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 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: 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 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

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 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)

Star Trek: Discovery 3x4 “Forget Me Not” Review

 rating: ****

the story: Adira’s symbiont memories are unlocked.

review: Last season Discovery received a certain amount of acclaim with “Project Daedalus,” which revolved around background character Aeriam in an ultimately climactic and poignant manner. I myself considered the results underwhelming, believing that too little real investment, even in the episode itself, had justified calling too much attention to the character even then.

Well, “Forget Me Not,” for me, is that same basic story, done right. It’s an instant highlight of the season, perhaps the series, and perhaps the very franchise itself.

Harking back to Next Generation’s “The Host” and Deep Space Nine’s “Equilibrium,” “Forget Me Not” is an unexpected deep and very welcome dive into Star Trek lore that enriches it in the process. It’s the kind of experience that can be many things to many people, but most of all an elegant (a word I seldom favor seeing used, but here absolutely warranted, in the best recent tradition of the best Short Treks) example of finding a truly transcendent story and absolutely nailing it.

Part of the success of it is what always helps Discovery succeed, drawing on the rich depth of its characters rather than taking it for granted, as the last few episodes have. The biggest beneficiary of this is Culber, who is at last emerging as a three-dimensional figure, and a surprisingly insightful one at that. He opens the episode echoing Kirk’s monologue from Star Trek Beyond, where he wonders what a prolonged deep space assignment has done mentally to his crew. The movie itself has become one of my favorites for its ability to reflect the best parts of the franchise, and, I guess, “Forget Me Not” feels like the TV episode version of it, two modern touchstones that resonate with the beating heart of Star Trek’s ideals.

There’s a lot to love here, a disastrous dinner scene hilariously and tragically rife with haiku, echoes of Next Generation’s “Family,” Enterprise’s “Home,” the episode, basically, that absolutely needed to happen in order for the impact of what has happened previously to feel real, and even Georgiou settling into her new quip status (feeling very much like Worf at this point).

And yes, a love story that pushes traditional boundaries, but told in breathtakingly exquisite fashion. As someone on my Facebook feed adds to all their posts, “love is love.” There’s no reason to make a big deal about it, unless it makes you feel visible. The more I experience the more I suspect the tradition we all share is how untraditional we are. It’s just lives being lived, pushing forward, sometimes against incredible odds. That’s what this episode manages to explain for a season that has been floundering for such a statement. 

Yeah, you’ve gotta see this one.

criteria analysis:

>franchise - Perhaps the final word on how important the Trill are to Star Trek lore.

>series - Emphasizes all the right things about the season.

>character - Adira has entered what Gene Roddenberry might have called “beloved character status.”

>essential - Oh, yeah. Tragedy and triumph.

notable guest-stars:

Michelle Yeoh (Georgiou)

Star Trek: Lower Decks 1x9 “Crisis Point” Review

 rating: ****

the story: A holodeck program version of Lower Decks: The Movie!

review: For a series that literally a few episodes ago dithered with a “holodeck malfunction” episode, it’s all the more rewarding that doing another holodeck episode lands so successfully. For whatever reason, when a Star Trek series decides to base a whole episode on an actual holodeck adventure (“The Big Goodbye” in Next Generation, “Our Man Bashir” in Deep Space Nine, “Bride of Chaotica!” in Voyager), it’s always a highlight. And now “Crisis Point” in Lower Decks.

The whole episode technically hinges on Mariner and Freeman’s relationship (which leads directly into the season finale), but Mariner chooses to “make a movie” to work out her issues. This allows riffs and hilarious comments on the differences between a Star Trek episode and movie (and a repeated gag involving movie credits). It’s good standout material, which also works in exploring Mariner’s issues.

We also get another standout Tendi subplot, when she finds herself cast as a stereotypical Orion pirate in Mariner’s program. Eventually she stands up for herself in what might amount to the closest we get to the kind of societal examination of the Orions that we got for the Cardassians, the Bajorans, the Trill, and especially the Ferengi in Deep Space Nine.

criteria analysis:

>franchise - Surprisingly, the closest we get to a full-blown Star Trek (movie) spoof we get all season.

>series - Literally only Lower Decks could get away with this.

>character - Mariner finally addresses her biggest problem. And Tendi! In her best spotlight this season.

>essential - Yeah, absolutely. I think this one’s easy to love.

notable guest-stars:

Gary Cole

Star Trek: Discovery 3x1 “That Hope Is You, Part 1” Review

rating: ****

the story: Michael Burnham lands in the 31st century, where she learns the Federation has collapsed.

review: At this point, even though I liked them, I’m quite willing to view Discovery’s first two seasons as mere prelude. That’s exactly how sensational this season premiere is. It’s the birth of a whole new era. It’s a classic. Period.

It’s also Michael Burnham carrying the entire episode, alongside new costar Book (David Ajala) (yet to be determined if and how he relates to Craft in the similarly excellent Short Trek “Calypso,” produced prior to Discovery’s second season, and itself a prelude, to this season). Both are black, marking the first time in franchise history a whole story is led exclusively by black actors, building on Uhura’s legacy, and Deep Space Nine.

Book is a complex character, but as the episode progresses we learn he’s squarely in the Star Trek tradition. Much of  “That Hope Is You” looks like Star Wars (which fans have been claiming newer Star Trek increasingly looks like since the Kelvin films began, and which has been just as consistently nonsense), but Star Trek is still Star Trek, no matter what it looks like, as true in 2020 as it was all the way back in 1966, when NBC wanted Gene Roddenberry to compromise his vision, and he stubbornly clung to his demonic Mr. Spock and his big ideas anyway.

The Andorians have their biggest spotlight since Enterprise as Burnham and Book navigate this introduction, and that’s nice to see. We meet an Indian character who has been upholding the legacy of Starfleet almost singlehandedly in his sector, which is a thing that has happened since dilithium became scarce a few centuries earlier, making it difficult to maintain regular direct contact (perhaps a criticism of virtual relationships such as we have with the internet). He’s actually the best part of the episode, the first character we see, the embodiment of the hope Burnham believes in because she had it just this morning as a tangible thing, and what Book keeps so guarded because he doesn’t find it easily elsewhere.

(Hey! This is mere geeking out, but there’s an alien from Morn’s species in the episode. Morn was Quark’s most famous patron in Deep Space Nine. He doesn’t get any lines, either!)

This is an excellent spotlight for Burnham, still considered by disgruntled, grumpy fans as “that mutineer,” as well as for Sonequa Martin-Green, who gets to play well past Burnham’s usual Vulcan reserve thanks to a healthy dose of a special truth serum. It’s worth celebrating that sequence alone!

But the whole thing is executed perfectly. It really is Discovery’s crowning achievement to date.

criteria analysis:

>franchise - Star Trek going boldly into its future (complete with a nod to why time travel isn’t expected anymore, either, with a nod to the Temporal Cold War).

>series - Discovery goes boldly ahead as well, finding and seizing a sensational new opportunity.

>character - Very possibly destined to be the single best Michael Burnham spotlight the series produces.

>essential - All that and it keeps the moral heart of the franchise alive and well. Literally could not ask for more.

Star Trek: Lower Decks 1x3 “Temporal Edict” Review

 rating: ****

the story: Boimler accidentally reveals to the captain how most of the crew functions by padding out their work time.

the review: If there’s a potential breakout episode among the first three of the series, it’s this one. I loved the Boimler/Mariner dynamic in the first two, but separating them turns out to if anything be even better.

Mariner is the best character in the series, but her story in “Temporal Edict” is the weaker, generally speaking, of the two. The effect is to set up a potential romance with Ransom (his biggest spotlight so far) as they square off in an “Arena” riff. So I’m not really going to focus on that (though pending future developments this could become more significant).

Instead: the Boimler Effect, folks.

Boimler’s best moment in the episode is when everyone else is freaking out and struggling to perform routine tasks for n the time allotted by Freeman (and now I know the captain’s name; previously, for me, she was better known as “Mariner’s mom), which for Boimler is no big deal at all, as he strolls the halls of the Cerritos (and maybe I know that now, too! it wasn’t until this, Discovery and Picard that I actively demonstrated in these reviews having to learn basic facts in Star Trek, because these are “real time” reactions where all the previous ones are retrospective; there was legitimately a time I had no idea what a Cardassian actually was, and that was when I was actively engaged in the franchise and expected to know these things by my family, in which I was the resident “expert,” which as this side note expands I assure you is all the more accurate now than ever before).

Anyway, Boimler’s whole thing is that he loves serving in Starfleet under its standard operating procedures. He’s the picture of a generic officer, which because we’ve...never seen this before (the closest is Harry Kim, but even he tried desperately to prove himself to Torres and Paris right from the start in Voyager). He loves going by the book. 

And...basically no one else does. He loves it so much it’s easy for him. When it’s just Mariner in contrast, it looks like he’s weird because she’s so awesome (generally speaking), but set against...everyone else, you realize, this guy’s like the Vulcan of Starfleet officers. Which because he isn’t Vulcan makes him all the more fun to follow.

So imagine his reaction when his biggest victory turns into his biggest defeat: by convincing Freeman to lax the rules (for everyone else), he actually sends the message that everything he stands for...is an impossible standard that no Starfleet officer should ever be held to. And gets that distinction named after him: “the Boimler Effect.”

Anyway, the whole thing feels like the best statement of the series to date, very close at the very least to some of the best of the Short Treks. I could very well bump it up to classic status at a future date, depending on how much better the series itself could get.

And then, just because this is the episode that keeps on giving: there’s a wonderful nod to Miles O’Brien at the end.

Okay, okay, I talked myself into it: This one’s a classic.

criteria analysis:

>series - Well worth watching as a fan of Lower Decks itself.

>franchise - A wry commentary on being a Starfleet officer.

>character - Boimler fully in the spotlight.

>essential - A truly defining moment for him, in fact.

notable guest-stars:

Jerry O’Connell

Picard 1x10 “Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2”

rating: ****

the story: Conflict resolution; saying goodbye to Data.

review: Yeah, that was about right. The general plot of the series was a juxtaposition between duty on a large scale and a small one. The large scale was confronting bigotry in opposing forces, and helping both sides realize there was more than one possible response. The small scale was finding peace with the death of Data.

For much of the season, the small scale goal was in the background, as Picard assembled his response to a crisis that in effect happened in large part because he was no longer in a position to prevent it, and that was largely because he no longer had Data at his side. “Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2” is a much bigger success than its preceding component largely because it doesn’t allow itself to become lost in the details. In any proper ending, the details ought to be clear enough, and in this case they are because the goal was already explained in the beginning.

Except Data doesn’t return. He stays dead. He has a chance to explain why he actually prefers to remain dead, and it’s the perfect completion of the journey he began in his first appearance, finally understanding that the idea of being human is basically embracing the limits he was always determined to push.

Anyway, there’s also Riker’s pitch-perfect cameo (which sums up his command dynamic with Picard), characters who didn’t make sense last episode making sense (including yet another Problematic Soong Android being summarily deactivated; I’d really like if just one of them had a chance to be anything but binary).

Basically the best possible ending to the season, and everything it needed to be to celebrate Picard and his legacy. Until they figure out how to include, y’know, Guinan. Q. And, uh, the rest of the Next Generation gang...

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Final resolution for Nemesis. Maybe fans can decide to embrace it?
• series - A great ending to the season.
• character - The final statement on Data.
• essential - The final statement on Picard’s moral, heroic character.

notable guest-stars:

Brent Spiner (Data, Soong)

Jonathan Frakes (Riker)

Jeri Ryan (Seven)

Picard 1x7 "Nepenthe"

rating: ****

the story: Picard visits with old friends (you've probably heard of them).

review: It's official, then.  Riker became Little John.  (Give you a moment to remember.)  That's the wonderful memory and thought I had, anyway, watching "Nepenthe," among other happy reflections.  This was another solid episode.  At this point, I'm easily calling Picard the most rewarding series experience of the whole franchise, not just because I enjoy seeing Picard again, but because the season has been so consistently good, an excellent mix of everything, from ideas to characters new and old, and building on the rich legacy preceding it.

Let's talk about the ideas a little.  Finally we learn what convinced Jurati to kill her own friend and lover, Bruce Maddox, a vision of the future, and not just a vision, but that frequent vision of today, some dreaded apocalypse.  If we don't do this, this will happen.  And there's no convenient real world allegory here, no side to pick, in case you were worried.  It's just the times we live in, which is much as it was in the '60s, when Star Trek originally suggested it didn't have to be that way. 

But we begin to have an idea of why the Romulans, or anyone else, fear artificial life so much, and that's the key here, in this episode, that prejudice so often infused with some awful kernel but more often created by hysterical imagination, especially when the victim is so easy to dismiss as "other," as of course is always the case. 

No doubt we'll learn more.

In the meantime we have Picard and Soji visiting Riker and Troi and their daughter!  And, learning about what's happened in the meantime, who they lost, and how their lives have developed along the way.  Troi's there, but Riker receives more emphasis, and before anyone cries injustice, let me just suggest that Riker makes for better entertainment, and this might actually be his best-ever appearance in the franchise (across Next Generation, Voyager, Enterprise, and even his transporter duplicate in Deep Space Nine, and the movies, and now this, helping him, and Jonathan Frakes, set a new record, surpassing the likes of Nimoy/Spock and Dorn/Worf for most franchise appearances, that is unlikely to be broken).  And I'm not sure his height difference with Picard ever came across this sharply, either, at least for me.

For everything in the mix, it's another strong showing for Soji, who perhaps again most benefits from what might otherwise have seemed an obvious Picard spotlight, as she begins to accept who and what she is as she interacts with Picard's friends.

(Is it too early to suggest that the daughter gets her own series?)

Plus, unfortunately, the death of another familiar face, this time Hugh, as the Romulans officially switch into villainous gear.  Who else was seeing Narek, meanwhile, as a Star Trek Boba Fett?

(The title "Nepenthe," meanwhile, comes from The Odyssey, referencing a drug that cures a troubled mind.  Love the deep Greek mythology cut for that one, as with another recent Star Trek classic, Discovery's "An Obol for Charon.")

criteria analysis:

• franchise - I mean, gosh, it's great to see Riker and Troi again!
• series - But there's still plenty of room to celebrate what's happening in Picard, all you fans still paranoid about "These Are the Voyages..."
• character - Soji grapples with recent revelations, among other highlights.
• essential - Hardly a missed opportunity!

notable guest-stars:
Jonathan Frakes (Riker)
Marina Sirtis (Troi)
Jonathan Del Arco (Hugh)