By Jarman Day-Bohn
For those Trekkies out there that were worried about the format of Star Trek Discovery (among their many other worries), in that whether it would be serialized or procedural, I think that this week’s episode, Lethe, showed us that it will be a good mix of both. The story arc of the show is still present throughout, but this episode deals mainly with Michael Burnham’s past and her relationship with Sarek. I honestly believe that this is the first episode of Discovery where the crew has really come together and it is starting to feel like previous incarnations of Trek. When you boil it down, it’s your typical episode of: distress call, let’s go save them, oooo it’s in a dangerous nebula… Like so many of our favorite Trek episodes in the past!
Before we delve into the episode properly, I must first state that when I started streaming the show, everyone’s voice was severely lowered, like through a comedic audio effect. I knew I wasn’t crazy when Michael Burnham came on the screen and sounded like Leonard Nimoy! I restarted the CBS All Access app and it luckily went back to normal. So, ok, no big deal, right? Just a strange little hiccup. Then the real trouble began… Every couple of minutes, the stream would jump ahead 4-5 seconds, skipping over scenes and dialog. I had to rewind every time to see what I missed. Now yes, of course, this could be some fault of my otherwise perfectly working Amazon Fire Stick and super-fast internet, but needless to say, I was a little frustrated that the streaming service I’m paying for JUST to watch ONE show, was having streaming issues… Okay; first-world-problems-rant over. The next section is my lovely recap, but feel free to skip to the review section if you remember how everything went down perfectly.
Recap
The episode starts off with what I think is a cool side story about Vulcan culture and the splinter group of radical logicists, who hate Vulcans associating with anyone other than Vulcans. (I think we can all see the parallels to that and real life right now…) We have Sarek travelling to speak to 2 Klingon houses in an attempt to end the violence, and one of the splinter group Vulcans on board his little ship tries to blow him up. Sarek manages to barely escape death, but is gravely injured. The Katra connection he shares with Michael immediately affects her, light years away from where he is. Michael knows Sarek is in trouble and begs Captain Lorca (against Starfleet orders) to rescue him. With Stamets’ help, they think they can use a neural link device to amplify Michael’s Katra link to Sarek to push him into activating his ship’s distress beacon. (Star Trek technobabble at its finest!)
Michael jumps on a shuttle with Tilly and Ash Tyler, jumps into the nebula and dives into the neural link machine. She enters Sarek’s mind and finds herself in his memories, at the time of her graduation from the Vulcan academy. She finds out, with Ash Tyler’s help and encouragement, that she is in the memory of one of Sarek’s greatest regrets. Apparently Sarek was told that only one of his not-quite-Vulcan children (Spock and Michael) would be able to join the Vulcan Expeditionary Group, and without Michael knowing, he chose Spock over her. He regrets it because after choosing Spock, Spock rebels and joins Starfleet anyway, so he should have chosen Michael. Breaking through and confronting Sarek in this memory allows him to waken just long enough to activate his distress beacon and he is taken back aboard the Discovery and saved.
Meanwhile throughout all this, Captain Lorca is on board the Discovery getting hot and heavy with Admiral Cornwell. It turns out, she was using her psychological expertise to test him out the whole time, due to his recent erratic behavior and refusal to follow Starfleet orders over and over again. When she touches one of the odd scars on his back while he’s sleeping (post-coitus), he jumps awake, grabs a phaser from under his pillow and grabs her by the throat, throttling her. She tells him he is unfit to command, and after she returns from the Klingon diplomatic talks that Sarek was going to attend, she will find him a replacement and get him psychological treatment. Of course, this doesn’t go well and she is kidnapped by the Klingons by the order of Kol. Suddenly, Lorca is struck with the glowing ethics and bureaucracy of Starfleet, (SARCASM) and decides to actually go through the proper channels before rescuing her.
Review
Like I mentioned at the beginning, I think this episode is the start of many more in the series that will feel more like old Trek, with a more problem-of-the-week feel, but with an ongoing story arc, similar to Deep Space Nine. For all the Trekkies out there that are Discovery haters, try to stay with it! You may be surprised by how you feel about the show by the end of this season. And besides…it’s not going anywhere. CBS just renewed Discovery for a second season! Huzzah!
I really enjoyed how every character really played their part in this episode, from the engineer, to the doctor, to Lt. Saru and Michael, Tilly, Lorca and Ash Tyler! Speaking of Ash Tyler (possible future episode SPOILERS ahead) – The going theory out there is that he is actual Voq, but genetically altered and undercover on Discovery. I won’t go into the specifics of the theory, but it’s pretty much all but confirmed. I love this idea, because if you watch this episode with that in mind, it would seem as though Tyler/Voq is seeing humans and other races in a new light, and Michael is key in all this. Possibly he will be key in actually realizing peace between the Federation and the Klingons, being able to show the Klingons that the Federation is actually full of races worthy of partnership. This goes along with my theory that this whole show will be the bridge to the Federation truly becoming the peace-loving and super-progressive organization that they are by the time we reach the original series. If you watch this show under that lens, I think the whole show really comes together.
I will mention briefly that Lorca and Tyler are seen toward the beginning of the episode in a holodeck type room, running a training simulation fighting Klingons. While canonistas out there might think this goes against Trek canon, and that there shouldn't be anything like that yet on a Starfleet vessel, I will point you to this section of the "Holodeck" Memory Alpha wiki page:
Prior to the late 24th century, Federation starships were not equipped with holodecks. (VOY: "Flashback")
However, in 2151, the Starfleet vessel Enterprise NX-01 encountered a vessel belonging to an alien race known as Xyrillians, who had advanced holographic technology in the form of a holographic chamber similar to the holodeck, which Federation Starfleet developed two centuries later. A holo-chamber was later installed aboard a Klingon battle cruiser,
In the 23rd century, Constitution-class starships were equipped with a recreation room, which employed holographic technology. The USS Enterprise had a recreation room located in Area 39 of the ship. (TAS: "The Practical Joker")
Also…Lorca is from the Mirror Universe. I’m just putting it out there!