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Star Trek: Discovery wraps up its third season which appears to be another complete story arc with a beginning, middle and end. Each season has been pretty much self-contained which is pretty cool. There are no cliffhangers at the end of each season, and this one is the same which will keep us guessing as to where the fourth season will move on from here.
After getting Discovery and her crew away from the Federation as we knew it, and away from anything that would damage the already established Star Trek timeline, and putting them in a future of unimagined possibilities (including finding a shell of the Federation they left behind), the season’s main story arc was the mystery of The Burn, the event that rendered all warp drives inoperable, making dilithium a very precious commodity. And thanks to Discovery’s newly Sphere-enhanced computer, it didn’t take them long to find the location of where The Burn started. Convincing Admiral Vance of Starfleet that they were on the up and up was shaky going at first, and Michael Burnham wasted no time in rubbing the by-the-book Admiral the wrong way (which pays off by the end of the episode).
The finale was certainly full of action, but sometimes the action overtook the story with perhaps a few too many contrivances in the script to make things work, often depriving us of some truly emotional moments. For instance, as Osyraa attempts to get Discovery out of the Federation hub, and with Vance putting all available ships into action to fire on Discovery, and with the surprise arrival of the Ni’Var (thanks to Michael’s distress call to her mother — who doesn’t even make an appearance), nothing really happens because Michael convinces Vance to let them go, promising she’ll make everything okay. The ship’s spore drive is inoperable anyway with Stamets jettisoned and now out of commission at Starfleet HQ. So if you were expecting a big space battle this season, it looks like the FX budget went to creating the holo-program on the dilithium planet.
But Discovery gets away and goes into warp, and Osyraa orders the torture of Book so that he helps guide them to the dilithium planet. Watching his agony — the same device used to control Stamets has a particularly painful effect on the empathic Book — Michael agrees to talk him into giving Osyraa the coordinates. But, she’s able to turn on a convenient emergency force field and take out two guard, allowing them to escape Sick Bay. But finding themselves cornered, Michael manages to override a turbo lift but they can’t get away fast enough before Osyraa’s Regulators, and Zarehn catch up to them, leading to an exciting bit of hand-to-hand action in the lift. But Michael’s plan to jump onto a passing turbo lift (and with just a small number of people on the ship, there were an awful lot of lifts flying around) stretches credibility because of the distance of the lift when she jumps (leaving Book behind) and the force of her landing on top … with no injuries.
She manages to take out more Regulators and direct the lift to the data core of the ship in an effort to reboot the ship’s systems. Of course, Osyraa is already there and the two fight, with the Orion gaining the upper hand and pushing Michael into a wall of … something. What is it? It’s never explained but Michael looks terrified as she slowly sinks into the stuff. Thinking she’s won, Osyraa is surprised by phaser blasts from the wall that kill her instantly. How Michael was able to precisely shoot Osyraa from inside a mass of opaque material is also never explained and is kind of a cheap way to off the season’s Big Bad. But Michael prevails and is able to reboot the ship.
Earlier she had managed to send a coded message to Tilly and the bridge crew — over the shipwide network — that directed Tilly to damage one of the nacelles to knock the ship out of warp, not even knowing if Tilly would receive the message. By this point, Osyraa had locked down the lower decks where the crew was and was slowly allowing the oxygen to leak out. So even though Tilly got the message and everyone was on board with the plan, they were almost out of air before they could get to the nacelle. But … we conveniently learn that Lt. Owosekun can function on less oxygen than everyone else. This is something that should have been dropped into a conversation at some point other than now so it didn’t come off as a contrivance. So while everyone else is passed out from a lack of oxygen, Owo makes it to the nacelle to plant the bomb … and collapses, setting us up for the season’s tragic yet heroic death. Except Owo is somehow rescued by one of the DOT droids seconds before the explosion — and how the droid pulled Owo down the corridor and back to her friends is also stretching things. It also robs the episode of the same emotional gut punch the death of Airiam delivered in Season 2. The season has really spent so much time building up the bridge crew so that we can connect with them, it would have been sad to lose the character but a truly powerful moment of sacrifice. And with Michael rebooting the system, she’s able to restore oxygen to the lower decks, get the Regulators beamed off Discovery and regain control of the ship. The only problem now is that once Discovery dropped out of warp, Osyraa had her ship tractor Discovery inside for safe keeping so now there’s the issue of getting out and back to the dilithium planet to save Saru and the others.
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The scenes on the planet, which were intercut with the action on Discovery, were the more emotional parts of the finale, but again there was a weird plot contrivance. When Adira arrived, it turned out that Saru and Hugh could also see Gray, with the offhand explanation that the holo-program recognized him. If only Adira could see Gray in the real world, and Gray is really just an essence or spirit that is part of the symbiont, how could a holo-program conjure him up, and just him? Why not the rest of the hosts residing within Adira? While I’m all for the franchise’s first trans actor ‘being seen’, it’s still a plot device because Gray isn’t a corporeal being — yet everyone can interact with him physically — so he’s not affected by the radiation that is about to kill the rest of them, and that allows him to somehow venture out of the program and see that their time is very limited as the ship they are on is rapidly disintegrating.
The moments between Su’Kal and Saru are very touching. Doug Jones and Bill Irwin give wonderful performances as Saru gently nudges Su’Kal into reality and Su’Kal finally faces the thing that frightened him so badly a hundred years ago that he caused The Burn (because his DNA is somehow linked with the planet’s dilithium, and his emotional outburst earlier almost knocked Discovery offline). The demon Su’kal had to face wasn’t really the Kelpien monster that kept taunting him, which in fact was trying to help him, it was the memory of watching his mother die from radiation poisoning (I’m not sure it’s ever been explained how Su’Kal has survived for more than a hundred years if Saru, Michael, Hugh and Adira all begin to suffer the effects shortly after arriving on the planet). But confronting this memory, helpfully recorded so he could watch it back, and understanding that he caused The Burn and that the Federation has finally come as his mother promised, convinced Su’Kal that he could trust Saru and turn off the holo-program. When he saw that Saru was actually Kelpien as he had said he was, it really was an emotional moment as the bond between the two grew stronger. But the termination of the holo-program also meant that Gray would disappear, but Hugh promised that he and Paul would strive to make sure that he was always seen. I was really worried that Hugh would also be a fatality, and possibly Adira, but …
Michael’s plan to exit the Viridian was a dangerous one. According to to Aurellio, there’s something in Book’s DNA that allows him to integrate with the spore drive. Stamets was able to because he has tardigrade DNA, but there is more to Book than meets the eye so without the slightest idea of how to operate the spore drive to make the jump, Michael has a plan and Tilly graciously steps aside to allow Michael to take over. All they have to do is eject the warp core and jump before the explosion destroys them and the Viridian. As the core is ejected and Michael begins to panic as Book is taking a very long time to make the jump, all we see is a huge explosion tearing the Viridian apart.
Cut back to the planet as the four fear that Discovery is not returning. But, a momentarily broken message from Michael confirms Discovery did indeed make the jump in the nick of time, and the four are beamed aboard just as the Kelpien ship disintegrates. With Discovery safely back at Starfleet HQ, Michael is summoned to Vance’s office, crossing paths with the gentleman from the first episode of the season who had been holding out hope that there was still a Federation out there to find him. That was a really nice moment and brought the season full circle.
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As Vance and Michael chat, we learn that Saru has taken a leave of absence to return to Kaminar with Su’Kal to help reintegrate him into their society. He has also recommended that Michael be given command of Discovery. Vance reveals to her that he has a daughter who is about as headstrong as Michael, and she often did things her way rather than ‘the right way’ (or his by-the-book way) and she always succeeded. When Vance first met Michael, he felt she was doing everything the wrong way but in the end what she did was right, so he saw no reason not to promote her to captain of Discovery. Michael wanted to wait to discuss this with Saru, but he’d already given his blessing and time was of the essence. With a Starfleet mining vessel en route to the dilithium planet and Discovery’s unique ability to jump to any planet in the universe, they will become, for now, a courier ship, delivering the dilithium and helping strengthen and grow the Federation’s presence. Even the Ni’Var are on board to rejoin the Federation now that they know they are no longer the source of The Burn. Paul and Hugh are reunited, and have basically adopted Adira as their child, Discovery is repaired, and the crew finally gets new uniforms (kind of reminiscent of the bland uniforms worn in Star Trek: The Motion Picture). All that’s left now is for the newly installed captain — and it took three seasons but Michael Burnham is finally where she was always meant to be — to begin their new mission. And, calling back to the humorous moment when Saru was attempting to come up with his own catch phrase and failing miserably (foreshadowing that he was never meant to be the ship’s captain), Michael takes a breath and comes up with the perfect ‘let’s fly’.
The third season finale may have had one too many plot contrivances and no real emotional payoff in the form of heroic (or tragic) death — and we had to assume both Osyraa and Zareh were doomed to keep the season self-contained … no loose ends here — it was still an action-packed, exciting episode that did still deliver some feels, putting a bow on the season, giving us a fresh start for Season 4.
All three seasons of Star Trek: Discovery are now available to stream on CBS All Access.
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