Star Trek: Discovery 1.09

[selenak]

Autumn finale, i.e. half of the season finale. All in all, I not only enjoyed this first half but will tune eagerly for the second one, so basically: mission achieved, team.



Mind you, I spent the later half of the episode fretting they’d kill off Stamets, between the mutual „I love you“s, the „One last time“ cliché and him declaring the intention to retire with his dear doctor. Otoh, surely, surely, I told myself, they wouldn’t murder the very first openly gay regular? Then again, something clearly had to happen to Stamets to explain why spore drives aren’t an option in any other Star Trek tv show set after this one. As it was, Stamets clearly isn’t in good shape at the end of this episode and possibly blind, but not dead, and also, I think I just spotted another potential explanation in waiting for why the spore drive ultimately won’t be useable. But more about this later.

Contrary to my expectations, the Crystal planet played no role in the resolution of this episode; it turned out to be the McGuffin, providing our heroes with a worthy cause to protect and engage the Klingons for. Otoh, as I thought, Katrina Cornwell wasn’t dead; even wounded, she turned out to not only keep her head but be a superb leader and fellow soldier, diagnosing the PTSD-suffering (well, as far as he and she know) Ash Tyler and then helping him through it while keeping the lot of them alive. Kudos, Admiral. (This also left Jason Isaacs with some neat facial acting to do when Lorca gets the news that his team has just rescued the Admiral.)

Our heroine Michael Burnham gets some amount of closure in this episode, as she’s able to save her team, the ship and the planet, and do so while defeating the same ship where Philippa Georgiu met her death. (BTW, this is why I’m pretty sure as to whose mirrorverse double will be awaiting in the next half; if Michael is finally at peace about her old Captain’s death, this is obviously the moment to confront her with an evil doppelgänger.) I really appreciated how all factors that helped her do this have been set up not just by the last episode but through the season so far, including Michael being more than good at hand-to-hand combat (we saw this in her mental battle with Sarek; also, being raised on Vulcan would entail physical training as well, and given Vulcans are canonically stronger and faster than humans, it means Michael is used to fighting against physically superior opponents). Incidentally, Michael using the Klingon honor codex and her status as killer of T’Kuma to shame Kol into fighting her (thereby giving the Discovery the necessary time to analyse the transmitted data and stage a rescue) gave me fond flashbacks to Quark and D’Ghor in „House of Quark“, and it was the first time I could emotionally connect the Discovery era Klingons to the ones from other Trek incarnations.

That Michael after realising there was another human being on board the Klingon ship (Cornwell, though she didn’t know that at the time) immediately decided they would rescue her as well as in action what her passionate speech to Lorca was in words: her absolute commitment to saving people. Which otoh is probably the best way to channel her guilt, but otoh I suspect will be tested in the second half if there should be a scenario in which she has to choose between saving one or the other. But that’s just speculation on my part.

Michael consumating her attraction to Ash Tyler after having seen him vulnerable and indeed completely helpless by the onslaught of (as far as he and she know) his memories of months of torture and rape is no coincidence; I doubt she’d have been ready to make that last step both emotionally and physically if Ash Tyler had remained the seemingly perfectly adjusted man she’d first come to know, as opposed to revealing just how much his experience as a prisoner is still with him, and how guilty he feels about surviving. It makes them equal, and the tragedy and irony is that they might be equal in another way, too. Because while Michael is a human raised on Vulcan, this episode all but confirms that Ash while still believing himself to be human is, as was widely theorized, a surgically altered and endowed with new memories Klingon Voq.

If someone has another explanation for L’Rell’s „soon“ and „I won’t let them hurt you“ at a point where she’s a Federation prisoner, feel free. And again, given L’Rell’s other characterisation and her scenes with Voq, it makes far more sense than to assume she’d just randomly be into a human prisoner to torture and have sex with. As I wrote in my last review, my guess is that L’Rell’s offer to defect with Cornwell was because she intended to trigger Tyler’s Voq memories, on the assumption that by now he had to have learned enough about Discovery, but that what happened with Kol interfered with this. Given Kol is now no longer a factor, it would be the perfect time, from her pov, to bring Voq back (Federation technology in tow) as a hero of the Klingon Empire. Except that the Discovery is currently stranded in what’s bound to be the Mirrorverse, given the earlier exchange between Lorca and Stamets where the existence of parallel universes and the space mushrooms connecting same were theorized about, and given that Stamets, the only available navigator, has just collapsed, they won’t be leaving any time soon.

This is a great set up for the second half of the season in so many ways. The Mirrorverse at this point is canonically an Evil Terran Empire hostile to all non-humans. In short, it’s much like that the Klingons are about to develop into if they follow their current path. Since the previous episode gave us the temporary L’Rell/Cornwell team-up that shows L’Rell has no compunction about cooperating with humans if it’s in her interest and that she’s able to respect them to some degree, I’d say we’re due to some alliance of necessity in order for our gang to make it back to „our“ universe. In the meantime, everyone gets held up an unflattering mirror in a different way: the Starfleet characters get the tried and true shock of seeing their evil selves (and as I said earlier, I’d be very surprised if this didn’t also include the appearance of Mirrorverse Philippa Georgiu, possibly as an Evil Admiral or even Evil Empress), while L’Rell sees what an One Species To Rule Them All Empire is like from the other side.

As for Ash Tyler. He’s currently basically season 1 Boomer of the rebooted BSG, troubled by visions and glimpses but not yet with an explanation (beyond his assumption they’re all memories of his torture). My guess is that before we leave the Mirrorverse, he’ll regain at least some Voq memories, BUT the Ash memories will also remain, so he’ll have literally two sets of conflicting experiences in his head, and might end up choosing neither.

Trivia:

- the Universal Translator in this episode is probably good news where the actors playing Klingons, as they won’t have to memorize long passages of dialogue in a fictional language anymore

- Lorca was at his best in the episode, determined to save the sentient planet and his ship and pulling it off, but we also get quick reminders of his shady side; that was some blatant yet effective manipulation of Stamets in their fist scene together, and then of course there is that moment of mixed feelings when his old friend/lover and current nemesis is rescued, and he’s told she’ll make a complete recovery (meaning his losing his command is back on, though he might count on the fact the success of his last gamble will let him off the hook there)

- as I love competence and professional behavior, I appreciate Hugh Culber doesn’t respond to Tilly’s (clunkily written) reveal by insisting on hashing this out with his beloved then and there but, like the pro he is, carries on with preparing Paul Stamets for the horrid ordeal ahead and postpones the debate till later.

Comments

[lynnenne]

I'm excited at the prospect of the crew in an alternate universe and what they might find there. And Ash's story is kind of breaking my heart. That scene between him and Michael was SO GOOD. I agree, if he does turn out to be Voq (which looks highly likely, at this point) it will probably cause a Boomer-like crisis of identity and loyalties.

Which makes me happy, because I loved Boomer's story.

[rivendellrose]

if he does turn out to be Voq (which looks highly likely, at this point) it will probably cause a Boomer-like crisis of identity and loyalties.

Which makes me happy, because I loved Boomer's story.

Yes! I am very much having flashbacks to my favorite BSG storyline right now, and enjoying the hell out of the whole thing. Ash is such a good person, it's impossible for me not to sympathize with his crisis and feel absolutely gutted by the narrative tension of knowing this horrible thing that's going to completely mess with his sense of identity.

[kore]

Yeah, I like that a lot better than "Ash is a fake personality and Voq is really there underneath," and I'm all about constructed clashing identities and identity crises and someone struggling to do good even when they've been programmed otherwise. Poor guy. It will be Angst City.

[selenak]

I also can't help but thinking again about the original plan for the DS9 episode Second Skin, i.e. that Kira would find out she was indeed the Cardassian Iliana with fake memories, but would decide that she was Kira Nerys now. The episode as broadcast had Kira instead find out that while there had been an undercover agent Iliana, she herself was Bajoran and not this person, because in the end the show producers didn't want to alter the origins of a key character that radically. But a new Trek show would offer the chance to plan for such a reveal from the start, and explore the identity crisis afterwards thoroughly, not just within one episode.

[thalia_seawood]

Years ago I read a Garak/Bashir story that had the premise that Garak (with another name) worked as Bajoran taylor on DS9, falls in love with Bashir and then discovers he's really an undercover Obsidian Order agent. I liked the premise and a lot of its execution, but as far as I know it was never completed.

I wonder if anyone wrote out the Kira as Cardassian idea in fanfiction form. Will have to check.

[rivendellrose]

This might seem a bit naive, but I actually was unclear whether Burnham and Ash's relationship was consummated after their discussion. I thought at first that it was (pulling back slowly on the shot of her holding him seemed pretty clear!), but when we return to them and get the bit with Ash waking from his nightmare, they're both still dressed on the couch. Although Burnham seems to have gotten her running clothes from somewhere, whereas in the previous scene she was wearing her uniform, so she did change clothes?

I don't know. It was odd. I totally thought they did... and then it was like "Oh, no, wait, they totally didn't." Mixed messages, as far as I'm concerned. Which might be good, since Ash is very clearly still in the midst of coping with his trauma, and perhaps mixing a new sexual relationship into that isn't the healthiest idea in the world.

[lizbee]

Burnham's not in running clothes, she's just stripped down to the tank top under her uniform.

Of course, Cornwell wore that in bed with Lorca, so it might be the Tank Top of American Network Bedroom Scenes, but I suspect they cuddled and fell asleep together and OH NO MY HEART JUST MELTED.

[rivendellrose]

Oh, shit, you're right. I got confused by the stripe down the leg of her pants. Dang it!

Pretty sure in an episode where we saw Klingon breasts we could have got away with at least a sport bra if they'd actually had sex... and I hope they would have moved to the bed. Maybe not, but it'd be nice. But yeah, my take also is cuddling and falling asleep.

[lizbee]

Pretty sure in an episode where we saw Klingon breasts

And holy gratuitous nudity, Batman!

(I wondered if they got away with that because it's basically a thick latex suit.)

[rivendellrose]

(I wondered if they got away with that because it's basically a thick latex suit.)

Yep, that was my take as well. It's like Mystique in the X-Men movies: if the breasts are covered in latex and don't have nipples, they don't count. What the magical earth-shattering destructive capability of female nipples is according to my country, I will never understand.

That said, I definitely feel like I've seen more of L'Rell than I wanted to, so I can't be too snide about our puritanical TV regulations.

[kore]

Mystique in X-Men and ScarJo in that awful Ghost in the Shell remake. Both outfits made me intensely uncomfortable -- regular nudity is so human and kind of endearing, but the latex shells are the opposite of imperfect vulnerability. tl;dr it's like living Barbie dolls I guess

[rivendellrose]

The fact that it's the opposite of imperfect vulnerability really is frustrating. It's bad enough that movies are always making us look at the most perfectly symmetrical, constantly-made-up people with their hair professionally fixed between every single take, but now we have to see them "naked" with perfected everything, too? Thanks but no thanks.

[kore]

I suspect they cuddled and fell asleep together and OH NO MY HEART JUST MELTED.

AUGH (in a good way)

[thalia_seawood]

It's not just you. :-)

Can't imagine anyone would have sex on this tiny sofa and still wear trousers and top, so it probably was only kissing and cuddling.
In other Star Trek episodes, characters are shown in bed after having sex and some clothes may be seen next to the bed - even if the characters still wear tops for modesty. Because nipples are dangerous!

[rivendellrose]

Yeah, having watched the episode again now I found it a lot more clear than the first time. Ah well - I was overwhelmed, clearly!

Nipples are definitely dangerous, except, apparently, Klingon nipples. Now those are okay, I guess. Just so long as they're made of latex, maybe? ;)

[lilacsigil]

Burnham is so great - even though I know she's likely to survive I had my heart in my mouth from the moment she revealed herself on the Klingon bridge. She dealt with Kol so cleverly, shaming him in front of his enthralled crew, then trying only to protect herself and slow him down to survive the fight and buy Discovery the time it needed, not actually win the fight. And she got Georgiou's comm badge! Her shared look with Saru as the ship exploded! My heart!


I like L'Rell, so I'm pleased that the One Interesting Klingon has made it off the exploding Ship of the Dead and onto Discovery, especially as it now seems they'll be trapped there together for a while.

Lorca had a great episode, going from actual excellent captaining to manipulation of the first order to extremely conflicted emotions at Cornwell's rescue. But I think my favourite bit was him using his eye medication so he could watch the Klingon ship blow up.

[selenak]

Clearly, Mirrorverse Lorca will turn out to be a fluffy shy kitten who has no idea how to push people's buttons and doesn't recognize a dramatic gesture if it yells at him. :)

Burnham is the heroine we need. :) I think, despite still wanting to get to know the crew better, I've come around to this particular focused ST narrative, because her character is compelling enough to carry it off.

[kore]

Clearly, Mirrorverse Lorca will turn out to be a fluffy shy kitten who has no idea how to push people's buttons and doesn't recognize a dramatic gesture if it yells at him. :)

OH MY GOD. Jason Isaacs would be great at that!

[kore]

Maybe he can wear really thick glasses and fuzzy thick cardigans and eat undyed pistachios instead of fortune cookies (WTF is that even). "Imagine soft aesthetic Lorca" or whatever the lingo is. He wouldn't know how to fire a gun! He would be an ensign who signed on to see the world or something. Blindingly honest. Lawful Good?

[zahrawithaz.livejournal.com]

Or possibly a sharp-shooter or expert marksman, for extra dramatic irony.

[likeadeuce]

Is it Owen who wears cardigans in the AU in 'Torchwood'? Is that a thing I'm thinking of?

[selenak]

Yes, it is. Though it's not strictly speaking an AU, she says in her best Hermione like fashion, because it's the product of the alien of the week having changed everyone's memories, and inserting himself in them. Basically Superstar if Jonathan would have been malvolent instead of clueless. Somehow, this universal memory changing/inserting resulted in Owen being a shy cardigan wearing deep while Tosh is a cool but mean girl dating the alien of the week. Ianto thinks he's a serial killer. Jack remains Jack.

[kore]

Burnham goes for HIGH STAKES, man. You can kind of see her plotting it all out on the fly -- don't let the ship get away, fire on the Klingons! Ohshit now they know I'm here, try to communicate! That didn't work, trash talk the big guy and provoke him! OH SHIT now it's a duel, &c &c -- but DAMN, that takes nerves of steel wire and unerring concentration under extreme stress. (I keep calling her the Kirk of the show because she reminds me of when I first saw him as a kid in TOS.) It was there even in the two-ep prelude, too, when she convinced the ship AI thing to blow her out of the cell THROUGH space and in through an airlock. I love it, women so rarely get to be physical and reckless in action.

I like L'Rell too but OMG, poor Ash

[zahrawithaz.livejournal.com]

Let's not forget grabbing the comm badge and JUMPING INTO MID-AIR for her dramatic exit! Damn, that was a boss move!

[kore]

That was SO HER, too, like that was how she started the original fight -- what made her upset and she used that -- and she's like "gonna take THAT, thank you." It was Quintessential Burnham.

[likeadeuce]

I just remembered that Dreamwidth was a thing and caught up with your reviews.

Glad you're enjoying the show -- I am as well; sort of hope the Ash Tyler-as-Klingon theory isn't true as I'm fond of his character, but obviously he and Michael are getting together WAY too early for them not to get broken in some appalling way, so why not that?

[selenak]

I'm glad you like the show. And yes, if a couple, one of which is the show's lead, gets together before even half a season is over, something terrible is practically written in stone. In another show, I'd assume Ash is toast, but if he's a Klingon, I'd actually rate his survival chances for at least the season, if not more.

[thalia_seawood]

As fate would have it, I had to stay in bed for the last 3 days with a bad cold. I don't like having a cold, but it actually gave me the chance to watch all the Discovery episodes so far.

Have to say I'm very pleased with the show overall:
- Love that there are many female characters and that apart from the Security Officer (who gets the award for most incompetent Security Officer ever) they are all interesting and lovable. The show even passes the Bechdel Test within its very first minute. :-)
Michael Burnham is in a class of her own - despite the many bad decisions she makes in the first episodes, I love her; she is so wonderfully complex. Love her friendship with Sylvia Tilly.
Hooray for middle-aged women like Giorgiu and Cornwell who are both smart and competent.
L'Rell I started to like when she explains that she refused to cut her heart in two loyalty wise but decided to go for an alternate way of building bridges. Appreciate that she is wily and has great language skills. Totally hope for more interaction between her and Admiral Cornwell.

- Have the feeling that the makers of the show watched a lot of Star Trek and then voted on their favourite tropes:
e.g. Vulcan family drama; character raised on Vulcan emoting with foreign life forms; philosophical arguments; mirror verse; identity issue; undercover agents unaware of their own identity (one of my favorite tropes ever!); bubbly cadets who may talk to much but are very competent; people with a tragic past; shady characters.
I'm really curious how the show will develop. E.g. I loved Kira as Cardassian and was so sad that this story line was confined to one episode / that Kira turned out to be Bajoran after all.
So I'm totally looking forward to an Ash / Voq identity crisis and hope it's not resolved within one episode. Voq does have an interesting background in as far as he is the "son of noone", so I wonder what it would feel like to suddenly belong to a crew, to be appreciated. Going back to being purely Klingon should be difficult. Star Trek often deals with the question of belonging and of being human, most intensely probably in the case of Seven of Nine, so I hope to get the double lense of Burnham and Voq in Discovery.

- Paul Stamets: Also complex. Hope to see more of him - of his partner, too. So far, we only know the doctor is competent and likes opera. ;-)

- Lorca: Love how ambiguous he is, that they made him a captain very different from all the others. Found him very entertaining to watch.

[selenak]

Hooray, you like it! It feels so good to have an open ST canon again.

ave the feeling that the makers of the show watched a lot of Star Trek and then voted on their favourite tropes

Ha, me too. And now we get parallel universes (well, at least one of them) served as well. :) The second half of the season is almost upon us, so you and I can watch in real time.

Btw, by now a fannish theory is making the rounds that Lorca is actually from the Mirrorverse and has replaced the "real" Lorca, i.e. that Cornwell's "you're not the man I knew" statement is literally true. Honestly, I think that would be something of a let down, both because it would take the ambiguity away, and because we're surely already doing the identity switch and ensuing crisis thing with Voq/Ash (unless that theory doesn't pan out, and honestly by now I can't see any other explanation for Voq's utter disappearance after the first three eps featured him prominently, L'Rell's behavior etc.).

[thalia_seawood]

Lorca already from the mirror universe? I really hope not. How would he have accomplished that? What good would that plot line achieve? Let's this not be true!

What I want to see is "SuperNice!Lorca" in the Mirror Verse. :-)

Voq equals Ash:
It's so obvious it has to be true.
a) L'Rell told Voq he had to sacrifice everything. And that's the last we saw of Voq. And in the next episode there was L'Rell sans Voq, but with a strange relationship to a human prisoner. We also know that L'Rell is a spy master AND they have access to crew member's data on the ship they are stranded on.
b) Everyone wonders why Ash is still alive after months of torture. And it's a very good question. Even the combination of untrustworthy Mudd and seemingly trustworthy Ash is the classic setup trope.
c) Ash's trauma and him having sex with L'Rell all point to Voq's memory. All the pain could be from L'Rell transforming him into Voq.
d) What L'Rell says to Ash makes a lot of sense if he's Voq. Also that she tries so hard to reach the Discovery.
e) The actor playing Ash is credited from the very start, isn't he? So he has to be in the show in some role.

I don't even feel the makers meant this to be the biggest secret. To me it feels, as if they want us to suspect to better enjoy the Michael/Ash love-drama in the making. :-)

[selenak]

I want fluffy, kitten-saving Lorca as the Mirrorverse version, too. Fannish speculation also includes Evil Empress Georgiu, which would explain why Michelle Yeoh is credited for more than just the three episodes she's appeared in (the pilot and the one with the recorded message for Michael), and is a tried and true Star Trek trope. (Kira says hello.)

Now, this might not even be the classic Mirrorverse, but another parallel universe. (ST canonically has lots, as of the TNG episode where Worf is flung into one after another.) But if it is the Mirrorverse, then Supernice!Lorca and a living but evil Philippa would both offer the opportunity for our (anti)heroes to face different issues. Michael and Saru are still missing their Philippa Georgiu and feeling guilty, obviously, and so they would first be prone to be manipulated by an evil counterpart, but would also by eventually resisting and besting her be able to overcome this.

Meanwhile, if the entire crew has evil counterparts except for Lorca who has the nicest guy imaginable as his alter ego, it might present him with a look in the mirror in another way - how far he's moved from his original ideals, for example. What he'll then do is anyone's guess.

And if it is the Mirrorverse, then canonically they're at this point oppressing all the non-human species, seeing themselves as superior. Klingons are among the oppressed. How both L'Rell and an Ash who gets more and more of his Voq memories back will respond to this scenario is also anyone's guess. Will they or at least L'Rell see it as proof that back in their 'verse, Klingons have to conquer everyone else lest they end up like that, or will they see it as an unflattering mirror to what the current All Klingon All The Time policy looks like?

[thalia_seawood]

Mirror Universe:
Remember Stamets’ creepy mirror image? Am sure it‘s a Mirror Universe clue for us long term ST fans.

Evil Empress Giorgiu would rock!
MU is often fun for the actors - the only mirror version I found boring was Gul Garak - what a waste.

[selenak]

Then again, it makes a certain amount of sense that the Mirrorverse counterpart of such an immensely entertaining and layered character as Garak should be dull and obvious. :)