Through The Valley of Shadow

DVD, Discovery DVD (Through The Valley of Shadow)

One of those episodes that shows some promise, but by the end I'm glad it's over. I almost don't wish to bother recording my thoughts because it just makes me so numb and uninterested that it's a chore to have to note down all the things my first impressions gave me due to them being largely negative, and that's tiring and dispiriting. Sometimes you can take some keen-edged pleasure in ripping into things that are stupid and ridiculous, but I don't even have that dubious advantage, it's just a miserable exercise. But it must be done, I have to review every episode of every Trek. Aside from all the changes in style and aesthetic that push me away it's the slight stories that value dramatic music and swirly camera moves as disguise for their emptiness. There are three stories, the main two of which could, and should (and would in old Trek), have been suitable for expansion to a full episode on their own, but are instead rushed through for no real purpose other than to continue the plot. The third, and slighter C-plot is Chief Engineer Reno sticking her oar in on Stamets' emotional issues to remind us of her existence on the ship, which I had actually forgotten. What it did remind me, positively, is that at least Tilly and Georgiou were absent, and that I'd like to know more about Nilsson, whom we see in a deleted scene when Reno and Stamets are talking, or in the Mess Hall (why was the Saurian speaking English?), as she has potential to be an interesting character, given a chance. But as usual, most characters aren't given much chance, and if they were trying to recreate a 'TOS' level of background character development (in other words, next to nothing), then they succeeded. Except that we're not in the Sixties any more, and if they aren't going to give us the look and feel of the Sixties series, then why do it with the flaws of that era!

The episode did at first pique my interest, what with Boreth being the destination, a place shown in 'TNG,' and I hoped it would be a chance for them to redress the balance of all the hairless Klingons we'd seen in Season 1 and give us a proper old-fashioned Klingon adventure. Because, considering the fact that the monks of Boreth must be traditionalists, waiting as they are for Kahless' return, that being the whole purpose of building a monastery there, they'd probably all be old, white-haired, long-locked types, right? No. Not only do they not use the famous Dan Curry matte painting (which they'd possibly have to pay out for - can't think of any other reason for not having the continuity), as basis for the look of the place, but they have very few Klingons and only the main one is in the traditional Kahless hairstyle. We have one female cleric or guard, and another male who's bald. And of course they use the ugly and overly detailed version of the bat'leth that 'DSC' invented, and so favours above the simple, but graceful lines of the traditional weapon we saw so much before. As usual they go in for simple gimmicks rather than explaining anything, so the guy who's seemingly in charge is actually Tyler and L'Rell's son, T'Navik, who has grown up even faster than Alexander Rozhenko ever did due to the presence of time crystals. Hang on, they might even have said that the purpose of the monastery was to guard these crystals, which changes the mission statement of the place from what it was supposed to be. But rather than explore this apparent breach in continuity as an avenue to discuss Klingon beliefs as they could have if this was satisfying Trek, by suggesting perhaps that the purpose of the place had changed due to unbelief in Kahless' return, or something along those lines, they completely gloss over anything of substance and put everything down to fantasy.

Too too often this series has strayed into fantasy as if they're ashamed of their sci-fi heritage and wish to appeal more to the 'Game of Thrones'/ Harry Potter/ 'Star Wars' crowd than those of us that prefer world-building within the laws of nature as a rule. Time crystals are the big sin this season, this undefined mcguffin, the 'rabbit's foot' of 'Mission: Impossible III,' however you want to call it, it's not detailed or catalogued or extrapolated with pseudoscience and theory, it just is. You could argue that that's been done plenty of times in Trek, for example the Orbs of the Bajoran Prophets, but as with most things on this 'interpretation' of Trek, it's not what they do that is usually the problem, it's how they do it, defying the conventions rigidly set out over many decades of episodes and film that hang together so well and draw you into this as a real place. Reality has been chucked out the window with 'DSC,' early on it made this very apparent. It's like the firefight between Control and Burnham later on. It has none of the drama firefights on Trek used to have, and doesn't even fit with this series' own internal logic, as surely this AI would have perfect pinpoint accuracy so Burnham wouldn't stand a chance. And of course it's all about glamour, yet has none of the beauty and impressiveness of those Phaser beams of old, ripping through the air with a scream, replaced by zob, zob, zob of empty 'bullets,' Burnham even defying the reality of the weapon when she has to hold two Phasers to hold off approaching 'nanobots' as they call them - Phasers are an energy weapon, not a projectile weapon, it's not the force of the blast that sends something back, it's the stream of energy pulsing into it, but because beams are classed as too boring for quick cuts, they throw out meaning for false drama, and those of us that see through it inwardly groan.

But I'm getting away from my point, which is that the balance of fantastical to sci-fi is way over the top and poorly executed. On the face of it, Pike's singlehanded mission to Boreth, should be a great moment for the Captain, but even before it starts L'Rell openly insults him to his face by saying that it wouldn't be safe for him to go as it's not for the faint of heart! What a slur on Pike, she's saying he's a fainthearted Captain! I must say, although I don't agree with that, he hasn't been shown to be the strongest Captain we've ever seen, and this is more evident when he's constantly coming up against singleminded and 'strong' female characters - his First Officer on Enterprise, Burnham who is always asserting herself (specifically in this episode she even says that!), his Chief of Security, Commander Naarn, his Chief Engineer, Reno, Admiral Cornwell, his two main Bridge crew, Owosekun and Detmer (although you can't call them strong characters). Maybe L'Rell was right? Maybe his desire to be matey with people is a bad idea, and his reliance on regulations shows a Captain who is unsure of himself. That would, strictly speaking, be true of the character we saw in 'The Cage,' but he was more manly and heroic then, even with his doubts and uncertainty, and he'd resolved his issues by the end of the episode, a great example of drama, and one that 'DSC' could and should have learned from. If anything, this version of Pike seems like a younger, more inexperienced one, and so I almost wish he was the one in 'The Cage,' and the one played by Jeffrey Hunter was the one we had now.

That's not how things work, however. It's not that I dislike Pike, I just feel like he's been undermined, not just from the strong females perspective, but from the fact that this isn't his series, or even his ship, he's just a temp. He's so often unsure of himself, second-guessing in the way he speaks to people, not quite the thoughtful Captain I expected, as by this stage of his career he should be sure of himself and his position. All of this to say that he does, to an extent, look a little weak sometimes, and that's not something we're used to in a main Captain character. So perhaps L'Rell's unintentional slur on his character isn't so far from the truth after all? He goes down to Boreth in a position of weakness and Captains always need to be as bold as possible when facing up to Klingons, as we've seen so many times in the past. It seems that the main reason for going down there was to show off some special effects - what other reason is there for a monk to be planting something and then show it growing into full plant in seconds? It's another visual gimmick, it's a little eye treat to keep low attention spans from sagging, that's what the series often is, it seems, rather than mining the occasionally apparent intellectual material. That's what the series has chosen to do, like Spock in the modern films where he accepted his emotional side rather than repress it as a good Vulcan should, to fit in with modern audiences, and that's why things are always played so emotionally. I'm not saying they appeal emotionally, but they are emotional, there's a big difference as I've probably noted before: having a character display emotion is significantly less powerful than evoking emotion in the audience, but the first is the far easier path. 'DSC' likes to do the former, at the loss of logic and mental depth, so I can only be relieved that their version of Spock is far less emotive than I expected from Burnham's complete reversal into a creature of continual emotional reaction from one of logical thought and action, though that was never strong with her even at the start, it was there all the same.

Pike is 'guided' by T'Navik to these 'time crystals' which the monks are 'protecting' and… but even there I don't buy that Klingons would have forbidden the use of such things as time travel, not the ones we've seen who are only interested in destroying non-Klingons. Regardless, Pike gets taken to one and has to accept his destiny or whatever, to take it. How much more fantastical can you get? Characters like Burnham are so often stating that the future is what we make it, and in fact that's exactly what she reiterates in this very episode when discussing the future destruction that Control is, erm… responsible for, or trying to prevent its own destruction from? Uncertain, I don't follow Control's motivation at all, other than, like the Klingons, a wish to destroy all that is not it to preserve its own existence. In the same episode Pike has to accept the future where we know he'll suffer in a debilitating accident and be scarred and immobilised for life! I get it, they wanted to show the famous moment we know happened (from the perspective of 'TOS' onwards)/ will happen (from the perspective of 'DSC'), but even in the showing of that they failed mightily! How can it be that they weren't even able to come close to that moment in a Sixties TV show where Spock rushes in and saves Stiles from Engineering in 'Balance of Terror' at the risk of his own life? We simply see Pike and some others in a room (that looks suspiciously like Discovery's Engineering or spore room, I'm not sure which - with huge budgets and few episodes we were supposed to be spared such reuses as Trek is famous for, but attitudes to cost-cutting haven't changed even at this level!), he shouts for them to get out, and fails to do so himself, badly burned by the door.

It's not that heroic, and even the scene earlier in the season where he jumps on an overloading Phaser or whatever it was, was more dramatic and courageous! How they could make something so essential to the history of the character so bland, I do not know. Then in another flash forward he sees himself as he will be, a disfigured invalid in a mechanical chair, face sagging, and is terrified and horrified at what he's become. Granted, knowing his destiny, or fate, or whatever they call it, and still going through with taking the crystal, and still staying in Starfleet and doing his duty and eventually getting to that point in time and going through what he knows he'll go through, makes him a brave man. It also makes him look foolish in the future because if he knew this was coming surely he'd be ready and prevent it. And once again I cite the point of view that is embodied by our main character, Michael Burnham, that the future isn't written and we can change it. Except we know the future because we've been there in other Trek and so we know Pike does end up that way and so Burnham is proved wrong by other Trek, and that's not a good position to put your main character in, where she's wrong, even though they seem to be saying that's the right way to think! It's all so messed up and you get the impression they don't really have a singular idea of what Trek means or thinks, or the point of view they're following. Because all points of view can't have equal merit, and if there are two opposing ones, one of them has to be right. Except that we do get L'Rell saying something about it being possible that there can be two different truths, which muddies the issue further, even though she's actually referring to the split personality of Voq and how he and the human Tyler existed in the same body at the same time. It just adds further confusion because you don't know if that was intentionally written that way or more likely, they haven't noticed what can be read into their own writing!

That's the continual problem with 'DSC,' it doesn't know itself, what it can be or should be, it doesn't have a strong direction and instead tries to appeal broadly, as so many things do. This lack of singular vision makes it singularly unappealing. It wants to be 'TOS' era for the characters and connections to pop culture that can help it appeal to the mainstream consciousness, yet at the same time it wants the advancements of 'TNG,' and that is why it fails, to paraphrase Yoda, whom ironically wouldn't be out of place in the series because it is so much more 'Star Wars' than Trek. If Pike is Luke Skywalker going off to face his personal issues in the cave of Dagobah, then Burnham and Spock are… I don't know the analogy, maybe Luke and Obi-Wan going to the Death Star or something, but the point is they go off on an adventure to find this Section 31 ship that hasn't reported in. Oh dear, they strip 31 of more mystery every time they use them. If they'd simply used Starfleet Intelligence in place of 31 most things wouldn't seem so bad (just like if it had been one of Khan's minions in 'Into Darkness' rather than Khan himself), but not only do we learn their ships are supposed to check in every hour (what happens when they're in deep space or don't they ever go anywhere?), later, Saru states that they have thirty ships as their fleet and they're all approaching Discovery. Is there anything about this clandestine, 'secret' organisation that the average Starfleet officer doesn't know? It even sounds like Gant joined up rather than being recruited (though that could be untrue as it's not actually him talking). This iteration of Section 31 has been plainly ridiculous from beginning to end!

If easy ridicule of storytelling was the goal of the 'DSC' writers they've passed with flying colours, but it's not just that, it's also failure to understand the rules of drama, replacing it with cartoon-levels of simplicity. You only have to take the Lieutenant Gant stuff as an example. That was a nice little piece of continuity, something the series has begun to creep towards, that the other series' did so well, because they've had so few episodes in comparison. In old money we'd only just be at the very start of Season 2 with this, the twenty-seventh episode of the series. Instead we're careering to the end of Season 2, and not only that, but we've done so few stories in comparison, as many episodes of old Trek were a complete story in themselves, whereas this is mainly one story, with a few you might be able to consider standalone. So they have clear disadvantages, when we were sold on this being better because there wouldn't be filler episodes where nothing much happened, or take so long to build up to things. They don't understand that to deal out a truly satisfying payoff you have to go the long route, you can't take narrative shortcuts, and if you can they've taken the wrong ones. Anyway, I liked that Gant, the Tactical Officer of the Shenzhou is the one body left alive after Control has flushed the crew out of this 31 ship. At first I thought it was Danby Connors, even though he's dead in this and the Mirror Universe! But Gant was interesting to meet again, even if contrived that he should be the one to live. Except that problem is solved by the truth coming out that this was all a trap to capture Burnham and conform her or bring her over to its side (read: assimilate), so that works.

What doesn't work is that as soon as Gant is unmasked as Control masquerading as him for its current host body (does this mean no more Leland or will its 'nanobots' take over as many people as it wants - probably, I wouldn't be surprised), it immediately begins speaking in a robotic accent as if to underline how sinister it is. In reality if it kept talking like Gant with all the nuances of a human voice that would be far more sinister and distasteful, almost as if it enjoyed using the long dead vocal cords of its human host, a creepy and terrible fate for anyone. Instead of horror gleaned from drama they prefer to do things much more graphically, the example from this episode being when Pike views his ultimate condition, this face that is actively melting as it screams at him! Where's the quiet dignity or the sad poignancy? No, it's all about shock value, which not only does a disservice to the character, but also gives him no hope, when we know that his true fate is much better than that which he sees. This could have been a warning about looking into the future because you don't have the full context of what you're seeing, but there's none of the subtlety or subtext Trek should be aiming for as intelligent sci-fi. Because it's stupid fantasy now.

With stupidity come many questions left unanswered: how does T'Navik know all this about time crystals, and how does he know that what Pike sees is certain to come to pass? For that matter, why would someone who had been there so short a time, be in charge of the whole place and keeper of the keys, or whatever he is? Or is he merely head guard and the real group of monks are behind the scenes? None of it is touched on because it's all got to be hurried through. Woe betide anything that slows things down or allows thinking time for things to sink in or be explored. That's probably why the 'Picard' series is getting negative reviews. There's also the fact that once again Burnham is the linchpin of the galaxy, she's practically a time crystal herself, I wouldn't be surprised if her eventual fate is to become the sentient computer AI that powers all Federation starships in the distant future, or some such rubbish! Burnham is the one threat to Control's objectives, what a surprise. I'm not sure why, but she just is. Why does this character have any importance at all? Doesn't matter, she just does. She's Rey from modern 'Star Wars.' Things just are, get over it. But things aren't always insanely simplistic and glossed over: I was left wondering why they did another spore jump just to get to Boreth when there was no imminent threat or specific time pressure, other than Control buzzing about doing what it wills, but I wasn't left wondering for long as Reno's only worthwhile purpose in the episode is when she mentions Stamets pulling off another spore jump, so at least it was drawn attention to. And Kenneth Mitchell gets yet another integral Klingon role again after his turn as Kol in Season 1, and the old Klingon this season: now he's T'Navik, the 'guide' who doesn't do much guiding of Pike.

However I look at this series it just keeps lowering my expectations or messing with Trek convention and doesn't even have its own consistency to enjoy. It's up and down, it's one thing here, and changes to be completely different there. In short, its very nature is feminine. It doesn't even like showing off its ships as if that would be a turn-off for a sizeable chunk of the audience: in the past if a D7 was shown it was a cause for excitement and they'd give you time to pore over the detail, not skim over it in one shot and that's your lot! The whole approach to what matters in 'DSC' is at odds with Trek, hence it's no surprise that episode after episode passes with my sorrow. Things like the nanobots crawling out of Gant like the Replicators from 'Stargate,' moving like a physical mass towards Burnham on the floor zap, zapping with two Phasers because one ain't enough - just try flickin' on the beam, darlin'! Not very nano, are they? 'Stargate' is what this is more like than Trek, except there they had characters which were likeable, and adventures that, though simple, I didn't have any preconceptions about. By the end of this episode they've even got the trope of Discovery needing to self-destruct, the Enterprise en route to provide a safe haven. For one thing, the destruct is supposed to be something you do quickly, not wait for another ship to come and get you, and for another, if the series is anything to go by then I'm in for major disappointment when we finally go aboard the Enterprise. Forget the uniforms not looking right now, they didn't look right in the flash forward Pike saw with a whole other design to either Discovery's standard fleet-wide issue, the slightly similar Enterprise design, the 'TOS' version, or even the turtleneck-collared missing link of 'The Cage' and 'Where No Man Has Gone Before'! What are they playing at! At least there was plenty to write about…

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