Star Trek: Discovery 4x5 "The Examples" Review

 rating: ****

the story: The crew has to evacuate a planet.

review: There's a point in "The Examples" where a project the smart people are working on is simply shut down.  This might seem a fairly disappointing moment, even considering a brief follow-up suggests one of the characters still thinks they know what they needed to know about it, and yet it helps illustrate the bold ways in which the episode strikes all the right notes without worrying too much about them, which can sometimes be a problem for a series that is sometimes brilliant and sometimes, even in seasons that are half the length of what a traditional season used to be, maddeningly vague.

The smart people include Stamets, his old rival Reno, and a visiting character (hopefully to be seen again!) who also helps extend the Emerald Chain fallout from last season, a brilliant scientist very much in the vein of Stamets and Reno, a character type the series does so well, difficult and yet rewarding to watch.  It's really, really wonderful to see Stamets in action again, which as I've pointed out really hasn't been the case since the first season, and even better to see Reno again (she debuted in the second season, fully formed), and if the guy does show up again it'll even be worth recording the other guy's name, too.  

They've assembled to try and figure out the secrets of the rogue anomaly, which this episode is now considered an artificial phenomenon, so very much in the character of V'Ger or the doomsday machine from "The Doomsday Machine" or even the Sphere-Builders from Enterprise (fans got all worked up online since the aliens in "Examples" were introduced in Enterprise; visual reference is also made to Denobulans, of which that show's Doctor Phlox was one).  

One of the things I love about the modern era of the franchise is how much easier it is to just reference known information rather than treat it as a new discovery every time it comes up.  (I'm still miffed, quite outsize to general fan opinion, that Starfleet wouldn't have known exactly what happened to Khan.)

Anyway, the episode also addresses one particular elephant in the room: the death and resurrection of Culber, and what that does to his continuing existence, including the additional psychiatric duties he's lately taken on.  No character has more surprised me in the series than Culber, since the second season, since he came back from the dead.  In the third season he became more interesting, and this season has obviously understood exactly what he's become, which is arguably more interesting than Stamets, which is why it's all the better that the season has also made such a renewed effort with him.

And the title characters, another prison drama in the franchise (Voyager was particularly keen on this, which makes it equally relevant to point out that, yes, there's a Starship Janeway in the episode, too, and one of the rare but always welcome Native American actors to show up in Star Trek, not even playing a role that has Native American connotations).  I love how this plays out, too.  The episode sort of teases it'll go one way, and then doesn't really dwell on any of the expectations, instead waiting until the end to hit unexpectedly poignant notes.

All this and Saru gets one outstanding moment, too.  Saru has really become a favorite of mine, too.  I find myself talking in his cadences at times.  Combine all this and this is why I love this episode, and how this season is developing, arguably the most smoothly of any arc in the series to date.  

criteria analysis:

• franchise - The callbacks serve to deepen connections the season has dedicated so much of its time already to help make apparent for skeptical fans.
• series - The season arc once again moves along in organic fashion.
• character - There's a lot to choose from.  Let's settle for Stamets and Culber.
• essential - A textbook example of a part of a serialized story that stands out on its own.

notable guest-stars:

Oden Fehr (Vance)

Tig Notaro (Reno)

David Cronenberg

Star Trek: Discovery 4x4 "All Is Possible" Review

rating: ***

the story: Tilly discovers an unexpected new calling.

review: "All Is Possible" turns things right around from the last episode, in all the most dramatic ways possible.  "Choose to Live" seemed half-heartedly committed to everything it was attempting to do; "Possible" takes the total opposite tack.  Book really struggles with the loss of his family and homeworld, the Ni'Var make a stand (and decision), and so does Sylvia Tilly.

The Ni'Var, for those still struggling to keep up with modern Trek lore, are the Vulcans, and Romulans.  They're the reunified version that was first teased in Next Generation by none other than Spock.  Last season, "Unification III" dropped that particular bombshell in Discovery's far future, including how the Ni'Var were purposefully withholding participation in the Federation.  This season we're getting a better look at what that means, "Possible" might end up being the best spotlight.  Where "Live" seemed so reluctant to live up to its preceding material, "Possible" absolutely goes for the gusto.  The Emerald Chain arc, and the stirring defense of Federation ideals Vance made last season, also factors into the episode.  That would be more than enough to give "Possible" a glowing endorsement.

But it also makes a statement about Tilly, a clear turning point for a character who often seemed fairly directionless, except surprisingly in a command direction.  The one real stumble in "Possible" is Tilly referencing "how long" she coveted the captain's chair, which for all intents and purposes wasn't even a thing until she found out Mirror Tilly, "Killy," was everything she never seemed capable of becoming, confident, cool, and above all, unquestioned command material.

Eventually, by the end, Tilly remembers in "Possible" that her true motivating factor was her overbearing mom, whom she realizes now exists in a distant past, far, far out of reach, and thus no longer in control of all her choices.  So she opts for a different path.  (Even mentioning how "long" her career has been is kind of a mockery of poor Harry Kim, who would've killed to wait only a thousand years to reach lieutenant!)  She decides to become a teacher at Starfleet Academy.

O'Brien, at the end of Deep Space Nine, went that route.  The movies kind of suggested Kirk's crew went that route.  Maybe with Tilly, when we see her again, will get to actually show us some of that, and not just another junior officer training cruise disaster, which admittedly much of this episode is, though it spends less time on it than you'd think, and more just getting to the point (another huge difference from "Live").  "Possible" feels like more of a goodbye than even Saru's choice at the end of last season, which this season quickly disputed.  Some fans will always point to Tilly, and not Burnham, as the most uncomfortable character to swallow in the series (she's even the one who breached the potty mouth barrier!), and so it's kind of appropriate for a season that has been rebooting to more accessible parameters would seem to consider jettisoning Tilly rather than Burnham (who once again drifts away from her Kirk mode and toward Picard this episode).

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Arguably, especially for grumpy Enterprise viewers, this is the closest we've ever gotten to Vulcans not named Spock (or Tuvok) getting to represent themselves in a dignified manner, be motivated by their own concerns, and still come off looking good.
• series - A ton of great callbacks to previous events without needing to belabor them.
• character - For Tilly a kind of big goodbye.
• essential - Sort of like David Cronenberg making another appearance but not making too big a deal about it, this is a notable episode of modest achievement, just wanting to push things in a further direction. 

notable guest-stars:

David Cronenberg

Star Trek: Discovery 4x3 "Choose to Live" Review

 rating: **

the story: Burnham must track down and neutralize a rogue member of the Qowat Milot who has been stealing dilithium and has just murdered a Starfleet officer.

review: This one's a difficult review to write, because "Choose to Live" is both an important episode and yet so strangely inert, the execution so drained of life, it's tough to admit it's just not as good as it should be.

The biggest news for fans is that Gray now has a body!  Gray's character arc, so brilliantly begun in "Forget Me Not" last season, has degenerated into the worst kind of serialized storytelling the modern era has given us, things that linger and kind of creep along episodes and seasons, seldom receiving a spotlight.  It's particularly egregious for being such an important moment, worse even, for me, than "Project Daedalus" from the second season that suddenly thought Airiam was worth exploring, even as she was a secondary character in her own episode.  "Choose" doesn't even give Gray secondary status.  He's third, behind Burnham, behind Book, arguably behind even Tilly, meaning he ranks fourth in such a dramatic moment for his development.

Getting to have his own body again.

It's poor juggling on the writing side, and sluggish editing even with all those elements to feature in a single episode.  The liveliest moment comes from Vance using a hammy metaphor to help assuage Burnham of her need for control (itself a theme of the season) when Burnham lightly agrees to the wisdom.  Saru has some nice moments with Tilly, whose arc this season is trying to figure out why she feels so out of place (which seems like it probably would've made more sense last season, when she an' everyone else literally skipped ahead into the far future and away from everything they'd known outside of their shipmates).

(It occurs to me that Gray plays fifth fiddle; even Stamets, in science hero mode once again, has more to do.)

Much of the episode trades on franchise elements recently established in Picard, which Discovery made use of in its third season already, and again draws on here.  This would be fine if the episode draws as deftly on them as Picard itself had.  Picard doesn't get near enough credit for how gracefully it played out in its first season.  Discovery can sometimes hiccup when trying to find the vibe of a season, skipping on the record player even when it has something interesting to say.  "Choose" is so busy trying to explore four or five different plot points it doesn't give enough breathing room to any of them.  Book, for instance, is supposed to be distraught and devastated, and rightly so, but in this episode he really behaves no differently after a restorative mind meld than he did before it.  You could infer differently if you'd just watched the previous episode, but in this one no real grief is visible, only conversations implying it.  I don't know if it's the acting or that the whole episode was filmed without really figuring any of it out.

We see Burnham's mom again, and this time, unlike "Unification III" last season, I again see her as the lifeless injection she was in the second season.  That's the whole episode, as close to a real bummer as this series has yet produced.

But it is nice for the Gray arc to have reached this point, no matter how badly executed. He has a body.  He can live again.  This has so far been a season where characters are finally moving on, and symbolically, amidst the lethargic chaos of an episode, we have a vantage point from which to pinpoint an exact moment in time for which to pivot the overall arc.  I don't think that's why "Choose" plays out the way it does.  But it doesn't hurt to view it that way.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - For fans of the modern era, the episode serves as a refresher course for new mythology.
• series - However much I want to read into things, the overall effect of the episode is also to drag on rather than enhance the season arc.
• character - It's a huge moment for Gray, even if he plays at best fifth fiddle in achieving it.
• essential - I don't know if the writers thought they were going to merely duplicate Gray's debut from last season by doing it any other way, but as far as I'm concerned this moment was almost blown.

notable guest-stars:

Oded Fehr (Vance)