Star Trek: Discovery Flavor Premiere Recap: Where's My Damned Cherry Affair?

The starting time flavor finale of Star Trek: Discovery concluded on the ideal type of cliffhanger: the "hmm, that seems similar a terrible idea I'd like to block out for a twelvemonth and circle back" kind. Subsequently a whirlwind of a rookie flavor, wherein choices both smart and utterly inexplicable — merely overall unique and daring — were made, the writers fabricated the deeply annoying conclusion to lean on nostalgia and canon in the final seconds, catastrophe things with a distress signal from Captain Christopher Pike and the The statesSouthward. Enterprise.

That Discovery takes identify a decade earlier the events of the original series has been well established; we knew the risk of running into approved TOS characters from the first. But actively recruiting Helm James T. Kirk'southward predecessor onto the Discovery and into the offset new Trek serial in over a decade feels titillating at best, a move expressly designed to placate a hardcore core of Trekkies who take already expressed serious doubts virtually the evidence to begin with. To say nothing of the fact that we'd just managed to impale off the other domineering white guy a few episodes prior! His imminent arrival, along with that of Michael Burnham'south (Sonequa Martin-Green) foster brother, Spock (Ethan Peck) — perhaps the franchise's most recognizable grapheme — and all the fervor surrounding them has resulted in trivial impatience for me surrounding the prove'due south return. Of course I want the show to come up back; no first season of a Trek series is its best. Simply the introduction of familiar characters didn't bode well at all for Discovery's future.

Thus it is with slightly bemused optimism that I study that the flavour-ii premiere, which, for ameliorate or worse, ignores almost all of the events of final season, is made delightful almost entirely thank you to Motorway'south inflow on the ship. Of course in that location's too Burnham'due south opening monologue, which plays over the footage of Saturn gathered by NASA's Cassini spacecraft and is so beautiful that I choked up and suddenly wondered why this wasn't part of the overall title sequence, à la Patrick Stewart's Next Generation prologue. And there's Tig Notaro as stranded engineer Jett Reno, whose wry genius manages to be a perfect fit for the franchise while also relatably grounding the story in a fashion previously unseen in a Expedition prove. Tilly's still saying as well many words, and Saru is notwithstanding the undersung hero of my heart.

But — and believe me, information technology pains me to admit information technology — with Throughway, and in particular with Anson Mount'south portrayal, Discovery has suddenly been injected with a version of the paternalism beloved in Expeditions past (see: Picard, Sisko) that may actually exist ideally compatible with the futurity of the series. Equal parts humble, empathetic, and but a bit overly fixated on beingness the Discovery'due south cool new stepdad, the new Thruway is the best version of a white guy the testify could have: he treats his role on the the ship every bit temporary as it is, deferring to Saru and Burnham whenever possible, humanizing the heretofore more or less bearding bridge crew, and making jokes that feel rooted in archetype Trek ("Where's my damn red thing?" "And Detmer? Fly … good").

To the plot, though: Stranded with but life support functional, the Enterprise — which, we learn, managed to miss the unabridged Klingon War while it was on one of its five-year missions — needs serious repair. In the meantime, Starfleet wants to optimize its prized Captain Motorway, and orders him to commandeer Discovery to investigate a bunch of mysterious carmine … things that have of a sudden popped up across the galaxy. They're signals, I guess? And maybe they're malicious! They're red, after all.

Motorway comes aboard with a redshirt with headgear and a science officer who is, much to Burnham'southward surprise (and thwarting?), non Spock, but a large adult son fresh off an Ivy League rowing team named Connolly. (Among the many things I appreciated well-nigh this grapheme: the actor who plays him is also named Connolly, every bit though the writers knew he'd exist then briefly they couldn't bother to give the character an in-universe name.)

The Discovery is tasked with checking out the only ane of the signals with a clear location, which happens to be in the heart of a strange asteroid cluster. One of the asteroids has its own gravitational field — which Big Adult Son so helpfully points out is incommunicable for an object that small — and merely so happens to exist where the USS Hiawatha, a Starfleet medical frigate thought to be destroyed by the Klingons over a yr ago, has crash-landed. The cluster — awfully similar to the debris field where Burnham and Co. discovered the Klingons' Buoy of Kahless, I should notation — is too dangerous to ship through, and so Burnham, Expressway, headgear redshirt, and Large Adult Son take these little exploratory pods through the field to rescue whoever may still be alive on the asteroid.

At present, Big Adult Son exists seemingly for two reasons. He makes State highway look like a far better white guy by comparing, and establishes a new norm for the franchise: this time effectually, information technology won't exist redshirts who dice for stupid reasons — it'll exist smug mansplainers who can't get over a woman being smarter and ameliorate than him at their job. So aye, Large Adult Son refuses to mind to Burnham's warnings nearly steering the pods, despite the fact that she literally test-piloted them, and gets hit by debris and explodes equally a outcome. Goodbye!

On the asteroid they find Jett Reno, who is apparently such a practiced engineer that she tin also go on actual living people medically stable for 10 months with a heap of scrap metallic and some batteries. I gauge that makes sense, if medicine has indeed advanced that much — I don't know shit about computers only can troubleshoot my laptop if it goes haywire. Anyhow, they figure out how to transport all the patients off the rock. Burnham misses the transport window and has to exercise some virtually meaningless escaping of the wrecked ship as the gravitational field collapses it; she gets knocked out and stabbed by some molten shrapnel but Pike comes dorsum to save her considering he is a Good Dad. The Discovery manually grabs a large ol' stone from the cluster considering Tilly says it'due south sending the last of the mycelium spores haywire, and because information technology plain contains non-baryonic matter.

Meanwhile, the elephant non in the room this calendar week: Spock. At the very least, his presence (or lack thereof) in the premiere is very "distressing, distressing, I'm trying to remove it," as though to assure us information technology's not the lazy fan service it appears. The bait-and-switch with his non-reveal — as the Enterprisers materialize on the transporter, a close shot of Large Developed Son'due south foursquare jaw and and then his human ear, as though ratcheting up fans' anticipation of his inflow only to deliberately dash it — was deeply satisfying, not to mention somewhat reassuring.

And judging from Burnham's flashbacks to her arrival into Sarek, Amanda, and Spock's home on Vulcan, it's pretty clear that we're leaning into the awkward insecurity suggested by Zachary Quinto in J.J. Abrams'due south film franchise reboot (despite the two properties taking place in ii different universes). Hateful Baby Spock's vague rejection of Baby Michael is manifestly driven by anxiety, if non a deliberate insinuation that he'south on the autism spectrum; Burnham intimates to both Motorway and Sarek that there's more to their relationship that she hasn't divulged however, though, so that's TBD.

And surprise! Pike'southward damn red things, Burnham learns at the terminate when she boards the Enterprise to snoop through her brother's stuff, were plotted and scattered by Spock himself, equally some sort of puzzle or map for Burnham to follow "in the effect of [his] death." Kind of an extreme way to grapple with your existential crisis, bud, but given Spock's penchant for pretending to exist expressionless then that everyone who loves him will scramble to observe him at whatsoever cost, I can't say I'm surprised.

• Okay, look: I know information technology's canon that Throughway is from Mojave. I know that some bits of Star Expedition over the years have even been filmed out in the Mojave Desert. But has anyone associated with this show ever pointed out that information technology is, in fact, a desert? Here'due south a bafflingly lush nevertheless from the original Pike pilot, "The Cage." And now we have Pike talking about having learned "dorsum in Mojave" that you have to "jump right into" a "cold stream"? Is the Mojave going to be terraformed in the next 200 years? Is that information technology? Where is this cold stream in the middle of a desert, Christopher? WHERE.

• Should nosotros be worried about Stamets? He'south talking well-nigh leaving Starfleet for the Vulcan Science Academy while also obsessing a little besides much over the Kasseelian opera primadonna who commits violent suicide after one (1) performance. Here'due south hoping a big new rock to play with will continue him onboard, and, y'all know, alive.

• Did you notice the proto-visor worn past Discovery's transporter platform operator? … Hmm? Oh, yes, that was all I had on that i. Good easter egg, folks.

Star Trek: Discovery Epitomize: Where's My Damned Scarlet Thing?