The Brightest Star

DVD, Short Treks (The Brightest Star)

This was the one I foolishly thought might actually be good, but while it does give us a little on Saru, and it isn't objectionable like the first 'Short Treks' was, it is as stupid as ever, and seeing who wrote it, I'm unsurprised. It answers a lot of questions I had after seeing 'An Obol For Charon,' but I don't think the order of seeing it after that made any difference because however you look at it, it's poorly conceived. First, the good: it is interesting to see what Saru's home looks like, and we get to meet his sister, Siranna, and his old Father, who is the village priest. This is where things immediately fall apart, though - far from the impression given of the Kelpiens being prey on this planet of a predator species, one you'd have presumed they had to outrun and outfox to stay alive, thus suggesting a nomadic, animal-like lifestyle, they're a settled species that appear to farm seaweed from the sea (are they called Kelpiens because they eat kelp?). They have a deeply religious way of life, believing in some universal 'balance,' like yin and yang I suppose, and that they have to keep this up and not question it. I knew about Vahar'ai from 'Obol' so that explained what that was, but here they actually traipse over to some kind of Transporter in the sand that beams them up, presumably to be eaten by the Ba'ul.

I'd imagined these Ba'ul to be predators in the usual sense, but they're actually just more advanced (for all we know they could be just other Kelpiens, like the Son'a and the Ba'ku in 'Insurrection,' since we never see one), and cull the population without any effort on their part - presumably they're a pre-warp civilisation, though one with space ships and the tech to transport beings, unless that spire just converted them directly to consumable energy. So why do the Kelpiens have such strength and the ability to run really fast, what was the point of that? It was all very different to what I imagined, and far less dramatic, the only drama being that Saru is the only one that has any questions about their way of life and why they should just meekly go when it's their time. As usual for the series, that's not enough, his method of getting off the planet is equally as contrived - a piece of a Ba'ul ship just drops out of the sky for no apparent reason and it just so happens that it's technology that can be used for communications! Wow, how incredibly convenient. Not only that, but simple farmer Saru has the wherewithal to make it work! That's probably the most farfetched part of the story, but it gets even better than that! Not only does he get it working, the Ba'ul, so careless about dropping bits of their ships onto their cattle, never even pick up the signal he sends out, or miss their technology! Amazing.

The stupidity doesn't even end there, unbelievably! Lieutenant Georgiou herself is the one to pick up the signal and against General Order One, communicates with him because he's been ingenious enough to use alien tech he didn't create! She gets Starfleet to make an exception and goes to pick him up! Just as an aside, how long has Starfleet been using those uniforms because they're the same as on Discovery. I'm not quite sure how far this is supposed to be in the past, but this would have been an ideal moment to trot out the different uniforms from 'The Cage,' since it's just a tiny one-shot that isn't going to make any difference, except to the faithful, but no, they lazily reuse the same uniforms they've invented for contemporary Starfleet. Ugh. Anyway, Starfleet allows her to bypass the Prime Directive and a new friendship is born. Oh, how 'Discovery' this all is. What a disappointment that they can't even get a sub-fifteen minute short making sense! It was nice to see the true Georgiou again, even for only a minute or two, and the moment Saru says his goodbyes to his unaware sister had something in it, but it's yet another signpost that this series is never going to grow up from being a simplistic, illogical and ill-thought out mess, disguised by high production values and frequent emotional manipulation. So sad, I really did think there was potential for a good story on Saru's past and to show a believable route for him to leave his planet and people behind, but they failed, along with Georgiou and Starfleet. It's almost a relief that the other two 'Short Treks' aren't included on this DVD set as it saves me from more misery!

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