You were always a good officer. Until you weren’t.
Full spoilers follow for this episode. Click here if you want to learn how to watch Star Trek: Discovery.
After last week’s two-part premiere of the new Star Trek, episode three (“Context Is for Kings”) finally brings us aboard the starship of the title, introducing us to various members of the Discovery’s crew along the way. In that sense, this segment very much feels like a second pilot, which is sort of fitting if you consider that the original Star Trek series also had two pilots.
Michael Burnham is now six months out from her life sentence, the result of her mutinous actions and the fact that she is blamed for helping to start the war with the Klingons (“8, 186…”). As this episode begins, she’s a shell of her former self, motionless and emotionless while her fellow prisoners taunt her about her past. It seems that she’s lost everything, and has nothing to look forward to now but a life of regret. But then Captain Lorca shows up…
Jason Isaacs plays the mysterious Lorca, skipper of the Discovery who has a perhaps not entirely kosher offer to make Burnham. He needs her skills and intellect for the super-secret science project being conducted onboard, and she’s really in no position to say no. I already like Lorca and his slight Southern twang (I expected Isaacs to play him as British for some reason), who like the rest of Discovery is hard to read at times. Is he a sketchy Starfleet captain in the grand tradition of Starfleet captains (which is totally a thing) who ultimately betray the Federation for their own base reasons -- a Captain Tracey if you will, discharging phaser packs like a murderous madman? Or is he pulling a Captain Sisko, doing what he must to win the war and save as many lives as possible, no matter the cost? As is the style of this new Trek, only time will tell.
We also meet Anthony Rapp’s Lt. Paul Stamets here, a fungus expert who is doing nothing less than attempting to design a new way to travel through space. The way Stamets and his ill-fated colleague over on Discovery’s sister ship see it, biology and physics are one and the same on a quantum level, and they plan on technobabbling that concept all the way to virtually instantaneous space travel for Starfleet. That also means, as far as Lorca is concerned, winning the war.
So far, Stamets is more abrasive and sour than anything else, and he’s perhaps also the most extreme example of how Discovery’s humans speak in a very 21st century vernacular rather than the more put-upon style of traditional Trek actors. This is obviously a choice on the part of the producers of the show, and not a fault of Rapp’s, but it’s a bit jarring at times to hear people speak in this way in what is essentially the same era as TOS.
Having said that, Stamets is having a really, really bad day, what with his best friend getting all turned inside out, quite literally, because their life’s work has gone horribly wrong. So let’s give him a break for now. But it is interesting to see how he and other members of the crew treat Burnham, who, yes, is a traitor. Is there no room for mercy or forgiveness or compassion in the Federation’s utopia? Apparently, to these guys, not yet.
Doug Jones’ Saru, now First Officer of Discovery, does exhibit compassion, however, and remains a highlight of the show here. His and Burnham’s more playful rivalry from the opening of last week’s premiere has morphed into a shared sadness and regret over their lost captain and ship, and Saru does not seem to be able to puzzle out how Burnham could’ve done what she did. (I’m not sure Burnham understands either.) But by episode’s end she is forging a new friendship with Mary Wiseman’s Cadet Tilly, who is a ton of fun as the young, slightly weird, slightly neurotic Starfleeter who’s excited to finally get a bunkmate… until she finds out that bunkmate is Starfleet’s first mutineer. Yikes.
Sonequa Martin-Green is once again the centerpiece of the story, though her character has obviously been taken down a few notches since her disgrace. The actress modulates the character well in this regard, and by the end when she’s finally willing to open herself up to Tilly the viewer feels a sense of happiness and relief for her. Yes, she screwed up on the Shenzhou -- and I still don’t fully get why she did what she did -- but we’re still rooting for her to make up for it all.
The episode is also able to accomplish quite a bit beyond simply establishing these new characters, filling us in on the Mushroom Mission (TM) and even taking a horror-movie detour onboard that other ship. While some Klingons are briefly seen there -- mostly dead -- it seems that we won’t necessarily be following the events on T’Kuvma’s (RIP) ship every week. And that’s fine, because I’ll totally take a space monster chase through darkened corridors once in a while anyway.
Questions and Notes from the Q Continuum:
- Did Lorca let that shuttle pilot die in order to divert the prison ship at the start of the episode? If so, then we already have our answer as to his true nature.
- And we have our first Spock reference! His momma used to read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to him and his sister when he was a wee little Vulcan.
- Why exactly would you have a convicted criminal be roommates with a cadet?
- There are other ship’s personnel introduced but not given much to do this week, including the scary security chief Landry (BSG’s Rekha Sharma), that synthetic robotic lady who takes the conn at one point, and even the various “black badge” officers standing guard.
- What’s up with Lorca’s “menagerie”?
- So we totally know that the Discovery’s Mushroom Mission (TM) will ultimately fail, right? Starfleet does not have that technology in any of the later shows, so maybe it proves to not be viable or the Federation decides that it’s too dangerous?
The Verdict
The third episode of Discovery is tighter and more effective than the sprawling premiere, finally giving us a proper look at the main ship of the show and many of its core crewmembers. Once again, Discovery looks great from a visual effects and production perspective, but one has to hope that, as it moves forward, the show is careful to not lay on too many mysteries without answering some questions along the way. “Context Is for Kings” struck a good balance there too.
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire