Star Trek: Discovery 3.01
Oct. 16th, 2020 01:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIt's tendency to end good seasons with not so well executed finales not withstanding, I do love Star Trek: Discovery, and so I'm thrilled the third season started today.
Ever since the season trailer revealed Michael and the Discovery crew would be initially separated, I figured we'd start with Michael and only find out what became of everyone else in the next episode, so it didn't surprise me when the series did indeed make that choice. Considering I'm currently doing a Farscape rewatch, Michael inadvertently clashing with someone's prowler, err, ship upon her exit from the wormhole immediately reminded me of John Crichton, of course, and there is something of that "stranger in a strange world suddenly cut off from all they knew" feeling there for Michael in the future, though as opposed to John, half the strangeness comes from this being being not some remote place in space but time, the future she tried so hard to save. But she has to navigate through the weirdness at a similar fast pace and cling to the hope she will indeed be able to make contact with her ship again.
As I said last year, I really am glad for the decision to remove our heroes from the pre-TOS setting into one where truly no one in Trekdom has gone before. Picard was the first show to offer a post Voyager setting, but Discovery, two seasons in, now truly has taken the plunge into something new, challenging the writers to come up with a future that on the one hand will offer our regulars a challenge but on the other also won't be grimdark, since that's just what Michael et al did everything to prevent in the previous season. Based on this first episode, I think they have succeeded. The destruction of all life has been prevented, but space travel has become seriously limited due to the dilithium catastrophe (methinks someone wants to do an allegory of the way we treat our natural resources here), and partly because of the breakdown in communications that went with this, the Federation also has fallen apart and exists more as an idea than an actuality. Which does sound grim, and yet the episode is careful to offer quintessential Trekian hope as well. When the man from the episode teaser was revealed in the final sequence as being the lone Federation person in the sector who still keeps going, it was a wonderfully earned break for both Michael and him. But even before that, the episode showed Michael is by no means the only idealist around. Early on, Michael insists she has to trust someone. She doesn't just need means of survival, or an ally of necessity; she needs someone to trust. (This, btw, shows how she's developed from the guilt-ridden, stunned woman not able to reach out who arrived on Discovery in 1.03.) The reveal that Book has been savinga space serpent another threatened space creature, like the space whale in s1, and that there were people providing sanctuary for these beings makes for another gloriously and unabashedly optimistic pay off when the audience and Michael watch them enjoying their freedom.
(Thereby echoing both the Tardigrade in s1 and the whales in Star Trek: The Voyage Home.)
Book so far is a bit of a trope - smuggler with a heart of gold who seems to sell out our heroine but then shows his inner decency the second time around - , but both the reveal of what he was smuggling and earlier his cat show promising signs of individuality. I mean, it's impossible for me to dislike a man who names his cat "Grudge". And after dogs were given champions in the forms of Porthos and Number One, it was about time we got another feline prominently featured in the Trekverse - I mean, Spot was decades ago.
The episode also was a wonderful acting vehicle for our leading lady, bringing on both the intense seriousness Michael can have, the galvanizing relief when she realises the future is full of life, the sheer silliness of Michael on truth serum drugs (that was another anarchic Farscape moment, and a great way to showcase comedy skills), and the empathy when she meetsthe last centurion the last Federation official and they give each other hope, with the quest outlined now not just to find Discovery but also to reestablish communications and ties between the rest of the broken into fragments former Federation.
Any incarnation of Star Trek also reflects the time it was made in. So finding a future where the hopeful multicultural ideal has suffered a set back, not in the by now usual way for dystopias (i.e. wars, a supervillain scheming) but apparantly through a combination of circumstances, makes sense. But what really sells it to me as Trekian is that simultanously the episode emphasizes that the technological connections aren't what made and makes the Federation ideal, and that said ideal is still there and is worth working for, to achieve it again. The whole symbolism of having fallen into tiny bubbles that don't really communicate with each other in general while also showing that some connections are still going on, and there can be more if people try again.
Speaking of our world today: only a few hours after watching did it occur to me that all three main characters of this episode - Michael, Book and the last Federation representative of the sector - were people of colour. No idea what the actors under the Andorian, Orion and in one case Klingon make-up were, and I might have overlooked white people, but still: this future is not white by default. Go team.
Oh, and all this aside: I imagine the current rarity of dilithium prefigures the Return Of The Spore Drive. (Though Stamets will have do make some modifications since the last season made a big deal out of the damage to space mycelliums.) Speaking of returns, for all that I am glad we're dealing with a new setting ow, I was tickled about the Andorians. Come on, they were one of the best aspects of Enterprise, and now finally we get them on this show as well (as more than silent set decoration, that is). I also note with approval Orions were around without anyone getting sexually menaced.
Lastly: those were some beautiful locations this episode used. Real or CGI created? If the former, where did they film?
Ever since the season trailer revealed Michael and the Discovery crew would be initially separated, I figured we'd start with Michael and only find out what became of everyone else in the next episode, so it didn't surprise me when the series did indeed make that choice. Considering I'm currently doing a Farscape rewatch, Michael inadvertently clashing with someone's prowler, err, ship upon her exit from the wormhole immediately reminded me of John Crichton, of course, and there is something of that "stranger in a strange world suddenly cut off from all they knew" feeling there for Michael in the future, though as opposed to John, half the strangeness comes from this being being not some remote place in space but time, the future she tried so hard to save. But she has to navigate through the weirdness at a similar fast pace and cling to the hope she will indeed be able to make contact with her ship again.
As I said last year, I really am glad for the decision to remove our heroes from the pre-TOS setting into one where truly no one in Trekdom has gone before. Picard was the first show to offer a post Voyager setting, but Discovery, two seasons in, now truly has taken the plunge into something new, challenging the writers to come up with a future that on the one hand will offer our regulars a challenge but on the other also won't be grimdark, since that's just what Michael et al did everything to prevent in the previous season. Based on this first episode, I think they have succeeded. The destruction of all life has been prevented, but space travel has become seriously limited due to the dilithium catastrophe (methinks someone wants to do an allegory of the way we treat our natural resources here), and partly because of the breakdown in communications that went with this, the Federation also has fallen apart and exists more as an idea than an actuality. Which does sound grim, and yet the episode is careful to offer quintessential Trekian hope as well. When the man from the episode teaser was revealed in the final sequence as being the lone Federation person in the sector who still keeps going, it was a wonderfully earned break for both Michael and him. But even before that, the episode showed Michael is by no means the only idealist around. Early on, Michael insists she has to trust someone. She doesn't just need means of survival, or an ally of necessity; she needs someone to trust. (This, btw, shows how she's developed from the guilt-ridden, stunned woman not able to reach out who arrived on Discovery in 1.03.) The reveal that Book has been saving
(Thereby echoing both the Tardigrade in s1 and the whales in Star Trek: The Voyage Home.)
Book so far is a bit of a trope - smuggler with a heart of gold who seems to sell out our heroine but then shows his inner decency the second time around - , but both the reveal of what he was smuggling and earlier his cat show promising signs of individuality. I mean, it's impossible for me to dislike a man who names his cat "Grudge". And after dogs were given champions in the forms of Porthos and Number One, it was about time we got another feline prominently featured in the Trekverse - I mean, Spot was decades ago.
The episode also was a wonderful acting vehicle for our leading lady, bringing on both the intense seriousness Michael can have, the galvanizing relief when she realises the future is full of life, the sheer silliness of Michael on truth serum drugs (that was another anarchic Farscape moment, and a great way to showcase comedy skills), and the empathy when she meets
Any incarnation of Star Trek also reflects the time it was made in. So finding a future where the hopeful multicultural ideal has suffered a set back, not in the by now usual way for dystopias (i.e. wars, a supervillain scheming) but apparantly through a combination of circumstances, makes sense. But what really sells it to me as Trekian is that simultanously the episode emphasizes that the technological connections aren't what made and makes the Federation ideal, and that said ideal is still there and is worth working for, to achieve it again. The whole symbolism of having fallen into tiny bubbles that don't really communicate with each other in general while also showing that some connections are still going on, and there can be more if people try again.
Speaking of our world today: only a few hours after watching did it occur to me that all three main characters of this episode - Michael, Book and the last Federation representative of the sector - were people of colour. No idea what the actors under the Andorian, Orion and in one case Klingon make-up were, and I might have overlooked white people, but still: this future is not white by default. Go team.
Oh, and all this aside: I imagine the current rarity of dilithium prefigures the Return Of The Spore Drive. (Though Stamets will have do make some modifications since the last season made a big deal out of the damage to space mycelliums.) Speaking of returns, for all that I am glad we're dealing with a new setting ow, I was tickled about the Andorians. Come on, they were one of the best aspects of Enterprise, and now finally we get them on this show as well (as more than silent set decoration, that is). I also note with approval Orions were around without anyone getting sexually menaced.
Lastly: those were some beautiful locations this episode used. Real or CGI created? If the former, where did they film?
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Date: 2020-10-16 12:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-16 12:53 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2020-10-16 09:15 pm (UTC)(NB if you want to make comments, I am barely able to consider that show at the moment without being disgusted about how neo-Confederate I now recognise it as being.)
And in terms of Farscape, it sounds to me less like John's initial situation than the beginning of S4.
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Date: 2020-10-17 10:39 am (UTC)s4 vs s1 - yes and no; I suppose s4 John in my memory is a lot more unbalanced and broken than Michael for me to compare them to, and also he does have Moya and Rygel, whereas in s1 all and everyone were new to him, which is true for Michael right now, too. (And really: her crashing into the not-prowler right after reentry from the wormhole, and later having to convince Book it was an accident (he's more rational than Crais, though, plus he survived the experience unlike Tauvo) did strike as a homage.
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Date: 2020-10-18 04:53 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2020-10-17 09:25 pm (UTC)I've seen very reasonable complaints that it's typically American that they cannot imagine their stand-in empire decaying for any reason BUT external events. And I can see that, but I also think this level of decay in just 100-130 years suggests things were already fragmenting by the time of the Burn.
(Also, Enterprise told us that the Federation is still around in the 31st century, and as it is, regrettably, canon, Disco has to work around an existing timeline.)
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Date: 2020-10-19 11:42 am (UTC)