Worth: $14.00
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Cast:
Sonequa Martin-Green, Jason Isaacs, Doug Jones
Intro:
If you watched the pilot and turned away, it really is worth sticking on for a few more episodes to properly judge where things are going.
While Lt Stamets (Anthony Rapp) races to activate the Discovery’s experimental spore-powered warp drive, Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) is assigned to study the captured alien creature that killed a Klingon boarding party on the USS Glenn. Back at the binary stars, the Klingon Voq (Javid Iqbal) continues to repair T’Kumva’s flagship.
After four episodes there is a definite trend emerging among Star Trek: Discovery’s characters: they tend to make a poor first impression. Burnham grated slightly in her first outing, but now is a brilliantly portrayed and multi-faceted protagonist. Saru (Doug Jones) seemed ridiculously flighty and unrealistic in the series premiere, but now seems a thoughtful and intelligent contrast to his captain, Gabriel Lorca (Jason Isaacs). Last week introduced Stamets and Ensign Tilly (Mary Wiseman), who seemed unlikable and grating respectively, and here they are in episode four being both well-rounded and entertaining. Some things simply take time, I guess.
This is very much an episode of two halves. The first sees Burnham working to understand the massive alien creature that she encountered on the Glenn – and which Lorca had secretly transported onto the Discovery for study. He wants a weapon. Burnham finds something vastly more interesting. This storyline is the most overtly like previous Star Trek television dramas that Discovery has managed so far. There are elements of scientific study and new horizons, as well as a core moral dilemma that asks questions of what is and is not an acceptable action in a time of war.
It seems to have long-term implications for the series going forward too. Captain Lorca will clearly do whatever is necessary to safeguard the Federation from the Klingons. Burnham, despite starting the war in the first place, is clearly not comfortable with the choices Lorca is forcing her to make. This is clearly going to lead to a conflict between the two characters, and thankfully it looks set to be one that speaks very directly to what the ideals and principles of the Star Trek characters are. In many ways it most clearly reflects the earlier Star Trek spin-off Deep Space Nine, since both series highlight and emphasise the values of Starfleet by contrasting them with a grimmer reality. Martin-Green is a tremendous asset to the series, and her performance is Burnham is just getting better and better. By focusing the series on her it opens up wonderful new opportunities for the ship’s captain. Lorca is a dangerous war-monger, and a sharp contrast to what one expects from a Star Trek captain, but because he is not the focus of the series he is allowed to be. He is not a character to be liked, but he is absolutely entertaining to watch.
The other half of the episode focuses on the after-effects of T’Kumva’s death back in “The Battle at the Binary Stars”. There is always a risk that a Klingon storyline will test the audience’s patience, but in this case the actual plot developments shown should be pretty engaging and effective. That they are not is less down to Jesse Alexander and Aron Elie Coleite’s teleplay and more down to the restrictive prosthetics and ridiculous fake teeth forced upon the Klingon cast members. When you must struggle to emote, and have to slur your words over the top of a pointy set of dentures – and with no post-synched dubbing to make the language sound clearer – your performance is going to suffer badly. The result is that the episode flies by when on the Discovery, but drags to an interminable crawl when within the Klingon Empire. Thankfully the former makes up for the latter; this series is definitely on the rise. If you watched the pilot and turned away, it really is worth sticking on for a few more episodes to properly judge where things are going.
