The War Without, The War Within

DVD, Star Trek: Discovery S1 (The War Without, The War Within)

Soapy, over-emotive melodrama. It really is hard going getting through some of these episodes and far from reminding me of Trek, it feels much more like the convoluted and ridiculous 'Smallville'! At least that was built on a couple of good seasons at the start before it went wacky, and it had the excuse of being based on a comic book character, so even with all the silly, uncharacteristic things that happened by or to people, the way they behaved or their plans and solutions, you expect it to be that way inclined. It may be that I just don't care about these characters which I expected to get to know and like. It may be that I expected too much, beyond a film-like visual style. But everything 'DSC' does seems to put me off - it's like they show off the money behind the series in every unnecessary way rather than concentrating on the things that matter. And it's not like they don't do the old Trek trick of reusing sets, aliens and characters, even when it's not necessarily serving the story. I'm talking in generalisations here because it's very hard to pin down exactly what is wrong with this series. Let's take an example: it was fantastic to see the Andorian and Tellarites in the Mirror Universe, and in this episode they return as the versions of our universe. Okay, so I should be as excited to see them, right? It was a nice little touch, but without any direction - they were just there as a nod, and that's fine, but it's not like we now get to know them or even learn their names. So maybe they were there because it was cheaper to reuse the outfits and makeup tailored for those specific actors?

If they're being careful with little things like that, or by bringing back the USS Shenzhou as they did now and again through the season, which is a bigger deal, then it shows they have the same budget-minded approach of previous Trek. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's symptomatic of the series that it is both things at the same time: it is both being money-conscious, while at the same time it's all about showing off the look of the tech at every opportunity. It puts great attention to detail on things like maps and names of places, dropping in references throughout the season (the House of D'Ghor was responsible for mashing Starbase 1; Captain (wouldn't they remember him as Admiral?), Archer and the crew of the Enterprise NX-01 were the last Starfleet crew to visit Qo'noS a hundred years ago - specifically the Andorian says no Starfleet officer this century has visited, which would leave it open for the future stories, but Cornwell narrows it down), but the bigger picture is so poorly conceived as if by writers that don't understand Trek. From my own perspective I feel I'm being both too harsh on the series and too lenient. It's clearly not doing for me what Trek has always done, and should this be my fault that I can't enjoy it as others seem to? It's a philosophical question, the kind that doesn't get asked by the series, or maybe it does, but gets lost in the magic of spores and characters getting emotional. The argument is that they're at war, but how much war do we really see? How much of the Klingons do we really see? Was there really any point to this approach?

You see, I'm left with questions every time, and I don't mean in terms of the ongoing plot. I question what it is about these people that doesn't warm me to them? Is it just that I prefer the style of writing from another age? Is modern characterisation so different? I say they're overly emotional, but isn't that fair considering the circumstances? I see Tyler and I don't care that he's in anguish about what he endured under the mind of Voq because it was never well done enough to matter to me. In consequence, I really don't care about Burnham's emotions concerning him. Even Cornwell is acting very emotional for an Admiral as she takes charge of Discovery, and that just doesn't seem right for someone in Starfleet. 'Doesn't seem right' is the way I feel about the series on an all too common basis. As I said at the start and have always maintained, I want to like the series. I've waited for more Trek for so long, only for it to come back as a shadow of what it was. I watch an episode and all I can think of is to make mental notes about why that course of action is unlikely for that character, or why this looks wrong, and that's a sign that the story does not grip me. It doesn't matter whether they're doing mindless action or, as in the case with this episode, 'character' development. I just don't get the direction or the development. What happened to Burnham's Vulcan-ness? She never really displays this, even less with Sarek, whom she doesn't seem very respectful of when she talks to him, and the attempt to add an impression of impending jeopardy because she felt different saying goodbye to him is pointless because we know he'll be fine. Is that for the uninitiated? If so, why have Sarek at all, make him another Vulcan so we can all share.

Sarek himself is an awful version of the character, nothing like the great Vulcan we knew, and it's not because this is a younger version, it's in the performance of the actor who clearly does not understand the man he's playing any more than the writers know the man they're writing. And Georgiou. Michelle Yeoh plays her as evil villain no. 1, with no nuance or character to her. That's fine for the Mirror Universe where nothing matters, but now we're back in our universe. I'm not entirely sure if things do still matter since we jumped nine months into the future: does that mean they need to go back in time? They seem not to have even considered that, despite the war having gone so badly, so much lost, and come up with a plan to… Umm… Was it to somehow map the Klingon homeworld of Qo'noS? By sending in spores because the planet is riddled with caves? As usual, the writing isn't very clear and what ideas are displayed are poorly thought out and far more fantastical than anything we're used to in Trek. So often I'm left scratching my head wondering if I'm being stupid or the series is! It's quite bizarre the manufactured twists and turns it's taken to get nowhere. Some things make sense: that without the Sarcophagus ship and the brutal leadership of Kol the Houses have turned the war into a sort of game where they compete against each other to show who's best, but it also makes the Federation look incompetent. The difference was that they have cloaked ships and can sneak up on Starfleet, but now Discovery has provided the means to detect cloaked ships.

The Discovery itself must have been integral to Starfleet's success previously because since it's been gone the good guys have nosedived. We learn that the Mirror Discovery which swapped with ours was absolutely useless, quickly succumbing to Klingon forces. Wouldn't the Klingons have captured it rather than lose all that juicy technology? This ship that can leap out of nowhere and vanish again in a trice must have made an impact on a Klingon psyche so heavily influenced by legends and myth that they'd have come to think of the ship as one of those legendary things, but there's little sense of Klingon culture in this series that appeared to promise so much. They completely lost the Klingons and never seemed as if they knew what they wanted to do with them. Again, it may be that co-creator Bryan Fuller's swift exit scuppered much of what could have been successful. The MU crews are portrayed as violent and dangerous, yet the Klingons got rid of the ISS Discovery in no time. That's because it was more of an inconvenience to the plot to have it flying around doing its own thing, which would have thrown up all kinds of fascinating questions. They're good at tempting us with fascinating questions, but they always fall flat. Like at the end of the previous episode when we learn of the time travel and the war is all but over, so you wonder where they're going to go with this. Then nothing really happens.

This episode ends exactly the same way, with Mirror Georgiou being presented by Cornwell as the missing Captain of the Shenzhou, all knowledge of the MU jealously kept under wraps. Okay, so it makes sense that the MU has to be secret or it can't be 'discovered' for the first time in 'TOS,' but the number of people that must know what happened is ridiculous, and not one ever breathed a thought about it? The Transporter operator that brings Georgiou aboard is warned that he must never utter a word about her on penalty of treason, which is how no one knows she's not the real Philippa. He must have been bursting to tell someone when she's made Captain! It's certainly interesting, like what is she going to do, because you know she's a dangerous villain. And yet they put her in charge, even if as a puppet. It's truly bizarre, and nothing about her make any sense. It's like they exchanged one untrustworthy Mirror Captain for another. Is it supposed to be fighting fire with fire? She's an evil and violent Empress where she comes from, so she can take out the nasty, violent Klingons for us? Somehow that doesn't make much sense for Starfleet to do, but then apparently at this time in history Starfleet isn't very idealistic. It can't afford to be, some might say, but that never stopped them before (or after). It was their ideals that they fought for that always got them through, whether it took Janeway the long way round the Delta Quadrant, or whatever. Maybe they're trying for the 'DS9' mood where characters did what they had to do to win sometimes, like Sisko falsely bringing the Romulans into the Dominion War.

Except that moments like that really stood out because Sisko and the others were heavily grounded in Starfleet ways, so for them to go outside it was shocking and terrible, but compelling. Doing it on a regular basis is not shocking, just disappointing. Lip service is paid to Starfleet ideals - indeed, Sarek gives Burnham quite a Biblical speech about it being graceful to love your enemies, but it doesn't seem to come from anywhere. It's like they just threw that in, not that you believe that any of these people were capable of loving the enemy. The idea that everyone should be treated with respect (which Cornwell expresses to L'Rell, trying to assure her they don't want to end Klingon culture), even when they hate you and want you dead, is a Starfleet symbol (and a Christian one, coincidentally), and I suppose they were clumsily trying to draw a parallel with Burnham and Tyler's affection, but that was so manufactured as well. They just can't pull off intelligent storytelling, and I fear that even if I loved the actors (for example, if Tony Todd and Michael Dorn had played a part), I wouldn't be enjoying what they were given to do. Funnily enough, about the only character that was more palatable than most was Cadet Tilly, whose important role in the MU seems to have given her confidence and made her less irritating. She can be a good, friendly person when she wants to, so it was warming to see her deliberately go over and sit with the outcast Tyler, whom Saru allowed to roam the ship, though with reduced privileges. Her action in support brings everyone else over and he's accepted again.

We learn a little more about him: he was the test case for Klingon infiltration, and it's all so serious and heavy, but when you think that the next time we get a Klingon altered to be human was in the comedic 'The Trouble With Tribbles' it doesn't quite fit with that. It was irritating that Tyler even speaks of them filing down his fingertips, because it reminds me again of those stupid clunky claws they all have now. There we go, it doesn't take long before I'm taken out of it again with a reminder of a choice they've made or a direction they've chosen that is so annoying and unnecessary. But even with those things, which I was able to put aside as I watched (in other words, I don't sit there every time a Klingon's on screen and concentrate on the claws), the rest of it that isn't directly in contravention of what I know to be Trek doesn't engage me. I don't need to get upset about it, I just don't feel anything toward it and my only real worry is that the Picard series, or anything else they bring out, is going to be as equally distressing or unengaging so that I may as well hand in my badge and Phaser and go off and get interested in something else. Except I'm watching 'Voyager' at the moment and that reminds me on a weekly basis why I do love Trek. There are plenty of old episodes, maybe that should be sufficient. It's just that it was fun to think of it all being part of an alive universe again that is being filled out, until you realise it's more like it's being overwritten and undermined.

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