Welcome back, my Disco Fans! (Disco Ducks? Is that something?) It’s time to once again get back to the chase for the Progenitor’s God Engine.
Last week, a Time Bug disabled Discovery long enough for our villains, Moll and L’ak, to get ahead of them and seemingly disappear into space. After Stamets scans the area for all forms of radiation, he discovers a wormhole that seems to be the hiding place of the next clue. Captain Burnham and Book dive on through in an effort to keep Moll and L’ak away from the next clue.
We’ll be discussing the entire episode so if you wish to stay spoiler-free, don’t read this until you’ve watched.
Victor: So what did you think?
Mary: Here it is: the tragic backstory! We all knew it was coming, right? I will admit, though, I didn’t see L’ak being a Breen coming. I’m suddenly a lot more interested in this season, because we might have the Breen as a villain instead of just these two mercs.
Victor: I agree, L’ak is a lot more interesting. The problem is, I still do not care about Moll. Every scene, she just comes across as petulant and irritating.
Mary: I agree. “Wah, wah, poor me and my tragic backstory. I don’t care if I destroy civilization as we know it, as long as I get to be happy.” Yet Book is running around in circles going, “You’re not evil! You have a second chance!” Dude, she doesn’t want it! My least favorite story arc: The unearned redemption arc.
Victor: “Oi, yer me sistah! There’s good in ya!”
Mary: We’re pirates now?
Victor: I was trying for a Book accent, but sure pirate!
I liked the overall story, even though it was a bit trope-y. Enemy combatants forced to work together is an extremely well worn plot, but it worked here. Everyone stayed true to character. Burnham trying to recruit L’ak into Starfleet. Moll being rash and impulsive and a jerk.
Mary: Agree. I was rolling my eyes at Moll, but otherwise, I really enjoyed this episode! It was classic Trek in a lot of ways. The space anomaly, the technobabble rescue…
It was pretty fun seeing the Terran Enterprise. Those writers decided to play the nostalgia card this week!
Victor: I wanted to see more of the Terran Enterprise, though! Like, did Terran Pike or Terran Kirk lead the revolt? Did Georgiou get changed from her time on Discovery?
Mary: Oh! I think we’ll find out about Georgiou in the Section 31 movie!
Victor: Uhhhhgggghh
Mary: … I take it you don’t care for it?
Victor: I’m not super excited for that, no. Section 31—Starfleet black ops—is just completely counter to what I think Star Trek should be about.
Mary: Ah, gotcha. I’ll admit I don’t have high expectations for that. I just want more Georgiou.
Victor: Fair.
Mary: Anyway, Discovery!
Victor: Rayner is settling into his command role nicely.
Mary: Yes, I really liked him this week! Well, I like him every week haha. But his character evolution feels organic. He’s still curmudgeonly but he’s figuring out how to work with this crew.
Victor: And again, I agreed with his command choices. The captain is too valuable to send into an unknown wormhole.
Mary: Michael going on dangerous missions herself has been an issue ever since she made captain. But she’s the main character! We have to feature her in the off-ship adventure!
Victor: That’s why you have away teams!!!!!! “But we need Book!” Well Rayner can take Book with him!
Mary: It actually reminded me of the writers’ justification for making her a First Officer in the beginning. They figured that by NOT making her a captain, she’d have more freedom.
Victor: And that made sense in context.
Victor: Yeah, this goes back to what you were talking about last week. The show has never known exactly what to do with Michael, which is a problem when she’s your main character.
There could’ve been more dialogue there about how Michael thinks Rayner’s desire to get Moll & L’ak is clouding his judgement, and that would’ve been a legitimate counter point.
Mary: True! Well, I’m glad Rayner stayed on the ship because it meant we got to see him work with the crew. I especially liked when he demanded a one-sentence answer from the engineers and got one, then both engineers were visibly bursting to say more.
Victor: Ah yes, one-sentence answers are pure torture for Starfleet technobabblers. At the same time, though, Rayner is basically yelling “Make it work!” at his crew.
Mary: Now I’m imagining Tim Gunn as a Starfleet officer. I do wish we’d seen Rayner and the others passing around a bottle of that Kellerun treat he was promising.
Victor: The sour mash? Yeah! We need new drinks to cosplay aside from Romulan Ale.
Mary: I’m sure some Trekkie is coming up with a cocktail recipe right now. Instead we got Discovery’s signature extraneous talk-about-our-feelings dialogue.
Victor: I was going to ask what you thought about Tilly and Culber having a heart-to-heart.
Mary: WHY was that there??
Victor: It kind of came out of nowhere.
Mary: It would have made sense at the end of the Jinaal episode. But yeah, it was so random.
Victor: It really seemed like it was just there to give him some lines. And you’re right, it would’ve made way more sense then. “You just had your body occupied by a 1000-year-old consciousness. How are you doing?”
Victor: Yeah, literally no real reason the conduit Tilly was chasing had to go through sick bay.
I did like the way Burnham alerted the Discovery. Again, showing Rayner that knowing your crew can be important.
Mary: Yes, that was fantastic. A deep dive into Kellerun culture. I wonder if we’ll learn more about the Kelleruns this season. I hope we do.
Victor: That was some real Darmok-at-Tanagra stuff
Mary: This season Discovery seems to be digging through the Trek archives for underused aliens. First Kelleruns, and now the Breen.
Victor: So what did you think of Moll and L’ak’s forbidden romance?
Mary: Pretty cliché, but they had good chemistry.
Victor: I like that L’ak is a disgraced royal, but I’m still not sure how Moll went from obviously manipulating him to pass off her crappy dilithium to genuinely caring about him. And maybe that’s just my dislike of the character talking.
Mary: Well, I assumed there was a time jump.
Victor: Oh, there was. In the second flashback, she says something about “you keep promising” to do something.
Victor: I could’ve used one more scene between those points. The two-face thing was extremely cool, though! The Breen’s glow-y power face and the normal face.
Mary: It was! Pretty cool to finally see the Breen up close, and to know what they look like under the helmets. It’s also nice that effects tech has advanced enough that they can be more than just people with pointy ears.
Victor: Uh, also weird foreheads! Show some respect!
Mary: Apparently the helmets were designed to look snouted because at one point they were supposed to look kind of like wolves. But I guess a wolf man wouldn’t have been great for a star-crossed romance?
Victor: I think Stephanie Meyer would disagree with you. Her next book will be Space Twilight.
Mary: Oh she tried that already! The Host! I don’t think she ever finished writing that series…
Victor: So, anything else to mention? I did like the nod to Action Saru leading the revolt in Terra.
Mary: Hah, I liked that too! I missed Saru this episode, though I get that with such a big cast, you can’t feature everyone every week.
Victor: True. That’s one of the things I like about Strange New Worlds—everyone gets a featured episode, eventually.
Mary: Yeah. I hope we get a Rayner-centered episode at some point, where we get to learn more about the Kellerun. Like, a side quest. But I’m not hopeful. Discovery historically has preferred to stick with its season arc, and this season especially doesn’t seem to be keen on standalone episodes.
Victor: Yeah, that is something I would really like them to do more of. But, like I’ve said before, that’s a problem with the series. They get locked into season long arcs and don’t explore the interesting sidebars that would add depth to your characters.
Mary: So what are your predictions for next week? I think you’re right about Book going rogue at some point to save Moll. I thought it was going to happen this week, but maybe next week we’ll see him do just that.
Victor: I thought for sure that Moll would agree to go back to Discovery with Michael and then commandeer the ship. I mean, their ship got destroyed! Seems like they would try to get a new one.
Mary: Oh, that would have been cool! And it would have made them seem, you know, dangerous!
Victor: But yeah. I think Book goes against Michael and chases after Moll, and Rayner says “told ya so.”
Mary: They’re really feeling more like reality show villains than actual villains…
Victor: “I’m not here to make friends. I’m here for the latinum.”
Rating this week?
Mary: Hmm. I’d say a solid 4 once again.
Victor: I think 3.5. Moll just irks me.
Mary: I was gonna say—Moll really annoyed me, but I’m really excited about the Breen, so they cancel each other out. While the rest of the episode was a 4 for me.
Victor: I’ll round up and meet you at 4
Mary: Yay. Saved by the curve!
Rating: 4 out of 5
