Star Trek: Discovery, Season 1, Episode 6: Lethe
Star Trek: Discovery is a show that I just watch while I'm playing Hearthstone or Warcraft III or some other game and I like something to be playing on my laptop, but I don't hate it. I also don't really have as much to say about it compared to most other shows, and I've started reviewing those episodes with it in mind. Still, I do watch episodes, and I guess I can talk about them. I don't come from a super Star Trek-y background, so it might be a bit curious that I'm reviewing this as just another sci-fi show.
This episode formally brings Ash Tyler as the ship's resident security officer, but we return back to Burnham as the show's focal character. We learn more of her Vulcan-raised backstory and her relationship with her adoptive father, Sarek, who turns out to also be daddy to Spock. So the plotline basically involves Sarek getting blown up by a Vulcan extremist who doesn't think much of collaborating with other races (space elves, remember?) and in his death, the whole katra-mind-meld thing he has with Burnham keeps bringing Burnham back to a memory-dream of what Burnham thinks is her greatest failure -- the day she was rejected from the Vulcan academy.
We learn as Burnham keeps returning to Sarek's near-death mind that apparently it's not Burnham's greatest failure, but Sarek's own greatest shame, where the Vulcan academy gave Sarek a choice -- only one of Sarek's sub-Vulcan progenies, Spock or Burnham, is allowed to enter the academy, despite both of their high performance, and Sarek ends up feeling more emotion than is normal for a Vulcan, and ultimately chooses Spock. It's not a particularly original storyline, but it's emotionally engaging all the same for me. I don't know (and, honestly don't care) if this fits with older Trek canon, or Sarek's prior characterization, but it does make Burnham's backstory be revealed to us in a more present-day relevant manner.
There were more cute moments for Tilly, and some neat moments for Ash, and I did like how Stamets has sort of outgrown his dick-officer and became a more fun 'kooky scientist' archetype. Lorca continues his anti-hero extremist storyline, where he meets with his old friend Admiral Cornwell, sleep with her, and end up showing that he still has more than a bit of psychosis over the past events that had befallen him. Lorca ends up stealing Cornwell's gun, leaving her defenseless when she swaps places with the wounded Sarek and shows up to negotiate a peace treaty with the Klingons and ends up being captured. Cool plotline advancement, although it does make the Klingons feel somewhat cartoonishly evil than perhaps is healthy.
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