When Emotion brings us ghosts from the past, only Logic can root us in the present.
Sarek of Vulcan, Star Trek: Discovery
If there is one element that ties together the different incarnations of
Star Trek, it is victory against all odds - albeit sometimes won with a stern price, but victory nonetheless.
Discovery, the latest addition to the
Star Trek universe, begins its story with something very rare in that universe: failure.
Discovery, set about ten years before the original series*, introduces us to Lieutenant Commander Michael Burnham of the
USS Shenzhou, impressively and aggressively played by
Walking Dead alumni
Sonequa Martin-Green. While on a repair mission to a subspace communications relay, the
Shenzhou encounters a Klingon incursion at the edge of Federation space. Burnham, adopted and raised by Ambassador Sarek of Vulcan after the death of her parents in a Klingon raid, attempts to persuade the
Shenzhou's captain to follow Vulcan protocol and preemptively fire on the Klingons: the "Vulcan Hello" of the first episode's title.
Captain Georgiou refuses to compromise the principles of the Federation by attacking without provocation, which leads Burnham to commit an act of mutiny in hopes of saving her ship, her crew, and her captain. She fails, then tragically fails again in an attempt to pull victory from defeat. The ultimate result of her actions is the near-destruction of the ship, the decimation of the crew, the death of the captain, and war with the newly united Klingon empire.
My apologies for the spoiler, but I'm disappointed beyond words that Captain Philippa Georgiou, Michelle Yeoh's character, did not survive her debut. My past experience with
Star Trek is that it takes at least a season
(if not more) for things to sort themselves out in terms of what works
for the characters, but Yeoh's nuanced performance as Captain Georgiou was an understated work of art: intelligent, clever, funny, commanding and direct, but emotional and even vulnerable. We can always hope to see her again in flashbacks, but that would be a sad substitute for watching the ongoing growth and development of the character.
However, her death and the death of most of her crew sets up an unexpected situation for the premiere of a new series. At the end of the episode, Burnham pleads guilty in front of a Starfleet court of inquiry, and is stripped of her rank and imprisoned. In her final words to the court, she poignantly describes her situation:
From my youth on Vulcan, I was raised to believe that service was my
purpose. And I carried that conviction to Starfleet. I dreamed of a day
when I would command my own vessel and further the noble objectives of
this great institution. My dream is over. The only ship I know in ruins.
My crew... gone. My captain, my friend. I wanted to protect them from
war, from the enemy. And we are at war and I am the enemy.
This also summarizes the state of the series: almost all the characters that were introduced are dead and the protagonist is in prison. Where do we go from here? Presumably the story will be one of redemption, and I'm aware that Jason Isaacs has yet to make an appearance as in his role as Captain Lorca, but he's going to need a really good reason to drag a disgraced Starfleet officer out of her cell and make her part of his crew - what will that reason be?
I guess we'll just have to wait and see - it's going to be a process of, well, discovery.
- Sid
* I'm curious to see if there's going to be some specific reason that they decided to set this in
Star Trek's "past" (for want of a better way to describe it). Three changes to the script and they could have moved the whole concept fifty years into
The Next Generation's future, and then there wouldn't be all those comments about how advanced the bridge of the
Shenzhou looks compared to Captain Kirk's, not to mention the revelation of Spock's human sister and the complete lack of velour turtlenecks, pointy sideburns and short pants on the crew.
