ST: DIS 3x02: I-Yensch, You-Yensch

Warning! Danger, Will Robinson!

Here be SPOILERS for Star Trek Discovery series 3 episode 2!

Last week we had what I felt was a TNG mixed with ST: Beyond episode. It was brilliant, and since I’ve watched it again I still like everything that went down. Now we get to the follow-up - last week was all Michael and what she was up to; this week is the crew of the Discovery’s turn.

We pick up where we left off; they made it through the wormhole but in a Farscape moment they’ve lost control and end up ploughing headlong through a couple of miniature moon-type bodies. Eventually they meet the planet below much faster and rougher than they’d like, and to all intents and purposes are dead in the water. They need tech stuff they don’t have to get their comms and pretty much everything back up and running - so here we go, let’s take an away team out to the nearby settlement and barter for what we need.

Saru is awesome the whole episode. He’s a real brick in this and I think a much better Captain than he ever thought possible. He’s commanding, confident, and downright fantastic. I’d vote for him.

Poor Detmer is somewhat shell-shocked. Or is it something deeper? She brought the ship in, she guided them down and her piloting skills are celebrated. But she’s not feeling it - or much of anything, it seems, apart from maybe horror at seeing how many people are currently in sickbay and either dead or nearly there due to what she must assume is a result of her flying.

Saru and Tilly’s bartering aside (some fantastic aliens new to me and Ensign Tilly being a good choice as a member of the First Contact team), shit hits the fan in a Farscape way when all you want is to do a trade so you can get the hell out of there. Again Saru is brilliant as a leader of people, and the locals on the planet realise he is the Starfleet that they thought extinct. Again we hear that “we knew you’d come back” - it seems since The Burn at least 120 years before, some people have harboured hope that the Federation wasn’t completely destroyed. Paul and Hugh seem to be working things out, and although Georgiou is aggressively attempting to get everything she needs personally and screw everyone else bar maybe Michael, at the moment her needs are aligning with that of the rest of the crew. Jett Reno is still a favourite with me due to her wit and deadpan delivery, even when she is giving people a pep talk that cuts through the grease. Even poor Ensign Gene HAZMAT who was left to shovel up what was left of Leland made me smile.

Slowly but surely, Saru and Tilly realise how far ahead some of the tech is around them, and the barter situation that was going so well turns into a newcomers-at-gunpoint situation. It seems our friend Book from episode 1 is not a typical courier at all (maybe he was pretending to be a courier at the Mercantile to cover his species-rescuing ways), as every other one we’ve met so far including this new Zareh is a complete arsehole. He’s also a smart one, who figures out they’ve travelled in time and are also basically helpless. Zareh proves just how much of a dick he is, and it looks like everything is about to go incredibly Pete Tong.

In other news, it seems the Tellerites are thriving as they control an exchange, which means along with the Orions and Andorians, we have an uneasy balance of power. And then Zareh calls Saru something interesting - a “V’draysh” Captain. Apparently this was the same word used in Short Treks (“Calypso”) - a word shortened from its original for ease, like “going to” ending up “gonna”. In this case it’s short for “Federation”.

Enter Georgiou with typical intent to throw a spanner in the works, and you have your action and adventure that ends up freeing the V’draysh types and emancipating the locals. All that remains is to get their newly fixed tech back to the ship before its eaten by the planet’s ravenous parasitic ice - and be totally shocked as they finally meet up with Michael.

I enjoyed this episode - a lot. It was a massive crew effort and it’s set up such possibilities that I can’t wait to see what’s coming next. We have new worlds, capacity for new or evolved alien races, new situations and what is beginning to feel like a sprawling universe of adventures to fall into.

At times it felt like a good old-fashioned Farscape episode, and that’s a complete surprise to me as Farscape was always the anti-Star Trek. However it works well here, and with a true Star Trek ending we know we’re in good hands.

That’s all the news that’s fit to print, I think.

Soopytwist, everyone.

ST: DIS 3x01: The more things change, the more they stay the same

Warning! Danger, Will Robinson!

Here be SPOILERS for Star Trek Discovery series 3 episode 1!

I sat down the other night and rewatched the two-parter of Star Trek Discovery that ended season two, just so I would remember where we were all up to.

And do you know what? It made me miss ST: DIS all over again. The way they played the long game - again - to bring us everything we needed for the actual finale was just as impressive this time around as it was the first time I watched it. Season one had its own long game - the story of Lorca that we didn’t know we needed. Season two gave us a new mystery and its resolution. I liked how it ended up and where it left everyone, because now everything can be new again. Let me explain:

One gripe I had about the concept of ST: DIS was that it was set before Kirk’s time. As with the other most recent series up to that point, Enterprise, we were looking back rather than looking forward. I wasn’t overly thrilled with this, as they would have to observe certain canon and established events. I would have been happier if it happened some time after Voyager and DS9 ended, as that would put us the furthest into the future. Also, looking back is not what Star Trek is about - it’s supposed to be about moving forward. Forward motion, after all, is all there really is at the end of the day.

Now here we are with season three, and it looks like my gripe has been addressed: we’re now in the year 3188, which I believe makes it the furthest Star Trek has ever gone forward.

In short? I liked this episode - liked it a lot. It felt like a TNG plot inside a Star Trek Beyond story. Again, let me explain:

We start off with a very Beyond scenario - Burnham and the crew have been successful, but now she is cut off from not just everyone she has ever known, but everything that was ever familiar. She is 930 years in the future where things must have changed (think for example about the difference between the the place now called the UK in 2020 and how it was in 1090). She’s trying to find her ship and her crew - she has no clue if they’re in her time, or if they even survived the wormhole that brought her 930 years into the future. She “meets” Book, and gives him a pretty good Captain James T Chris Pine Kirk speech about intention and needing help. She gradually finds herself and her determination, gets back to what makes her her, and so her adventure becomes trying to not only find herself and her ship, but the Federation itself.

Book, meanwhile, is having his own TNG episode. He appears to be a courier who is not at all fazed by having to “steal” cargo from other couriers. This random woman who falls out of a wormhole breaks his ship, forcing him to work with her to get what he needs to fix it. We find out he has a rather expensive, much sought after cargo, and yet he doesn’t want anyone calling it “cargo”, because it doesn’t belong to anyone. At this point anyone who’s ever seen a Star Trek episode knows that the cargo is probably alive, presumably sentient, and Book might not be what he appears. We are rewarded by seeing that he stole the cargo to deliver it to a different place entirely - in actuality he’s rescued a member of an endangered sentient species from becoming dinner, repatriating it to a sanctuary planet which seems to be a massive wildlife preserve bent on letting them just live free and unencumbered.

After a lot of shenanigans including drugs, fights, tech and some great set pieces, Burnham finds one Starfleet contact that she can ask for help in finding the Discovery. But all is not what it seems, and again she is left to try to cling to what she believes Starfleet and the Federation are, in the face of everyone and everything telling her that there is nothing left to cling to.

She finds people to reach out to, she finds solace in the familiar, comfort in knowing there are others who believe as she does, and to borrow a line from Beyond, she finds she still believes in “strength in unity”.

Big fan of this episode. Book is set up to be an interesting mystery, and the possibilities for his story are endless. Burnham is alone but she’s more determined than ever, and we’ve already seen a new side of her during this episode. Shout out to Aditya Sahil, who was the quiet, resolute figure of a Starfleet officer - without actually being a Starfleet officer. Interesting to note that Twitter has already decided he’s the cinnamon roll in all this and must be protected at all costs. I cannot disagree.

The editing was fantastic, especially when Burnham is drugged, and the cinematography (is that Iceland?) was stark, beautiful, peaceful - and very well shot. The FX shots were not lacking, and the scenes in the Mercantile reminded me of a bazaar you might find in Farscape. We had a return to interesting Star Trek races - Andorians, Orions - even a Lurian who looked like Morn! Cosmo, the other courier, used a language that reminded me of Danny Pudi’s character from Beyond. It would be interesting to find out if in fact it was the same language.

All in all, this was a brilliant start that filled me with the same love for Star Trek as many other episodes - it had the optimism, the drive, the characters, the tech. - all the parts I love in a good Star Trek episode. I for one really hope it continues in the same vein. I want to see more of this 32nd century and how everyone in it is surviving, what The Burn is all about and how Burnham can (hopefully) do something about it. I also think we need the ship back, but I'm sure (mostly because I've seen the trailers) that everything will get sorted in the end. You know what? I’m more than happy to watch that unfold week by week.

Peach and lube, everyone. Peach and frelling lube.

Star Trek Discovery - What if?

It’s time for some fanfiction. Because there was this time, and then there was this time…

Title: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Vulcan

Rated T/Teen & Up for some naughty language, some violence and conduct unbecoming, and maybe a frying pan.

Summary:
In the dying moments of S01xE15, the Discovery is ordered to Vulcan but gets side-tracked. What if they keep getting side-tracked so they have to keep their Acting Captain for the whole of season 2? Yes please! This is a series of one-shots detailing just that. SPOILERS for season 1 only. For those about to read, I salute you.

Disclaimer: 
I do not own nor make any profit from Star Trek in any of its forms, franchises or characters. This is all for fun, not for profit. Unless you add me to any favourites lists or leave reviews/comments.

Linky-link-link: HERE at An Archive of Our Own under my name TozaBoma (because they don’t re-edit your stuff later) and HERE at Fanfiction dot net under my name Mardy Lass.

If you even visit the page, I thank you.

Star Trek Discovery 1x15 - a season finale and a half

Warning! Danger, Will Robinson!
Here be SPOILERS for Star Trek Discovery series 1 episode 15!

Where do we start with this episode, Will You Take My Hand? Ceti eels, bread and circuses, Trills and Betazoids - it was all in here. Double-crosses - the first Prime Directive moment? - familiar actors, Orions, Qo’noS markets and dirty tattoo parlours. What didn’t this episode have?

I have to say I liked the twist to this. I honestly thought there was going to be a completely different ending - and no, I’m not talking about the distress signal. I know hundreds of people will be rushing to look up Captain Christopher Pike and find out what he was doing wandering around the Alpha Quadrant around the year 2255, but I’m more interested in how the only mutineer on the ship managed to have the backing of the entire crew to stage another mutiny right there, right then, if Admiral Cornwell didn’t back down from her desperate plan.

Also: giving the detonator to the bomb to the klingon prisoner was inspiring but also perhaps the best bit of Prime Directive I think I’ve seen on Discovery. Not interfering with the internal struggles literally on the homeworld of another race by handing over your weapon of mass distruction is basically surrendering and withdrawing to let them sort it out themselves. They have, of course, tipped the outcome in favour of L’Rell, but what choice did they have?

I loved the markets and the fact that, as Burnham says, this is life. It’s people getting on with it, whether it’s in the Orion quarter or milling around the free-flowing streets. It may have been filmed to look a little dark (literally - is it ever daytime?) and dingy, but the signs, the people, the things they were doing in the background - they were all fascinating. Maybe it’s a human thing to want it well-lit all the time and I should get over it.

I did notice the young (?) Trill lady getting her tattoos done and for a moment I really hoped it was Emony Dax. She didn’t really have any cause to be hanging around Qo’noS at all, never mind the Orion quarter, but I can’t help hoping it was. It’s very closed-minded of me - it could have been any one of several million joined or unjoined Trills, I know. I’m basically doing the same as every person who says ‘where are you from?’ and when you say your country they say ‘I know someone there called X - do you know them?’. But I just miss DS9 and while Discovery is excellent in every way, it’s still neck-and-neck with DS9 in my heart. I can’t help it.

There was a lot to think about with Burnham and her past with klingons; we were never told the exact details of how and why her parents came to be dead, but this spelt it out and the energy of the gaming place was infectious, even through a TV screen. I was not at all surprised that Tyler managed to insert himself so easily in a gambling den full of klingons - I was more worried that he wouldn’t leave. Well, worried is a stretch. More like hoping something in him would switch him with Voq and he would assert himself. I know that’s not on the cards, but again I held out hope. The fact that Tyler has now escaped a life of lab testing, of suspicion and pity from well-meaning Federation people is crafty. I know it’s a bit drastic, going into the heart of klingon territory and culture to avoid a few overly polite humans, but part of me thinks he remembers how Voq saw it and whatever part of him was Tyler liked it. I wouldn’t blame him if he just wanted a good old-fashioned klingon knees-up, to be honest. He needs it, with what he’s been through.

L’Rell - what now for the ‘nothing’ that nobody wanted? And now she has her pet human - sorry, ex-klingon - with her, how will she tighten the leash on the other houses and keep order? As long as she holds the planet to ransom, she’s good. But that makes her a target and it’s going to be hard to keep the planet spinning while at the same time using it as a bargaining chip to keep the houses in line. At least now her house can come out of hiding - if there’s anyone left.

I actually enjoyed the end speech at what I assume was Starfleet Headquarters. Nice that everyone got a medal - and Tilly finally an Ensign! YES! It’s about time! She’s been through a lot this series (not least of all getting high with the dude who was in the original series as Balok, as the dude under the stairs who helped Dax find her ‘pin’ in DS9, and one of the Ferengi hustlers in Enterprise. He certainly gets around) and it’s about time this was recognised. One final touch I really liked - a posthumous medal for Medical Officer Hugh Culber. Gone but not forgotten.

And so to the very end - the distress call from one USS Enterprise. Very interesting indeed - where have they been during the klingon war and how intact are they? As an aside; I know Commander Spock was First Officer of the Enterprise under Captain Pike in the original timeline but he can’t be in this one - if this is 5 - 10 years before Kirk gets the Enterprise in the Kelvin timeline (which this appears to be), then he couldn’t have been serving on the Enterprise at this time - he would have been at the Academy, designing the Kobayashi Maru and going through his own Starfleet training. But if we do see Spock, it has to be Zachary Quinto or it’s all off. After all, he’s the best not-Spock who ever Spock’d.

Admiral Cornwell mentioned that they were off to get their new captain (someone not on Earth, then?) before the distress signal went off. I hope that in season 2 there’s a running gag whereby every time they try to get to that captain to pick them up, they get side tracked and Saru ends up ‘acting captain’ for the entire season. That would make me happy.

Do you know what? This whole season has made me happy. It had a few dips here and there, and there were times I really wanted certain characters to die, but on the whole it’s been a rollercoaster and I’ve really warmed to a lot of characters. I’ve loved the twists and the turns, and I’ve enjoyed the way they crafted something so carefully that it never occurred to you to question it until it was too late. All in all, this has been a bang-up season 1 to any series, and to have it as our new Star Trek has been even better. To begin with I was just relieved it wasn’t shit - now I’m happily calling it my second-favourite series (although with time I don’t know how that will change).

It may have taken 14 years to get a new Star Trek on TV, but it’s here and I bloody hope it’s here to stay. If this cancel this now, we riot.

Peach and lube, everyone. Peach and frelling lube.

Star Trek Discovery 1x14 - Don’t Care Was Made to Care

Warning! Danger, Will Robinson!
Here be SPOILERS for Star Trek Discovery series 1 episode 14!

Let us climb down from the heady heights of episode 13 for just a moment: Mirror!Lorca is dead, Cornwell is convinced Prime!Lorca was probably killed shortly after ending up in the Mirror Universe, and Emperor Pippa has been kidnapped and taken to the Prime Universe. In what is basically Farscape levels of holy shit how are we not dead?-ness, the Discovery is intact, most of her crew are too, and they’ve got intel needed to help defeat cloaked klingon ships. The fact that they’re 9 months late getting back and most of Starfleet has been decimated is like that moment when you think Monday is over and then a catastrophe happens and abruptly - and rather rudely - you can see yourself putting in 6 hours of messy, horrible overtime just to avoid Tuesday being your worst nightmare.

First off, what are we grateful for? Tilly. Tilly continues to be awesome. She’s doing her job and is very good at it, while at the same time spreading peace, love and understanding wherever she goes. She’s still the awkward, shy person who talks too much, but now she’s listened to. Because people know she’s awesome. Can she finally have a field commission to Ensign now?

We’re also grateful that Emperor Pippa has crossed over - oh yes. Who else to command a ship to go to war? I can see the fact that Admiral Cornwell has lied to everyone - blatantly - by introducing her as Prime!Georgiou is infuriating to both Acting Captain Saru (does he go back to being Number One now?) and Specialist Burnham - the only two who know her real identity apart from Cornwell and the random cool-haired dude running the transporter room. Emperor Pippa is devious, must have an ulterior motive, and ready to shiv the first person who says no to her - what’s not to like? Weyoun is alive and well in the writer’s room and it makes me smile.

Ash Tyler. Hmm. Not really feeling it. He’s a bit of a non-entity to me and especially now as he’s trying to find if he actually is anyone because Voq’s ‘gone’. Do we believe he’s really gone? I’m 50% sure that I’m not sure on that one. The thing is, I don’t care to try to trust Tyler because I just don’t find the character compelling. Sorry, Tyler fans. He should be epic - first an MIA officer who busted out of a klingon prison with a random Captain, then a spy, then a really deep undercover spy and love interest… But something in me just Does Not Care. I don’t know why.

Species re-assignment surgery - how do we feel about that? It was described as voluntary, but the ‘re-assignment’ word makes my skin crawl. I don’t know why - maybe it’s politicians in our world going on about re-assignment to ‘help’ people be something less than they are, like not gay or not needing to transition to another gender. I think that’s the connotation I place on it - something meted out by the dictatorship of an all-powerful, closed-minded government. The way the klingons seem to use it is different though - there’s a lot to be said for them mentioning it was ‘voluntary’. It wasn’t made out to sound particularly pretty, and it certainly didn’t seem it. Tyler talking about some of the procedures done to ‘him’ as Voq were harrowing, but it makes me wish Voq had survived, not Tyler. I know the sci-fi ‘what is the measure of a man? thing with human-looking Tyler actually being an ex-klingon in a human meatsuit is exciting and can be milked for a lot of metaphors. However part of me really wants Voq to re-emerge and assert control, only to find in the end that he’s better off biding his time and then taking the klingon houses by storm, conquering all of them and becoming the Chancellor in charge at last. And when it comes down to it, he won’t destroy the Discovery and everyone aboard because it was where he was able to execute his plans - and he has the humans to thank for his shelter as he worked on his top secret plot with L’Rell.

I do agree with Burnham saying she can’t forget how he tried to kill her - no matter who was ‘in there’ when he was trying it. I also liked Stamets’ face as he confronted Tyler in the corridor. I thought Stamets took Culber’s death too easily, but I see now he’s just being very professional. However, I would not leave those two in a locked turbolift for any length of time. I get the feeling Stamets would start talking until Tyler just leapt out of a window. Which wouldn’t be the worst thing.

Poor L’Rell in confinement is still getting over losing Voq, it seems - or is she? She learns that klingons have pretty much floored the Federation and she gloats for a little, but how much does she want a disordered, competitive bunch of scrapper clans warring it out instead of a mighty Empire? She’s already proven she will go to great lengths to get what she wants, so how will she spin this to get free and somehow influence what the klingons around her will do? It seems she doesn’t care either way what happens to herself as long as the humans see her laughing as the puny things die - but is that really how she feels?

I like that Admiral Cornwell gets to stand on the bridge and say FIRE, but it’s to launch terraforming pods that will trigger a spore bloom, not to destroy anything. I think Picard would have enjoyed being there. For her, I guess, it’s a reversal of the past 9 months - something is being created instead of destroyed. As she’s the only one, bar Emperor Pippa, who has had recent and harrowing dealings with full-blown war, it must be something of a life preserver to see something being created at last. After 9 months of fighting and blood and losing ships and starbases, here's something she can care about - new spores in a lovely shade of victorious science.

I like the teamwork we’re getting now that Lorca is gone; it’s like his my way or the high way style of command has gone out of the window - or should I say through the floor - with him. Saru’s style of asking and thinking about it, of co-ordinating the team instead of keeping people in the dark - it’s much more Starfleet. I like the dynamics of the ship now - (Vice) Admiral Cornwell, Specialist Burnham, Acting Captain Saru, Lieutenant Stamets, Lieutenant Keyla Detmar, Lieutenant Rhys, Lieutenant Commander Airiam, Lieutenant Owosekun, “random communications officer man” Bryce - find me a straight white dude in there. I’ll wait. Oh look what they did! They made people interested in the story, in the characters, without needing more than 1 of them! I’m not saying get rid of them like they’re a bad thing, I’m just saying it makes a nice change to look around a bridge and see people who are not straight white dudes. I haven’t seen such a divergence from the Kirk-Spock-Bones, Picard-Riker-Data triumvirate since the Sisko-Kira-Dax of DS9.

But I digress. Now we have a battle plan with a possibly double-crossing Mirror Universe Terran as the Federation’s last hope to either win the war with the klingons or at least bring it to a stalemate. To be honest, I like Emperor Pippa’s chances; she’s ruthless, she’s in it to win, and she knows how to beat down a bigger opponent. She has little wiggle room here - but, lest we forget, though she be but ‘little’, she is fierce. I’m not mad about Cornwell going off the res by parading her as Prime!Georgiou, but Needs Must - something she may be learning from Emperor Pippa herself.

Quick shout-out before we go - I like the statement that Captain Archer and the crew of the NX-01 Enterprise were the last Starfleet people to see Qo’noS a hundred years before Discovery. Like it a lot.

If only the next Star Trek film could sway the timeline back to its original path (“Time has an elastic quality, after all” - as Harvey/Scorpius once said) so we can then bring in something of DS9, that would be epic.

I think that’s all I’ve got, so I’ll love you and leave you.

Peach and lube, people. Peach and frelling lube.

Star Trek Discovery 1x13 - a return to Starfleet

Warning! Danger, Will Robinson!
Here be SPOILERS for Star Trek: Discovery series 1 episode 13!

A.K.A. the speech-fight to the death episode.

The first fight we get is poor Michael Burnham trying to reason with the Emperor and being summarily cut off - so she makes a break for it, taking weapons with her.

Then we do a little Star Trek by turning one of real life’s problems into a sci-fi conundrum, for people to ponder on a “hypothetical” level: the spore engine on the ISS Charon is blocking the mycelial network, I guess like a dam, and using its power for the ship. However, this is harming the network and spreading infection that the network cannot heal itself from without enough of a break; as Acting Captain Saru points out, it’s not sustainable. (On a side note, I thought that if you have the highest rank on the ship and therefore have to take control, you are automatically addressed as ‘captain’ anyway. Whatever - he has assumed command and he’s good at it. If only pilot-episode-Saru could see him now.) At some point the network will be overcome and collapse and die. This will cause all of its routes and connections to also die - and the destinations that are attached to it. Basically it’s the end of all life in all universes - the entire multiverse, as Stamets puts it, for all time. Ouch.

Stamets: [Damming the mycelial network provides them with] enough power to run their city-sized ship, and power weapons that can destroy a planet.
Airiam: As they did on Harlac.
Saru: How can a people be so short-sighted?
Stamets: The Terrans are egotistical enough to believe that they can replenish this resource before it collapses.

Yikes. Not sure if he’s alluding to global warming caused by people strip-mining Earth for fossil fuels or just talking crazy.

And then in barges Mirror!Lorca, all gung ho for preserving humans as their own people, their own race. Ironically, isn’t he proposing what the klingons did at the beginning of this season? He asks everyone to renounce Emperor Georgiou and follow him instead, to - and I quote - build “a future where we together will make the Empire glorious again.” He’s despotic, utterly racist and completely in need of a massive attitude re-adjustment. This is my Mirror!Lorca, and he doesn’t disappoint. Although at this point I’m also rooting for Georgiou. I haven’t been this conflicted since Dukat vs Weyoun.

When Emperor ‘Pippa’ gets to face-off with Lorca, we get a cheeky red-Borg-targeting-in-the-dark moment from weapons - love it. And here’s the second fight of the show - guns blazing, people being vaporised left, right and centre. Some famous mirror-faces die here, but not the one I really wanted (Landry - sorry, but no, I don't trust you). Georgiou escapes using an emergency temporal shift - sorry, an emergency transport. Crafty! While they’re doing this, Burnham is hot-wiring the Charon’s comms to contact Saru and spill everything. Stamets works it out, Tilly does the math, and Saru calls Burnham ‘my friend’ and refuses to leave without her. Stamets updates her about the Charon’s super-mycelial reactor (love that name) and they form a plan to take it out - so that the network can heal itself. Cut to a plot point - the opening to the living core of the mycelial network is right in front of the throne. Hmm, have to remember that one.

By the way - love the use of the TOS chirps for the communicators and also the tricorder sounds. Awesome.

Lorca cements his villainy by giving Burnham a speech on how the Federation is a social experiment doomed to failure, that “every species, every choice, every opinion is not equal, no matter how much they want it to be.” He really does do his best to sway her to his side - his entire speech is geared toward telling her how amazing she is and how she’s the only one who can help him bring order to this universe. Hmm - makes you wonder what he did to get rid of the Mirror!Burnham, doesn’t it?

Burnham is having none of it, and after showing off her hacking skills she then shows off her intuition skills by tracking down Emperor Pippa - whose bracelet is supposed to keep her life signs undetectable. I’m sure that will come up later in the series. Burnham gives her the speech this time, basically pledging her loyalty to the idea of neither of them dying and Lorca getting his teeth kicked in. Her line of “Lorca believes destiny brought me to him - he doesn’t need to tell me what my future is. I’m responsible for forging my own path - we all are” is a good one, I have to say. Burnham manages to convince the Emperor by giving her the old Picard chestnut of “the line must be drawn here”, and the Emperor is impressed enough to go with it. I mean hey, why not? I’m sure she was wondering just how she was going to get out of this one before Burnham came in anyway. How can you be sure anyone is still loyal to you on that ship?

Stamets and the engineering crew have bad news; in order to destroy the ISS Charon’s super-mycelial reactor the Discovery and everyone on it will be sacrificed. What do the crew do? First they look worried. Then it’s revealed they’re worried because they can’t be sure their sacrifice will actually destroy the reactor. But hey, this isn’t Star Trek without a Kobayashi Maru, right? Saru gives a bloody good speech and does not accept this no-win scenario. Somewhere in Iowa young Jim Kirk’s ears are burning, I’m sure. But this is fight number three: the fight to survive through science and generally being an awesome crew that works together.

Burnham’s plan to get closer to Lorca works - she does the ‘taking in her colleague as a prisoner’ trope and Lorca’s eyes light up like he’s been injected with ketracel white. He’s trying to be cautious, taking her visible weapon from her, but he’s still just itching to accept Burnham into his dirty dozen of rebels and wannabe Empire centurions. He’s bursting with excitement - look at his face. He certainly is a villain I enjoy not liking. Dukat indeed.

Tilly comes up with a way to circumvent their Kobayashi Maru, and Stamets hits his stride and blinds everyone with science - and even thanks her for her enthusiasm and awesomeness (a stark difference to his attitude toward her at the beginning of the season). Isn’t it time she was granted a field commission now? At least to Ensign? He gives her the honour of explaining their crazy plan to the captain. Ngaw.

When the Discovery does catch up with the Charon a second plan goes into action; while Lorca is gloating about how he built them into a great team of formidable soldiers under his expert leadership, Saru is basically your toneless, unflappable captain doing his: “yeah mate, not interested in you to be honest” in return. When Lorca tells him Burnham’s staying behind in exchange for their lives, his calm retort of “I need to hear that from her - you are not a reliable source” made me clap and appreciate Saru even more than I do already. Burnham lays the trap and gives him the signal and the throne room of the Charon goes into balls-to-the-wall-Michelle-Yeoh-fight mode. Burnham holds her own with presumably Vulcan martial arts (Suus Mahna?) and Lorca is no slouch, but FUCK ME EMPEROR PIPPA GOES FULL-ON WING CHUN AND IT IS GLORIOUS (the character, not necessarily the fighting style). The axe-kick to his face as he’s trying to bear-hug a dagger into her face is amazing - while you’re still getting over that Lorca’s literally stabbing Landry in the back, but is it to protect Burnham or is to fight Burnham himself? Emperor Pippa properly kicking flying daggers from her own face made me almost shout in victory - Michelle Yeoh is beyond impressive. At one point Emperor Pippa and Lorca punch each other and nearly fall - evidence of them being equal in combat, or just for fun?

Burnham getting the drop on him and holding him at phaser point was a good end, when she spelt out for him that everything he had done to finagle his way back to the mirror universe was unnecessary because she would have helped him if he’d just asked - that was awesome.

Yes, Burnham’s end was good, but Emperor Pippa’s ending of him was better. Into the opening in front of the throne he goes - into the super-mycelial reactor to be ripped apart, atom by atom, or just spread throughout the mycelial network in tiny, tiny pieces? Who knows. Emperor Pippa decides she will go down with her ship to help Burnham escape - a defeated Emperor must die on her feet, after all. But Burnham is Starfleet through and through, and what should have been Emperor Pippa’s greatest sacrifice (making her a redeemable character?) is stolen from her as Burnham grabs her before transport, and takes her back to the Discovery.

They destroy the ISS Charon with some very TOS-sounding torpedoes (and the mirror universe rejoices, I should think - how this will affect the species ready to fight for equality is anyone’s guess). Stamets makes the jump and they ride the mycelial wave to get home to their own Alpha Quadrant. If you weren’t shouting “find the clearing in the forest!” as he struggled then you and I were in very different places. Thank you, Culber (I had an eyelash in my eye, ok? An eyelash, people). And what of the green speck of presumably Lorca-spore-ash that landed on Tilly’s shoulder? Was it a “watch the leaf fall to the ground as a sign it’s ended” moment? Part of me hopes so - the other part hopes that our universe Lorca might be found.

And so we’re back. From outer space. But in an Army of Darkness “I slept too looooong!” kinda way, they’re back 9 months later than they left. Not good. The Terran Empire may have been dismantled in the other universe (or will Landry survive to take the throne?), and Emperor Pippa may have been royally pissed off by her ‘rescue’, but Saru has bigger problems; a mixture of TOS and TNG error noises tell them that while they were out, the klingons won the war and Starfleet is unable to answer comms - perhaps because they no longer exist.

Where that leaves us is anyone’s guess - can you use spores to jump back 9 months and help the war effort? Would you even use the spore drive again, knowing what it does to humans if they use it too much? Do they locate what’s left of Starfleet and begin retaliatory efforts?

I for one cannot wait to find out.

Peach and lube, people, peach and frelling lube!

Star Trek Discovery 1x12 - The Power of Distraction

Warning! Danger, Will Robinson!
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.

On Star Trek Discovery, and all things new

Warning! Danger, Will Robinson!
Here be SPOILERS for Star Trek Discovery up to series 1 episode 5!

At time of writing, we’re up to episode 5. I have to say, it’s living up to the hype - that it’s going places no other Trek show has been.

How? Two things:

First of all, it’s not following a ship (or a station) - it’s following a character. Just as the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy (of five) tells the story of a book by showing you its adventures as they concern humans, Star Trek Discovery is telling us the story of Michael Burnham as she causes conflict by interacting with ships, their captains, and their enemies.

Two: it doesn’t say ‘here are your bridge crew characters - now make stories about them’. It says ‘here’s a story and we’ll involve people as and when we need them’. For this reason, there’s no ‘episode as a vehicle for this character’ - apart from Michael, who, lest we forget, is who it’s all about.

I’m happy with these choices. I’m ecstatic that it’s breaking from tradition and going forward. When I first heard that CBS/Paramount were determined to keep going backwards in terms of the year it was set, I was pretty pissed off, to be honest. Star Trek is about moving forward, and that means you don’t write yourself into the past, a past before Kirk joins Starfleet, and box yourself in with what you can and can’t have because Kirk didn’t have it.

(As an aside - who else is waiting for the literal mirror-verse version of Stamets to bring about the end of spore-drive tech? When it’s discovered that it causes what I think is replication of the human spore-host as a mirror-version, Starfleet will have to abandon it - hence why Kirk doesn't have it. I’m so excited for this!)

However, this show has already been more progressive than its predecessors, and I’m happy about that. I’m also happy that these humans we have on this show are not the fully-formed, fully-balanced people of the 22nd or 23rd century. They’re in 2256 - 2 years before the events of the ‘The Cage’ - 11 years before Kirk takes command of the Enterprise. People are still humans - rough around the edges, living through a war with the klingons - a race they hardly know as they haven’t had to deal with for the past hundred years (since the time of Enterprise - around the 2120s). This is a hundred years before DS9's controversial episode ‘In The Pale Moonlight’ - and it shows. It’s commonplace for these people to do things they never would have considered had the situation not been one of dire need and absolute life or death. It’s people having to get on with it, without the benefit of a well-known and respected Federation behind them. The idea that the klingons think they know what will happen to them, their culture, their way of life - because they’ve seen other races ‘fall’ to the ‘assimilation’ of the Federation - feels very real and very current. Every generation gets the Star Trek they deserve - and we have one about identity, about preserving your own culture at any cost, about standing up and saying ‘nope - you can’t whitewash/airbrush me - this is who I am, deal with it - we exist and you can’t deny us’. That makes the klingons on the side of the current anti-Trump and anti-status quo section of our world population - they are sticking it to The Man, and that makes me happy. Of course, that makes Starfleet either The Man or very misunderstood. And I'm ok with that - it’s about the possibility of sides, after all. Picard would have looked at it both ways - Sisko would have asked Dax and she would have said she’s lived both ways. Kirk would have said it’s a risk to jump either way - but ‘risk is our business’ and to carefully decide if a side should even be chosen.

Basically, this is pure Star Trek that no-one wanted but everyone cried out for. Something new, something a little daring, something to challenge. And if Star Trek isn’t challenging people, it’s not doing it right.

This is not your mother’s sci-fi. This is born of new ways of telling stories, of modern TV styles, and new ways of engaging (pardon the bad link) with its audience. The Expanse, Killjoys, Dark Matter - they’ve all pushed the envelope - and personally I don’t think Star Trek will ever be as shamelessly celebratory of diversity as Killjoys. But that’s not the only reason for Star Trek - it’s also about discovery. Though it’s hard to do that going back in time, it is easy to do if you’re thinking in terms of exploring the human condition and how it changes under stress, under the threat of death for many millions of souls - because of something you decide at that moment. What makes you, you? What makes you act in defence of or against someone else? That’s what they’re exploring here, and that’s what I’m looking forward to seeing more of.

Lorca may have scuttled his own ship (the Buron) and taken all hands but himself with her, but he did it because the needs of those many crew members outweighed the needs of the one. People are railing about how he has no soul, but didn’t he do exactly what Vasquez and Gorman did in Aliens when surrounded by xenomorphs and no ammo? Didn’t Picard do the same to a crew member lying on the floor asking for his help in Star Trek: First Contact? Ask Miles O’Brien if he’d leave someone alive to be taken prisoner by the Cardassians. And as for leaving Mudd behind - he had already proven himself to be a spy and someone only able to look out for himself. And he did brag about being a survivor. To be honest, I would have left him too.

On that subject, it’s obvious Tyler is a spy for the klingons (he escaped physical harm for how long? And his klingon captor was taken down much too easily for anyone to believe) but that’s why Lorca’s taken him along, isn’t it? He probably smelt it a mile off and is going to try to play him at his own game. After all, if he has a spy on board sending messages to the enemy, all you do is follow the message.

Time will tell if any of my musings are correct, but then that’s the fun. For the first time since DS9, there’s Star Trek on telly. I wasn’t in the UK for Enterprise, but compared to DS9 and Discovery it was weak. The characters were wasted and some of the stories were recycled from DS9 anyway (the Enterprise episode ‘Oasis’ and the DS9 episode 'Shadowplay', anyone?).

For me personally, I’ve seen more Star Trek in the first five episodes of Discovery than a whole season of Enterprise. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not hating on Enterprise and we needed it to keep the TV versions of Star Trek ticking along. But it was all starting to get a little stale, and this new idea of following a person and not a ship is what I think Star Trek needed to keep up to date - so far in the past that’s still yet to come.

Your mileage may vary - but for me, it’s yipping along with all the right signs. Long may it continue.