidering such a stance, and Saru’s reasoning itself is sound. If you’re going to have a character be a regular, besides, you probably ought to have a little faith in their career prospects. And, well, Nog moved rapidly through the ranks of Starfleet, too. In less regimented days, field promotions were common. It’s another of those problems fans will have only if they really want to.

criteria analysis:

>franchise - A historic moment in Star Trek lore has happened, and we even get to see footage of Leonard Nimoy to help celebrate.

>series - Not only the season arc is affirmed in general, but for one character in particular.

>character - Being Michael Burnham, who is forced to decide how much she wants to continue working within the system, becoming a symbol of the value the Federation still represents in the process.

>essential - Absolutely! A milestone in every regard.

notable guest-stars:

Oded Fehr (Vance)

Tuesday, December 1, 2020

Star Trek: Discovery 3x6 “Scavengers” Review

rating: ***

story: Burnham goes rogue to rescue Book and recover a valuable black box.

review: Some viewers will view “Scavengers” as needlessly rehashing Michael Burnham’s penchant for breaking bad. I would argue that Michael Burnham’s whole reputation is what it would look like if Jim Kirk weren’t a captain. There’s no functional difference. Even Kirk was demoted in the movies.

So we instead have an affirmation for Burnham’s willingness to sacrifice her own career for doing what she feels is right. (Incidentally, the first season of Picard had that guy doing it, too.) If anything, Burnham is affirming a Star Trek tradition. We even had the Maquis as a famous example. A lot of fans criticized Voyager for its rapid crew integration, but I always argue that they missed the point; many if not most Maquis, like Chakotay, were former Starfleet to begin with. It wasn’t a rebellion against Starfleet, or the Federation, but policy. 

Which, in this season of Discovery, is highly relevant. Burnham’s rescue mission turns into pretty classic franchise material, complete with an Andorian who needs rescuing (compassion) on a different level than Burnham originally anticipated. (In case you were wondering, like I was, this Andorian was not played by Wilson Cruz.)

What it really amounts to isn’t even a clash with the current version of Starfleet but a culmination of Burnham and Saru’s relationship. Saru finally decides he can’t have a first officer prone to going rogue. Saru himself is becoming an example of a textbook Starfleet captain, one that perhaps can be as respected as any the franchise has chosen as lead characters over the years, more often similar to Kirk but sometimes equally committed (as Janeway famously was) to standard Starfleet ideals.

criteria analysis:

>franchise - Ironically because fans seem prone to misidentifying Burnham’s instincts, this is maybe not an episode they’re likely to understand.

>series - And yet it resonates right back to the start of Discovery as it showed her as a true hero at every turn.

>character - So this is a great Burnham spotlight, and Saru, and even Georgiou, who this season has become a true highlight.

>essential - For fans of Discovery, absolutely.

notable guest-stars:

Michelle Yeoh (Georgiou)

Oded Fehr (Vance)

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