Screengrab
The crew of Star Trek: Disocvery is back and, though we’re picking up right where we left off — the arrival of the Enterprise — it feels almost like a new show. Let’s face it, the first season was dark, dramatic and heavy with its betrayals, deaths, Klingon war and alternate universe. The crew of the Discovery had been put through the ringer with a traitorous captain, so they may have some trust issues when Captain Christopher Pike shows up on their bridge.
But after they clear him as this universe’s Pike, he makes it clear he knows what they’ve been through and that he’s not Lorca. And as the episode progresses, he’s the anti-Lorca, a man who wants to know who he’s going on a mission with — first names only, no ranks (although Ariam can’t help not listing her rank) — and who wants chairs in his ready room. And even though he’s been placed on the Discovery by Starfleet, much to Saru’s chagrin, he wants everyone to get along and enjoy the ride. Even if that ride is taking them to almost certain death.
And with Pike’s arrival, Star Trek: Discovery feels almost like a different show. The tone is certainly lighter and there’s even some much needed humor. I know Anson Mount is playing the first captain of the Enterprise, but a lot of his funnier lines feel more like the ship’s second captain … and there’s nothing wrong with that. The show needed a tonal shift and Pike helps. Tig Notaro also had a guest appearance this week as a mechanic who managed to keep several of her crew mates alive for ten months after a crash landing on an asteroid (to her the body is just a machine), and is unaware the Klingon was is over (‘No one’s speaking Klingon so we won?’). After a dangerous mission to the asteroid that left a Red Shirt dead … nope, wait, the guy who died was wearing a BLUE shirt, PSYCH (and someone does make a crack about the Enterprise crew’s colorful uniforms) … Notaro’s Jett Reno (!) is beamed back to the Discovery with her crew mates so she’ll hopefully turn up every now and then to inject her deadpan humor into the proceedings.
Screengrab
As the first season was about the Klingon War, season two is setting up something that will bring another canonical character to the series: Spock. Pike’s arrival at the behest of Starfleet is to investigate seven red burst of energy that appear and disappear mysteriously around the universe. But there is something else introduced as Michael Burnham is accidentally left behind on that asteroid and the crashed ship begins to fall apart around her as the asteroid nears its own death in a pulsar. With a shard of molten metal embedded in her leg, Burnham witnesses something we already know the series is calling the Red Angel. The image vanishes as Pike returns to save Burnham, but it will play out through the season. Is it connected to the ‘red things’ as Pike calls them?
The episode did manage to pull the rug out from under us, and Burnham, when Pike and his two officers beamed over to Discovery. Spock was not with him. Through flashbacks we learn that Burnham had a bit of a rocky relationship with younger Spock, so we’re left to wonder if she’s anxious about seeing him again because they had a bad childhood or if it’s something else weighing on her. Sarek senses Burnham is not telling him something about her relationship with Spock and I’m going to go out on a limb and say that their relationship as they got older was a bit more than brother/sister stuff (and a quick shot in the trailer for the season at the end of the episode seems to confirm that). But Burnham needs to visit the Enterprise and snoop around Spock’s quarters — he’s actually taken a leave of duty for an indeterminate amount of time — to see if there are any clues as to where he went and why.
Burnham discovers some audio recordings so our first introduction to new Spock is by his voice only. He mentions that if he should die while he’s away doing whatever it is he’s doing, he’s encoded the message with some information. Burnham remembers how Spock would draw on a screen and then be able to grab the drawings and toss them in the air, bringing his electronic musings to life. She does the same with his recording and sees his message: the universe and seven red balls of energy. Now the question is how is Spock tied to these phenomena?
Screengrab
The new season of Star Trek: Discovery feels new and fresh. We’ve already gotten to know the bridge crew better in the first hour than we did during the entirety of the first season. Pike and Reno have brought some humor to the show — even Saru got to deliver a sarcastically funny retort at one point — and we know Spock is coming (as well as Captain Georgiou and Sector 31). Tilly still says too many words and is drunk with power, moving someone with a large space who only sits and meditates into a broom closet so Dr. Stamets can move his equipment into the larger area but … Stamets is leaving once they get to Vulcan. There are too many reminders of Hugh Culber all around him for him to deal with (and it was nice to see Wilson Cruz for a brief moment, even if it was only a video message he left for Paul) but Tilly may have found something to keep him around (a piece of the asteroid that was driving the spores crazy and may be the answer to their jumping issues). The first episode gave us a lot of set-up for the season and any qualms fans had about digging into classic Star Trek canon with the arrival of Pike should have those fears put to rest (though the jury is still out on Spock).
It was a fun, action-packed, very cinematic episode — you can tell that they’re spending a ton of money on this show from the sets, costumes, amkeup and special effects to the cinematography and lighting (and the producers admit that they play with various colors to make the viewer have a specific psychological reaction) — and while I enjoyed the first season, it still felt too oppressive. I really enjoy the feeling of a weight being lifted from our shoulders with the tone and the edge of your seat moments of action. Now that they’ve gotten the burden of the Klingon War out of the way, it feels like the Discovery may be heading in a bold new direction. And I am completely on board with that.
New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery begin streaming Thursdays at 8:30 PM on CBS All Access.
Share this post
