TREK REVIEW - Lower Decks 5-3 - 5-4

 

5-3 - "The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel"

A fun episode which sees our leads growing up some more, although this does mean regressing them a bit to begin with. Both Mariner and Boimler act more like their season one/two selves, with Bradward freaking out over Ransom's alleged treatment of his recruits and Beckett absolutely refusing to engage emotionally. 

The "Jariner" storyline is silly, and feels like a reaction to fans complaining that the relationship was never resolved onscreen. A quick line to explain that they broke up a while ago would have done, but instead we get a prolonged farce by both Mariner and Jennifer refusing to talk with each other. Similarly, the idea that Ransom is brutally risking his officers' lives by putting them in danger's way ignores the revelations that he's actually a pretty decent officer, and Boimler's over-the-top response is more like his earlier, more panicked self. 

So, it feels like an earlier season episode, but that's no bad thing. It's a lot of fun, and the idea of a ridiculously elaborate space resort and an Apolcaypse Now-inspired drop-out admiral provide a fun storyline, with the nanite monster adding an actual threat. Plus, if it was an older episode, it wouldn't have T'Lyn, who is an absolute delight here, from her increasingly sardonic humour to her surprising following of Krog, a rock-like beach music player.

Starships and stations: 

• The Cosmic Duchess is described as a cruise ship, but it's the size of a moon, with multiple biomes and an artificial sun, so it's practically a mobile Dyson habitat.
• The USS Endeavour is a tiny wee Intrepid-class from a miniature parallel universe, this episode's link the arc plot.

Alien life forms: 

• We finally get to see some Gallamites, previously only mentioned as the species of Jadzia Dax's old flame Captain Boday. I assumed that, aside from their transparent skulls, Gallamites were pretty much humanoids, but they looks absolutely terrifying.
• Krog is probably named after Korg from the Thor movies, given that he looks so much like him. We've seen the odd member of his species in the background before. It's possible he's meant to be a Brikar, like Rok-Tahk on Prodigy.
• The Kreetassans make their first appearance outside of Enterprise, although why they'd be hanging around a bar when they're so offended by people eating and drinking is anyone's guess.

5-4 - "A Farewell to Farms"

Klingon episodes can be pretty tiresome, but this one works because it, quite rightly, constantly takes the piss out of them. It's always good to catch up with Ma'ah, who's now slumming it on his brother's farm after being kicked out of the fleet thanks to his crew's mutiny. I prefer his brother, Malor, though, an easygoing sort of chap who's quite happy with farmwork and pimping out his shuttle. The Klingons can't all be warriors, after all; not only would that be unbelievable, but you need farmers and the like. Otherwise, where'd all the bloodwine come from?

It's also good to see the corrupt side of Klingon culture, which clearly didn't all go away when Martok took over. Bargh, using his position to punish Ma'ah because he killed his brother, rings true, even if it's very dishonorable (after all, isn't getting killed in battle what it's all about?). Anyway, the Beckett-Ma'ah friendship is a highlight, and this time Boimler is along for the ride, back to his new, super-enthusiastic self.

Meanwhile, the B-plot with Migleemo's people is pretty slight, but it's nice to see him get some background, and the idea of a culture focused on food and recipes makes as much, if not more, sense as one based on fighting and killing. 

Alien life forms: Migleemo's species are named as Klowahkians, from the planet Klowahka, following Areolus in the new Lower Decks tradition of naming avian race's planets after suggestive body parts. This one is more bird-appropriate, though.

Callbacks:

• Enaran food is said to be the best in the quadrant (not sure whether we're talking Alpha or Beta), but the Enara Prime is in the Delta Quadrant (VOY "Remember").
• On the farm, Ma'ah dresses like Picard in his vineyard in TNG "All Good Things."

Trek Stars: Sam Witwer does double-duty as the voices of both Malor and Klowahkian critic Legnog, while Mary Chieffo returns to her Klingon roots as the fun Kelarra (she was L'Rell in the first two seasons of Discovery).

TREK REVIEW - Lower Decks 4-9 & 4-10

4-9 - "The Inner Fight" 

Getting back to these reviews to finish off the season after being sidelined by various sf anniversaries, and we have what might be the most satisfying finale for Lower Decks in terms of character work. The penultimate episode gives Mariner the focus she's needed all season, dumping her on a brutal planet and forcing her to confront the reasons behind her self-sabotage. It's indicative of the way the writing on this show has grwon, in that the character's motivation was initially presented as being nothing more complex than trying to avoid hard work while sticking it to her mum. Building on the gradual revelations about her background, Mariner's motivations make perfect sense, while incorporating some surprisingly deep Trek lore.

Lower Decks has been particularly heavily indebted to The Next Generation from the beginning, taking its name and basic concept from a seventh season episode. It feels right that Mariner's trauma calls back to this, with the unexpected, but perfectly plausible, revelation that she was friends with Sito Jaxa at the Academy. Sito's death during the episode "Lower Decks," was one of TNG's most powerful character deaths, even though it was entirely off screen. Hearing that her friend's commitment to the mission and her own advancement led to her, presumably brutal, death at the hands of her people's conquerors has weighted heavily on Mariner's mind for years (it's not entirely clear what year this season is set in, but it's no less than ten years since the event, possibly as much as fourteen). 

Piled on top of this is the added trauma of the Dominion War, which we already knew Mariner fought in. It's satisfying to see the ongoing Trek universe finally explore the fallout from the war, here and in Picard's last season. It makes sense that Starfleet has been recruiting hard and pushing promotion in order to build up ranks again following the losses of the war, and just as plausible that someone like Mariner would do everything she could to avoid being put in the position where she'd be giving orders that could result in her friends' and colleagues' deaths. It also ties in nicely to the series' occasional looks at Starfleet's clear status as a military organisation, even while it's desperate to paint itself as something else entirely.

While that's the main point of the episode, around it we get to have a lot of fun. We follow up on what happened to the crews of the alien ships that were attacked and stolen, finding them living as a rag-bag bunch of survivors on a dangerous planet. It's also about time Ma'ah (aka Mach, Magh, depending on your subtitles) arrived into the main narrative, and it's great that he and Mariner bond. As the most truly honourable of Klingons, he was the right person to force her to face up to her demons.

Meanwhile, the Cerritos crew are on the trail of Nick Locarno, as a potential target of the alien ship which is now seemingly targeting ex-Starfleet officers. New Axton is, of course, just Tatooine under a different name, but it's fun to have a bit of Star Wars in our Star Trek now and again, and the sheer number of familiar Trek aliens milling around the place made it feel like home. Of course, the reveal that Locarno was behind the whole thing ties it all together, setting up the finale beautifully.

Observations:

• It's not clear how old Mariner is. If she was at the Academy alongside Sito and Locarno, she's got to be at least thirty (again, it depends on exactly when this is set). In any case, she's presumably a fair bit older than her fellow Lower Deckers.
• The best reference on New Axton is the alien Freeman mistakes for a puppet, who is of course based on the puppet version of Balok from TOS: "The Corbmite Maneouvre." Perhaps he's a member of the species the puppet was based on? Maybe he's even from the First Federation. (Or see the novel The Face of the Unknown.)
• Other than Locarno, the ex-Starfleet officers on the watchlist include Seven of Nine, Beverly Crusher and Thomas Riker. We already knew the first two dropped out of Starfleet some time after Nemesis, but this is the first we've heard of Riker's duplicate since he was imprisoned by the Cardassians in DS9: "The Defiant." For all we knew before, he died in the war.

4-10 - "Old Friends, New Planets"

The whole season is brought together in the finale, tying up the storyline of the mysterious starship - the Nova One - and its crew of merry mutineers. It's far beyond time that Nick Locarno's story was followed up on; after all, he was meant to be on Voyager, but the showrunners bottled it and created Tom Paris, who's basically the same character but watered down.

I love the idea of someone expelled from Starfleet who then goes off the deep end, seeing themselves as the hard done by party. His fleet of ships, crewed by an autonomous collective of disenfranchised extraterrestrials is a great idea, even if their actual plan - to hole themselves up behind a forcefield for god knows how long - doesn't really make sense. But then, should it make sense? The fact that none of them have really thought this through is surely part of the point, and doesn't reduce the damage they can do in the mean time.

There are some lovely voice cameos in this epiosde. Of course, we knew Robert Duncan McNeill would be in it after last episode - with the characters naturally commenting on the likeness shared between his two characters - but it was a fun surprise to hear not only Wil Wheaton, but also Shannon Fill, returning to acting after some time to play Sito once again. The flashback to the Academy helped tie everything up, as well as showing us a version of Mariner who was more enthusiastic and greener aorund the gills than the one we know now.

The resolution to the problem took on all sorts of twists and turns, from the Mark Twain Manoeuvre to the trip to Orion. While I doubt we'll be missing Tendi for long, I hope there's at least some time in season five for the main characters to deal with her absence, and perhaps to see how she does sharing power with D'Erika on the homeworld. Bringing in T'Lyn as the fifth member of the team over the course of the season makes particular sense now, as she's poised to take Tendi's place as the science enthusiast, so it'll be interesting to see how things go when Tendi eventually comes back.

The inclusion of the Genesis Device was a bit of a surprise, although it was kind of telegraphed by the very Wrath of Khan-esque music and effects throughout the episode (the one departure from the TNG-fest this has been). If there are any complaints, it's that Maah and the other alien captains were left out of the loop, when it really felt like it should be part of the solution. Still, these are only half-hour episodes, and there's only so much they can do in the time. It's not like they're not ludicrously packed as it is.

So, altogether, a brilliant end to the season, once more shaking things up for the next round.

Observations:

• It's a bit mad that all Mariner needs to commandeer a ship is her mother's codes. Couldn't they have dropped a line in about her voice pattern or DNA being similar enough to fool the security system?
• The USS Passaro is named for Fabio Passaro, a CGI artist on the franchise, who passed away last year.

New Ferengi Rules of Acquisition: 

•     91: Your boss is only worth what he pays you.
•     289: Shoot first, count profits later. 

There were only 285 rules in the TNG-DS9-VOY era of the 2370s, so there's clearly been some expansion in the last few years.

TREK REVIEW; PIC 3-3 - "Seventeen Seconds"

 SPOILERS, naturally.

And suddenly, the season went from being good to bloody great.

Last week I quibbled about wanting to know what's going on, having seen the previous two seasons spend too long getting to the core of the plot and having serious pacing issues because of it. I needn't have worried. Although the events remain stuck in the same places as in the end of episode one - a mysterious, unusual nebula and the seedy streets of M'Talas Prime - they're pushing forward, and while the claustrophobic tension increases, we suddenly learn a lot more about what's going on behind the scenes in the galaxy.

On the Titan, Captain Shaw is incapacitated by Vadic's attack, with the absolute pummeling the ship takes this episode proving him completely right about the folly of getting involved here at the edge of space. Todd Stashwick's performance, combined with some solid writing, have made Shaw move from the nasty character who opposes our heroes to the one we all finding ourselves siding with. He's the only one, somehow, to realise that Vadic must be tracking the Titan somehow, as if the idea they're trailing something is so difficult for all these Starfleet geniuses to come up with. (I don't know, maybe they're all just overconfident.)

Sadly, this pushes Shaw out of the episode, but there's more than enough going on elsewhere. I love that he puts Riker in command, not Picard, in spite of the elder man being the ranking officer. It's clear that, while he doesn't much like the former Titan captain, he can't stand the legendary Jean-Luc Picard, and you can understand why. Last week I mentioned how Jack was very much Picard in his youth, reckless and irresponsible but well-meaning, while Shaw is rather like early-TNG, all duty and by-the-book, not friendly with his crew but garnering their respect. 

Contemporary Picard has come through the other side, being familiar, morally-bound and courageous, but he's come right back through to reckless again. Riker, who has a more recent and keenly felt loss, is more cautious and introspective than we once knew him. Their command roles are switched, just as their personas have changed with time. It's great to see them at each other's throats after so many years being on good terms. We barely got a cross word between them on TNG (thanks to Roddenberry's drama-killing "no human conflict" rule), and you can't help but feel that there's nearly forty years' pent-up resentment between these men, finally coming out.

On the other hand, we have the confrontation between Picard and Crusher, and here it's hard not to feel sympathetic to old JL. It's entirely understandable that Beverly would fear for son's safety as the child of the legendary Picard, especially given how his approach became more gung-ho in the movies and beyond. Plus, let's not forget the one time that he thought he did have a son, because the Ferengi Daimon Bok wanted revenge so badly that he faked a DNA test. If someone did find out that Jack was Picard Jr, he probably would be in danger from certain elements. On the other hand, Beverly has been living an even more dangerous life on the edge of the law with her son, breaking all manner of treaties and seeing him become a wanted man, all by the age of twenty (yes, Ed Speelers is about 34, but that's how the years add up, no two ways about it). Something doesn't quite ring true.

Elsewhere, Raffi and Worf become a wonderful new double-act, with Dorn in particular shining as the older, wryer Klingon. "Beheadings are on Wednesdays" - and they say this guy doesn't have a sense of humour. Dorn has, famously, appeared in more instalments of the Trek franchise than any other actor, all as Worf (except The Undiscovered Country, where he played Worf's grandfather... Worf). He's great, but his long-championed Worf series never sounded particularly appealing, until now. I'd watch these two snipe at each other on undercover missions for hours.

Both storylines finally come together with the revelations that, a) Vadic has the portal gun (obvs), and b) the Changelings are behind the plot. Now, that was a bit of a shock - not because they weren't a possibility (the changing faces line hinted at it), but because there were so many other possibilities, and DS9 so rarely gets any follow-up. We had that one episode of Lower Decks, and the odd little alien cameo or mention, and that was it for the legacy of the best series in Trek canon? (No, I will not take discussion on this.) An updated Changeling effect makes for a visually appealing, and not immediately obvious, reveal, and that it's a breakaway group, acting against the Founders, is intriguing. Of course the Changelings should hate the Federation after how they won the war.

Intriguing, though, is the clear implication that it isn't just the Changelings behind this. Is Vadic a Changeling? No reason why not, as such, but it somehow doesn't feel likely. As an aside, I loved the battle this week, with Amanda Plummer giving a much more subdued, more appealing performance, and the visual spectacle of the portal gun making for something new in space battles at last. (Riker has clearly never played Portal, and it shows.) It's very Wrath of Khan/Mutara Nebula, of course, but a newer, twistier version. Just as Khan couldn't quite grasp that he was in 3D space, not on the sea, Riker and Picard can't quite grasp that they're fighting something that can come from any angle, any time.

We learn, as well, that the portal gun isn't the prize at all, merely a handy bonus that can be used as a distraction. It's pretty clear that the actual aim of the heist was Lore and/or Moriarty, as we've already seen them in the trailers (perhaps keeping them a secret would have worked better?) Daystrom is, after all, known far more for AI than weapons development. I'm beginning to wonder if we're actually seeing a loose alliance of various beings with an axe to grind with the Federation (hey, maybe we will see the Conspiracy bugs after all).

Interestingly, we've seen that Lore and Moriarty will be visibly older, in spite of the de-ageing software used in the prologue for this episode. With Picard now 96 in-universe, it seems that being a synthetic life form doesn't protect one from the ravages of time. There's a definite theme of ageism in this episode, with Dr. Trill dismissing Crusher, then having to eat her words as Beverly effortlessly diagnoses Shaw. On the other hand, Picard and Riker seem to be genuinely out of their depth against this new threat. 

 All of this covered, and not once did we feel bogged down in exposition or that the pacing was lagging. Excellent work.

Random thoughts:

It's genuinely tricky watching this my partner Suzanne, who has an uncanny ability to guess left-field plot twists way ahead of the reveal. So if it turns out that Riker is actually Thomas Riker, and that's why he's so unconfident in command, she got there first.

Worf has taken to drinking chamomile tea. I hope he still drinks prune juice - it keeps you regular.

Thaddeus Troi-Riker, Will and Deanna's late son, was apparently born around 2381, the same year that Jack was conceived.

Thomas Dekker, who played the Changeling on M'Talas, also played young Thomas Picard on Star Trek Generations. He's about the same age as Ed Speelers. Makes me wonder if he auditioned for Jack Crusher.

Beverly agrees with my theory that Jack's accent is genetic... although it's really because he was schooled in London. We've given up any pretense that Picard is meant to sound French, then.

TREK REVIEW: Discovery 2-13 & 2-14: "Such Sweet Sorrow"

Discovery is a funny beast. Kurtzmann and co. spend an entire season dealing with heavy continuity and bringing back classic characters in order to send the core cast far into the future where they can't interact with established events, and then pretend that they never existed at all.

I'd often said that if I'd brought back Star Trek I'd have set it hundreds of years further into the future than the TNG era, far enough so that it wouldn't matter which timeline we were following and that high technology could be shown without clashing with the look of the older series. I'm absolutely in favour of the new direction, and can't wait to see where the series goes upon its return. It's just a very strange way of going about it. If anything, this season has shown how well a prequel series can work with both new and old characters. If anything, the final episode plays out less like a second pilot for Discovery and more like a launching point for a new series about Pike and Spock. I'd absolutely watch this, since Mount and Peck have been two of the best things about this series, but it's funny to hear fans who have been bitching about the prequels and the continuity clashes so far, clamouring for another prequel series that would no doubt create even more clashes.

As a send off for the Mike and Pike show, this two part finale works pretty well, although it has to be said it does drag on a little. With a first episode that sets up the emotional stakes and a second part that delivers on them while ramping up the action, it's structured well, but there's only so long I can watch a space battle or a corridor fight, no matter how spectacular, before I get bored. And don't get me wrong, this was spectacular, but there's only so long these can go on before the plot actually has to move forward.

All in all, though, this settles the ongoing mystery of the season and the fate of the Discovery pretty well, as long as you don't think too hard about. The ship and everyone on it flies into the future to escape Control, defeating the AI and happily taking all that terribly advanced tech with it. While I can imagine that much of this is classified as Spock suggests, it's a hell of a leap to assume that no one ever leaks the concept of the spore drive or the time suit in the next 150 years or so. Even if we can believe it of Starfleet and the family Sarek, can we really believe the Klingons agreed to keep schtum abut the time crystals and never utilise them again? And I was perfectly happy to believe that Spock simply never mentioned Michael in the original series and its successors because he just doesn't like to talk about his family, not that he's decided to pretend she never existed.

Still, Michael's story comes to a great conclusion, as he closes the time loop of her mission by becoming the second Red Angel and creating the very mystery that she began this season investigating. In the process, she repairs her relationship with Spock, accepts she can never be with Tyler and gets to make one last awesome space dive. The emotional stakes are high, although some of it is pretty artificial. There's some practical reasons for most of the main cast – and the peripheral regulars – to all go with Michael to the far future, but really it's so that there can be both moving goodbye scenes and a follow-up “all-for-one” reconciliation. It works, but it's carefully calculated to work. Equally, Cornwell's sacrifice rings hollow, not least because she otherwise does sod all in the last couple of episodes and because she was pretty unlikeable as it is. (To be honest, she worked better against Lorca.)

I'm still not sold on Evil Georgiou's redemption. Yeoh is very impressive in this episode, seriously kicking ass and staying on just the right side of over-the-top vengeance quest, but her move from the side of the devils to the angels just doesn't ring true. I'd kind of hoped she'd be killed off, since I struggle to see how she's going to work on the Discovery in the future. I'm glad Nhan is sticking around, because she's pretty awesome (and gorgeous, which doesn't hurt), and also that Saru gets to, presumably, finally become captain. I'll be very unhappy if Stamets kicks it, but it looks like he, Hugh and Tilly will be able to annoy each other for centuries to come. I'm a bit baffled by Jet Reno sticking around – I like her a lot, but why is she so devoted to Michael? Also, there's a big build-up to her connecting with the time crystal, but no follow up.

Other elements I loved? The design of the Enterprise: nothing like the original in any iteration, but still a lovely evocation of the retro Trek feel. Number One finally getting some real screen time (and her name is Una, as established in recent books, although Netflix subtitled it as “Noona,” which was apparently a cock-up). Bringing back Po, Queen of Xahea, partly because it made that silly one-off Short Treks episode more relevant, but mainly because it was a joy seeing her and Tilly together again (“Um, I know the Queen!”)

The Klingons turning up to help in the battle (in an impressive new gigantic battleship) worked nicely, as did the Kelpiens in their fighters stolen from the Ba'ul, although this was pretty hard to swallow. Maybe if someone had stuck around to keep an eye on what was happening on Kaminar Saru wouldn't have been so surprised. When Michael began talking about the final two signals, and how they'd help them to win this battle, I had a silly hope that she'd retroactively arrange for some more reinforcements; how cool would it have been if the Cardassians and the Andorians, say, had turned up to aid the fight?

For me, the best part of the episode was Michael's final voyage through the wormhole towards the far, far future, towing the Discovery behind her. Truly astonishing visuals, mind-bending and evocative of the stargate sequence from 2001: A Space Oddysey. In fact, it also brought to mind the visuals of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, an element of Trek's history that is so rarely referred to (that reminds me, where was Linus the Saurian?) The San Francisco scenes reminded me of TMP as well.

“Such Sweet Sorrow” was a perfectly fitting finale to a season that worked very well in many ways, but dropped the ball occasionally and failed to make as much sense as it needed to. Whatever the showrunners' reasons for blasting Michael and her crew into the distant future, I can't wait to see what they find.

Answer me this:

• Why, once Control has been destroyed, does Burnham still need to drag the Discovery to the future? It would make more sense if the Leland avatar of Control was merely a focal point and that Control was still coming, but since all the drones abruptly switch off once he's been destroyed it doesn't really seem necessary. Still, there's always a risk Control backed itself up somewhere or will be reactivated, and at least this way the AI can't complete its own causal loop.
• Except, can we be sure it can't? Control, or the bits left of it, is still on the Discovery, having jetted into a future that is presumably very technologically sophisticated, and with the Sphere data still onboard ship.
• Is Gabrielle dead or not? Potentially Michael will find her in season three, but she also apparently died at the hands of the Klingons on Doktari Alpha. Michael heard her die and Leland apparently saw the body. Is she destined to get bounced back to the point of her death at some point, or has this been snipped from history?
• I'm still not clear why an entirely new Angel suit needs to be slaved to Burnham's DNA.
• Who the hell builds a blast door with a great big window in it?
• If Michael was able to send a seventh signal back in time to be seen by Spock and their family, why wasn't she able to use the wormhole to bring herself back? I thought the entire point was that the effort of dragging the Discovery through the wormhole would burn out the time crystal.
• How the fuck are they going to do a Section 31 series starring Yeoh if Georgiou is stuck in the far future with Michael?
• Everyone keeps banging on about the thirty-third century, but if Michael is travelling 930 years into the future (following her mum going 950 years ahead, twenty years earlier) the Discovery will arrive in 3187, which is the thirty-second century.
• We don't know how they're going to approach the new future of Discovery season three, but we do know a few bits and pieces of the Federation's future already. With the caveat that time travel can twist these things up, we know that Starfleet has time travelling starships by the 29^th century (as seen on Voyager) and that there's a powerful civilian time agency by the 31^st century (as seen in Enterprise). So there could well be a time active force in the 32^nd century who could be keen on getting the Discovery home, or alternatively keeping them in the future.
• The only thing we've seen beyond the new Disco era is the Short Treks episode “Calypso.” It seems clear that the this is tied into the Discovery has been abandoned by then, and presumably the Sphere data that has wormed its way into the Disco computer leads to the AI that becomes known as Zora.

TREK REVIEW: Discovery 2-12: "Through the Valley of Shadows"

2-12) Through the Valley of Shadows

Season two of Discovery has served Captain Pike well. Long a favourite of mine, Pike never really got the chance to truly show what he was capable of as a character in previous iterations, but the potential was always there. This episode, an exceptional piece of work, finally gave him the material he deserves as a character, and Anson Mount proved how well cast and how good an actor he is.

Pike's sacrifice as told in “Menagerie,” back in 1966, was written as a matter of necessity. Jeffrey Hunter was no longer available, so Sean Kinney was cast for his vague resemblance. There was also a need to rework the material from “The Cage” and this required a reason for Spock to involve Pike and his past. Pike's horrific fate, being severely burnt by radiation and left mute and immobile, was the result of his heroism in rescuing cadets, but was also a pragmatic way to encase Kinney in make-up and put Pike in need of rescue.

We never saw Pike's story; it was just given to us as hurried background in order to make another story work. His eventual fate has hung over his appearances in this season; we know where Pike's heading and canon dictates that there's no way for him to escape it. Making this predetermined fate Pike's conscious choice, not only a choice to save the cadets in the event but a choice to accept, even embrace an inevitable fate to help save the future is a masterstroke. The final, devastating moment, where Pike sees himself, is brilliantly directed and shot; not only is it upsettingly gruesome, but by being shot from the perspective of both versions of Pike, it hammers home everything he has lost and is willing to give up. (The dual perspective was apparently Mount's idea, and it makes the scene.)

To get Pike to this point, there are some slightly unbelievable but undeniably effective story choices. I wasn't particularly looking forward to Tyler and L'rell meeting again and dealing with their baggage, but it's handled much better than in the third episode, even if their stubbornness is clearly putting their son at risk. The existence of time crystals is more pseudoscientific than usual for Star Trek – and this is a series with a mushroom drive that can jump across space – but it works in an episode that's tied up with destiny. That Tyler and L'rell's son, now named Tenavik, has already met his destiny, due to the strange effects of growing up around the time crystals, is an intriguing element. Kenneth Mitchell gives a dignified performance as Tenavik, and I wouldn't have realised that it was the same actor as Kol and his father in previous episodes.

Less effective is Michael and Spock's mission to Section 31. Gant is far to peripheral a character to have been brought back for any reason other than to turn sides, and in any case, it's blindingly obvious from the outset that he's Control, who has now gone full SkyNet and can assimilate anyone to become a handy avatar. It leads to a decent bit of fisticuffs with some creepy and effective cybernetic visuals, but all in all this whole thread exists to set up a cliffhanger into the finale. And why has no one suggested blowing up Discovery already? One ship hardly seems like a bad price to pay for saving all organic life.

This one story thread aside, “Through the Valley of Shadows” is a very fine episode that earns an important place in Trek's ongoing story.

Observations:

• The version of Boreth we see here doesn't really mesh with the version we saw in TNG. There, the monks were, weirdly enough, experts in cloning, and used their science to recreate Kahless. Here, they're keepers of the knowledge of time travel. I do like the pseudo-mediaeval look of the monastery here, though, and that we're discovering more facets to Klingon culture that we'd never imagined before.
• This episode pretty much puts paid to the idea that Voq's son will become the Albino on DS9.
• The new D-7 ship is fantastic – a fine update on a classic design.
• Jet Reno was married, but her wife died in the Klingon war. Her wife was a Soyousian, a race we haven't heard of before.

TREK REVIEW: Discovery 2-3 - "Point of Light"

After an episode that proved Discovery can do classic Trek episodes in a modern style, episode three goes back to the elements that dominated season one, for better or worse. There's a lot going on in this episode, which pushes forward the Spock-centred arc, brings back the Klingons, develops Tilly's story and kicks off the Section 31 storyline. It's a busy set of stories to manage over fifty minutes, and this stops the episode getting slow or boring, but the episode doesn't ever really gel.

As with the season opener, Spock's absence acts like a black hole, deforming the story around it. Mia Kirshner appears as Amanda Grayson, Spock and Michael's mother, and she's great in the role now she's been given something a bit more interesting to do with it. Amanda's never been defined as anything more than Spock's mother and Sarek's wife, and while her character is still defined entirely in her relation to others, at least she gets to be spontaneous and proactive now. She's pretty badass here, actually, stealing Sarek's ship and Spock's medical data and going on an unauthorised voyage to meet Michael and Pike in the hopes of tracking her son down.

Still, long scenes of Michael and Amanda talking about Spock just draw attention to how much more interesting this would be if we finally got to see him. Supposedly he's gone mad and killed three doctors, something that everyone finds impossible to believe, although we've also seen Spock go mad with rage and nearly kill Kirk in the 2009 movie, which was written by showrunner Alex Kurtzman. So it's entirely possible that the mystery of the Red Angel – visions which have seemingly been driving Spock to distraction since his childhood, in perhaps the series' biggest retcon so far – really has made Spock violently unhinged. Or alternatively, it's all a big crock. But so far, all this talking about Spock just seems to be holding the story back; imagine if The Seach for Spock had taken two hours to get to Genesis and then Kirk discovered Spock had already left.

Michael and Amanda's respective relationships with Spock are laid out in detail, with both of them blaming themselves for his emotional problems, but it's all very hard to swallow. It mostly serves just to set them against each other, so that now it's Sarek who seems to be the most emotionally available person for Michael, which is a weird reversal. Michael is very much the central character still, with her relationships to both Tilly and Ash Tyler enabling their stories. Tilly has her own mysterious vision to contend with, a storyline that thankfully completes it run in this episode, because frankly, Bahia Watson's character May makes Tilly seem quiet and together. It's easy to believe that May's constant haunting would drive Tilly to distraction, and she's not exactly the most stable person to begin with. I'm a bit concerned about the state of mental healthcare in the 23^rd century; we saw some grim asylums in the original series and now we have both Spock and Tilly treated like freaks because they're dealing with mental health problems. May, as suspected, turns out to be a fungus from another dimension, and that this was the obvious explanation just shows how weird this show can get when it wants to be. It turns out Mushroom May wants to talk to Stamets, who she thinks is the captain, but he builds a contraption to Ghostbuster it out of her. The resulting hovering blob has a definite Slimer vibe to it, and presumably now it's in captivity Stamets will be trying to use it to get Hugh back.

On Kronos, Tyler is rocking a hipster beard and a man bun, proving early 21^st century shit fashion is still going strong in 240 years time. Meanwhile, L'Rell has had some work done. I'm really not sure about the re-redesign of the Klingons. I realise that a lot of fans didn't like the new look Klingons, but at least the designers were trying something different. I'd rather they just stuck with it, rather than going for this halfway house version. L'Rell's features are significantly softened, allowing a lot more of Mary Chieffo to come through, but otherwise the Klingons look more or less the same as before except with hair. I don't buy for a second the idea that they'd all shaved their hair off for wartime – the Klingons are pretty much always at war and have never gone bald en masse before – and while the addition of wigs and beards shows that without the baldness they're really not all that different to their TNG-style cousins, it still doesn't really work visually.

Frankly, I've always found Klingon politics among the more boring elements of Star Trek, and while it was mostly handled pretty well in season one of Disco, I could have lived without going back to Kronos for a Game of Throne-esque mix of infighting and soap opera. It's a nice touch casting Kenneth Mitchell as the father of his previous character Kol, but it's otherwise the same nonsense as before, just with, thankfully, less Klingonese with subtitles. It's understandable that most of the Council wouldn't trust L'Rell with a human by her side, after basically having been positioned as leader by Starfleet, and that they'd plot against her, but a secret baby contrived to exist just in time to act as a weakness to be exploited is lazy writing.

Still, hats off to some impressively gruesome moments here, not least L'Rell holding up the severed heads of her lover and son. There just aren't enough baby's heads in Star Trek usually. Of course, there's no chance for even a moment that they aren't faked – if Section 31 can't knock up a bit of baby's head in an afternoon, what are they for – but it's an effectively unpleasant way of furthering L'Rell's ascent to power.

Oh yes, Section 31. They're another element of Trek that I've grown rather sick of. They were extremely effective when introduced in Deep Space Nine, less so in the final episode of Enterprise and poorly utilised in Star Trek Into Darkness. Now they seem to be, not a covert operation existing on the fringes of Starfleet, but a recognisable black ops group with their own badges, ships and swooshy capes. I realise that Evil Georgiou is being set up for her own miniseries with Section 31, and while Michelle Yeoh has a very cool moment storming in to save L'Rell and Tyler for her own ends, I don't relish the prospect of a whole arc with this lot.

Observations: 

“Point of Light” refers to the system of Boreth, where Tyler takes his albino child at the end of the episode. Back in the TNG episode “Rightful Heir,” we learned that the first Klingon emperor Kahless pointed to the star Boreth and said his followers should look for him on “that point of light.” Centuries later, the most devout Klingons founded a monastery there.

Looking at old Klingon lore, a tenner says Tyler's still-nameless albino son grows up to become the Klingon villain the Albino, who still has a problem with Kol's House of Kor when he shows up in the DS9 episode “Blood Oath.” If they're the same character, by the time he reaches forty this kid is going to be a known criminal plaguing the Empire.

The novel Desperate Hours saw Michael and Spock meet a couple of years before this, and had much more realistic sibling rivalry as the source of their problems. This episode pretty much wipes it out of continuity though.

Cinematic Enterprise 3: Re - Genesis

THE FACTS:
STAR TREK III : THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK
Directed by Leonard Nimoy
Written by Harve Bennett
Released: 1st June 1984
Set: c.2285
Starships: USS Enterprise NCC-1701,
USS Grissom NCC-638, USS Excelsior NX-2000
Klingon Bird-of-Prey, Merchantman
Planets visited: Earth, Vulcan and Genesis

The third Trek movie formed the middle part of a linked trilogy that charted the lengths that Kirk and Spock would go for each other. While it's considered the weak link in the trilogy by some - suffering from the supposed curse of the odd numbers - to my mind it's a fine adventure with real heart.

The Wrath of Khan had been a hit with the fans and critics alike, and naturally Paramount wanted a sequel. The first and most important part was getting the stars back on board, and Leonard Nimoy's involvement was, well, paramount. Fortunately, Nimoy's feelings on Trek had been revitalised by the success of Khan, but there was one proviso: he wanted to direct the film. The previous director Nicholas Meyer had cut his ties with the franchise over disagreements concerning the scripts, so the position was open. Producer Harve Bennet began writing the script with Nimoy's input, crafting a story about the resurrection of Spock on the Genesis planet. The story would involve Kirk going to any lengths to retrieve Spock's renewed body, stealing the Enterprise from Starfleet in order to travel to the quarantined planet. In a more metaphysical element of the story, Spock's soul would be carried by McCoy, who had been melded with by Spock moments before his death (leading to some intense moments from DeForest Kelley as the addled McCoy).

Nimoy brought in Industrial Light and Magic much earlier on this film than previously, working closely with them during the storyboarding and design process. The result is a visual richness that surpasses Khan, but works in a very different way to the ethereal, hyperspace visuals of The Motion Picture. The result is a more lived-in, workspace kind of universe, a little bit Star Wars in its rough-edged realism. Roger Ebert called the film a compromise between the tones of the first and second, and that's exactly right. It feels more like a true follow-up to the TV series, and also looks forwards to the upcoming The Next Generation, only three years away at this point. While the uniforms are straight from Khan, we get to see the main characters in their casual, off duty wear, and they wear clothes that people might actually go outside in. I love the mix of the grimy, used alien ships and the shinier, more majestic Starfleet facilities, but even then, there's a realism to it. The Spacedock prop, which would turn up several times as different space stations in TNG, is filmed brilliantly, making it appear absolutely gigantic, the Enterprise a bug against it. Inside, starships are lined up, building on this tremendous sense of scale. Then McCoy goes to the bar on the Spacedock, a seedy joint not that far from the Mos Eisley Cantina, with bizarre alien patrons, and tries to charter a ship off a shrill, big-eared extraterrestrial who looks almost like a prototype Ferengi.

Even the Enterprise is looking a bit worn out by this stage, overshadowed by the newer, sleeker USS Excelsior, designed as a plausible design evolution from the familiar ship. The Excelsior prop would become the mainstay of Starfleet, appearing again and again in TNG and even DS9, an old workhorse of the 24th century - part of the old guard, but not that old. Then there are the alien ships: the battered kitbash Merchantman, with its mixed crew of humans and a sexy female Klingon captain; and of course, the Klingon Bird-of-Prey. While this is another new ship, it's Klingon through-and-through (in spite of early scripts having it a stolen Romulan vessel, hence the name). It looks like it was made old, a functional and threatening beast of a ship. While again, its reuse throughout TNG and DS9 was partly due to having a well-made prop that could be reused, it's such a perfect ship for the Klingons that it becomes iconic in short order.

The Klingons themselves are designed better here than in The Motion Picture, refined from their brief appearance there since they need to function as actual characters, rather than V'Ger fodder. Early plans were for the Romulans to be the primary antagonists, but Nimoy wanted the Klingons, who he felt were more theatrical (the studio was in agreement, considering them a better selling point). His casting of Christopher Lloyd makes that plain. Lloyd, a year away from Back to the Future, is brilliant here, hammy as anything but genuinely threatening. Commander Kruge is just an absolute bastard, through and through. His obsession with controlling the secret of Genesis is a feasible goal; he's not wrong when he states that it's the greatest weapon ever created. (I assume Starfleet thoroughly buried the technology after this, for the sake of keeping the peace.) The Genesis planet itself is at once both wondrous and hellish, with wormlike bacteria creatures that try to eat the Klingons (Kruge kills one straight away, just to show how hard he is).

The Search for Spock reinforces the status of the Enterprise crew as a family, in spite, or indeed because, of Spock's effective absence for much of the runtime. Sulu was given command of the Excelsior in early drafts, an element that would be held back until the sixth film. In the event, Sulu, Chekov, Uhura and Scotty all help Kirk and McCoy pinch the Enterprise. The film continues on from Khan with the inclusion of David Marcus and Saavik, working together to explore Genesis as part of the USS Grissom crew. There are hints of romance there between them, but this plotline never really gets anywhere. The link back to the previous film is weakened somewhat by the recasting of Saavik; with Kirstie Alley declining to return, Robin Curtis took on the role, giving a little more humanity to the character. The inclusion of Mark Lenard as Sarek linked the film back to the original series, and cemented the family theme; Spock's father and Kirk's son are both major parts of the film.

There was a real risk, when developing this film, that bringing Spock back would invalidate his sacrifice in Khan's climax. Retrieving Spock would have to come at a price. The cost of Kirk regaining his friend would be the loss of son - killed by the Klingons in a moment of pure cruelty - and the Enterprise itself. The ship is as much a character as any of the actual cast, and while destroying the Enterprise is par for the course in Trek films now (happening again in Generations, Into Darkness and Beyond) back in 1984 it must have packed on hell of a punch. I can't imagine many viewers were that upset by Merritt Buttrick getting stabbed up, but I bet a few fans cried when the Enterprise was destroyed. Beyond that, Spock, when Nimoy finally appears in the closing scenes on Vulcan, is not the man he was.

Some fans tend to skip The Search for Spock, but it's an essential part of the ongoing story of Star Trek and a film with a lot to offer.

CAPTAIN'S BLOG: DIS 1-14/1-15 & REVIEW

1-14) "The War Within, the War Without"
&
1-15) "Will You Take My Hand?"

Date: 2257, nine months since Discovery vanished into the Mirror Universe.

The Mission: Save the Federation from the Klingon hordes by blowing up their homeworld. How utopian.

Planets visited: 

Kronos: The Klingon homeworld is comprised of a network of huge volcanic caverns, "a planet of cave." Rather implausibly, some of these caverns are big enough to hide a starship in. The dense, green upper atmosphere prevents long-range scans of the surface. There's an area of the planet that has been given to the Orions as a sort of embassy, but it's more of a downtown slum for offworlders, built on top of ancient shrines to the tyrant Molor, which access the volcanic channels beneath the surface. Humans can pass there, although it doesn't go unremarked upon. Food available on the streets includes barbecued Ceti eels and gormangander flesh. The currency on the planet is the darsek.

Delta 2: A desolate, uninhabited class-4 moon in the Veda system. The Disco crew terraform it (very rapidly) using mycelial spores, to help power their spore drive.

Earth: Spacedock is currently in construction in orbit. The Federation president is based in Paris (as in the 24th century). A ragtag Klingon fleet is headed to Earth with conquest or extermination on its agenda.

Future History: No human has visited Kronos since Archer and the Enterprise NX-01 "almost a hundred years ago." (ENT: "Broken Bow" was actually 106 years earlier, so either this is a small inaccuracy or Archer took his ship there again during the Romulan War period).

In the time since Discovery went missing, the Klingons have conquered 20% of Federation space. They wiped out Kelfor 6 by igniting its atmosphere, destroyed Starbases 9 and 12 and the USS Saratoga and then took out a third of the fleet. Planets they've attacked include Nervala, Septra and Iridon, all of which were decimated.

All knowledge of the Mirror Universe is classified, on pain of charges of treason. This explains why Kirk didn't know anything about before being zapped there ten years later. (Obviously it is declassified some time between then and Deep Space Nine over a century later.) The idea of a parallel universe where those lost in the war might still survive is considered too dangerous to allow to spread. (It probably wouldn't be good for Federation unity if the existence of a dominating human empire got out, either.)

Taking the Michael: She's good at giving speeches. She can think of several reasons to rationalise saving the Emperor, but admits that she just couldn't watch Georgiou die again. Understandably, she finds it hard to see Tyler again after he tried to kill her. Possibly she distrusts him because, in Tyler's words, "Klingons killed (her) parents and then (she) fell in love with one," but really, it's hard to see how she could trust him after that. In time, she learns to see him for who he is and comes to terms with what's happened between them. She's still reclaiming her life after the Battle of the Binary Stars and can't handle even more heartache. She's still guilty for making her parents stay at Doctari Alpha to see a supernova, and the details of what the Klingons did to them are pretty horrific. The sound of Klingons laughing takes her right back there and she has to get out. However, seeing people just living their lives on Kronos stops her hating the Klingons. She gives the bomb to L'Rell to prevent a genocide and give the Klingons another way to end the war. For ending the war without compromising Federation ideals, she receives a pardon from the president and regains her rank of commander.

Space Cow: He's acting captain of the Discovery in the absence of a more senior officer. He's not happy about Burnham lying to him about the presence of Kelpiens in the Mirror Universe, but he gets that she didn't want to upset him by telling him that Terrans like to eat his people. He has regained his respect of Burnham. He recognises that Tyler is not Voq and allows him to walk free. He's got the balls to square up to Georgiou when she's practically threatening to kill and eat him. He's the first Kelpien to receive the Starfleet Medal of Honour.

Half Man, Half Klingon: Tyler is now fully Tyler after some emergency neurological surgery, but he still remembers being Voq and everything from his life, which comes in handy. In all respects, he gets off pretty lightly after his actions as Voq/Tyler, and is accepted back by most of the crew very quickly. He is obviously an asset on the Klingon homeworld, being able to speak Klingon (which the natives find funny) and hold his own in a game called "Obliterate Them." He says that Burnham's love saved his life, and says that he chose humanity over the Klingons because they can feel compassion and sympathy for their enemies. Once they've completed the mission he leaves with L'Rell to bridge the gap between the Federation and the Empire.

Vulcan Dad: Worryingly ready to advocate Klingon genocide. On the other hand, he thinks no one should regret loving someone, which is about as soppy and sentimental as a Vulcan gets.He also says he never gets tired of seeing his home planet.

Starfleet's Best? Cornwell takes the Discovery, flanked by Andorian and Tellarite guards, expecting some kind of Klingon trap. She takes command immediately and is quick to agree to take the fight to the Klingons. She interrogates L'Rell and comes away with the conclusion that the only way forward is to take the Klingons out, to the point where she advocates genocide. She's also severely pissed at Lorca's true identity. She's also pretty damned stupid if she thinks she can trust Georgiou to do anything she says.

We love Tilly: Breaks the ice by going to eat with Tyler, which helps other crewmen come round. She helps Burnham come to terms with things and go speak to Tyler. She wasn't expecting a wartime career, and considers her Mirror self's actions pretty horrifying, which makes her all the more determined to do right by people in this universe. She's starstruck by Georgiou until she realises she's the evil version. On Kronos she's able to play the hardass part pretty well until she's too out of her element, and gets high on volcanic fumes. After the success of the mission, she is accepted into teh command programme. She's never been to Vulcan before.

Captain Killy: Tilly's evil Mirror counterpart subjugated the Betazoids and wiped out the people of Mintaka III (q.v. TNG: "Who Watches the Watchers") which is pretty harsh, considering they only have hoes to defend themselves with.

Spores, Molds and Fungi: Unsurprisingly, Stamets is coldly furious when he meets Tyler. When he asks if the guilt of Culber's murder is tearing him up, he is pleased, saying "Maybe you're still human after all." He can navigate the spore drive so well by now that he can easily tell the difference between solid rock and a cave just from the feel of it and can jump the ship right into a cavern.

Evil Philippa: Spends a fair bit of time bitching with Sarek over whose version of Burnham is best. After initially demanding to go back to her own universe, she takes her place as captain of Discovery, pretending to be MIA Captain Georgiou who isn't dead at all, honest, no siree. She is completely incapable of pretending to be a balanced Federation captain, gets angry when Detmer calls Kronos the Klingon homeworld (because animals apparently don't have homes) and looks about ready to stab anyone who questions her. She beats the crap out of a bound L'Rell, mostly just for the fun of it. She was born and raised on Pulau Langkawi in Malaysia (Michelle Yeoh is from Ipoh, inland and further south, but Ipoh's a bit of a dump to be frank). Burnham lets her go, and she is later approached by Section 31 (in an extra scene).

Alien Life Forms: 

Klingons: Yes, it's true: Klingons have two dicks. They also have higher muscular density and mitochondrial activity than humans. The Species Reassignment Protocol that was tested on Voq involved flaying his skin, cracking his bones, cutting up his heart and sanding down his fingertips, all while conscious, because Klingons. (So Arne Darvin is much harder than we ever thought.)

L'Rell admires human courage after her interactions with Cornwell and the Discovery crew but is still fully in support of a powerful unified Klingon Empire. She is saddened by the fact that the Houses have broken apart again. She uses the threat of the hydrobomb to blackmail the Houses to reunifying the Empire, leaving her as ruler and potentially having huge consequences down the line.

In the Mirror Universe, Kronos was annihilated by Starfleet and the Klingons reduced to scattered exclaves.

Orions: A whole bunch of them live in the "embassy" area on Kronos, doing the usual Orion criminal activities. Some of them are surprisingly up on ancient Klingon cults and their stomping grounds. Refreshingly, after the big redesign of the Klingons and the lesser redesigns of the Andorians and Tellarites, the Orions are portrayed by people painted green. More of a pale fern green than the usual bold leaf green.

Trill: There are Trills in the Orion town on Kronos (although at least one of them is a fake).

Starships and Space Stations: 

USS Discovery NCC-1031: The first thing the crew do when back in the Prime Universe, even before starting repairs, is repaint the ship to Federation standards. The ship swapped places with its Mirror equivalent, which was destroyed by Klingons almost immediately. The Discovery's cloak-breaking algorithm is distributed to the fleet as soon as Cornwell takes command but it's probably too late to make a difference.

USS Enterprise NCC-1701: Shows up at the end of the final episode, transmitting a distress signal and under the command of Captain Pike. It looks rather different to how we remember it - still the same general shape, but redesigned to fit in with Star Trek: Discovery's aesthetic. I actually really like it.

Starbase 1: In Earth's backyard, Starbase 1 is home to dozens of starships and thousands of Federation personnel. Now it boasts only a few hundred Klingon life signs, and has been tagged by House D'Kor.

Future Treknology: The drone carries a hydrobomb which causes an enormous buildup of steam when dropped into the volcanic network, which will explode out through the crust of the planet annihilating the atmosphere and rendering it uninhabitable. Lorca collected some Nausicaan disruptors which the away team use to start a trade with the Orions.

Trek Stars: Clint Howard, who plays the creepy old Orion bastard in the final episode, has the distinction of being the actor with the longest Star Trek career. His initial appearance, as creepy young child-alien Balok in TOS: "The Corbomite Maneuver" was in 1966, a whole 51 years before this episode. Howard also appeared as a human in 1995 (DS9: "Past Tense"), and a Ferengi in 2002 (ENT: "Acquisition").

Sexy Trek: Like all evil parallel universe women, Emperor Georgiou is bisexual, and gets it on with a pair of Orion prostitutes. There's a lot more skin on display than we're used to in Trek, most of it green. Did I mention that Klingons have two dicks? No wonder Worf was so popular with the ladies.

Space bilge: Starbase 1 is 100 AU from Earth and is now under Klingon control. This would put the Starbase at the fringes of our solar system - this should mean the Earth is under imminent threat from the Klingons, rather than being treated as a distant outpost. It's also shown as being in orbit of a class-M planet, and there's definitely nothing of the sort that close to Earth. The Starbase is also described as being over a light year away from the Discovery, which makes it extremely close in starship terms and by no means a chore to warp to.

L'Rell is very easily able to convince the Klingon Houses that she can destroy the planet with what appears to be a generic remote control and no way to back up her claim that it's linked to a massive bomb.

Quote, Unquote: "Logic dictates that each farewell may be our last." True of all times, not just war.

The Review: A very satisfying end to an uneven but exciting first season. The first half drags a little but gives way to a second part that ups the ante, although it does end rather quickly and neatly. It's entirely reasonable to see the Federation's leaders get desperate enough to resort to genocide against the Klingons - they are potentially facing the same themselves - but it's also tremendously disappointing. Thankfully, the script doesn't for one moment side with this idea and makes it clear that there has to be another way. Burnham has developed into a more comfortable, more confident character, back to the self-assurance she had in the opening episodes. Rather than a complete reversal of her decision to square up to the Klingons there, her decision to use the bomb to force the Houses' to end the war is using the Klingon ethos of "might is right" in a mindful way. (Albeit via L'Rell, which could come back to bite her.) It's also wonderful that, after the script going out of its way to remind us just how bloody awful the Klingons are in this series, Burnham manages to look past her experiences and recognise that most of the Klingons are just people living their lives. It's even better that she sees this after spending an evening surrounded by crims and gamblers, instead of the best of society.

Tyler's story comes to a satisfying conclusion, although it will still be fascinating to see how he develops in the coming season. Saru and Culber get good moments but are a little overlooked, yet it's hard to complain when we get so much quality Tilly time.

The appearance of the Enterprise at the end was an obvious way to round out the series, but what else could they do? It was inevitable, but it was nicely staged and personally I love the redesigned version of the iconic ship, certainly more than the recent movie version. Ending the episode on the classic theme was a nice touch as well. On the other hand, it's becoming increasingly hard to reconcile this wartorn 23rd century with the timeline we know. I'm intrigued to see how the events here develop in the second season.

TREK REVIEW: Discovery 1-11 - "The Wolf Inside"

CAUTION! DETECTING SPOILERS

OK, Discovery fans, you owe me a tenner.

Not for realising Ash Tyler is actually Voq - it would have been more interesting if he hadn't been, and last week's episode all but confirmed it anyway - but for pegging Georgiou as the Emperor. She was the odds-on favourite there, with Harry Mudd at 10/1 and Sarek at 33/1, but still, I claim my kudos. Anyone else would have been a let-down, though. It had to be Michelle Yeoh back for an encore.

This was a fun, silly episode, disguised behind some grimdark events and soul searching for its characters. The Mirror Universe is an intrinsically silly concept that makes very little sense if you analyse it at all. Why do the same people end up on the same ships living such similar lives in spite of human history being so very different for the last two hundred years? Why do the same people meet, across light years, in both realities? It's absurd, so it's best to just sit back and enjoy the silliness. (This silliness was enhanced by last night's episode of Lost in Space on the Horror Channel, which saw the characters visit their own mirror universe, inhabited by their antimatter counterparts. I was very disappointed that John Robinson's alter ego wasn't called Ron Jobinson.)

There were three main strands to this episode: Burnham's depressing roleplay in Mirror Starfleet; Tilly's attempt to save Stamets; and Tyler's inevitable reversion to his true nature. All three strands were woven together cleverly, so although the episode felt a bit like the necessary middle-of-the-trilogy installment, the overall story moved on in satisfying ways. Credit goes to the writers and to Martin-Green for making Burnham's struggle so immediate and painful. As captain of the ISS Shenzhou she is at once in a position of considerable power and utterly powerless, having to go along with the execution of prisoners guilty of "malicious thought" and watch her own captain be tortured. Even in her own cabin she gets little chance to be herself, since she is doted on by her slave, the Mirror Saru. (Burnham says that she has seen no Kelpiens onboard, out of respect for Saru, and frankly, having no Kelpiens on that ship of horrors would be the best result for him. I doubt they did well under the Empire.)

Burnham tries to help the rebels on Harlak, a ragtag group of Klingons, Andorians and Tellarites that are the closest thing this universe has to a Federation. Another thing I called right - that Mirror Voq is the leader of the rebels - although there's no only so much satisfaction to be gained from guessing the bleeding obvious and shouting "I could have written this." So happy to have some recognisable alien races in Discovery, even if they are the Mirror Universe versions. Like the Klingons, they've been revamped for the new era, with new make-up designs. The Andorians are a fair development from how they looked on Enterprise, with more built-up faces, and their eyebrows (long since an optional accessory) replaced with mini-antennae. I wasn't so keen on the Tellarites initially, considering them a bit too much of a departure from the older styles, but again, they're actually not that different from the Enterprise versions and the warthog tusks are pretty cool. There's a bit of an issue with the modulation of alien voices, which makes them difficult to understand. At least when they're choking on Klingonese we get subtitles. Nonetheless, I was still unreasonably excited to see Andorians.

It was also inevitable that we'd see Mirror Sarek, rocking a goatee beard, which much be about the only thing he has in common with his son in this universe. You thought Prime Sarek had a problem with Spock joining Starfleet, imagine how the Rebel Prophet feels about it? Sarek's there primarily to give Burnham the green light so that she can chat with Voq and the rebels, and that's only permitted so that Tyler-Voq can lose his shit when he sees his alternative self and screw everything up. The fact that we've basically had the reveal of Voq last week could undermine this strand, but seeing Tyler and Burnham get together properly when we already know he's a Klingon spy makes it all the more chilling. 

There's some very sloppy writing in here, though. Do none of the Mirror crew think it's even slightly odd that Tyler starts barking in Klingon and that this doesn't require some further questioning? Why does the crew of the Discovery assume that Stamets killed Culper, when he's been catatonic for so long? Don't they have CCTV on this incredibly advanced starship? Stamets's fake-out death is also pretty cheap and underwhelming, although it's saved somewhat by his strange mushroom-fuelled vision in which he meets himself (or is it his Mirror self?)

It'll be fun to see where the Mirror Universe sage goes next, although I hope it isn't dragged out for the whole remainder of the season. I'm also intrigued as to how much they're planning to tie this into Enterprise (will Georgiou turn out to be Hoshi Sato's descendant, as some fans have suggested? The last we saw of the Mirror Universe had her setting herself up as Empress) and how it will fit in with the Mirror Universe's "first" crossover in the original series.

TREK REVIEW: Discovery 1-10 - "Despite Yourself"

Star Trek: Discovery returns from its mid-season break to begin chapter two, which looks set to be the saga of the Mirror Universe. It's a bit of a wrench sideways for a series that has so far been almost wholly concerned with the war with the Klingons. The big revelation that the ship has been stranded in the Mirror Universe is actually no surprise whatsoever - it was pretty well signposted that they'd travelled between universes and there have been several hints along the way - but it's still exciting to back in Star Trek's favourite parallel continuum.

The Mirror Universe is an extended joke that can wear thin quickly, but for now, this is tremendous fun. We've just about gotten to know the characters well enough to make hearing about their nasty parallel counterparts fascinating. One fan theory has held that Lorca is actually from the Mirror Universe anyway, but unless he's a very good actor he's just as shocked to be in another universe as the rest of the bridge crew. It'll be interesting to explore whether Mirror Lorca is truly a freedom fighter or whether he wants to take the Empire for himself.

I'm not so enamoured with Burnham this episode, impressive though she is in the combat scenes, but that's mainly due to the other characters getting the bulk of the quality scenes. Anthony Rapp manages to continue to impress as Stamets, even though he spends much of the episode unconscious and/or delirious. It's going to be a very upsetting scene when he fully regains consciousness and discovers his partner Culber has paid the price of trusting Tyler. That was a genuine shock, as even though Culber was never the most significant character and potentially a bit disposable, he was so inoffensive that it was a surprise to see him bite it so suddenly.

So, the big mystery of Ash Tyler turns out to be... exactly what we thought it was. Although L'Rell never comes out and says, "Yeah, your name's Voq and you're an undercover Klingon agent," it's basically been confirmed. In a way, I think it's a pity, since it's the most obvious explanation, and also lessens the impact of Tyler's PTSD storyline. A major storyline dealing with wartime abuse is to be praised, and to reveal it's all warped/implanted memories cheapens that. Nonetheless, Shazad Latif is absolutely excellent throughout the episode, really selling the anguish and confusion of Voq/Tyler.

The episode really belongs to Mary Wiseman as Tilly, though. It's a massive, and questionable, cliche, that evil fascistic women must be sexified, but wow, Tilly in this episode! The most likeable character in the series gets to play against type as the evil "Captain Killy," the most vicious woman to ever fight her way to the captaincy of a ship. The idea that the crew could redecorate the entire ship, repaint the hull, recarpet the bloody place and synthesise new uniforms in about a day is pretty hard-to-swallow, but when worth it when it allows us the entertainment value of Tilly ad-libbing her way out of a confrontation with an imperial starship.

Just tons of continuity in this episode, from the Shenzou turning up as an imperial ship,to the Organian System, to the references to the Enterprise two-parter "In a Mirror, Darkly," and the fate of the starship Defiant. It sits on just the right side of intense fanwank, and adds something to the episode. It's a real fan-pleaser.

I think I'll carry on reviewing episodes until the season ends, if only to track how the series develops and how wide off the mark I am in my predictions. The new mystery is the identity of the "faceless emperor." Almost undoubtedly this is the Mirror Universe version of a character we already know. The smart money's on Georgiou, what with Michelle Yeoh being the biggest star in Discovery's arsenal and still involved heavily in the promo circuit - plus Burnham being a favourite of the emperor. 10-1 it's Harry Mudd, though. That would be a laugh.

CAPTAIN'S BLOG DIS 1-1 & 1-2 & REVIEW

I was originally going to wait until more episodes had been released before reviewing or analysing Discovery, but people are asking me my opinions and every fan on the internet is throwing in theirs. So here it is. A Captain's Blog going through the minutiae followed by my review of the opening two-parter. SPOILERS abound here, so I'd suggest not reading any further if you haven't yet watched the episodes.

DIS 1-1) The Vulcan Hello
and
DIS 1-2) Battle at the Binary Stars

Date: May 11th, 2256. Stardate 1207.3

The Mission: Fix water supply on Crepusculan homeworld; Investigate damage to interstellar relay in a binary system at the edge of Federation space.

Planets visited: The Crepusculan homeworld, a planet sporting a desert region. The wells have dried up following irradiation after a meteoroid mining accident.

Future History: It's ten years before the first season of The Original Series, and a touch over a hundred years since the end of Enterprise.

There has been no formal contact with the Klingon Empire in a century, which is compatible with Enterprise (the novels push this back by a few years, but it still fits with a bit of rounding off). There have been occasional skirmishes and raids, however, including an attack on Doctari Alpha in the 2240s. Dialogue from TOS 3-11 "Day of the Dove" suggests first contact between the Federation and the Empire occurred around 2218, although the Enterprise pilot "Broken Bow" has already brought that forward to 2151 (strictly speaking human, rather than Federation, contact). Possibly the 2218 contact represented a brief but disastrous renewal of contact between the powers.

T'Kuvma refers to the Battle of Donatu V, a major skirmish between Starfleet and Klingon forces that has been references several times in

First contact between the Vulcans and Klingons occurred at H'atoria around 240 years prior to the episode (i.e. in 2016, when the episode was in pre-production). The Klingons immediately fired on the Vulcan ship, and from then on, the Vulcans fired first at all encounters, gradually earning the warrior people's respect. H'atoria will later be the site of a Klingon colony (in at least one possible future, Worf will be its governor).

Taking the Michael: Lt. Cmdr Michael Burnham was orphaned when the Klingons killed her parents at Doctari Alpha, and unsurprisingly has a grudge against the Empire. She was raised by Sarek and is the first Vulcan to attend the Vulcan Learning Centre and the Vulcan Science Academy. When she joins the Shenzhou she's initially logical (and aloof) like a Vulcan. After seven years among humans, she's more openly emotional, although still restrained unless under pressure. She maintains that emotion informs her logic, and still goes to Sarek for advice. She's a xenoanthropologist, and thinks she can ingratiate herself with a very alien culture. She can even perform the Vulcan nerve pinch, although not particularly well - Georgiou's up and about again a few moments later.

She's generally optimistic, until she encounters Klingons. She remains absolutely convinced that firing on the Klingons first is the only way to gain their respect, even when overruled by her captain. She's on the path to her own command, before mutinying against the captain in a desperate attempt to avert a war. This gets her a court martial and life imprisonment (and they still insist Starfleet isn't a military organisation).

Captain Cut Short: Captain Philippa Georgiou is an Asian woman who captains the starship Shenzhou. (Michelle Yeoh keeps her natural Malaysian accent which is a nice touch among the usually Americanised Federation.) She's very cool in a crisis but has a strong sense of humour, not without a little sarcasm. She sticks firmly to Starfleet's "we do not shoot first" ethos. When talking to Burnham about what she'd do if they got stuck on a planet for 89 years, she simply says, "I'd escape." She managed to grab her ship's attention by making a huge Starfleet emblem in the sand with her footprints. She'd actually really Doctorish in the planet scenes.

Space Cow: Lt. Saru is the only Kelpien in Starfleet. He's timid, sees malicious intent everywhere, but will stand up for himself when he sees it as necessary for his, or the crew's, safety. Little fronds poke out of his head when he's scared. It's hard to hear Doug Jones play Saru without thinking of Abe Sapien, except for one or two occasions when he sounds like Kryten from Red Dwarf.

Vulcan Dad: Sarek takes the young Michael under his wing and raises her like a daughter. Yes, I know it seems odd that Spock never mentioned having an adopted human sister, but then, it took him twenty years to tell his best friends that he had a half-brother, and he didn't do that until the guy had turned up and stolen the Enterprise. Vulcans are not exactly forthcoming about these things. Sarek is still an unforgiving dick to humans when they're emotional.

Angry Space Villain: T'Kuvma leads a shamed Klingon house aboard a gigantic flagship, originally his fathers and then abandoned for years. He sees himself as a modern Kahless, "T'Kuvma the Unforgettable." T'Kuvma wants to unite the Empire against the Federation. He hates their claim that they "Come in peace," calling it "their lie." He has no problem with outcasts like Voq (so, even if he is a warmongering maniac, he's got less of a problem with skintone than several fans). He was shunned and beaten as a child due to his house's ostracising, so has more time for outcasts than other Klingons and says that his "house is open to all." On the other hand, he's obsessed with the purity of the Klingon Empire, hating the mixing of races that the Federation encourages. He's not particularly honorable, attacking the Starfleet flagship after accepting a ceasefire. Burnham is concerned that killing him will make him a martyr and rally the houses to his cause. Then she goes and kills him and proves herself right.

Redshirt: Crewman Connor is one unlucky guy. He gets burnt and concussed on the bridge, gets lost on the way to sickbay and then sucked out into space when the Klingons blast a hole in the hull.

Stellar Cartography: The binary star system is located three light years from the outpost at Eagle-12, and six light years from the Andorian colony at Gamma Hydrae. The USS Enterprise later visits Gamma Hydrae in TOS 2-11 "The Deadly Years," which also places it near the Romulan neutral zone. The radiation in the system's rings can cause humanoid DNA to "unspool like noodles."

Alien life forms:

Klingons: They look a bit different to how they used to. These guys are like Klingon-plus, with pronounced brow ridges that extend back over their elongated skulls, completely visible because they are all bald. They display broad lips and noses and jagged teeth. Their ears are pointed and flat against their skulls, their fingers end in claws. Were it not for the baldness, they wouldn't actually look too different to the TNG-era Klingons, but rather more exaggerated. They speak Klingon amongst themselves, naturally. Their blood is pinkish-purple, not unlike in The Undiscovered Country. Their skin tones range from brown to grey to a bluish tint, except for Voq, who is an albino (but not the Albino).

There are twenty-four Klingon houses, which have been at each other's throats for the last hundred years. They each send one battleship to the binary system. The Klingons mourn their dead by roaring into the afterlife, and unusually, T'Kuvma's caste keep the bodies of their honoured dead in ornate coffins. (Klingons generally don't place much value on a body once it's dead.) T'Kuvma's house wear extremely elaborate, pretty impractical armour.

Vulcans: Remain as logical as ever. They maintain joint research projects with humans. They teach their children in hemispherical lecture pods, just like in the 2009 Star Trek movie. They can be very aggressive to other species when considering it a logical response (the Vulcans were going through an expansionist phase during the pre-Enterprise era, in any case, so their violent policy with the Klingons isn't that surprising). A Vulcan mind meld can links katra and allow telepathic communication over interstellar distances, although it is physically draining.

Kelpiens: Humanoid but with digitigrade feet, broadly spaced nostrils and thick, ridged skin, Lt. Saru's people evolved as a prey species. They have evolved a refined sense of impending death and danger, but this does make them predisposed to be overly cautious.

Crepusculans: Non-humanoid life forms, sort of insectoid-reptilians with six limbs and mandibles. They were clothes and are sophisticated to build wells. They have apparently been on their homeworld for a thousand years. Assuming this doesn't mean refer just to this area of the planet, they must have been brought their by someone else, because they're strictly protected by General Order One.

Others: The Shenzhou bridge crew includes a turquoise skinned humanoid with a skin pattern or tattoo on his face, and a partly mechanical crewmember who flashes up red alert signs on its face panels!

Starships:

USS Shenzou NCC-1227: A Walker-class ship. It's an old ship by the time Burnham joins in 2249 (to compare, the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 is already four years old at this point). The class looks like a clear development of the Enterprise NX-01 and the USS Franklin NX-326 style ships. It's capable of landing on a planet's surface, which is probably rather early considering that Voyager was the first time we saw this, although I don't think it was ever said that was a new development in dialogue. The Shenzhou is named for the 20th & 21st century Chinese spacecraft programme. The ship is virtually destroyed and left for dead in the binary system.

USS Europa NCC-1648: Admiral Anderson's flagship. Destroyed when rammed by a cloaked Klingon ship before committing self-destruct.

Other Starfleet ships that join the battle include the USS Shran (named for the Andorian captain from Enterprise?), the USS T'Plana-Hath (sharing its name for the Vulcan ship that made first contact with Earth in Star Trek: First Contact), the USS Clarke, the USS Yeager, the USS Kerala, the USS Edison, the USS Earhart and the USS Sue.

Klingon ships: The Klingons maintain a "sacred beacon" which takes the form of a huge, ornate object, carved in stone and metal, hanging in orbit around the binary star. T'Kuvma's ship is huge, bristling with weapons, and is studded with sarcophagi containing the bodies of fallen warriors dating back centuries.

Future Treknology: The Klingons have cloaking technology, which is a bit early, although it does come as a surprise to Starfleet. T'Kuvma apparently invented it.

The Shenzhou has outdated "lateral vector transporters," which use huge dishes situated behind the transportee, and use a lot of power. They're outdated way before the episode takes place. (We never saw anything like that in Enterprise, so they must have come in afterwards, then been superseded. The Rise of the Federation novels suggest early transporters caused genetic damage through long term use; perhaps this development was an initial method to overcome the pattern errors?)

Instead of vidscreens and viewers, people speak to each other across light years using holographic projections. The Klingon ones look particularly Star Wars-y.

Sexy Trek: Sonequa Martin-Green is absolutely stunning.

Space Bilge: The Starfleet emblem as visual beacon looks very cool, but how did they see it through the heavy cloud layer? How are the two commanding officers, two very fit and well-trained women who are nonetheless quite small humans, able to fight off two massive Klingon warriors who have trained their whole life for battle? OK, Georgiou doesn't last but she still holds her own for a long while. Why does Burnham, who so resolutely sticks to her logical choice even if it means mutiny, change her mind so easily about everything else? And why do Starfleet hold their tribunals in the dark?

The Review: I enjoyed this opening two-parter greatly, although it's not without its frustrations. This is a very different take on Star Trek than we've had before, although clearly inspired by earlier iterations of a franchise that has changed a great deal over the last fifty-one years. I'm not quite sure how it will develop as a series, and that's actually a great place to be. The last thing I want is something safe and predictable. This opener is cinematic, exciting and visually stunning. The binary star system is astonishing to look at - this looks like a huge science fiction movie, not a regular TV series. Burnham's spacesuited mission through the debris ring is obviously influenced by the skydiving sequence in the 2009 movie and the infiltration of the Vengeance in Star Trek Into Darkness, but is portrayed as something of wonder, rather than a death-defying stunt. Still, there's a real sense that space, though wondrous, is a dangerous place to be, with Michael left scarred by radiation that will be fatal if she doesn't sit through immediate treatment.

Burnham is, for the most part, a great character. She has real horror in her past that she tries, not always successfully, to rise above. Her escape from the brig by logically talking the computer round to agreeing to releasing is a brilliant character moment for someone who is both human and Vulcan. She puts her convictions above her commitment to Starfleet principles. Sonequa Martin-Green's performance is excellent, she's a charismatic and interesting lead. It's just a shame that, in many ways, her character is so inconsistently written. She sticks to her convictions when it comes to firing first but changes her mind easily when it comes to everything else.

Both Michelle Yeoh and Doug Jones are excellent secondary leads, making a wonderful trio that has hints of the old Kirk-Spock-McCoy relationship without being a slavish recreation, like Archer-T'Pol-Trip often was. Burnham is the logical voice in most respects, but also the more aggressive, with Saru being the cautious McCoy-like one, and Georgiou being the noble commander in the centre. There's an interesting backstory being hinted at for both Saru and Georgiou; unfortunately, we don't get to learn about the Captain's past before she's killed off. Although this is being billed as a prelude to the main series, there's a lot of time invested in establishing a relationship that is then cut short. There's also some very clunky expositionary dialogue early on that I really hoped we'd heard the last of by now.

Trailers for the upcoming episode suggest that Starfleet blame Burnham for starting the war, and Georgiou certainly does, but it's hard to see why that's the case. Yes, she killed the Torchbearer on the Beacon, but that was in self-defense and she had no way of knowing he would be there. Her insistence on shooting first looks like it would have been the right choice - Georgiou's "We come in peace" hail is what triggers T'Kuvma into opening fire - although it's hard to see how the outcome would have been different if the Shenzhou had fired first, as the Klingons were there for a fight regardless. In any case, blaming the war on Burnham's mutiny makes no sense as she was stopped before she could put her plans into action, and so her decision made no material difference to what happened.

I have no problem with the changes to the Klingons, the retroactive changes to the series' history, or the mixed bag visuals for this version of Starfleet. If it works for the story and it looks effective, that's fine. I'm happy to accept a revisionist 23rd century - it's not as if the Original Series was consistent in its own backstory - although, given the clear influence of the new films, I wonder why the producers and writers didn't simply set it in the new cinema timeline, thereby freeing themselves up a good deal more. It's hard to see exactly who this series is aimed at. It's quite right that they shouldn't slavishly stick to established canon or try to appeal solely to hardcore fans. On the other hand, one surefire way of alienating new and casual viewers is starting with five minutes of guys in latex, speaking Klingon with subtitles. Surely you'd want to hook viewers with amazing visuals first, and only later bring in the high geekery?

I'm very interested to see where this series will go. There's an interesting clash on display between the peaceful explorers that Starfleet claim to be, and the military organisation that they look, sound and act like. If the series explores this dichotomy, it could be very interesting indeed. I'm certainly looking forward to seeing more of Michael Burnham and seeing how her character develops as the series goes on.