Star Trek: Section 31 review

 rating: ****

the story: Georgiou is recruited by Section 31 all over again.

the review: My X (Twitter) feed is full of abject hate for Section 31, so it seems more important to just go ahead and review it here now than to rest on the hiatus the Companion has been on in recent years.  It doesn't deserve the hate.  It deserves very much the opposite.

When Michelle Yeoh's Georgiou was killed off at the beginning of Discovery, a lot of fans were surprised.  Few enough of them seemed all that interested when she returned, via her Mirror Universe counterpart, later that first season.  Maybe it's because you kind of had to be a fan of both Deep Space Nine and Enterprise (which, aside from me, seems somewhat impossible) to appreciate the Mirror Universe beyond its "Mirror, Mirror" introduction in the original series at that point, but this was a big deal for the series, and for the franchise.  In fact, the rest of that season took place in the Mirror Universe, and somehow Mirror Georgiou ended up sticking around, including being recruited by Section 31 and ultimately winning a trip back home (kind of) via the Guardian of Forever later in the series.

Now, the biggest hiccup anyone might have with Section 31 is how she happens to find herself at the exact moment in time as her archnemesis.  Probably Carl's doing (the Guardian).

The movie opens with Mirror Georgiou's secret origin, how she became emperor in the first place, via an extremely logical explanation of how things worked there, and even the kind of life one might expect there (one twit on X suggested that home Mirror Georgiou returns to was hardly what they thought the Terran Empire would look like...but what else would you really expect? aside from the twit watching anything but the opening seconds?).  We learn she had to make a series of brutal decisions, only the last two of which we witness, including what to do with her competitor, and lover.  

Then we catch up with her in her present, which is about halfway between The Undiscovered Country and Next Generation, which can also be determined in the life of Enterprise-C captain Rachel Garrett, the youthful career of which we catch up with here.  Mirror Georgiou is leading an assumed identity until Section 31 bursts through the anonymity.  We meet the crew of misfits (and what a fun bunch they are!), and plunge into the mission.

It's worth pausing here to relish all the franchise lore we're getting to feast on.  First of course Mirror Georgiou herself, whom regular viewers of Discovery got to experience as close to redeeming herself as such a figure could enjoy.  (Section 31 itself exists to finish the job as completely as forgiving fans will allow.)  After "Mirror, Mirror," Deep Space Nine caught up with the Mirror Universe in a series of episodes throughout its seven season run (second through final seasons, almost a visit a season), from how far the Terrans fell to how they finally pick themselves up again.  Enterprise, in its final season, explains the crucial decision that shifted Earth's fate to Empire (First Contact, but with Cochrane shooting the Vulcans).  Section 31, in part, fills in the remaining gap, how it wasn't as simple as Mirror Spock being the one man to make a difference.  The rest of the dominoes had to fall, too, and that's what we see play out here.

There's also, of course, Section 31 itself, another gift of Deep Space Nine, the black ops Federation organization that also popped up in Enterprise and even Star Trek Into Darkness, and then finally Discovery, where Mirror Georgiou first signs up (up until realizing the timeline wouldn't square, I still hoped to see Ash Tyler pop up one more time).  A lot of fans still cling to the idea that Star Trek, and Starfleet and the Federation by extension, should only focus on the hopeful ideals of humanity's perfect future, but that was never the case even in the original series, where Spock could be subjected to bigotry on a regular basis (up to and including McCoy's banter).  Anyway, Deep Space Nine was my favorite series in the '90s, and so anything that keeps its legacy alive is welcomed by me, and Section 31 is easily its most visible legacy.  Playing someone like Rachel Garrett off of that (the other nice thing, beyond a Tyler cameo, would've been seeing her in the classic uniform, which spanned Wrath of Khan through Picard's days at the Academy).

(A seeming throwaway background for another character additionally finally, finally satisfactorily explains the Eugenics Wars.)

The storytelling in Section 31 is highly engrossing, beyond what most of the current era has achieved, possibly because it's forced to be so self-contained.  There's the suggestion this was supposed to be a series, and that this was only going to be the pilot; if so it's the best pilot Star Trek ever managed.

In giving Mirror Georgiou so much material, including how effectively layered its big reveals are, it satisfies on levels most of the theatrical movies never could, a truly accomplished ending and showdown with the villain, someone who really matters to the hero.  (In contrast to pretty much every other Star Trek fan, I favor Into Darkness over Wrath of Khan in how it handles our genetic superman as something other than a random force of nature Kirk bumps into twice.  The only other time it's really this perfect is First Contact, in which we learn of the Borg Queen's existence and how much it means for Picard to settle with her, apart from all other considerations.)

I really don't know how else to try and sell the achievement of it, and besides, emphasize how fun the side characters are.  There's a lot here just to reflect how much closer Section 31 is to our reality, and much better use of some of the types the franchise has been using in recent years...At this point Section 31 is actually the best thing to emerge from the modern era, excepting Strange New Worlds' current highwater mark, "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow."

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Outlined sufficiently in review. 
• series - If accepted as part of Discovery continuity, explains itself.
• character - Mirror Georgiou takes her place among the great characters in franchise lore.
• essential - For any number of reasons, Star Trek is now effectively incomplete without Section 31.

notable stars:

Michelle Yeoh (Georgiou)

Jamie Lee Curtis (Control)

Star Trek: Discovery 5x2 "Under the Twin Moons" Review

rating: **** (Classic)

summary: The crew begins its search for the clues that will help it locate the expected treasure.

review: The second episode of the fifth season lands better, for me, than the premiere, having more focus and more to say about the new circumstances and even new characters like Rayner.

Online, Discovery has become known as the worst of the new Star Treks, too polarizing or perhaps merely too ambitious to contend with the much more obvious crowd-pleasers that followed (Picard, Strange New Worlds, even Lower Decks).  As I look back at its legacy, though, I see a rich tapestry that's ably demonstrated all over again in "Under the Twin Moons."

What I've long loved best about Discovery is its ability to depict the classic "smartest in the room" mentality of Starfleet, spread generously around the whole room (last season maybe got a little carried away with this), which as Burnham and Saru are trying to survive another of those death squad security systems and then figuring out the clue behind it, is once again in full glory.

But the best part of the episode is how it revisits the complicated history Burnham and Saru share (just these two alone have reached what Gene used to call "beloved character status," at least as far as I'm concerned), and how Rayner gets to reflect it.  Rayner is interesting, a welcome new wrinkle in the far future the crew has inhabited now for three seasons, an example of the working reality Starfleet was in before the revival, and early on I even began to wonder if he'd not actually a double agent, actually working with the pair of villains we'll be following this season (which if he is would itself be another fascinating callback, this time to Lorca), but the end of the episode turns it around completely by having Burnham offer him second-in-command  Burnham's reputation at the start of the series still colors how many fans view her, which is unfortunate, so it's nice that the series itself continues to dwell on it.  If Voyager seemed (again, mostly in the unforgiving eyes of disgruntled fans) to shy away from its complicated origins, then it's nice for Discovery to have never lost sight of its overall arc.

I loved how last season the show finally moved past the straight hero complex and refocused on the science, and that this season follows up on that, while also tying in with the Next Generation episode "The Chase."  It's rare, even in a franchise that has long since moved on from its episodic storytelling origins, to revisit concepts from that period, but Discovery has long since demonstrated its ambitious nature.  This will be a heck of a way to go, and "Twins Moons" is a fine way to prove that.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - The whole season links in with existing Star Trek lore!
• series - An episode that deepens long-term storytelling, from the start and as recently as the last two seasons.
• character - New character Rayner becomes integral to the season, and arguably, the series.
• essential - Another fine selling point for the series as a whole.

notable guest-stars:

Oded Fehr (Vance)

David Cronenberg (Kovich)

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 2x3 "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" Review

rating: **** (Classic)

the story: La'an ends up thrown into the past, where she and a Kirk from an alternate reality have a chance to prevent the rise of her ancestor Khan.

review: "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" is one of those instant classics.  It's arguably the best episode of any Star Trek in the modern era.  It's the kind of creative statement and achievement that speaks to the entire franchise.  

When the character of La'an Noonian-Singh was introduced in Strange New Worlds, her surname gave her immediate recognition in a series that was otherwise set to feature a mix of well-established (Pike, Spock, Number One, Uhura) characters, some less well-knowns (M'Benga), and assorted all-new creations.  La'an represented a mix of all the above.  She herself was brand new, but her distinctive last name meant she was related to one of the most famous, and infamous, characters in all of Star Trek, one who debuted in the original series ("Space Seed") and went on to be featured in two feature films (Wrath of Khan, which many fans still consider the undisputed best movie of the franchise, and Into Darkness).  As the first season progressed we learn more about La'an, including the prejudice she faces, and feels, due to this unusual ancestry, giving her the kind of depth only the best-established characters otherwise enjoyed.  By the end of the season she had become one of the major characters of the series.

Early in this second season, she has taken great strides to outright stealing the spotlight from all of them.  "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" is a monumental achievement.  Like a lot of episodes in the franchise, it hinges on classic time travel tropes.  There was a time in the fandom when the overly familiar was hugely frowned upon, but at the moment fans have grown once more accepting of it, which is why Strange New Worlds exists at all, with the ability to once again embrace the episodic format that dominated most of the rest of the franchise once upon a time.  Early feedback has deemed "Tomorrow" reminiscent of the classic example of time travel in franchise lore, "City on the Edge of Forever," in which Kirk must prevent a drastic change in the timeline by allowing a woman he inevitably falls in love with to die.  The daring twist of "Tomorrow" is that La'an must actually allow Khan to live.

It's impossible to grasp the impact of the episode without spoiling that.  There's so much to talk about, and so much to love, and it all needs discussing.

The Strange New Worlds version of Kirk first appearing at the end of the previous season gets an unexpected chance to shine as part of all this.  Star Trek now has three versions of the character, catching up with Spock in that regard.  Perhaps moreso than Spock, this Kirk is an unexpected revelation.  William Shatner will always cast a huge shadow over the role and the franchise, and will be as synonymous with it as Leonard Nimoy and Spock, and yet Chris Pine has proved to be resilient in the mainstream (this year he just headlined a successful launching of a new Dungeons and Dragons cinematic vision).  Paul Wesley, who made his name in The Vampire Diaries, will probably never be in serious competition with either of them, and yet in "Tomorrow" he gets to give as dynamic and complete single experience with the role as has yet been attempted.  His hustling games of chess, eating hotdogs, even the awkward dynamic with La'an all combine to a show-stealing appearance, if he weren't appearing opposite Christina Chong's La'an.  This whole episode only works if Kirk and La'an are a compelling pair, and for a version of Kirk only making his second appearance, and being tasked with keeping up with someone not named Spock, it's a challenge well-met.

"Tomorrow" tackles big franchise mysteries.  It explains the sliding time scale of when exactly the Eugenics Wars occurred (Voyager, Deep Space Nine, and Picard all traveled to relative contemporary times and didn't seem to have been touched by them), and even contextualizes Enterprise's Temporal Cold War, concluding a mystery that series never got around to doing itself as to why it happened at all, and probably even the identity (or species) of Future Guy (the Romulans, as long suspected).  But most of all, as Kirk in Final Frontier once claimed, "Tomorrow" concludes that you can't fix things by removing pain from the equation.  La'an can't fix herself by preventing Khan's ascension.  It's not that he's a boy when she finds him, but that his evil has to happen for all the good that follows.  

The whole story predicates on La'an needing to fix the timeline when she discovers something changed it and led to a version of reality where Kirk exists much as before, but outside the boundaries of Starfleet, the Federation, where humans never embraced the stars, not in a Mirror Universe kind of way, but without having truly realized their potential.  Kirk's convinced to play along since his brother's dead in this one but alive in the other (in the original series, the episodic format didn't really let him mourn Sam's eventual death in "Operation: Annihilate!").  Turns out temporal agents have been postponing the Eugenics Wars for years (and it's even hinted that the wars lead directly into WWIII, helping explain that, too).  For a franchise that has dipped into the past and the future many times, it's always been reluctant to explain any of this foundational material, in-canon, making "Tomorrow" important on that score alone.

By the end of the episode, the normally stoic La'an finally breaks down, the result of the cathartic experiences she's had.  Pike has struggled with his eventual fate since his appearances in Discovery, and the previous episode had just explained how Number One, Una Chin-Riley, got her own reckoning, while Spock hurdles toward confrontations with his own destinies (the implosion of his relationship with T'Pring, a confrontation with Sybok), and these are expected developments, given presentation.  "Tomorrow," no one could have seen coming.  Her antipathy toward the Gorn will clearly continue to play out, and yet here La'an gets to confront something far more personal, and find some closure from it.

When Star Trek cuts this deep, it's rare for it to play out this way.  Often it'll be a dark experience, but certainly nothing that feels remotely like a romp, which is how Kirk's effect takes "Tomorrow."  The lack of truly standalone episodes in modern lore means it's often hard to pinpoint standout experiences that are comparable to what's been previously achieved, and yet "Tomorrow" not only successfully evokes templates but moves well beyond them, and makes its story deeply personal in the process. 

To top all that off, the episode also makes great use of the new character Pelia, who is deliberately positioned to echo Next Generation and Picard icon Guinan, who put in a similar appearance in the latter's second season, and there's really no question that Pelia's appearance in "Tomorrow" is not only pitch-perfect for the character, but hugely immediately enjoyable, and a welcome distraction in the episode itself.  If this were somehow the only time you see the character, you'd love her for this spotlight alone.  

criteria analysis:

• franchise - "Tomorrow" is a deep cut that speaks to the whole history of Star Trek storytelling.  It revolves around Khan, Kirk, and explaining how the whole timeline works.
• series - Back in the Enterprise days fans always worried how a prequel to make a meaningful impact on franchise lore without breaking it.  "Tomorrow" is a textbook example of how to do it.  
• character - La'an instantly claims what Gene Roddenberry once termed "beloved character status," rocketing her not only in importance to her own series but throughout Star Trek lore in this appearance.  And this version of Kirk gets his best spotlight, too.
• essential - There's not even a question.  It's the kind of experience that speaks to all three other criteria for mandatory viewing, and even if none of them fit, it would still need seeing to believe, if you didn't like Star Trek in the first place, it would explain the whole phenomenon well enough on its own.

notable guest-stars:

Paul Wesley (Kirk)

Carol Kane (Pelia)

Star Trek: Picard 2x1 "The Star Gazer" Review

rating: ****

the story: Picard finds himself drafted into a most unexpected scenario, and then, of course, things spiral out of control...

review: The focus of this review will be the window into the background of Jean-Luc Picard that "The Star Gazer" uses for its title, the relationship with his mother that we're allowed to see for the first time.  This is an essential contribution to the character's lore.

Storytelling in the franchise originally focused only on the moment.  Any information about biographical details surfaced in dialogue.  There were never flashbacks.  The first exception to this occurred in Deep Space Nine's pilot, "Emissary," in which the Prophets grant Sisko, and the viewer, a vision allowing him to revisit how he met his wife Jennifer, and of course the first moments of the episode, in which we see how she died, during the Battle of Wolf 359.  Later, in Voyager, Tuvok's past is glimpsed in "Gravity," and "Flashback" provides a visit into his early Starfleet career.  The precedent to all this was The Animated Series' "Yesteryear," in which Spock visits himself when he was a child.  It wasn't until Star Trek, though, that the storytelling was allowed to be a truly organic element, where the narrative was able to jump from one time period to another, from the moment of Kirk's birth to Spock's formative years as he struggles to reconcile his Vulcan and human halves.

In "The Star Gazer" we see our first-ever look back at Picard in a similar manner.  Through the rivalry with his brother, explored in "Family" from Next Generation, we knew something of his origins, and we had even seen both his mother and his father in various visions.  In this episode, however, we see Picard as a child, interacting with his mother.  Interestingly, this sequence even evokes the Picard we hear about in Nemesis, whose conversations with Shinzon explore how he became interested in space.  The rest of the episode, as has the series itself, is steeped in more of his career than the mere fact that he was once in command of a starship that was lost in battle with a mysterious foe (that turned out to be the Ferengi!).

So yes, this is not Next Generation Part 2, but very much its own story, very much centered on Picard, for anyone still confused about this.  And this is the episode some of us have been really clamoring for, a visit with Guinan!  It happens to delve into the nature of Picard's romantic aloofness, as he happens to be falling in love with the nice Romulan lady who assists him at the vineyard and still trying desperately to deny such a thing could be happening...

The cast of the first season returns and they're all off on new adventures of one variety or another...until the final moments of the episode, in which the Borg are once again rearing their technological and biological distinctiveness and...Q!  Even more than Guinan, true aficionados have been craving for another clash between Picard and Q ever since 1994.  So it is very much cause for celebration.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - A relatively new tradition of allowing a character's full history to be seen and entered into canon is embraced.
• series - Picard, for all intents and purposes, fulfills several long-held desires by welcoming both Guinan and Q into the fold.
• character - Picard, as never before, blossoms as a fully-dimensional character free from the typical constraints of franchise storytelling.
• essential - Perhaps more so than Kirk and Spock's arcs in Star Trek, seeing this come about at the end of a long life is if anything even more rewarding.  This is historic in all the right ways. 

notable guest-stars:

Whoopi Goldberg (Guinan)

John De Lancie (Q)

Star Trek: Discovery 4x11 "Rosetta" Review

rating: ***

the story: Burnham leads an away team that explores a planet that may be the key to understanding Species 10C.

review: This is the kind of episode that should absolutely happen in a serialized version of Star Trek that nonetheless still has to have episodic elements.  Too often Discovery has stumbled on such elements, especially ones that try to simulate classic franchise material, and yet this time everything works quite nicely.

The away team (as with the rest of the season, a spotlight is given to one of the bridge crew, this time Detmer, who ordinarily have mere supporting roles in the background) experiences strange sensations that might have played out in a more outlandish fashion had the episode not managed sufficient control of itself (actually, I've often yearned for this when watching Star Trek in general), moving on rather than lingering on a given element.  To wit: Saru is the first affected by the elements on the planet, but quickly enough Burnham and Culber are, too, and then they realize why, and solve the problem, and make further breakthroughs.

This whole process is mirrored by how Reno is featured in the episode.  Reno has been considered a regular member of the ensemble this season despite this being only her second appearance so far, and even in this one she doesn't seem like her usual self, initially, just an excuse to be present and accounted for, until the twist at the end that adds a much-welcome further wrinkle to the season arc.  To know more about that you'll just have to wait and read the review of the next episode, if you haven't by then caught up.

So for me it's quite a rewarding episode, including how the delegates are used.  It's very much a Xindi Council, third season Enterprise kind of experience for me, and as a fan of that season and series, it's nice to be able to say that.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - By side-stepping the typical pitfalls in Star Trek storytelling, it actually transcends them in a very welcome way.
• series - Which further distinguishes Discovery as blazing its own path.
• character - Detmer might end up feeling the most organic use of background characters in the foreground this season, though the Reno twist is my favorite, as it has far more potential.
• essential - The plot advances on a few levels, one in a very unexpected but very welcome way.

Star Trek: Discovery 4x10 "The Galactic Barrier" Review

rating: ***

the story: The crew reaches, well, the Galactic Barrier.

review: They aren't looking for God!  I know any fans (who are probably shuddering to do so, given its terrible and not totally earned reputation) making the association with Star Trek V: The Final Frontier can't help but think exactly that (but we still haven't identified Species 10C!), so let's just get that out of the way.

For me, the season just keeps getting better with these latest episodes.  I really wanted to grant "classic" status to this one, but decided it lacked the killer moment(s) that would truly warrant it, except for a wealth of character moments, chiefly among them Tarka's surprising backstory and Burnham burying the hatchet with President Rillak (finally putting her name in these reviews!), plus Saru in arguably his first real character arc, continuing along the journey to finding love with T'Rina (the actors playing all these recurring characters are omitted from the "notable guest-stars" section in large part because Discovery's use of such characters, from the first season onward, has been so much more steady than even Deep Space Nine's deep roster ever managed; I've instead been employing, for this series, the appearances of famous actors, which is why Oded Fehr regularly appears in it despite the fact that Vance is otherwise indistinguishable from the frequency of use as the others).

But Tarka!  Unexpected!  To say the least!  A very welcome one indeed, kind of the reverse of Lorca, in that he appeared to be a basically villainous character and now we see, apparently, that he's actually a good guy (mirrored by Rillak's arc, of course) looking for a little redemption.  For me it elevates the whole season, in addition to other pieces of the episode, including the delegate who cracks funny so randomly early on.  Often the series can labor on a fairly dour tone, when it's so often at its best in characters like Reno or the brilliant scientific minds getting to sound brilliant (I honestly don't believe any incarnation of the franchise has so successfully pushed science as being this cool, not since the original series, which famously did so with the introductions of so many gadgets like the transporter and communicator).

So an episode that doesn't seem overly eager to advance the season arc instead pushes all the right character buttons, which itself has been a significant goal of the season.  

criteria analysis:

• franchise - This is where I "deduct a point" in the inconclusive experience with the galactic barrier, which would itself have been the big deal in most other versions of this story.
• series - This is how confident the storytelling is, that it can hit that note without obsessing over it, because there's more to focus on, so much so that Kovich can actually suggest there's more stuff to worry about besides the DMA without giving so much as a hint as to what it is!
• character - Tarka, who wins distinction as a recurring character who essentially has his own episode, more directly than Airiam in the second season, more like Nog from Deep Space Nine.
• essential - It's the deft handling of all the characters that helps the episode shine, when there had been points earlier in the season where this much emphasis nearly sank the storytelling.

notable guest-stars:

Oded Fehr (Vance)

David Cronenberg (Kovich)

Star Trek: Discovery 4x9 "Rubicon" Review

rating: ****

the story: Burnham duels with Book on the cusp of Tarka's weapon being deployed.

review: Most fans will consider Wrath of Khan to be the ultimate test of wills in the franchise, and yet for me it has long been "For the Uniform," the Deep Space Nine episode in which Sisko matches wits with Eddington, the security officer who joined the Maquis right under his nose and got away with it.  The whole episode is Sisko trying and failing to get his revenge; Eddington refers to their new relationship as Javert and Valjean from Les Miserables, rather than the Moby-Dick references of Khan and First Contact.  

And anyway, watching the maneuvering between Burnham and Book in "Rubicon" feels gloriously to par with that.  The feeling of betrayal has been a major part of the season since Book split off with Tarka, and Burnham couldn't fathom how this had happened, and ever since the season has been referencing a period from just after the start of the previous season that viewers never actually got to witness, the time where they shared adventures together before the rest of the Discovery crew showed up in the 32nd century.

(Other viewers have been keeping track of what exactly Species 10C, who set up the DMA, has been mining, which is Voyager's omega particle; Tarka's weapon runs on the same isolytic weaponry featured in Insurrection.  I don't often feature enough details in these reviews.  But I like franchise links, and it's definitely worth referencing that. The mining nature of the DMA evokes not only the classic "Devil in the Dark," but Nero in Star Trek, although of course there are still plenty of episodes left in the season to wait and see what Species 10C is actually like; the naming scheme for them also evokes Species 8472, also from Voyager.)

I'm dubbing the results a classic for that reason.  I don't think the episode is overall as crisp as other Discovery entries I've granted that status, but I think the thrill of the encounter is good enough, something the season has been chasing, and also badly needed, to nail the arc, and to give weight to Book, his arc, and even Burnham, who to this point had been defined by relationships with characters like Georgiou, Spock, and Tyler, all of whom ended up going in their own directions.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Fans should see welcome echoes in the showdown at the heart of the episode.
• series - One way or another "Rubicon" advances the season arc in a definitive way.
• character - Probably a defining moment for both Burnham and Book.
• essential - Wait, what am I saying, probably?  Absolutely!  It absolutely is!

notable guest-stars:

Oded Fehr (Vance)

Star Trek: Prodigy 1x10 "A Moral Star, Part 2" Review

rating: ***

the story: We find out the Diviner's motivations.

review: The internet very troublingly suggested there might actually be merit to the Diviner's actions, that they represent a viable alternative look at the Federation.  I'm here to state categorically, as presented in this episode, this could not be farther from the truth.  He's no different from Nero in Star Trek attempting revenge without the least bit thinking it out, lashing out like, well, a villain.  

To put it simply, the Diviner is a time traveler who is attempting to gain revenge on the Federation for his homeworld's first contact, which led to a devastating civil war.  The Diviner assigning blame to the Federation, rather than his people, is absurd.  We've seen nothing noble about this guy, no redeeming quality, not even love for his daughter Gwyn (instead a possessiveness hinged only on her representing one last member of his species, after himself).

So that's what we learn this episode.  Very begrudgingly, he reveals all this to Gwyn, even as the rest of the good guys are mounting a plan to get the ship back.

The clever thing the episode does is tell the viewer what it needs to know, but prevent the characters themselves from knowing, which leaves a climactic moment free to leave an explosive dangling plot for when the series picks back up again in the fall.  We think they won!  They're getting what they wanted!

Well, careful what you wish for...

The episode ends as we meet up with the real Janeway, who will hopefully help all of us solve the mystery of what exactly happened to Chakotay.  Truthfully, I've watched the last few episodes expecting to learn something, anything, about that, but the series itself went in a different direction.  I really do hope the Diviner arc is over, at least with his active participation, at least in the snarling role he's had.  

criteria analysis:

• franchise - The sort of amazing that I want is perhaps a little impatient.  It doesn't want to wait so long for Chakotay.  
• series - One way or another, this is a definitive turning point for the series.
• character - He turns out to be very much a villain, but at least we get to see why the Diviner is one.
• essential - Hey, and they even have their own nifty uniforms now, too, I might add.  The show has found its stride.

Star Trek: Prodigy 1x9 "A Moral Star, Part 1" Review

rating: ***

the story: The Diviner finally gets his hands on the ship.

review: I haven't been overly patient with the Diviner arc mostly because it symbolizes how fast and loose the series has played with distances, which greatly simplifies the storytelling but has never been adequately explained.  To be a constant threat the Diviner needed a good enough reason to remain one once the crew had split off far beyond his reach.  This episode, he gets one, by getting the crew to return to him.

This is possible because his robotic henchman Drednok is able to visit the ship, which actually first occurred the previous episode (he apparently has multiple bodies).  The crew is faced with an ultimatum of relinquishing the ship or being responsible for the Diviner slaughtering the rest of the workforce in the mining camp they escaped from.

Anyway, what all this really amounts to is advancing the plot.  In a serialized story you kind of need to do that.  By the end of the episode, as indicated above, the Diviner "wins," and in the bargain has reunited with his wayward daughter Gwyn, which leaves us with a cliffhanger, and another review in which I consider whether the Diviner is worth more than he seems...

criteria analysis:

• franchise - I don't think anything "great" happens in the episode.  Fans not committed to the series would not necessarily be missing anything.
  
• series - Although fans of Prodigy obviously would!
• character - The Diviner takes a step closer to becoming truly meaningful.
• essential - It seems increasingly likely that we approach the real end of the Diviner arc.

Star Trek: Prodigy 1x8 "Time Amok" Review

rating: ***

the story: Our crew ends up split in time.

review: Well, gosh darn it...I may actually be a fan of this show now.

This is my favorite episode of the first ten.  Typically I'm fairly generous with four stars/classic status (I guarantee you will find very few fans who have not only watched the whole franchise but enjoyed a lot of it).  It's true that even calling "Time Amok" my favorite I'm still not awarding it four.  I reserve that for when I think a real contribution has been made to franchise lore.  What I mean to say about this episode is that it has officially made it safe for me to believe Prodigy will reach that point.

There will be newer fans who will be absolutely flabbergasted even at that.  This is a version of Star Trek we've never seen before.  It's a true entry point, and it's perhaps for some new fans the only Star Trek that is going to make any sense at all to them, at least for the foreseeable future.  That's a plain fact.  

For me, until this point, the series was too self-conscious, too caught up trying to justify itself, too worry about what its characters were doing to just allow them to inhabit an episode.  In this one, for the first time ever, Janeway challenges them and they're...ready.  They just are, and all it takes in one purple wave to run through the ship and split them up.

The biggest beneficiary is Rok.  For all her early appearances this was the "gentle giant" whose main distinguishing factor was the little kid's voice.  While Dal spends so much time doing a bad impression of a Lower Decks we're-not-gonna-grow-up!!! attitude (which is mostly absent from the episode, another point in its favor), Rok has been waiting patiently for a spotlight.  The best tradition of Star Trek storytelling is that every main character eventually gets at least one.  What helps sell it is that the episode doesn't even worry about it, but just lets it happen.  In fact, other than the recurring bit about not wanting to be seen as "security material," there's no indication at all that this is a Rok episode until it turns into one.

It's truly organic storytelling.  Sometimes serialized TV finds this the hardest accomplishment, so busy just trying to move a story along.  Other than Gwyn's daddy arc, it really seemed as if Prodigy simply wasn't interested, and so my attention had faded.

It's not lost on me that the title of the episode deliberately riffs on a classic one (from the original series, and I will not tell you which one, even if you are new to Star Trek).

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Here's where I nominally dock a point.  You don't need to be an existing fan to understand this one at all, which is actually a good thing.
• series - Achieving a longstanding goal of getting the crew to function together by splitting it up.  Brilliant!
• character - Rok, who, as it turns out, rocks.
• essential - For Prodigy, a breakthrough moment to be celebrated.

notable guest-stars:

Robert Beltran (Chakotay)

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 4x1 "Kobayashi Maru" Review

 rating: ****

the story: The crew sets out on its new mission of reconnecting the galaxy with the Federation.

review: Now that Discovery officially has its own timeframe and mission, its fourth season can...obviously kick off with the same kind of awesome tease the Abrams movies favored.  That means ten minutes of a wild contact mission that goes horribly wrong, until Discovery does its patented "we're Starfleet officers capable of doing really smart things" maneuver (it's honestly my favorite quirk of the series), solves the problem (all of it looking great, like the whole of the third season premiere, "That Hope Is You, Part 1"), and moves on.

Which means Burnham and her crew integrating into being a regular feature of a renewed Starfleet.  We get a nod to Enterprise (complete with the end credits theme some fans would still prefer as the series theme itself), and then Burnham once again butting heads with an authority figure, in this instance the new president of the Federation, who's half-Cardassian, half-Bajoran (which is itself a nod to Deep Space Nine, and kind of Voyager, which had Seska, who originally presented as Bajoran, but ended up revealed as Cardassian).

Now, you might argue that this is beyond repetitive, but then you have to consider that many fans still can't get over Burnham's introduction as a mutineer, which means any examination of her thought process is a constant reminder that the series itself knows her reputation (which itself is a commentary on the kind of heroics Kirk used to pull; Burnham is a Kirk in a post-Kirk world).

And all of this is posited on one of the most familiar elements of franchise lore, from which the title of the episode is derived, the no-win scenario all Starfleet cadets must face.  Introduced in The Wrath of Khan and then revisited in Star Trek, the Kobayashi Maru test is an attempt to drive home that all officers must face the reality of failure, not just the possibility.  Does someone like Burnham run on luck in forever apparently avoiding the worst effects of her decisions, or is she inevitably setting herself for a terrible fall?  

The episode also visits with Saru and Book as they pursue individual goals, one of which unexpectedly propels the episode into the season's arc, to be explored later.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - A statement that resonates throughout Star Trek lore.
• series - And that emphasizes how Discovery itself has been making it all along.
• character - Specifically in Michael Burnham.
• character - Many fans have continued to question why they should care about Burnham.  This seems like as clear an explanation, in terms long-term fans can understand, as the series has made.

notable guest-stars:

Oded Fehr (Vance)

Star Trek: Lower Decks 2x10 "First First Contact" Review

 rating: ***

the story: Freeman is offered another command.

review: The season finale ends with Lower Decks' first cliffhanger(s), and most of it makes up for the bit that falls very, very flat for me.

Let's get that out of the way first.  This is a series of franchise references, in some ways, sometimes so many and so often it can feel like that's the whole point, but most of the time they're handled perfectly and hilariously.  "First First Contact" is a rare blunder, and infuriatingly, one that the episode feels the need to harmer repeatedly.  This is the insistence on emphasizing guest-character Sonya Gomez, a minor character from a few episodes of The Next Generation, previously best known for spilling hot chocolate on Picard, now a starship captain.  It's obnoxious and on the nose and not even in character with how the concept of the series has used its cast of minor Starfleet officers.

So anyway, putting that aside the episode pivots on Captain Freeman, finally circling back to her after having such a notable role in the first season as the subplot of her being Mariner's mom played out and having nowhere the writers felt like going this season.  Apart from hitting overly familiar notes with Mariner (and Tendi; it's baffling how often they hit the same notes with Tendi), Freeman's arc circles the series back to the idea that the Cerritos itself is a "lower decks" starship in the fleet, an assignment Freeman would be happy to give up in order to upgrade her career.  

By the time she decides she actually wants to stay, after an amazing bit of heroism from the crew, we're thrown the curve of Starfleet actually coming to arrest her!

Then we get advancement for one of the main characters: Rutherford finding out there's a hidden truth behind his implant.  Here's hoping the next season has a much better idea of what it wants to accomplish.  One gets the sense that when conceiving this season, all they prepared was the setup of Boimler's transfer to the Titan.  This time there's drama better integrated to the Cerritos, and the characters themselves.  

criteria analysis:

• franchise - I'm knocking this point off for the Gomez blunder.
• series - A confident stride toward another season begins here!
• character - Freeman at last breaks free from the constraints of being a senior officer in a junior officer series.  And what about Rutherford???
• essential - Anytime there's a season finale cliffhanger, it deserves attention.  And this one does.

Star Trek: Lower Decks 2x9 "wej Duj" Review

 rating: ***

the story: The lower decks crews of Vulcans, Klingons, Pakleds, and Starfleet unexpectedly converge.

review: I would probably have considered rating this one a classic if the online reaction hadn't been so overboard in emphasizing the role of the Vulcan in the episode.  Proclaimed an instant "best of" Vulcans!  Should be a regular character of the series!

Not that special.  What's actually special about "wej Duj" (Klingon for "three ships") is that it takes the premise of Lower Decks to further conclusions, as outlined in the story summary above.  The Vulcan and Klingon characters act as independent agents (they're essentially the Mariners of their crews), and while we've seen far more of how Klingon crews operate, this is still, for me, the more interesting of those arcs.  The Pakleds are Pakleds.  There's even a funny bit at the end featuring a Borg crew.

Meanwhile Boimler is once again trying to find a replacement crew, this time buddying up with Ransom (as is traditional in my reviews, even though Ransom is in every episode, and therefore so is Jerry O'Connell voicing him, when he has a particular spotlight, I include him as a "notable guest-star") in lying about being Hawaiian.  This is notable in that it's a rare instance of Boimler being anything but his impresion of Starfleet professional.  The arc ends with a mushy note of Boimler once again discovering his work is noticed.  Not even the only time this one has been done this season, so I'm not really counting it as a positive, and it's all the weirder because the episode otherwise is about the Mariner archetype, and she doesn't even have anything notable happening, which is another obvious oversight in a string of episodes that didn't think everything through.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - The Klingon arc follows a grand tradition, and it's a rare instance of getting to hang out with Vulcans, too.
• series - It's the series doing an episode of just lower decks action!
• character - The Boimler arc falls a little flat for being overly familiar.
• essential - It's an episode the series had to do.  And mostly nailed.

notable guest-stars:

Jerry O'Connell (Ransom)

Star Trek: Lower Decks 2x6 "The Spy Humungous" Review

 rating: ***

the story: The Pakleds think they can field a spy???

review: The problem the season began to develop was the inability to juggle the a- and b-stories.  Originally the a-story was whatever the main characters were up to and the b-story was what was happening in the background, what would in a traditional Star Trek series have been the a-story.  In "Spy Humungous," the b-story is more interesting than the a-story antics.  The main characters are busy doing ridiculous things, while the b-story continues the Pakled arc.

In The Next Generation, the Pakleds were one of the early experiments to come up with aliens who weren't from the original series.  Everyone knows the Ferengi, from these experiments, because so much time was spent developing them, and they ended up appearing in each subsequent incarnation of the TV franchise, through Enterprise. The Pakleds weren't so fortunate.  Their simple-minded idiocy, though surprisingly effective, was difficult to take seriously, and there didn't seem anywhere to go with them past an introduction ("Samaritan Snare").  Then Lower Decks comes along and they're a perfect addition to a cartoon take on the franchise that, unlike The Animated Series, is comedic in tone.

Generally with additional exposure, aliens tend to get their culture explored.  Somehow "Spy Humungous" accomplishes exactly that.  And that's a tough act to follow.  Far more than the previous episode, "An Embarrassment of Dooplers," it's a rousing success, and doesn't need leaning into, because the joke sells itself, the hierarchy of a such a society (kind of a parody of Klingons, which in hindsight seems absolutely right), and plays out on two fronts, aboard the ship and on the Pakled homeworld.

The main character shenanigans feel far too expected in comparison.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - The unexpected moment in which we dive into Pakled society!
• series - With such a heavy emphasis on the Pakleds, Lower Decks needed this moment.
• character - The problem with hitting the same notes relentlessly with the same characters is that either it's a sitcom in which that's exactly what it's supposed to, or you risk beating a dead horse.
• essential - Pakleds!  They are strong!

Star Trek: Lower Decks 2x3 "We'll Always Have Tom Paris" Review

 rating: ****

the story: The Cerritos hosts a visit from Tom Paris.

review: Unbelievably, after the first laugh-out-loud moment (for me) of the series in the previous episode, "We'll Always Have Tom Paris" does it again!  And thus, for me, another classic.  If you're going to do a comedy version of Star Trek, animated or otherwise, this is the sort of thing to absolutely treasure.

Tom Paris, Voyager's lovable rogue, doesn't even have a particularly large role in the episode (another commonality with "Kayshon, His Eyes Open"); actually, the b-plot with Mariner and Tendi is on the whole better and more memorable, while Boimler's hero worship itself is eclipsed by his refusal to simply adapt to new security measures and resultant crawling around access tubes...

And because the best line of the episode isn't even necessarily the best part of the episode, I'll here skip right to it: "Kazon!!!" That's when a disheveled Boimler finally meets Tom, and for the Delta Quadrant veteran who, unlike most fans, remembers the Kazon as something other than disappointing, vaguely bootleg Klingon villains, it's a hilariously terrifying moment.

Back to Mariner and Tendi, though, and especially because the next episode also has Tendi kind of trying desperately to prove herself, it's absolutely worth celebrating that the character the first episode of the series kind of introduced as more important than she ended up being, at least during the first season (taking a definitive backseat to Boimler and Mariner), the episode frames the story as Mariner realizing how little she knows about Tendi, which allows the audience to learn about her, too, and as I've already seen pointed out on the internet, giving us a deeper look at Orion culture in general than we've gotten previously in the franchise.  It's perhaps an even better character insight than we've so far gotten from Mariner, despite a pronounced effort in multiple episodes, another sign that although this is an animated comedy that spends a lot of time making references to Star Trek lore, it can build its own, too.

It's also worth noting that the name of the episode is the second time the franchise has nodded at its own episode titles.  "We'll Always Have Paris" is a first season Next Generation in which Picard reunites with an old flame.  There was also "Who Mourns for Adonais?" in the original series, with the later Deep Space Nine echo "Who Mourns for Morn?" (in which of course we still never get to hear the dude actually speak).  (Bonus points if you also thought of "The Emissary" from Next Generation and "Emissary" from Deep Space Nine, not to mention "The Muse" from that series and "Muse" from Voyager, or "Blink of An Eye" from that series and "Wink of an Eye" from the original series.  But you get my point.)

Less successful than all that is Rutherford's arc with Shaxs, not because of anything that actually happens but that it implies that Star Trek regularly randomly resurrects main characters.  Well, no, it doesn't.  I mean, weird things certainly happen to them all the time, but the only real outright resurrection would be Spock.  It just seems like a fan argument that is just taken for granted as a thing, when it really isn't.  Although maybe it's a talking point I simply haven't really thought all that much about.  Well.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - A visit from another series, which is often a highlight.
• series - Which surprisingly keeps most of the focus on Lower Decks itself.
• character - In a season making a thrust at putting Tendi in the spotlight, this is the best one so far.
• essential - Not every fan will get that punchline, but those who do certainly will love it, the mark of another classic.

notable guest-stars:

Robert Duncan McNeill (Tom Paris)

Star Trek: Lower Decks 2x2 "Kayshon, His Eyes Open"

 rating: ****

the story: Assisting the inventorying of a dead collector's ship proved unexpectedly complicated.

review: With a single laugh-out-loud line, "Kayshon, His Eyes Open" becomes a classic episode, the first time (and followed rapidly a second time the next episode!) Lower Decks provokes this reaction for me.  I don't always actually laugh at funny material.  It's more often a matter of a sudden joke, or punchline, that gets me.

The set-up is in the title, the use of a Tamarian for the first time since their introduction in the classic (for an entirely different reason!) Next Generation episode "Darmok" as temporary new chief of security aboard the Cerritos, in which we learn the universal translator has mostly been able to compensate for their language's peculiar penchant for allegory.  

Dayshon isn't even the focus of the episode.  He isn't even the secondary character with the biggest spotlight.  That falls to Jet Manhaver, who's a kind of substitute Boimler (more on him in a moment) as a counterpoint for Mariner on the away mission aboard the collector's ship (which itself is stuffed with even more easter eggs than the series already regularly features, including a far less glorious memento of Kahless the Unforgettable than the sword Worf and Kor fought over in Deep Space Nine's "Sword of Kahless" which nonetheless is a subtle link to the Abrams films, which feature Klingons in helmets).  Jet isn't exactly a Boimler, but his penchant for protocol still rubs Mariner the wrong way.

Anyway, long story short, Kayshon gets turned into a puppet.  The line that got me isn't exactly complicated (it's literally "Kayshon, when he was turned into a puppet"), but it's such a succinct, distinctly Lower Decks punchline, it's a perfect way to explain the appeal of the series, something Lower Decks hadn't previously nailed.

(Though, again!  Somehow the very next episode does it, too!)

The episode also gives Boimler's time aboard the Titan actual airtime, and at once takes a subtle jab at modern live action Star Trek (all action! all the time!) and nods at Riker lore (Next Generation's "Second Chances" and Deep Space Nine's "Defiant," the existence of transporter duplicate Thomas Riker, whom I wish we had also gotten an update on, as last we heard he was headed to a Cardassian prison of some kind, and that was DS9's third season, well before the Dominion War even started!), a funny way to get Boimler back aboard the Cerritos.

(This is also a reminder that Lower Decks takes place between Nemesis and Picard, and in fact significantly closer to Nemesis than Picard, as by Picard Riker is in fact mostly retired.)

criteria analysis:

• franchise - There are fans who consider "Darmok" to be one of the best episodes of any Star Trek series (including a good blogging friend of mine), so this nod is long in coming.
• series - A spotlight that ably demonstrates everything that makes Lower Decks work as a comedy version of the franchise.
• character - All four main characters of the series have something to contribute to the episode.
• essential - And, for me, the first real laugh-out-loud moment of the series.  Counts for a lot!

notable guest-stars:

Jonathan Frakes (Riker)

Star Trek: Discovery 3x13 “That Hope Is You, Part 2” Review

rating: ****

the story: The season finale, in which the Burn is resolved.

review: There’s a ton happening here, mostly resolving the Emerald Chain’s takeover of the ship but also Saru’s arc with the Kelpian responsible for the Burn.

Reclaiming the ship involves some truly cinematic action revolving around the turbolifts (staged like the action in Nemesis), which gives the episode a bigger feel than either of the previous finales in the series. It’s the best action of the series, period.

Some of the storytelling (as has been true throughout the series) is transparently convenient, hitting beats just to set things up, like using Adira to assist Saru mostly so Gray can be seen again (both figuratively and literally). I’m not overly complaining, I like the results, but clearly it was done without being overly concerned if the mechanics made much sense. The same with Saru, but it’s nice, what results, anyway.

It’s better when Book turns out to be capable of using the spore drive. It was dramatic, Burnham ejecting Stamets. Curiously, there was so much that needed to be done, and some of it gets very little time, mostly because so much suspense was deemed necessary, so that the backend of the episode feels rushed, even though we get a great moment or two of it. We even get a last minute glimpse of Reno, who was otherwise absent the last few episodes, in fact more or less replaced by Adira, mostly to get her to the point she and Gray need (you see what I mean) to happen.

But these are quibbles. The end result concludes a season that has better executed its arc than the previous two seasons, all its parts flowing together nicely. For some of my previous reservations on how rapidly the season progressed to rediscovering the Federation, it worked out wonderfully, and even the broad strokes of the Emerald Chain ended up strong enough to handle this standoff. 

And the ending...! Burnham is finally captain! Some fans have drawn parallels between this and Sisko getting that last pip in the finale of his third season. I can dig it. I love that Vance finally upholds the Kirk tradition of acknowledging the unorthodox is sometimes necessary (Burnham emphasizes the comparison by refusing to believe in a no-win scenario), that this is what Burnham has been doing since the beginning of the series. In a lot of ways, this is kind of the completion of the initial thesis of the series. I don’t know how many more episodes or seasons we get out of Discovery, but I think it has settled its legacy at this point.

criteria analysis:

>franchise - We haven’t had a movie since 2016. In a lot of ways this episode is as close as we’ve gotten since then.

>series - It’s a great season finale and a statement that resonates back to the beginning.

>character - Michael Burnham is finally recognized as the hero she is. And promoted to captain!

>essential - Sure it is! A worthy summation of the season at the very least, and a great season at that.

notable guest-stars:

Oded Fehr (Vance)

David Cronenberg

Kenneth Mitchell

Tig Notaro

Star Trek: Discovery 3x12 “There is a Tide...” Review

rating: ****

the story: The ship has been taken over, and now the Emerald Chain wants to negotiate with Starfleet...!

review: There’s a lot that happens in this episode in terms of the first part of that brief synopsis, involving the crew working to regain control (but not Control!), including a return of first season Klingon actor Kenneth Mitchell as the lone good guy among the bad guys, but none of it’s nearly as interesting as the second part of that synopsis.

Osyraa is not a great screen presence for most of her appearances. But she’s great when she needs to be, and her encounter with Admiral Vance is exactly what the season needed to nail down the era. The idea of the Burn transforming interspecies relations, making everything more dangerous, and diminishing the role of the Federation, but not its moral clarity, is something Vance makes clear.

Too often fans reduce what Star Trek is to a format or even a given set of characters, but at heart it’s really about ideals, ones we are still working toward embodying, in some ways being far away from, in others we’re hopefully closer. Vance refuses to sanction the Emerald Chain’s worse attributes, and forces Osyraa to finally admit for all the good she’s willing to commit to, she also has to admit that bad she’s done. Which she is not willing to. And thus makes impossible Vance agreeing to what otherwise seems like a great deal.

Discovery tends to work small details well. It gets another big hit in that regard with Eli the truth detector hologram. He’s a big part of how well this sequence works, emphasizing the narrow ledge between Osyraa’s good and bad intentions.

criteria analysis:

>franchise - Casual fans ought to cheer the Federation ideals.

>series - Discovery fans ought to cheer this moment, too.

>character - It’s Vance’s best moment of the season, justifying his recurring role. He was essentially the Lorca/Pike spot.

>essential - Absolutely. A moment that represents Star Trek’s whole message.

notable guest-stars:

Oded Fehr (Vance)

Kenneth Mitchell

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