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Let’s Talk About ‘Kobayashi Maru’:
- After a thousand years, Starfleet is still using Kobayashi Maru as a skill test?
- Burnham and Booker try to extend an olive branch of dilithium to a race of ‘butterfly people’ in a cool scene that has nothing to do with the rest of the episode.
- Federation President Rillak insists on boarding Discovery which is sent on a rescue mission over Burnham’s objections, with something obviously up her sleeve.
- Saru convinces the Kelpien council that Su’Kal will not and cannot cause another ‘burn’.
- Burnham recklessly puts the needs of the few ahead of the safety of the many just to prove a point.
- The guy in charge of the out of control Federation space station is a total control freak.
- Su’Kal knows Saru is yearning to return to Discovery and assures him that he is safe and happy on Kanimar, so Saru is free to leave.
- Booker and Discovery make a shocking discovery about his home planet.
Star Trek: Discovery returns for its fourth season picking up about five months after the third season finale. Burnham is in full control of Discovery after being handed the captain’s chair, and Saru is off on Kaminar helping Su’Kal acclimate after years of being alone — and causing ‘The Burn’ … which some of his fellow Kelpiens still hold against him and don’t trust that it won’t happen again.
The episode opened with a pretty exciting scene of Burnham and Booker arriving at a planet in an attempt to repair relations between the inhabitants and the Federation. Now that Discovery has found a way to mine all the dilithium the Federation needs, it’s time for an outreach program to bring planets suspicious of the Federation back into the fold. But, in an attempt to perhaps inject a slightly lighter tone into the often deadly serious series, the two awkward diplomats end up insulting the Alshains who have some type of unexplained symbiotic relationship with some small creatures that gather and form wings (and ridiculous masks) on their humanoid hosts, giving them the ability to fly … and also giving Book the chance to call them ‘butterfly people’. As the officers flee, the Alshains go on the attack but for some reason are unable to land a shot. Burnham has figured out that the creatures use the planet’s satellite-based magnetic field to navigate, like birds, and since the system is inoperable because they use dilithium for power it’s the perfect opportunity to show the Alshains that the Federation really is trying to make good, no strings attached. The satellites are fired up, the Alshains regain navigational powers, and Burnham and Book make it back to Discovery, with the ambassador accepting the gift and wondering why they would even give them the dilithium while they were being attacked. ‘That’s what the Federation does,’ assures Burnham. And all is well with the universe, even if it was a bit contrived.
For the moment.
After the opening credits (with some new graphic elements added), the episode moves to Kaminar and some sort of high council meeting. It is here that Saru tries to impart to the members the importance of expanding the Kelpiens’ definition of their world, looking beyond their own planet. He’s also there to speak on behalf of Su’Kal, whom many on the council still view with suspicion after it was determined he was the source of ‘the burn’ which rendered all of the dilithium in the universe inert. Saru assures the council that another burn is scientifically impossible and it is time to begin exploring space again. Concurrently, Burnham is also giving a speech to new Federation officers at the reopening of Starfleet Academy. Federation President Rillak addresses the assembled and touts the successes of Discovery and its crew, giving something the new recruits to live up to. To get everyone excited about the future of Starfleet, the new Archer Space Dock is unveiled (nod to Star Trek: Enterprise captain Jonathan Archer), and Burnham goes to have a chat with Tilly, who controversially was handed the position of First Officer with zero experience in the third season finale. Even Tilly says she was not ready for the position, but to finally put a lid on the subject Burnham assures her that she is. So there, haters.
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Then comes the emergency call that is the actual launching point for the episode, and possible the season ahead. Federation Deep Space Repair Beta Six is spinning out of control after losing reactor control od thrusters, and artificial gravity is a mess too. As the station’s commander says, ‘It’s a shit show.’ Unfortunately, the situation is so dire that no Federation ship could reach them in time at warp speed. Cue Discovery and its spore drive. And President Rillak decides she wants to go with them, to check out the spore drive she claims. Burnham is against this because of the safety issues, putting the president’s live in danger, but she persists and there’s nothing Admiral Vance can do to override the president. I don’t know if it was an acting choice or the director’s decision, but the performance of Chelah Horsdal makes the president’s motives all kind of suspect. There could surely be other opportunities for her to give Discovery a once over; a time of life-or-death crisis is not it. But Vance just shrugs and smiles and off they go.
This sets up a terribly clichéd plot device of who is in charge. Burnham feels that she has to keep asserting her power, obviously hoping that the jump will knock the president for a loop. It doesn’t and Rillak gives Burnham a smug look when they arrive at Beta Six. And, by the way, what was that bizzaro sound effect they decided to add when Discovery jumps? It was new, it was weird, it was totally out of place, like a comical ‘wheeeeee’ sound. Of some bad decisions made with this episode, this was the most egregious.
Noticeably absent from Discovery is Book, who has traveled back to his homeworld of Kwejian to take part in his nephew’s coming of age ceremony that involves an ancient tree stump, its sap and a few drops of blood. The sap and blood are placed in a small amulet that the family wears, and nephew Leto is told to never take it off. Of course Leto notices Uncle Booker isn’t wearing his. Why? We may never know because Book sends the child off to play with his friends. Suddenly a flock of birds flies overhead but in some obvious distress. This seems to mirror the incident Book experienced with the Alshains, so he takes off in his ship to find out what’s going on with the planet’s magnetic field.
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Back on Discovery, the ship must align with the wildly spinning station in order to get Tilly and Adira on board to help with repairs, something which also gives Detmer and Owosekun a chance to show off in front of the president … who has basically disagreed with every decision Burnham has made. (It also gives the director a chance to use upside-down camera angles, camera rotation and weird dissolves to show how topsy-turvy things are on Beta Six.) To make matters worse, the commander of Beta Six is a total control freak and won’t let Tilly or Adira do anything to help … and Tilly just steps back and lets him do his work. Of course he eventually needs help, and the situation worsens when shields begin to collapse and some out of nowhere storm of space debris starts pelting the station and Discovery, necessitating an emergency escape from Beta Six. But the pod can’t hold all of them and it’s only set to leave the station, not return. Of course there’s a fix for that and he finally lets Adira do something to keep them all from dying, they all get away from the station but the escape pod gets hit on its return to Discovery and the guy ends up dying anyway. And he was such a dick the whole time I didn’t even care.
After all of this drama, the president finally reveals her true reason for being there — the Federation is looking into the next generation of spore drives and various other advancements and she’s auditioning captains to head the projects. She wanted to see how Burnham performed under stress and … it didn’t go well because of Burnham’s incessant need to make everything right even in situations where she put the needs of the few ahead of the lives of the many on her ship. In Rillak’s professional opinion Burnham is not ready to take on a larger assignment, even though she is over-qualified to captain a starship. Burnham said she wouldn’t have accepted such a position even if it was offered because Discovery is her home and the crew is her family, but she disagrees with the assessment that she’s not emotionally mature enough to advance within the Federation. Come on, girl, you know the president is right. Of course, Burnham would have to be more mature to understand that. Right now she just comes off as a show off, trying to please Starfleet and the Federation.
On Book’s ship, he’s experiencing the same kind of debris and when he gets back to Discovery there is a report of some type of space anomaly, and when they put it up on the screen they see something that horrifies them all — Book’s planet has been destroyed. So it seems this catastrophic event, introduced in the final seconds of the premiere as a huge cliffhanger, is the set-up for the season to come. But do we really need another season focused on a space anomaly? Let’s just hope the writing improves because there was not a whole lot impressive about this season premiere.
New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery premiere Thursdays on Paramount Plus. Subscribe using our affiliate link.
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