Star Trek Discovery S5E1: Red Directive
First, a caveat: I really enjoy Star Trek: Discovery. That’s not a popular opinion here on the internet, where the angriest, whiniest section of Trek fandom tear down the show loudly and often. Complaints that it’s “too woke” (ie. it acknowledges the existence of LGBT people/aliens and the lead character is a black woman) can obviously be dismissed out of hand, and are laughable considering the franchise’s history in pioneering representation on TV.
The less-dismissable complaint is that Discovery broke the formula. It’s not an episodic show with an ensemble of characters who all work on the bridge of a starship, and each get a chance to be the focus of an episode. It’s a serialized show, which largely ignores the bridge in favor of low-ranking members of the crew who the show finds interesting, led by Sonequa Martin-Green’s Michael Burnham, who at different times has been an insubordinate first officer, a criminal, a pirate, but is now captain of the ship, and is the focus of every episode.
Personally, I think it was the best possible move to shake up the formula for Trek’s streaming-era revival, and not just give us a warmed-over Next Next Generation. (We can watch the last season of Picard for that). Discovery isn’t a perfect show (it’s had the same kind of pacing issues that have plagued a lot of serialized shows, and the writers don’t always put in the work to make the breakneck plot make sense), but it’s something new that’s still built around Trek’s signature mix of science, philosophy, and whiz-bang action, and the show (and the franchise) are better for it.
So here we are at the start of the final season. We spend a moment catching up with our lead characters, but then we’re off to the races. The mysterious Dr. Kovich (special guest star David Cronenberg) approaches Burnham with a top-secret mission (the “red directive” of the title). Discovery has to intercept an 800-year-old Romulan ship carrying something so classified that Burnham isn’t even allowed to know what she’s looking for. And someone else has gotten there first.
Two pirates — a human woman (Moll) and a green-skinned alien (L’ak) — are already on board when Discovery arrives, although they also don’t know what they’re looking for, just that if the Federation wants it, it must be valuable. So there’s a tense scene of Burnham and a few expendable crew members exploring the ghost ship, knowing someone hostile’s on board but not who. But for once, the redshirts aren’t the ones who get into trouble — the pirates escape, knocking a hole in the ship that sends Burnham careening into open space (in a spacesuit, at least).
She attaches herself to the pirate ship, just in time for it to take off at warp speed. Say what you will about the other Trek shows, none of them do an action sequence as well as Disco. We get a high-speed chase, with Burnham both trying to hold on for dear life, and pleading with another Starfleet captain, to not blow the ship up with her on it, and Saru trying to get Discovery between them to rescue her.
Which he does. But not until after the pirates get away. So out of options, Burnham turns to the one lead character we haven’t seen yet, her ex-boyfriend. Book was last seen teaming up with last season’s villain before having a change of heart and saving the day. The slap-on-the-wrist punishment Starfleet usually metes out in these situations involved him helping relief efforts in another part of the galaxy, and he and Michael haven’t spoken in months. But his past as a smuggler and procurer-of-rare-objects means he might know how to track down the pirates.
So the two exes try to keep things profesh, as Beckett Mariner would say, and of course Book’s immediately able to offer up a promising lead. But just to make sure things are a bit more awkward, the two follow it up along with Captain Rayner, the same one who nearly got Burnham killed during the chase.
Which leads to more chases, a Data-style android, Return of the Jedi-type speeder bikes, moral conundrums, a literal mystery box, Tilly being awkward, Stamets and Adira frowning at a science problem, and the action stopping so Burnham and Book can look at each other wistfully when they should be chasing the bad guys, and finally the setup for one last season-long mystery.
In short, it’s everything people who like Discovery like, and everything people hate Discovery hate. So we’ll end with one more common criticism—that every season’s plot involves Burnham and her crew saving the entire galaxy. That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but it’s also a plaudit as much as a criticism. This isn’t a show concerned with minutiae. It’s Star Trek on an epic scale, and while we enjoy a quiet moment of tea, earl grey, hot, as much as the next Trekkie, Michael Burnham is off to save the entire galaxy again, and we’re right there with her.
Stray tachyons:
• The show lampshades criticism of Burnham always having to be the hero by sticking her with Rayner, who keeps upstaging her to play the hero, which works wonderfully.
• While the show’s alien landscapes are pretty transparent CGI, they’re still a gigantic step up from TNG’s matte paintings and TOS’ styrofoam rocks.
• Last season they replaced Trek’s traditional exploding control panels with something that shoots jets of flame across Discovery’s bridge any time the ship gets hit, and it’s so delightfully stupid. Trek has always needed just a little bit of ridiculousness, and it’s the perfect amount.
• The Data-style android is a very cool addition… except the show feels the need to stop everything to overexplain the connection. Honestly, they could take a lesson from Lower Decks and just trust that Star Trek fans will get references to Star Trek. The season’s central mystery, however, is also a Next Generation callback that’s far less clumsy.
• Paramount Plus released two episodes today; we’ll review “Under the Twin Moons” in the next couple of days and then follow the show weekly.
