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Star Trek: Discovery had the feel of a classic Trek episodes this week as Discovery is fully brought back into the Starfleet fold, complete with a retrofit to bring the thousand year old ship up to current standards, including detached nacelles, biometric controls and brand new Starfleet badges packed with things like a personal tricorder and transporter. And there will be an adjustment period to all the new gadgets as Linus found out, transporting to the wrong place at the wrong time.
The episode’s MacGuffin storyline was about an impending war at the planet Argus with Orions and Andorians, forcing Admiral Vance to put Discovery at the ready to leave at a moments notice. Some other Starfleeters were stunned that Vance would put a newcomer in such a position as being a ‘first responder’ but no one knows yet about the spore drive. And Vance is keeping it that way for now, telling the assembled members that Discovery has technology that can take it anywhere at a moment’s notice and that information does not leave the room. I’m sure now there will be some curious cats snooping around to find out what makes Discovery so special. And while Starfleet spruced up the ship, Adira also gave the spore drive new controllers so Stamets can use his hands instead of the ports in his arms to make the jumps.
I like this relationship that Stamets is developing with Adira. She is unquestionably a genius but she also regards Stamets as a rock star in his own right — something his ego appreciates — but he can also sense that there’s something going on with her, especially as he’s found her ‘talking to herself’ a few times. Adira assures him that she doesn’t have a head injury and she reveals that her boyfriend from whom she got the symbiont is somehow still with her. Of course he believes her because he knows from personal experience that death doesn’t mean a loved one is gone. Hugh admires Paul for actually letting down his own walls to bond with someone else on the crew, and this new relationship is going to be less dysfunctional than the one Paul has with Reno and Tilly. It’ll be nice to see a softer side to Stamets.
With Discovery on stand by, a communication from outside the Starfleet distortion field comes at the most opportune moment from … Grudge, Book’s cat. Actually it’s from Book, but his ship and Grudge were programmed to return to Discovery if he didn’t return to his ship. He also reveals that he has one of the ‘black boxes’ Michael has been looking for to help determine the cause of ‘The Burn’. Now all she has to do is take the ship to Book’s last location … except Discovery isn’t out in the wild anymore and abiding by Starfleet commands is going to be a bit harder than she anticipated.
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So hard, in fact, that Michael enlists Georgiou to fly with her on an ‘unsanctioned mission’ to find Book and the black box. Georgiou had a little fun teasing Michael about her feelings for Book, pointing out she said she had ‘loved’ on his ship instead of ‘lived’ but said Michael had her at ‘unsanctioned mission’. SO off they go without a word to anyone, which deeply concerns the by-the-book Saru and even Michael’s best friend on the ship, Tilly, who tells Saru he has to alert Admiral Vance himself that Michael has gone rogue so her actions don’t paint the rest of the crew with the same brush. Saru agrees.
The bulk of the episode finds Michael and Georgiou on a planet with a huge scrap yard run by the Orions. Reverse engineering Grudge’s collar, Michael is able to find Book who is basically a slave to the Orions. Michael and Georgiou play an elaborate game with the Orions, pretending to need various pieces of scrap in order to misdirect them while Michael gets Book alone so she can get the black book and get him off the planet. The problem is if he tries to leave, the little implant at the base of his neck will blow his head off (as we got to see in a gruesome demonstration).
Of course Michael is not leaving without book, and she concocts a plan … that goes awry when they take out the observation drone that’s been following. Michael is nearly killed with Georgiou has another of her episodes like the one that froze her in place last episode. Now she’s having a series of quickly cut visions where someone is dead and Georgiou is wailing at the loss. Very unlike this Georgiou. And just at the wrong moment, she had another episode that nearly got Michael killed but she snapped out of it in time. They managed to get the security defenses down so a group of workers could escape, heads intact, but one of the Andorians helping Book was shot. Michael managed to get them all beamed back aboard Book’s ship and returned to Discovery with the black book.
While the Andorian will survive, Michael’s relationship with Saru may not as they are both dragged in to be reprimanded by Admiral Vance. The only reason Michael isn’t tossed in the brig is because she saved lives and returned with valuable information, so Vance will leave her punishment to Saru. And punish her he did. Fro breaking their trust, Saru relieved Burnham of her position as his Number 1, now relegated to simply being the chief science officer. Michael said he did the right thing but as Saru returned to Discovery, Michael pulled off her new Starfleet badge. Is she preparing to leave Starfleet behind and hop across the universe with Book and Grudge? It certainly seems that way, especially after the pair finally locked lips in the turbo lift.
New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery stream every Thursday on CBS All Access.
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