Mutiny Up My Sleeve.*

 

Michael Burnham: All my life, the conflict inside me has been between logic, and emotion. But now it's my emotions that are fighting. I think about him and I want to cry. But... I have to smile. And I feel angry. But I want to love. And I'm hurt, but there's hope. What is this?

Ash Tyler: Ah, it's just... being human.

[She looks at him curiously, then offers him her hand]

Michael Burnham: Michael Burnham. Pleased to meet you.

Ash Tyler: Ash Tyler. We've met.

Michael Burnham: Have we? Let's try it again.  

Lethe: Star Trek: Discovery

To my surprise, I've somehow managed to watch all the episodes of Star Trek: Discovery to date.  For the record, this is more of an accomplishment than it sounds. I exist in a continual state of media deficit and there's a long list of things that have just dropped off my radar due to lack of time.  Having stayed in sync with Discovery, I’m pleased to say that I'm cautiously enjoying it.

 

Why cautiously, you ask?  Well,on the positive side, so far almost everyone in the cast of Discovery is delivering a noteworthy performance.  Although I was very impressed by Michelle Yeoh’s brief turn as Captain Georgiou (and disappointed by her premature departure), Jason Isaacs is now presenting us with a good solid take on Captain Lorca, who came to us as a cipher and is being filled in very nicely as the show develops.  Doug Jones is doing a brilliant job as Commander Saru - I don’t know if I should congratulate him or his makeup team, but the result is a completely believable alien character. 

It's a shame that Mr. Jones doesn't get more work as himself.  I realize that his slim physique makes him an ideal candidate for roles like Saru or Abe Sapien in the Hellboy series, but it would be interesting to see him perform without prosthetics more often. That being said, his ability to express emotion in spite of a substantial barrier of molded latex is astonishing.

Sonequa Martin-Green is excellent as Michael Burnham.  I hadn't seen much of her on The Walking Dead (see media deficit, above) but she's doing a very good job of showing us the challenges of Burnham's situation:  dealing with the ambiguities of being raised in a culture dedicated to logic and emotional control, and still coming to terms with the very different expectations and assumptions of human society.  Her performance is natural and believable: as with all good acting, it doesn't feel like acting at all.

However, I do have some misgivings about the show itself.  I constantly find myself wondering why they felt it necessary to make this show part of the Star Trek universe. It doesn’t feel very Trek-like at times:  the technology and uniforms don’t really match canon, the Discovery’s magical instantaneous mushroom** drive is one of the strangest pieces of technological bafflegab ever, and to be honest, I'm not wild about the look of the re-re-imagined Klingons very much. (Or their place in the plotline, for that matter.  Is it my imagination, or does everything just slow to a crawl every time we get a subtitled guttural update on the state of the Empire?)

The bridge of the Discovery is loaded with three or four new entries into the Star Trek catalogue of species, none of whom appear in any of the programs set in Discovery's future (or its past).  So far, except for Saru they're all ciphers, set dressing with no explanation - if the creators of the show just wanted to fill the seats, why not go with aliens from the original series?  The good news is that Discovery has been approved for more episodes, so hopefully we're going to start finding out about some of the other crewmembers as the show progresses.  Regardless, there's no reason that they couldn't have been Andorians, Orions, Denobulans, Kzinti***, or Tellarites, all of which already exist in canon.

Finally, I'm concerned that they're going to rely too heavily on Michael Burnham's logic-based contrarian nature.  It would be far too easy to reduce her dynamic to an internet meme:

MICHAEL:  I think we should do the thing. 

SOMEONE:  I order you not to do the thing.

MICHAEL:  Imma do the thing, because I was raised by Vulcans.

SOMEONE:  Doing the thing was right, but we still don’t trust you, because mutiny.

There’s a fine line between character consistency and lazy writing, and, frankly, this is what did Wesley Crusher in.  Too many of the early Next Generation plots irritatingly relied on some product of Wesley’s genius to save the day, to the point where it burned out the character's ability to contribute to storylines.  I've been relieved to see that recent episodes of Discovery have shown us more of Burnham's background and exposed some of her weaknesses and vulnerabilities, which helps to provide greater depth to the character.  Please keep working on that side of things, people - I'd really hate to hear anyone saying, "Shut up, Michael!" in a future episode.

- Sid

* This is the title of my favourite Max Webster album, and as such I am painfully pleased to be able to use it here.

** Yes, Laurie, a magic mushroom drive.  Seriously, watch the show if you don't believe me.

*** Actually, I've always been a little doubtful about the validity of the Kzinti in terms of canonicity.  Science fiction author Larry Niven was invited to adapt one of his Known Universe short stories as an episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series in 1973, which perforce added his felinoid Kzinti to the Star Trek universe.  Regardless, I suspect that almost everyone considers them to be part of Niven's continuity rather than Star Trek's.