“Do not regret loving someone, Michael.”
This is an episode that would make a Vulcan’s head explode. I mean, seriously. Every character behaves illogically. In the first eight minutes, Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) beams back with evil-Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh), who is then put in guest quarters (what?), Tyler is put under house arrest for murdering Dr. Culber (what?), Burnham refuses Saru’s request to visit Tyler (what?)—okay, that one might need a bit of explaining. Saru (Doug Jones), apparently being unaccustomed to issuing orders makes a special request of Burnham, rather than throwing her in the brig for bringing back a psychotic Terran, who turns her phaser on Saru because he looks better on a plate than he does in a uniform.
He asks her to console and confide in Tyler in order to figure out where his allegiances are; now that’s he’s neither Klingon nor human, but some unholy union of the two. A captain would make it an order, but instead, she turns him down and walks away. Admiral Cornwell (another contender for a court-martial herself) beams on board with a team, shuts down the ship, and takes command. She gives the crew the low-down. Stamets overshot their entrance back into the normal universe by nine months. The Klingons handily defeated Starfleet.
Strangely enough, Cornwell is more upset about the mirror-Lorca she canoodled with in the before-time than she is about this reversal of fortune. Burnham asks Cornwell (Jayne Brook) to give Georgiou asylum (what?). I don’t understand this. Why she (and Burnham) aren’t being escorted to an airlock confuses me. This is a ridiculous circumstance sandwich. Tyler, free to move about the ship, approaches Stamets and tries to apologize to him for killing Hugh (what?).
Tyler eats in the commissary amid icy stares from the crew, and Tilly (in a Spartacus moment) joins him. I really want her to put down that spoon. Please put down the spoon, Tilly! Others follow. WHAT?! Discrimination (even if it’s discrimination against a murderer) is WRONG! Remember that, kids. Discovery makes its way to a Starbase to find it has been effectively seized by the Klingon Empire, specifically the House D’Ghor. They even graffiti their logo on the outer plating. That’s stone cold. Cornwell appeals to L’Rell (because she’s worth it—I missed that joke!), but L’Rell tells her the Klingons will not stop until they are destroyed or conquered.
While Cornwell fails with L’Rell, Burnham asks for tips on how to defeat the Klingons from Georgiou. She compares them to cancer. She thinks they need to attack the “tumor” responsible for the cancer: Qo’noS. Cornwell signs on and she brings in the remaining ships of Starfleet, and rather than have Discovery attack from orbit, they’ll hide the ship in a large cavern on the planet’s surface. Because the ship is running low on mycelial spores, Stamets arranges to grow more on a nearby uninhabited planet. Of course, this being Star Trek: Discovery, the soap opera must continue.
Sarek encourages Michael to love Tyler. It’s actually a nice little scene, but I can’t stand Michael, so I’ll leave it at that. It gets downright obnoxious when Tilly begins advising her to talk to Tyler. Shut up, Discovery! Anyway, Stamets’ plan involves terraforming the planet with the remaining mycelial spores to create a self-contained planetary greenhouse that will grow the spores indefinitely. It seems to me this should’ve been the focus of the episode, and not all the As the Alpha Quadrant Turns crap.
This is the stuff I find fascinating, but no. Like Lower Decks, the characters are all that matter. The terraforming plan works! This was a total of two minutes of the episode. We finish the show with Burnham meeting up with Tyler and making nice with him while Cornwell introduces evil-mirror “Captain” Georgiou (what is it with people not earning their rank on this show?) who will lead the mission to Qo’noS.
Star Trek Rewind explores the Star Trek universe. From Archer to Janeway, Kirk to Picard, and Georgiou to Sisko — boldly read what no one has read before!
