Here be SPOILERS for Star Trek: Discovery series 1 episode 12!
I cannot go into a new Disco episode without commenting on where we are right now and how we got here, so here we are with another rambling confessional. This will be fuelled by my ongoing and irrepressible joy at having some form of Star Trek - NEW Star Trek, not a repeat - on telly again.
First of all, I’m so happy my theory about Lieutenant Ash Tyler has been proved right. I always suspected he was a spy, but the moment he confronted L’Rell and asked ‘what did you do to me?’ I suddenly thought HE’S A KLINGON AND HE DOESN’T EVEN KNOW. I have to say, learning the whole truth of how L’Rell and Voq engineered this was great, but I get the feeling it was L’Rell who thought it up and promised she’d see it through. After all, she wasn’t the one who had to go through with it, Voq was. Smart woman, that L’Rell. I don’t care about the science, and I don’t care for people who said it was a stupid tactic; didn’t Arne Darvin do the same thing (pass himself off as a human, I mean - not the surgery) in the iconic ‘The Trouble With Tribbles’? Yes, he did, so stop whinging. I’m only sorry that Lorca’s single tribble in his proto-ready room (and how does he only have one again? That sounds like a saga right there) never got to meet Ash Tyler. The thing is, even if it did, have they even had the great klingon tribble hunt yet? Would the tribble have gone off on one in Tyler’s presence at all? Ah well. We may never know.
This brings us to my second bit of private glory and Farscape-shaped-gladness - the revelation about Gabriel Lorca. I am so happy it went the way I thought - I feel it explains a lot and this way, we can now appreciate him as a character worthy of the likes of Kira Nerys. After all, his need to kill the Emperor (nice appropriation of the male title, there) has outweighed everything else in his life - it must have done. He’s sacrificed everything, even hopped over to another universe, to see this through. He’s passed himself off as another human - successfully - and managed to commandeer a huge starship and bring it with him - as well as assemble people and goad them into the right places to accomplish his personal mission. The question is, is he doing this to free that universe from the tyranny of the Emperor and the terran alliance, or is he just doing this to replace her and take the Empire for himself? From his actions so far, I’m going to say he’s there for his own advancement.
Who knows for sure? But hey, I’m on board and I couldn’t love it any more than I do right now.
Stamets and Culber. I nearly choked on my pizza when poor Culber was summarily dispatched by Tyler a few episodes ago, and it hurt so much to see Stamets holding onto him in a way that made the ship think he had done it. I know his personality is just so, but to see him calmly accept Culber is dead was hard to watch too - especially as when he saw the mycellial network version of his own Culber he wanted it them to be ‘just like it was’. Now I think I know what the mirror Stamets was about, all those episodes ago when Culber was ‘angry’ with him for jumping into the spore drive and saving the ship. Somehow, that moment of Stamet’s reflection in the mirror - the one that stayed even after our universe Stamets was gone - was mycellial network Stamets enjoying it ‘just like it was’ during episode 12, with real Culber walking away like that. I think that’s how Stamets came to terms with it - Culber walking away from his mirror moment of happiness could have meant that Culber was leaving for good. I know it’s possible he could always find him in the other universe (if he’s even alive there), as Lorca and Burnham have both noted that people who share some kind of important bond in one universe seem to gravitate toward each other in other universes. I was half expecting Culber to rock up as the Emperor, to be honest. However, I’m totally happy with it being who they’ve got.
That’s what distracted me - I was so focused on hoping Tyler and Lorca were who I thought they were, I didn’t see the Emperor coming, and I certainly didn’t see Culber’s fate coming. Well played, Disco writers, well played.
One thing; why did Burnham go off-book so quickly when she was confronted with the Emperor? Was she blinded by her relationship with her ex-Captain? She does say that logically she knows it’s not her Georgiou up there, but then she spills everything to her, as if she is her own universe’s Georgiou. She attempts to make a deal, to get her ship and her shipmates back to her own universe - why would she think for one moment that this Emperor would honour any agreement she made? She’s just witnessed her kill most of the top lords of the system, save one (and isn’t he just going to be trouble later on). Unless Burnham is planning on double-crossing the Emperor and getting away with her crew - which would make me appreciate Burnham more - then she’d better be planning how to get out of it when the Emperor double-crosses her.
Where does that leave us? Burnham is hopefully getting ready to jump everyone on the Discovery back to their universe, Lorca is about to try to kill the Emperor for motives we’re not sure of yet, and we can hope that Tyler is dead (I preferred him as a klingon to be honest).
For the record, I like Captain Tilly - she’s fun and also just enough afraid that she’ll do what it takes. I’ve always liked the character, which has confused some of my friends. They say I don’t like the ‘plucky comic relief’ characters, or the token stereotype characters, or the useless background people. Maybe I like Tilly because I don’t see her as one of the above - she may have been meant for that, or she may have been perceived as that by others, but all I’ve seen is an awkward science nerd who loves her job and even supports the line manager that was nearly impossible to get along with. She’s the ideal of Star Trek in so many ways; she trying to explore, she’s trying to study what she finds, she’s trying to make bridges and learn about her fellow explorers. The fact that Mary Wiseman was not forced to lose a shedload of weight for the role only makes Tilly more relatable. It’s about time people who aren’t older Starfleet Admirals are allowed to be their own weight.
I think that’s about it - I can’t wait to get home Monday night (UK time) to find there’s another episode of Disco waiting for me.
Peach and lube, people. Peach and frelling lube.
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