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.
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