Retrospect

DVD, Star Trek: Voyager S4 (Retrospect)

They get me every time with this one. I always think Kovin is a suspicious character, and probably because of that prejudice left behind from the last time I watched it, coupled with his being a forceful salesman, and of course, short-tempered (surely arms dealing and hot temper don't go together that well?), it seems a cut and dried case. Michael Horton does a good job in his only guest starring Trek TV role, especially when he sternly rebukes Seven on what she's doing wrong during integration of his wares into ship's systems in Engineering, speaking sharply and authoritatively as if the actor is really seeing her do something stupid instead of watching Jeri Ryan meaninglessly tap a touchscreen. That's acting! Horton may not have been granted entry into the hallowed realm of the recurring guest star troupe, but he does have the distinction of being one of the few to appear in a Trek film before Trek TV, playing the unnamed Security Officer in 'First Contact' (his first contact with the Borg, but not his last as we see here), later to be credited as Lieutenant Daniels in 'Insurrection,' making him a good piece of continuity between these middle 'TNG' features. Seven of Nine proved more hazardous for his characters' health than a whole Borg Cube did in the film as he ends up flying his ship apart in self-righteous panic to escape the pursuing Voyager - the shape and style of his vessel was in the Defiant mould in that it was overpowered and over-gunned, and without crackerjack Starfleet Engineers to make it work that's what could have happened to Sisko's ship in a heated moment.

There's some good continuity this season, and though on a smaller scale to some of the stuff done on 'DS9' (and certainly compared with 'Enterprise' and 'DSC'), nonetheless satisfying as we keep the question of trusting Seven alive, as well as the memory of the Hirogen ready for their big role in the next two-parter. The Doctor's desire to act as mentor in her understanding of social graces and coming to terms with emotion comes back to bite him hard and is a foreshadowing of at least one ethical quandary for him in the future, but what I like about this story is how it morphs into different phases like a caterpillar into a butterfly: at first, and for most of the running time, it's unquestionably a Seven episode - yet another one focused on her because she's such fertile ground to explore and irresistible to the writers. Personally, I think she's the best female Vulcan (and one of the best Vulcans in general), that there ever has been on Trek, and considering she wasn't actually a Vulcan, and they are my favourite species, that is high praise indeed! To me, this is how T'Pol should have acted around humans - not understanding emotion, having to be mentored in some way in order to fit into the social group she had entered on the NX-01. But the writing and portrayal of Vulcans has suffered grievously since the end of 'Voyager' and it's one of the most distressing points about post 24th Century Trek for me, that they went so far away from such a brilliant race, and one reason why the proudly arrogant, yet also humbly lacking, strong-weak dynamic of Seven made her so compelling.

I say it begins as a Seven episode, but once she's made the accusation against Kovin, it becomes a story for Tuvok to go back into his ever-popular role of investigator ('Retrospect' means looking back; hindsight, seeing things after the fact, the Latin for which is 'Ex Post Facto' and the title of the episode where Tuvok first acted detective). Kovin should have been more trusting as he initially appeared when the Security Chief offered him the guarantee of an impartial enquiry, but it's really the Doc who messes everything up, pouncing on apparent evidence to support Seven's claim, scaring the man into fleeing, believing prejudice from his own government will side with the visitors because of the trading nature of the Entharans. The Doctor is, as ever, eager and quick to arrive at conclusions, and really, I would say this is more an episode about him than Seven. She's just the unwitting victim, though not of the crime she thinks: it's her psychological damage at the tubules of the Borg that have led her to recall 'repressed' memories that are really only images from her time as a drone that she's laid upon Kovin, perhaps activated by his brusque and physically confrontational manner. It's all so well played because we're meant to fall into the same trap as everyone else of thinking Kovin guilty because he's unlikeable, a valuable reminder that justice isn't about punishing those we don't like, but discerning the truth and meting out a merited response. In that respect it's an excellent lesson against prejudice without being heavy-handed or obvious, and it creates a fresh challenge for our Starfleet crew when it turns out they're in the wrong.

Fortunately, Janeway and the Doctor, the two central pillars of 'justice' in the episode, are humble enough to see their mistake and the final conversation between them is what the whole episode is about. If this had been 'DSC,' and possibly even 'Enterprise,' the majority of the story would probably have been about them hunting Kovin and having to deal with his arsenal of weapons and traps, it would have been an action spectacular, but without the weight this story had at the end because it's much more contemplative. Sure, they do have a somewhat violent encounter with Kovin's ship, but that's not the focus. It's interesting to see both Bryan Fuller and Joe Menosky's names come up as you could have been forgiven for thinking this was 'DSC,' but with all of that series I've been watching lately I can say for sure that this is by far the Trek I prefer and it's sad that both of those tried and tested Trek minds weren't allowed the latitude to expand on the franchise that they deserved from giving us episodes like this. You're left with something to think on, a mental reminder or moral jab that means the episode has achieved something beyond an exercise in quick thrills or beautiful renditions of space.

To begin with the episode looks to be going down the road of 'Violations' on 'TNG' or 'Remember' from this series' third season - stories about mental anguish caused by an alien, that requires investigation to resolve. But the ending where the Doctor wishes to have the latest additions to his program removed, which he added in order to become useful in counselling since the ship doesn't have a counsellor, recalls Data's wish to turn off his emotions and having to learn to deal with them (until they undid that excellent plot point from 'Generations' in 'First Contact' by giving him that power and essentially taking away something of the humanity he desired). Janeway refuses the Doctor's wish, prefiguring his ethical short circuit in next season's 'Latent Image' in which he'd be forced to choose between two crewmembers to save one and goes into mental meltdown. Similar to that episode, Janeway is the rod to keep his back straight and his upper lip stiff. She believes in going through problems, not wimping out and avoiding them, an essential kernel to a Captain that must get her ship home, and do it the Starfleet way. An inspiration. She could have done with a counsellor at the beginning of Season 5, but as accomplished as the Doctor is, he finds that knowledge is different to wisdom gained from experience. Janeway would be there for him in 'Latent Image' and she was there for him here, proving beyond any doubt that the EMH is a person, a specific member of her crew that she cares for no differently than flesh and blood.

She has a lot of cares, but over the first three years she came to know the majority of her crew enough that she was able to stand as a strong leader as well as a compassionate confidante. She has grown much harder this season, you see much less of the scientist delighted by the curiosities of this Quadrant, but having to deal with the Borg and other increasingly tough opponents has forced her to become harder herself. Few have been more of a challenge than Seven of Nine, however, an enemy within, yet not an enemy. Seven has come a long way from demanding to be returned to the Collective, to becoming a member of the crew with unique skills to offer based on her history, as challenging and damaging as her time with the Borg was. But she still has problems accepting what she considers to be inferior directives or points of view to the point where Janeway literally doesn't know how to deal with her. Confinement hasn't disciplined her, it suits her personality, and the Captain in this episode gets to the point where she even asks the errant Seven what can be done to curb her ways because she can't think of anything, like a parent at their wit's end and unable to allow this teenager to keep living in the family home. But this home is a wagon train to the stars and they can't leave anyone behind (though Seven would be one of the most likely to survive alone, I'm sure), and as it turns out, her experience here opens her up a little more, introducing guilt and remorse to her repertoire.

It's no comfort to the dead Kovin, but though he was an overzealous man, prone to bursts of temper, at heart he was just a trader trying to make a living in fear that this false accusation will destroy him. In large part it was he himself who did the damage by refusing to trust Voyager, but trust has to be earned and what reason did he have to feel serene other than Tuvok's assurances? As an arms dealer he must have met many unfavourable and untrustworthy customers, perhaps that's why he's so flighty and ready to go on the run at a moment's notice. Although he has a clear conscience regarding Seven, he may have had it cracked through his business dealings which led to his lack of trust on this occasion, pushing his ship and weapons to the maximum so he destroyed himself. It's a harsh tale, but it's certainly got the morality part down and provides an essential moment in Seven's growth when she realises her actions have led to the wrongful death of an innocent man. It was true that Kovin and his kind had eminently punchable noses (the last person Seven decked was Neelix, I think), but I really liked what they did with the Entharan design - a frontal ridge that is partially covered by flaps of skin so that the ridge alternately appears as it goes up the nose and forehead. In other alien-related physiology we also see beneath Seven's ocular implant above her left eyebrow, removed for examination to reveal a smaller and more integrated attachment buried beneath, shown for the first time, I believe, though at the end of the series she looked like that all the time as the Borg tech was gradually weaned away. And there are the Borg tubules, which are very cool, even if it was just in false memory.

Janeway and Voyager can sometimes misrepresent Starfleet as being weak because of the attitudes they display, something that is a big part of Seven's contempt for regulations. She's actually the one to implement the safety protocols B'Elanna instructs because 'we prefer to play it safe.' That's why Voyager wasn't going to end up as one of the scuttled ships Kovin warned about if they didn't buy his merchandise, because they were careful, backups upon backups. I like that this is a hint at what will eventually happen to Kovin, who doesn't believe in such safety measures and prefers the raw power and strength, the reason, we can comfortably assume, that his ship blew up when he pushed too hard. He was an effective salesman and appreciated Janeway's ability to negotiate - though she comes from a moneyless society she sure knows how to barter! I imagine if she and her crew had got together for poker nights like the Enterprise, she'd have been raking in the chips (isolinear, of course!), and it's always good to see her skills of persuasion and standing up to another forceful personality. Which is why she's so good this season as Seven's adopted Mother - she's been that figure to all her crew during the journey, and the Maquis crewmembers must have provided at least some of the preparation for this ex-drone, but they at least had allegiance to Chakotay (who gets almost nothing this week, though only Neelix doesn't appear at all). This story must have come some time after 'Prey' as Seven's been behaving herself 'lately.' It may have been better to have an episode in between that kept Seven locked up, but then as I said, she's too irresistible to the writers to leave out, so I can understand why they didn't allow time to feel more natural.

Lastly, we get some nice little veiled 'TNG' references thanks to the Doctor being interested in becoming the ship's counsellor (making additions to his program again - did he learn nothing from 'Darkling'?), then later mentioning a Betazoid psychiatrist in advising Seven. Rather than directly reference Counsellor Troi on the Enterprise-D they do it in this round the houses way, which is subtle, rather than making the universe smaller by always name-checking someone specific. Deanna would be making multiple appearances on the series in the coming seasons so she'd get more than her due, which was nice. And the science lab gets a rare showing as the place Tuvok and Janeway examine Kovin's equipment to find answers. I like this episode, it's not something to blow you away or impress on a visual level, but it's one of the quieter episodes and ends tragically in a much more grown up, 'DS9' way. A good tale should not be judged in whether everything ends happily or not, it's about what can be learned from the telling, and Janeway, Seven and the Doctor all learned important lessons. You could say this was one of the founding episodes of the triumvirate of characters the series graduated to. The latter seasons may have overused these three, but it's easy to see why from episodes like this as they provide everything a Trek story requires.

***

What's Past Is Prologue

DVD, Star Trek: Discovery S1 (What's Past Is Prologue)

Another duffer, this one, and one of the most boringly action-packed. Seriously, this is why I don't like modern comic book films, 'Star Wars' films, 'Dr. Who': cardboard characters running around doing boring action hero stunts, all visual spectacle and nothing to get the least bit excited about. Does it feel real? No, it's just a cartoon like the Kelvin films, and the more I see of this series, the less I like it and forget the very few that did draw me in. It was almost laughable to see the sub-'Matrix' fight in the grand throne room aboard Georgiou's palace ship, and I wondered if it was a 'tribute' to practically the same scene in 'The Last Jedi,' except that they came out around the same time, although I can imagine the producers seeing the film and saying to each other they have to get a scene like that into their new baby because it's so cool and everyone'll be blown away, dude! Mindless, heavily choreographed fight sequences that drag on for ages: just what I always felt Trek was missing, but no longer! Now we can sit back, turn off our brains and become absorbed into nothingness. I mean really, what was this episode actually about? Did anything of any importance happen? If it did, I missed it. Evil Lorca was revealed to be evil and mercilessly executed by ex-Empress Georgiou, who is saved by Burnham by somehow running along while she's being beamed (don't you need to stay in one place so they can get a lock on you?), and now this 'noble' woman has been brought into our universe because of Michael's pity for her.

That's not very Vulcan, is it? The logical thing would be to leave her behind to the 'mercy' of her own universe, a poetic justice for all the evil she's perpetuated, but I suppose it's because she looks like Burnham's Georgiou she just couldn't let her go, and feels that restoring her is like undoing her mistake. Except it really wasn't her mistake that killed Georgiou, it was the Captain's poor decision-making to beam onto T'Kuvma's vessel without a squad of security officers, just her and Burnham, with some vague idea of capturing the Klingon leader, but ending up having to kill him: Georgiou wasn't so wise. I knew that Mirror Georgiou would be making it back in some way because she's due to star in her own TV series (which says a lot about our society today that we want to make a Trek series starring the evil Emperor of the Mirror Universe whose main draw is her swordsmanship and martial arts skills!), and I wondered how she could ever be made sympathetic after murdering all those people on Harlak, not to mention countless unspeakable atrocities that are only hinted at. Perhaps there's still redemption for her to find, that is the Trek path, after all, but it's like saving Hitler and inviting him to take up a position in the United Nations because he reminds you of your old history teacher! Surely she should be put on trial for crimes against the galaxy, but no, I can't see that happening in this simplistic and crude take on Trek. Granted, I'm getting ahead of myself, there's still time for them to justify Burnham's actions and turn Georgiou good. I just don't have much confidence in these writers.

There was one glimmer of interest in the whole thing, and that was soon undermined: when Saru officially takes command, although even then he doesn't do it in the time-honoured fashion, but makes it some Communist act, saying it's 'our ship' now as if abrogating responsibility. Mind you, he's effectively followed Burnham's path of mutinying against his Captain, so they'll have more in common now, and maybe he was aware of the parallels, but it certainly didn't come through in the writing. It's hard to keep from spilling over into scorn and disgust long enough to say something positive about the episode, but when they spoke of the only way to save the mycelial network being to do whatever they had to do at the expense of their ability to get home, it represented the spirit of 'Voyager' and Starfleet's mandates in fine form. But it's immediately undercut by Saru's magic ability to 'sense the coming of death' again, and it's okay this time because he doesn't sense it and refuses to accept the no win scenario. It would have been so much truer to the Trek spirit for them to knowingly go into the operation expecting they were sacrificing themselves for the greater good of what I suppose is a living network of spores, and only during it to find an alternative at the last moment which means they won't be called on for the ultimate sacrifice after all. Instead, by being defiant at the no win scenario that is a favourite of Trek lore, it's a more selfish triumph and an inability to see the importance of that scenario which was about accepting defeat gracefully and without fear, coming to your end.

Saru is all about fear, however, so maybe it's his race's flaw that means he acts this way, except that it's set out to be a victory, the way it's presented, and was a simple solution to get them back into our universe again, safe and sound (if nine months into the future when the Klingons have won the war, which at least sets up the final two episodes to be different). I'm not sure how any of this isn't going to leak, or how ship's logs won't record the adventures of going into this Mirror Universe so that the USS Enterprise, which is alive and well at this time and out in space, never hears of it, nor the way Lorca ended up crossing the universes by being beamed away during an ion storm (was the Charon beaming him, and if not, where was he beaming to?), which is just how Kirk and his officers ended up in that place a few years later. It shows up the use of the MU as a pointless exercise in crowd-pleasing rather than truly coming up with original ideas. Ideas, don't forget, is what Trek has (until this century), been all about! The 'clever' twist of having the Captain of the ship actually be his Mirror counterpart hasn't been fulfilled more than a 'ha ha, fooled you,' mentality, it hasn't brought any great depth to the story, just as introducing a Holodeck earlier in the season had absolutely no bearing on the narrative at all. I'm not even clear why Lorca cared so much about Burnham, except that he was in cahoots with Mirror Michael (Gabriel and Michael working together - obviously some kind of angelic connotation there, but if Bryan Fuller planned it, those that took over were never able or interested to work it in to make you see it), so was it just a vague fondness that this was all about? Weak.

Another disappointment comes in Landry showing her grumpy face again. I was looking forward to this since I was expecting her to be deep in the Mirror Lorca's plot, and that the version we saw of her near the beginning of the season whom was killed so stupidly and needlessly to illustrate the idiocy of the military mind compared with Burnham's more enquiring and scientific one, was actually the Mirror Landry, which was why she was so close in Lorca's confidences. I was expecting our Landry to crop up and be a much kinder, compassionate, intelligent individual - you know, like a 'mirror image'? That's what the MU used to be all about. But no, apparently the objectionable Landry we knew must have been how she was in our universe, nasty, unflinching and stupid. At first, MU Landry did seem more rational and positive, and I was waiting for her to be the double switch: if Lorca was pretending to be our Lorca, then she was, I don't know, maybe Section 31, or something like that, who was aware of what he was doing and was keeping tabs on him, but she's been trapped in the MU, and now she could finally play her part in taking this imposter down, thereby helping Georgiou and Burnham escape. But no, there was not that level of depth to the story, simple as it was so that the average viewer could follow it and marvel at all the shooting and fighting. 'Cos that's what Trek is, right? You'd think so if all you ever saw of Trek were the Kelvin films and now this.

I think the only other positive I could bring to this episode is how the minor recurring characters were allowed more screen time: Airiam, Detmer, Rhys, Owosekun, Bryce, these characters that aren't really characters, just familiar faces with names attached, became a little more solid. Not much, it's true, but if it was a graph, the curve would be going upward. Let's hope this wasn't the peak of their engagement with the series, because they have been largely there as the computer voice, explaining what's going on, rather than being real people you could relate to. Garak, the Cardassian tailor, was in one episode of the first season of 'DS9' (coincidentally, sharing the similar title of 'Past Prologue'), and he had many times more to him in that first encounter than a season has given this little gaggle of Starfleeters, but then that's a sign of the times: with serialised storytelling it seems everyone, both main cast and recurring, are shortchanged. At least we did get a Captain's Log from Saru, which is something I've been clamouring for, though as with all the elements that go to make this feel like Trek, they're very stripped back as if it's almost too much trouble and doesn't fit with the makers' desire to concentrate on spectacle and plot rather than story and character. For instance, when Burnham makes contact with Discovery from inside a Jefferies Tube (not that they probably call them that in this series, I certainly don't recall hearing the term, they probably think it sounds too daft - maybe they're a little embarrassed about Trek in general which is why it so often feels like other franchises more than Trek?), she brings up a visual channel, when you'd think that would be the time to be on audio, and when Lorca speaks to her as she runs round the rabbit warren of corridors, she 'cleverly' makes it look like she's in one place by pulling out some wires (who knew it would be so simple!), and keeps moving so Landry doesn't find her. What about sensors?

The episode is another to avoid having a teaser, with just the convoluted recap of what's come before, and again, though it was around forty-one minutes long (the episode that is, not the recap!), it felt long, whereas many an 'Enterprise' episode of similar length simply flies by. It's because there's no meat to get your brain-teeth into, nothing substantial to enjoy. Oh, they occasionally throw in something like the 'sacrifice the ship for the spores' talk, or by making it clear that Burnham does not believe in destiny, but it's slim pickings. I quite liked the stuff about destiny because it's in direct opposition to the Kelvin films saying that the universe sorts things out so that that's why Kirk and his crew came together, like a fantastical 'Star Wars' destiny, it had to be that way, rather than individual people making their own decisions out of free will. Lorca, the bad guy, is all about destiny, believing he was going to kill Georgiou (incidentally: why? He became like another Khan figure, the way he rescues his 'people' from the agony booths to be their leader once more in a revolution against the Empress, but apart from wanting power, there didn't seem to be much motivation - strange how a Sixties TV show can still be so much deeper and more believable than the best money can buy nowadays. Hmmm, just a thought). But Lorca's destiny does not come to pass. Maybe the prosthetic head that we know was made for him during production was for this scene where he falls into the ship's energy ball, or whatever it was, as we see him disintegrate?

Burnham, on the other hand, believes what she does makes a difference, and thereby, logically, she's saying our actions have consequences and responsibilities, rather than it all being preordained: we play our part in the universe, rather than suggesting whatever bad thing we do, or happened to us, was 'destined' to be that way and we have no influence. So that was a bright spot amidst all the gloom and stupidity. It's sad they can't make an episode all about that and have to throw such scraps in to leaven the action and violence rather than being the focus of everything, but again, the times we live in… Unfortunately, the writers seem to believe that a modern audience can't cope with messages and is only there for visceral pleasures, not mental workout, so there has to be grand, overarching danger to keep attention spans agog. Now it's that the 'multiverse' will cease to exist if Lorca gets his hands on Mirror Stamets' undetermined weapon that will somehow devastate the mycelial network and spread a chain reaction across all existence - but surely, by the very nature of the multiverse theory, there would be countless variations of the universe where this was avoided, or where Stamets wasn't able to do this, or etcetera ad infinitum… It's funny one reason given for killing off familiar characters as writers like to do to keep viewers on edge (do we really want edge over comfort in these dark days? Was Trek not popular because of its escapism?), is to suggest that older TV was always so safe because you knew the main characters would always survive, and yet they bring us a story where the stakes are the entire multiverse(s), which we know are going to be fine. In one of those universes, somewhere many millions of lightyears away out of sight and time, there sits a version of me who's actually enjoying 'DSC' because the writers got it right and made an excellent modern series that was worthy of the name 'Star Trek.' But it ain't this universe.

**

Vaulting Ambition

DVD, Star Trek: Discovery S1 (Vaulting Ambition)

Oh dear, the worst of the Mirror Universe episodes. Maybe it doesn't work to cross the threshold past two in the MU, just as it's inadvisable to cross the universes themselves, because this failed to interest, and limply revealed the 'shocking' twists of the season. It was only thirty-six minutes long, the shortest ever Trek episode (not counting the non-canon animated series), but it felt much longer. Everything's been building to this: Captain Lorca is his mirror counterpart whose devious scheme was to get hold of our Burnham as a way onto Emperor Georgiou's Imperial Palace ship, the ISS Charon, so he could kill her! Wow, what a convoluted way to go about something - he figures that if he has Burnham bring him on he can get aboard no trouble, because otherwise… what, Georgiou wouldn't take him? Or was Burnham the distraction he needed so he could escape? I could buy that he somehow got stuck in our universe, or he was working with Mirror Stamets to try and harness the mycelial network and discovered there were other universes, or maybe he was able to read the secret USS Defiant file that had been redacted, thus giving him reason to go and get Burnham. But why he waited this long, taking part in the Klingon war and everything else they went through, I don't know. To gain her trust? It's a typically silly reveal for this typically silly series, and as much as I enjoyed the first two MU episodes, it's a shame they weren't able to come up with something better as a means to show character motivation.

It's strange, because in some ways this very much hearkens back to older Trek ideas, what with Stamets onscreen with a double of himself (done more times than I can count, and achieved very well here, as you'd expect with modern effects and budget), trapped inside his own mind, which is represented by a recreation of his ship (or the series' own standing sets for budgetary reasons!), just as they always used to do. There's even the old trope of following a disappearing figure down the twisting corridors which makes me think of Janeway chasing after the little girl from her holoprogram, or other episodes of 'TNG' where the same sort of thing happened. Somehow they seem unable to really generate a mood of nightmarish creepiness or mournful melancholy that old Trek was so good at doing, perhaps because now Trek is so action-oriented or comic book dialogue-heavy, or maybe it's the music or the style of acting? Whatever the case, I don't know, but it wasn't very well done, on the whole. Nor were Georgiou and Michael's scenes. It took me right back to the pilot where the pair came across as a little stilted or forced, and it may be that they simply don't have chemistry between them. They got one thing right, though: Mirror Georgiou is as simplistic and downright evil as Intendant Kira, the MU's most iconic villain, and they've certainly succeeded in continuing the basic, one-note portrayal of MU characters that meant the sub-genre was generally only mildly interesting compared to the greater Trek canon, although I'm not sure that's what was needed.

We're set to break yet another precedent by going for at least four episodes based on the MU (discounting all the times Mirror Lorca has been in the series already), but it remains to be seen whether they'll break the dubious record of five MU episodes in a series, held by 'DS9,' or whether we'll be back to our universe by the end of the next one. Now that all has been revealed (and there wasn't really anything I hadn't already heard of before I saw the series), I feel competent to judge the quality of the writing and to comment on its weakness, as I see it. Along with Lorca's reveal in unimaginative style, we also have Tyler set free by L'Rell, who seems only too comfortable in apparently stripping out the remains of Voq's consciousness to free what is the real Tyler, answering my question about how they were going to make him sympathetic after all he's done. She gives the death howl that is supposed to warn the gates of Sto-vo-kor of the impending arrival of one of their warriors, which suggests Voq is dead. She was able to remove this ambiguous neural energy or consciousness so easily with a few twiddles of her claw hands operating Starfleet medical tech, but I suppose if you consider that they're operating within the time frame of the era of 'TOS,' with episodes like 'Spock's Brain' in which McCoy keeps the Vulcan alive until they can retrieve his mental organ, then it fits. It's just that when you've grown up with the far more sophisticated and realistic 24th Century approach to Trek it's hard to go back, and I usually work around such silliness and enjoy it for what it was, but don't expect it in modern Trek because we're supposed to have made progress since those days!

Except we obviously haven't. I'm surprised that L'Rell would kill her love, and it's weird that Voq went through so much for so little, and didn't appear to have much of a plan. There are still a few episodes left so perhaps there will be more twists to come and Voq isn't actually dead, and Lorca's plan was actually more diabolically cunning than it seems, but seen on this episode's merits, the season, while not falling apart like a house of cards, is in jeopardy of failing to be taken seriously. How does Burnham realise Lorca's mission? By having Emperor Georgiou explain that the singular difference between 'our two races,' as she puts it, is sensitivity to light, which isn't something we've seen in any other MU characters at all, apart from her and Lorca! It's such a poor 'clue' as to be laughable, and even leaving aside the melodramatic dialogue (like when Burnham and Lorca are in the shuttle at the beginning talking of ghosts), shows modern plotting and writing to be far more unrealistic and silly than I could have imagined before seeing the series. There's really very little about the episode to like at all, though Saru continues to show he's still an interesting character, such as when he confronts L'Rell in her cell, and any moment with him is better than anything else, though I think it's more to do with Doug Jones and his performance than anything he's given to do or say.

I was interested to see the shuttle, which weirdly looked much more like it came out of 'TNG' than 'TOS' (though this isn't necessarily a new thing as 'Star Trek V' basically repurposed a 'TNG' shuttle, though that was far later in the film era, decades after this episode's setting), not having the angularity, but smooth, curvy lines - who knows, maybe the ultimate twist will be that 'DSC' is set in another alternate universe, or the ship actually does come from the 24th Century? I wouldn't put it past these writers… I did like more talk of the Defiant, and how its crew tore each other apart in madness, as it's wonderful to have a 'TOS' episode's details paid the courtesy of reference, linking both it and 'Enterprise' to this current incarnation, but we're obviously not going to see it, as rather than use a powerful Constitution-class, the Emperor prefers her own custom-built ISS Charon (referencing the battle mentioned in 'TNG' or planet in 'TOS? Or neither since they were spelt 'Cheron'), which, being in the MU, the designers were free to go wild with as it doesn't matter, and we know in the MU they favour ships the bigger the better. I was confused at first when Georgiou shows surprise at Burnham telling her of our universe - she should know all about it thanks to the Defiant's records, but later she shows she does know, so I suppose she was shamming in front of her followers before slicing through their heads in a violent scene of multiple death. That was another thing that brought to mind the operative word of this episode: silly. A spinning disk that somehow knows exactly where it should go simply by her throwing it, and spares one of those in the circle? It smacks of Sulu's fold-up samurai sword from 'Star Trek XI'! Daft. And nasty.

They weren't the only gory deaths of the episode as a similar end from the one the Vulcan terrorist had in front of Sarek was given to one of Lorca's followers. He disintegrates before our eyes before exploding in a shower of blood. Lovely. It's not necessary to go that far and once again it makes me think of the modern films and their penchant for violence over intelligence or wit. Ho hum. I was also less than thrilled with them confusing agonisers with agony booths as they're two different things in Trek lore: everyone wore agonisers so they could be controlled by whoever was in charge, they weren't the booths that enemies were put into for punishment and torture. They've been pretty good about getting at least the surface details right, but they were going to fall down eventually, and that's one of the glaring ones. The only other points of interest were seeing more Kelpiens for the first time if you ignore Mirror Saru, though I don't know how Burnham's ever going to explain to her First Officer she ate one of his people. That dinner scene wasn't quite on the same level of horror as Picard's encounter with a Taspar egg in 'Chain of Command,' but it was following the same tone. When Georgiou commanded Burnham to choose one of the Kelpiens I felt sure it was for some unsavoury purpose. Turned out it was for a savoury one, followed by dessert! And the other thing that caught my interest was about the closest we've seen on the series to a discussion of God: when Mirror Stamets says 'technically, who knows?' which is about the best we're going to get in that regard, but at least they didn't go all atheist and spout out all about how no one in this century believes in such things, but then they are still playing to a large American audience where faith is still part of life, so they wouldn't want to be too definite, I'm sure.

I think about enough has been said on this particular episode, it wasn't one to get the imagination flowing, without even the sight of an Andorian or a Tellarite to spark something, and with only basic, base happenings of plot, and little character - sure, there's Stamets 'trapped' in his head and weirdly meeting the dead Culber, although I'm not sure if we're to assume this is real or just Stamets' imagination. It was a way for him to meet his mate one last time, but it all seemed rather pointless to me and I didn't get the intentions of what they were doing, it's not like he was able to affect things within his mind in order to wake up, unless Culber telling him simply to open his eyes was the 'message' he needed in order to get out of the coma, which is also daft. At least Tilly was barely in the episode, and I still think they'd do better to concentrate on the characters that work best - in my eyes that would be Saru, L'Rell, and to a lesser extent, Burnham. Perhaps an episode where the three of them were trapped on a shuttle and running out of air, or some other great Trek trope, would be more interesting to me than what they've actually done with the series. I was hoping that the glimmer of fascination lit by the last couple of episodes was heralding a strong finish to what I regard as a very patchy season, but after this one I'm not so sure. Come on, at least give me one good episode I can enjoy and hold up as evidence that this series has a future! Please?

**

The Wolf Inside

DVD, Star Trek: Discovery S1 (The Wolf Inside)

Well this episode felt longer, and I was coming to the conclusion that it might be the series' first hour-long instalment, but it turned out to be about forty-seven minutes, which is fairly lengthy compared to the average Trek. Why should that be the foremost takeaway to come to mind amid all these other plot developments? I have to admit it did feel a little long, maybe not so well paced, but I did appreciate the opening credits taking some time to appear, reminding me as it did of 'DS9' where they'd sometimes have several scenes and get into the meat of the story before cutting away to the opening sequence, making you forget the episode hadn't technically begun yet, so that was a nice callback, if callback it was, though more likely they just felt it needed to be there at that point. There were a few things like this which I liked, such as questions that popped into my mind being shortly answered to my satisfaction: for example, I was confused as to how Stamets had been able to escape through the medical forcefield around his biobed, when they believe he killed Culber, found as he is cradling the dead body in some dark, faulty part of the ship. I could have believed his technical expertise might have made him able to use the equipment within that area to deactivate it, if he were a typical crackerjack Starfleet Engineer, but he's not. At least I don't think so… They could also have made up some fantasy mumbo-jumbo about the spores inside him messing with the system and somehow allowing him to phase through the forcefield, which would have been silly. Instead I think it was Saru suggested Culber may have lowered it himself, which would make sense. Except now I think about it, when he was killed the forcefield was still active - maybe Ash dropped it so as to implicate Stamets?

Okay, so that was one moment that seemed to have an answer, and the other one was when Tilly manages to persuade Saru to let her work on Stamets' cure by putting him back in the spore cupboard. With no medical personnel whatsoever! So the Captain's off the ship and unavailable for such decisions, but that leaves Saru in charge, and okay, he's there overseeing the attempt to revive the guy, but you'd think there would be at least someone from Sickbay around just to monitor the patient's condition rather than leaving it to the gut feeling of a cadet! It's sometimes hard to remember Sylvia is still a cadet because she seems to have so much to do and I'm afraid she has become something of a Wesley Crusher figure, which is unfortunate, but that's what happens when you cut out some of the key roles in a starship to try and make it different to other Treks. Anyway, that's beside the point as there was at least one doctor and assistant that arrived, though I think it was only when his condition went critical and they should have been there all the time, unless the Engineering section have some kind of beef with Medical and the two departments don't like to have dealings with each other. But they came eventually, so that was good, and answered my point.

The point about Tilly and her sudden appearance as expert on everything isn't so easy. She was working with Stamets, agreed, but they never developed that. It was rare to have scenes of the two of them together and that's something I've keenly observed about the series: despite modern TV supposed to be oh so much more sophisticated and advanced than it used to be, it really isn't. How they've handled the characters across the season has been fairly simplistic and childish in the manner of the Kelvin Timeline films (even down to the Captain promoting people into positions because he feels like it rather than them earning it particularly: Burnham and Tyler), so that I wonder if all big, talked up TV shows that people rave about these days are like this? I don't watch much modern TV, at least from America, the massive budget, prestigious, showcase stuff that gets all the attention, mainly because there's so much Trek to re-watch, but if it is all like this I find it to be melodramatic, far from the grounded worlds of Trek. Granted, Tilly would have got well into the spore lore, but it wasn't set up very well for her to be the expert that takes over the reins when Stamets is indisposed. Even Science Officer Saru would have a better aptitude and training for this side of things (you'd think), but a cadet has to lead him by the nose. She even seems to know all about the medical side from nowhere, chattering away about Stamets' brain as if she'd come straight from Starfleet Medical!

I'd rather concentrate on what works in the episode, and there were some nicely done shots of the camera rolling around the exterior of a ship before shooting through a window into a scene, which was elegant. It had been done before on Trek, but being a costly use of CGI, not so much. When we see a closeup of the worn hull of the ISS Shenzhou I immediately felt annoyed that it wasn't all Starfleet sparkly clean, before realising this is the Mirror version, so it's fine to be beat up and dirty. I still feel we don't get nearly enough exterior shots of ships hanging in space or travelling at warp, but this may be a holdover from the series' vision to be, if not about the lower decks, not necessarily about the top ranks either, though that hasn't exactly played out well - you even see, very often, that one reason they included the Kelvin idea of a window on the Bridge in place of the viewscreen, is so that they can tend towards showing what's going on outside from inside the Bridge, which is one of those things that makes it feel a lot less Trek-like. I'll never get used to that, or the lack of ship's logs, or a number of other things, but like I mentioned in my review of the previous episode, at least when they're in the Mirror Universe they can do almost whatever they please and it doesn't matter to anywhere near the same degree as when it's 'supposed' to be in the timeline we know very well and love very much.

Something that did please me was finally getting an Andorian character. Like most episodes of the series, they don't seem to bother much with names and people we meet being given a chance to show their character, so we don't find out anything about (Mirror) Andorians, but it was great to have one all the same. I don't know why he spoke in that metallic, almost mechanical voice, and I doubt we'll ever find out. He's one of a band of rebels that Captain Burnham has been ordered to destroy, the base being located on some planet (was that Harlak?), orders direct from the Emperor (which should be Empress, surely?), none other than Phillippa Georgiou herself, which ties to 'Enterprise' loosely in that Empress Hoshi was in control when last we saw the Empire in the previous century, so it's nice to have an Asian dynasty (I'd like to assume), coming from that. This might have been a big reveal had I not known about it before I even began watching the series, but I suspect I'd have had expectation of her showing up, and it was either going to be her or T'Kuvma, you'd think, so the Big Reveal with its melodramatic music fell a little flat. Did the Emperor send Burnham as a test to see if she would actually do what she was told, having been presumed dead, in order to know if she was who she seemed? Does she even know about our universe? You'd think she would since she must have the USS Defiant, but then who knows and who doesn't? I don't know…

They could have had Mirror Sarek learn all about Burnham's world and share it with his comrades, there would be no danger of it getting out since the whole encampment was obliterated by Georgiou (I'll be very interested to see how they make her into a sympathetic character after that act since we know she's supposed to be leading a Section 31 TV series… Then again, with 31's morals, they'd probably not be too shy about using someone like that if it served their goals). This whole sequence on the planet was (largely), the best part of the episode. I don't like the daft way the rebels and Burnham/Tyler meet, with the pair beaming down and then getting shot with a massive blasty cannon thing which throws them around, but is accurate enough that no one gets hurt! Either they would kill them as enemies, or they would not shoot at them, and they could have had a cool Phaser battle, which is what old Trek would probably have done. Instead they fall on the floor a few times until Burnham puts her hands up. Ignoring that part, I began to wonder if this was filmed at that canyon (Bronson?), where a lot of 'DS9' and other Treks used for things like the Bajorans hunting the rebels in 'Shakaar,' or the Jem'Hadar fighting Sisko and co. in 'Rocks and Shoals,' before remembering that you won't get the old landmarks any more because this is shot in Canada! Sad. The spit they walk across bordered by water on both sides made me think of a similar scene in 'Rocks & Shoals' and it would have been so great to have gone back there again.

The important thing is that we get to see this 'coalition of hope' as Burnham puts it - Andorians, Tellarites, Vulcans and Klingons banded together against the Terrans. The Andorian looked brilliant, and I quite approved of the gaunt-faced actor they chose, and even the horny brow that was new to the design. I was carefully watching the antennae and was pleased to see they did move, though it seemed they hadn't bothered to follow the detailed emotional states they depicted so brilliantly in the Andorians on 'Enterprise,' because usually they've been so careful to pay tribute to existing races, like showing the same symbol for the Klingons as we always had, or the musical notes of Vulcan writing (though clearly following the dress of the Kelvin Vulcans rather than 'TOS' or the film era, disappointingly). I do so hope this isn't the only appearance of Andorians (there was another in the background fixing what looked like some all-terrain wheeled vehicle, which always looks out of place in Trek), or, for that matter, Tellarites. I was almost as excited to see them, and approved of the large tusks that gave them almost a warthog look more than pig-like, though again, a shame they weren't the usual rotund body shape you expect from the race. I wasn't sure if one of them was a female, but it was difficult to tell in the few shots we had of this interesting gang (and maybe, as was joked about Dwarven women in 'The Lord of The Rings,' Tellarite women are indistinguishable from the men?). Again, the Klingons continue to look good, and if it weren't for the silly domed heads and claws I could accept them!

It very much reminded me of the 'DS9' episode 'The Ship,' another one where we saw a little-seen race in one of the crew (appearing to be of the same race as Dr. Sevrin of 'TOS'), and makeup tends to look better in the light of bright outdoors, away from the artificiality of the soundstages. It was so sad they were all annihilated, even for the fact that I just wanted to see more of this band of familiar aliens, but they didn't bother fleshing them out, it was one and done for them. I can't say I quite understood Burnham's joy at finding this coalition, because it's not like the Federation isn't well established in her own universe. I suppose she just appreciated the parallels even in this Mirror place, which is fair enough, but shouldn't she have more feeling for her own kind? I know Kirk was horrified by the Terrans being so harsh and evil, but he suggested Spock should follow a course of peace, he wasn't against them, and it turned out bad for humans anyway because of the subsequent Klingon/Cardassian Alliance we saw in 'DS9.' It's also difficult to discern what's going on with these Mirror characters and races because we don't really know who they are in our universe. We get Mirror Voq (which was great, but I so wanted Mirror T'Kuvma), and he did seem to be quite honourable, as in he didn't mercilessly skewer Tyler once he's beaten him in combat, but was open to hearing Burnham's words. I don't quite get why they went along with her, aside from testing her with 'The Prophet,' otherwise known as Mirror Sarek (good to know what happened to Mirror Spock's Father), but I think we can assume Mirror Voq is a nice guy.

It's a real shame, because I did like that version of Voq. He didn't seem to be small and weak, he was a good leader, so does that mean our Voq is, or was, a bad guy? I thought we were supposed to have some sympathy for him and L'Rell, and that's why Kol seemed so nasty? The trouble is we never really got to know those characters very well at all, for all the trumpeting of how they were going to explore the Klingons this season, so we don't have anywhere near as intense a feeling of a different version of the characters, almost watering down the MU in some ways. I would have liked Voq and his band to survive as they were about the most interesting thing in the episode (maybe the series), but it ties up a loose end and shows the Empire to be as horrible as it's always been, and maybe made the Rebellion fight even harder if they ever heard tell of Burnham seemingly betraying them. Mirror Sarek had a beard, which was a great connection, as we've seen Mirror Spock and Mirror Soval (but surprisingly not Mirror Tuvok), sporting beards, and if they can't execute a Ferengi character, then at least they were true to this MU trope! He's still a poorly acted version of a Vulcan, and not different to our universe's version. He did seem a little weary and low, like Mirror O'Brien, rather than an evil Sarek, so I suppose it's okay to have different tones for characters rather than straight up mirrored personalities, though I wish we had more of those to just show the harshness of this universe.

Not that they're shy of harshness as we see when Burnham allows the prisoners (but not Lorca), to be beamed out into space where they die from lack of oxygen and being frozen. It was similar to her killing of Connor last time, but at least in this case she wasn't operating the controls herself, so I didn't feel she was quite as responsible. Okay, so she could have rescinded the order, but didn't because of the law, but I wish she'd tried to find a way. The trouble is she doesn't seem experienced enough to be able to survive in that position as 'Captain' without condoning horrible acts by her crew, the story would be so much more compelling if she was forced to walk a tightrope where she was able to avoid doing those things which were anathema to her very being, yet manage the suspicions of her crew at the same time. And it's disappointing the writers weren't up to the task of doing that, instead almost glorying in the nastiness by showing the deaths in space and that sort of thing, which is a very current fashion for more gore and shocks, something they seemed to enjoy in the Tyler flashbacks to his procedure. In contrast, Tyler's sudden fight against his mirror counterpart was quite restrained, though I really wanted his forehead to show extreme bruising after he mistakenly head-butted this Klingon! I mean really, it would make sense for him to forget he's been turned human, in the heat of the moment his Klingon personality makes him perform an act typical of the race, but he didn't even seem to be affected after throwing his skull up against the bony fore-ridges of this Klingon skull! Something else: was Shazad Latif playing Voq? I'm sure they'd use a stuntman for the fighting, and I don't think we ever saw them standing in split-screen style, but there was no credit for Voq that I noticed, not even 'Javid Iqbal,' which I think it's fair to say was Latif in those early episodes.

I'm in two minds about the reveal of Ash Tyler as Voq - it happens because he's activated by Mirror Voq's talk of Kahless and the words of T'Kuvma come rushing back. Since I know Tyler, like Georgiou, isn't done in the Trek universe, I'm sure there'll be some undoing of Voq's influence. Maybe Tyler is the real Lieutenant, and Voq was grafted onto him, that way they could banish Tyler and his acts at the end of the season, yet still keep the human alive, or maybe we meet the Mirror Tyler, who is another person, and he's the one that goes back with the… He ultimately admits to Burnham he's realised he's Voq, and would have killed her but for the intervention of Mirror Saru. Now he was an odd one. You'd think this version would be harsh and nasty, a twisted version of the Saru we know, but instead, more in the vein of Voq and O'Brien, he's merely cowed, Burnham's personal servant who gives her a bath each day (another great reference, as this 'indulgent' form of cleaning was used by Intendant Kira and it seemed to be a direct reference to that, as Captain Maddox may have been named for the Commander of the same name in 'TNG'), and very deferential. I was expecting him to reveal his true colours as a villain and try to kill her, but he saved her, so that was nice. I didn't get our Saru's question about whether she'd met any of his kind on the Shenzhou. He says there aren't that many of his people, which I don't think we knew before, but it was rather unprofessional during a mission of such importance, and not wanting to have the comm open too much (why they used holograms I don't know!), for fear of discovery, and then he has a personal question. Again, very Kelvin, not very Trek.

Overall I would say it was another not bad episode. I'm surprised they didn't have the murder of Culber play out over several episodes, as I imagined Stamets would wake up and be horrified at what 'he'd' done, only later Tyler being revealed as the culprit. I also don't know why they didn't keep Tyler quiet longer as he's known and captured by episode's end. We're supposed to wonder if Burnham beamed him into space to kill him, but it was highly unlikely, even after he'd betrayed her, that's not her way, the way of the Vulcans, or of Starfleet, and she obviously took control of the Transporter controls to beam him to coordinates where the Discovery could beam him up. But wouldn't the Shenzhou know? Don't they have sensors? It was a trick, as we learn, to transfer the coloured square disk (so great, I love those things!), with the Defiant data on Tyler's person which they can use to get home. Shame we won't get to visit that ship, but I was highly sceptical we would, so no real disappointment there. And no surprise that Mirror, I mean Captain, Lorca wanted to hang around longer (I spotted what looked like another Gorn skull in Burnham's Ready Room on Shenzhou, and the head of some robot - I wanted it to be Airiam!). But in all, mainly thanks to Mirror Voq and his aliens, I was pro this episode. Not more than the previous one, as I said, it did feel overly melodramatic, and I'm not entirely sold on Burnham, or Martin-Green's performance choices, but it's another of the best this season, though still some way to go to match the average Trek episode I enjoy on the other series'.

**

Despite Yourself

DVD, Star Trek: Discovery S1 (Despite Yourself)

It's not because Jonathan Frakes, Commander Riker of 'TNG' fame, directed this episode, but it may be that having an old Trek face behind the camera helped, as I definitely enjoyed this one more than any since the pilot. What makes it easier to relax into is the fact that they're in the Mirror Universe, a place we know very little about. Sure, it has its own canon and continuity, but aside from a different logo (and I don't know why they didn't just reuse the exact same one which was seen from 'Enterprise' across all the MU episodes of 'TOS' and 'DS9,' but at least it was pretty close), they respected the history of this aberrant and topsy-turvy land. The best thing was that the USS Defiant from the 'TOS' episode 'The Tholian Web' (how I'd love to see them do Tholians!), that we discovered from the 'Enterprise' two-parter was pulled into the MU, is still part of the plot a century later! Leaving aside the unlikeliness of a powerful Constitution-class vessel not having been either blown up or run into the ground from over-use by the powers of this Terran Empire, or become a target for the Rebellion to destroy, it's terrific that it's still a key component of this universe and a wonderful and direct connection to 'Enterprise' and 'TOS' - even the onscreen graphic they showed looked very true to the design, although I know we'll probably not see it in the flesh, as I know what's coming at the end of the season, and that we wouldn't see the inside of the USS Enterprise until Season 2. But just the fact that it's being talked about and is the motivation for the story, excites.

A lot is packed into this forty-six minute episode, and it's good that for once they're actually making a proper-length go of it, as the older series' used to do. We still have yet to witness the full potential of streaming allowing longer episodes, that they talked about early on - so far it's tended towards the potential for ad revenue being just as common as on broadcast TV, with shorter episodes so they can squeeze in more advertising. But it was long enough that I kept thinking it was going to end: when they beam over to the Shenzhou; when Tyler pulls a Worf and snaps li'l Culber's neck in a pique of Klingon reaction; and one or two other points along the way that could have served as ideal jumping off points to leave you hanging. The actual final moments weren't quite as strong and made me wonder if (after all that!), it wouldn't have been better to be a touch shorter rather than show Burnham and Tyler having a smoochy moment, or Captain Lorca a painful one in the agony booth. Burnham is the one I have to discuss: I was so close to rating this episode three stars and then she goes and stabs 'Captain' Danby Connor! Okay, so it wasn't in cold blood, and they're setting us up to expect our good guys to be doing dirty stuff in order to survive, but this may be the single most controversial thing in the whole controversial season: our main character, a Starfleet officer of good morals, brought up in Vulcan training and the importance of life, stabs a man to death when she didn't need to. It's not like she breaks down afterwards in her quarters, either!

It looked for a moment as if she was going to lose it, in shock at having killed a double of someone she respected (we assume, we never got to see the USS Shenzhou crew long enough to understand their interpersonal makeup), but she just looks tired, and it's because she's been hoping to get the data on the Defiant's whereabouts and the crew have all been so obsequious to whom they believe is their former Captain, returned from the dead. I don't deny that letting the dead body of Connor fall out of the Turbolift onto the Bridge was about the best introduction she could have made to this Mirror crew, but was it in her character? Could they not have preserved her purity by having Connor fall on the knife when she cunningly paused the Turbolift and they float up in the lack of gravity, before slamming to the floor? No, they deliberately have her given a split second choice, and she plunges the knife in! Is that the world we live in now, that Starfleet officers can do this? Again, it's much more like a 'Battlestar Galactica' approach, where they want to muddy the waters so much that you sometimes wonder if the good guys are good at all. Maybe that's more realistic. For other franchises, yes. But not for Trek, that was going too far. Are we going to see her degenerate from this act, and have it on her conscience? That's not why we (well, I know it's not why I do!), watch Trek. Trek was always different, the people are better than we are today. They find ways around problems, but she didn't. It's not like she was helpless and defenceless, she was already using Vulcan martial arts, and even if she can't do a proper nerve pinch, she can still incapacitate for a short while, long enough to get to the Bridge and order him put in the Brig.

Needless to say I was uncomfortable with how this played out, and even if there'd been signs of deep remorse in her quarters, it would still have been unpalatable. No doubt people will dredge up precedents (like Worf snapping Weyoun's neck, or Worf killing Duras, or Worf… Hmmm, sensing a pattern here, and it's all Klingon related!), but with seven hundred episodes plus, and fifty years plus, there's always a precedent somewhere, and that's no argument. At least remorse would have shown how deeply it had affected her instead of giving the impression that, well, it's an alternate universe so these people's lives don't matter - it's not like she killed a 'real' person, after all… For one thing I was quite interested in seeing Connor a bit more, since the original was so quickly taken out - wouldn't it have been just as good to know he harboured ill feelings and was ready to strike Burnham at any moment, than removing this threat? Knowing at the start of the season that the MU was coming, I'd always imagined we'd be seeing Connor again, only left to wonder how many of the crew would return (T'Kuvma? This universe's Voq?), so I was somewhat disappointed to learn that ISS Discovery switched places with the USS and went into our universe. Will we get to see what happens in the Prime Timeline and all the damage it's sure to do? I can't imagine they'd be able to do much since the MU was 'unknown' before Kirk and crew discovered it, so I don't know how they're going to cover all this up. I don't think it was mentioned in 'Mirror, Mirror,' the first ever MU episode, as seen in 'TOS' (now the third series chronologically to have dealings with it, keep up!), that they had any knowledge of our universe, either, though that was shown to be incorrect by 'In A Mirror, Darkly' on 'Enterprise,' since our Defiant had gone over there.

If we're talking coverups, then I have a couple of points to make on that: did Tyler leave the dead body of Culber lying in Sickbay, or did he find somewhere to stash or dispose of him? It seems like half the crew were covering for each other: we see Burnham covering for Tyler when he has a few trembles from shell shock as he pilots a worker bee to pull out a Klingon data core from amid the floating debris (where we also see our first Andorian, though you can't actually see anything - I was really hoping the Andorians were going to play a part in our universe, since I knew they'd be showing up, so again, it's somewhat disappointing to see that they'll most likely be Mirror Andorians and we won't be able to add to their culture or history in meaningful ways, not that 'DSC' tends toward culture or history, or even meaningful…). Culber was covering for Lorca when he hid Stamets' true medical status, and Tyler's covering for, well, the Klingons, you could say, or L'Rell in particular - hey, there's an idea: maybe he made it look like she murdered Culber? For we get the most unequi-voq-al reveal of what everyone had been guessing since Tyler first appeared: that he is indeed a deep cover Klingon agent, and having been sent to the Matrons of Marzipan, or whatever they were called (Matriarchs of Mo'kai?), he was surgically and psychologically altered to be human. But did they rip out Voq's mind and put it in a real human, because that seems as likely as just making him look like one of us? The exchange where she tries to activate him by talking of Kahless was good, and then it fails to work, so he's really messed up now.

I'm glad they brought L'Rell along, and I hope she gets out and doesn't waste another episode locked away, as that would be to waste one of their best characters. Speaking of which, Saru has been underused from being one of the top two or three in early episodes to barely featuring (except for Kirsten Beyer's starring role for him). I get that since Tyler joined he needed to not be around too much or his threat ganglia might have spoiled Tyler's secret identity somehow, but that wasn't actually necessary since, as we see here, they only activate now that Tyler knows who he is. I felt there was a note to play with Saru specific to this episode: when Burnham presents the research she's done into this universe from reading what was in the data core, she says they all live in constant fear, everything so unstable and threats round every corner, and it immediately brings Saru to mind. You'd think he'd at least have something to say on the matter, because this is right up his street, an entire universe that is like the way he's always lived, so maybe he'd be in the best position to deal with anything, like surprise attacks from underlings as Burnham fought with. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and hope his uniqueness pays off in some way over the course of the coming episodes set in this universe, rather than just being on the Bridge to say a line here or there.

For some reason I noticed a few things this time that have been apparent before, but something pointed them out: pointed is the operative word, as I realised that Lorca has the traditional pointed sideburns we expect of Starfleet humans - I must have not noticed amid all the other varied hairstyles. To think that the least Starfleet of them has the most Starfleet! And L'Rell's pointed head also stood out so much more now that she's forced to wear the prison uniform. It's old, old news, and why do I need to keep repeating it, but if they had only made their heads normal shaped then half the issue with the Klingons wouldn't be a problem, as the front looks like 'Star Trek III' onward. In some ways the silly claws were the worst change because you question how can they have done all these delicate operations on Voq/Tyler, or even built warp ships, or really, done much of anything, with hands like that! All the better for making them seem monstrous creatures, I see that, but they haven't developed the Klingon culture as they first seemed to be promising, but maybe that was in Bryan Fuller's direction and they chose to go a different way once the boss was kicked out? I wonder if it was in his original plan to go to the MU? I suspect it was because he set up the mycelial network and spore drive, and what was the point of it unless it was to get them there? I'm still not sure what the point of jumping into the MU is in terms of the story, because the season was supposed to be about the Klingons, and war against them, and that hasn't been particularly well handled with little sense of a scope, scale, or narrative to the conflict.

You don't hear about this famous world falling (like Betazed in 'DS9'), or the tactics, it's just 'Star Wars' style dogfights and little else, which is one reason I've been very underwhelmed by the first half of the season. At least with the MU I feel more comfortable for them to do radical or weird things that are off-kilter and out of canon's grasp because the MU is, ultimately, meaningless, and only good for a bit of silly fun. Which still makes me wonder why they wanted to go here, and obviously spend some time since I suspect they're going to be here for a few episodes at least. Or maybe not? Maybe it's just another two-parter like in 'Enterprise,' which I'd be okay with, but I had the impression they were doing multiple MU stories for the first time ever. My fear is that this was their first port of call when they knew they were unregulated by the censors by being on streaming, because the MU has always been the most indulgently violent and inappropriate in all ways. In old Trek this stood out because they were generally so straight arrow and grounded, but this series is so fantastical and not reining in its lust for going where no Trek's gone before, that the MU wouldn't be such a big deal, unless it's far more disturbing. All of which makes me hope it isn't set to be a showcase of all the baseness the series can squeeze in on the grounds that 'it's the MU so anything goes.'

So far, with this episode, anyway, only Burnham's failure to save herself without killing another, stood out as wrong, and the rest of the story was not a bad jaunt. From the start, when they get fired on by a Vulcan ship, it has you wondering what could happen, because although we've had characters pop into the MU, we've never had the trouble of a whole ship that needs to be returned, as well as its crew. There were little things that were a little silly, such as painting out the 'U' in 'USS Discovery' into an 'I' for 'ISS,' but then they needed to do that or it would stick out like a sore thumb. That's the price you have to pay for doing something so blatant and unwieldy as taking a whole ship in rather than just the odd character here and there. I'm not convinced the Mirror crews of the Terran Empire would have noticed, but if they had, and the Defiant was known about (which I'm not sure it was - they say it's classified, which is why they had to go to the Shenzhou to find out more), then they'd instantly know something was amiss, though I'd have thought it'd be just as easy to bluff and say they fancied changing it to 'U' for some reason. Usually I want explanatory details, so I suppose I am being churlish to complain when I'm shown them, it's just that it did look a bit ridiculous, especially when you consider that it's just as likely there are other details about the ship that would make it look different, but it's one of those things you just have to go with in MU stories.

The other thing was the uniforms. Now I like that they have the accent of the gold sashes we'd 'later' see in 'TOS,' and it makes sense that they would have to change into these things so as to fit in, and it's not like they can avoid coming into contact with Terran vessels when they've got the huge Discovery flying around, so they had to do something, but it's hard to believe that they have any chance of not being found out, since they're completely different people, with different experiences and knowledge. It should be a near impossibility for them to pass muster in the eyes of the MU inhabitants! Before I saw the series I was slightly concerned that having MU versions of characters was far too early in the series, before we really knew them, and in a way I was right, but the characters haven't grown on me, and if anything I like them less than when I first met them. Everything now happens so much faster: shorter seasons, fewer seasons (I expect), so whatever getting to know them business we'd have had in old Trek has had to be condensed so much that there isn't even the same feel of learning about this ship and crew as there was before when you can now see it as a great luxury we got to spend so much time with crews and characters. Now it's all much more about the action-driven spectacle and generating viewership based on effects and wacky fantasy ideas, so character has definitely become a lesser concern. All this means that seeing MU versions doesn't faze me in the slightest, and in actual fact we're unlikely to see many anyway since Mirror Burnham is supposedly dead, and the rest of the crew are away in our universe, supposedly.

We do get an approximation of one MU character, and I would be remiss if I didn't mention Captain Tilly. We already knew she was going to be the Captain from Stamets' mutterings when he came back from his spore jumps, so it wasn't a shock (and might have been better as one, though I'm glad it had time to sink in previously or I'd be railing at how ridiculous it is, just as Captain Lorca does for us), and it was the most fun part of the episode when she has to curb all her instincts to chatter and be the usual annoying personality that she is, in order to sit in the Captain's Chair and bluff their first contact with allies. I wish she wasn't so irritating all the time, but she did well in this position, though how she'd be able to keep it up under scrutiny, I don't know. The Mirror uniform actually benefited her and she looked and sounded much better than in any other appearance of the character. It was also great fun seeing Lorca in the Captain Sisko role as a wanted renegade, though no one was going to out-act Avery Brooks in such things, even if Jason Isaacs has a good go, screaming in the agony booth (created by Dr. Phlox for those that remember), to herald the end of the episode. I suspect foreshadowing in the same way as we heard of Captain Tilly previously, when Burnham says something about removing his head, as there was news of Isaacs having a head cast made during production so it's obvious that's how he's going to go, and when you vaguely know these things you can spot them setting it up.

Something else I enjoyed was when he affected a Scottish accent as the 'Chief Engineer' just in case someone on the other end of the comm channel recognised his voice (yeeeeeees…). It's a nod to Scotty, obviously, but I would have liked him to do his normal English accent, and that's what I was expecting when he mentioned he'd have to speak differently. It brought to my attention something: where is the actual Chief Engineer? Stamets isn't it, he's an astromycologist, so why was a Cadet (Tilly), left to sort out this vital component of the data core? Also, where is the Chief Medical Officer, because it isn't Dr. Culber. Lorca says he wants Stamets under a different doctor's care, so how many docs do they have, and are there even more Sickbays because we never even see the others, at least not to make it obvious? I know the series was originally planned to be taking a more skewed approach to the characters so that we'd be seeing lower ranked people in the main cast slots, but I'm not sure that's had any real bearing because if you do that then it's difficult to be on the Bridge, yet they want to show all the main stuff that's going on, so they haven't actually fulfilled that approach very effectively - you just get the sense of the absence of certain authority figures. Maybe there aren't any, and Lorca had them hidden away somewhere - in his menagerie that has been all but forgotten?

There weren't many references apart from the obvious ones to the Mirror Universe and Defiant, etc, but I did catch Organia, which Saru mentions, and he also says about their position relative to the Galactic centre, which of course is where Kirk and crew went in 'Star Trek V.' The biggest deal for me was when Tyler uses a laser cannon to slice out the Klingon data core - at this time lasers were the weapon, not Phasers, as we saw in 'The Cage,' and in that episode they even used a laser cannon to try and break through the rock on Talos IV, so this must have been a reference to that. I only wish that rather than throwing in references, they were more true to the bedrock of Trek, so that they were using lasers and calling them that, and adhering to the visual canon, and all the other things they've played fast and loose with, much to the detriment of a Trek feeling being allowed to permeate. At least, as I said, that doesn't matter so much when they're in the MU, and I hope they talk about the history of the Terran Empire and what happened in 'Enterprise' - with all these holograms flitting around, it would be wonderful if they could at least use it to show some historical record of MU personnel. As great as it was to see a list of the names of great Captains, it would be the perfect way to bring in someone from 'Enterprise' for a cameo. But I never heard about it, so I don't think that's happening, sadly. All I can say in conclusion is, that although I didn't notice Frakes' directing style, and he filmed it well (such things as the fight in the Turbolift stand out), whether it was his influence or no, this was the only one I found myself truly enjoying since the first, the only caveat being Burnham's murder, and I hope the following episodes of Season 1, Part 2, don't disappoint.

**

Prey

DVD, Star Trek: Voyager S4 (Prey)

It starts as one story and ends as another, something that applies to this three-episode Hirogen arc in its entirety, pleasing in its symmetry. It's a pleasing episode in many ways, as all three in this arc have been: beginning with the mysterious communications array that allowed them contact with home, continuing with an unfriendly encounter with the owners of said array, and culminating in an unstable alliance with one of their number to hunt a common enemy. That's the three-parter, right there, but then this episode does the same: begins with a rescue mission, turns into a hunt with the Hirogen warrior, but becomes about Seven's allegiances and her inability to settle in. The key to her story is trust, or lack of it when it comes to Captain Janeway. Seven may well be right in some regards, as we see Janeway operating erratically over the course of the series and it's never simple to know what she'll do. Her actions here bespeak of the original choice to strand her ship and crew in the Delta Quadrant in the first place: to protect the helpless Ocampa from the hunter-like Kazon that only want to kill or enslave the weaker species is much the same rationale as standing up to a fleet of enemy vessels to protect what was once the deadliest enemy of our galaxy and shows true Trek spirit. Species 8472 wouldn't understand the concept of asking for asylum, I suspect (not until later did they begin to really study humanoid life as we'd see in Season 5's 'In The Flesh'), but Janeway knows when a creature is in need.

Such a terrific turnaround in concept and fully in keeping with the Roddenberry ethic completed in 'TNG.' That is to find common ground even with your enemy, and Janeway says much these very words in one of her conversations with Seven in which she tries to bring the ex-Borg drone around to an understanding of the important pieces that make up the human condition - one of these being compassion, even for your most bitter enemies, something very Biblical and just that makes the episode shine out among all the sci-fi trappings. The EMH is doing the same thing early in the episode, teaching Seven some polite phrases to scatter among her rather dry technical delivery of information in order to help her settle in better (with a lovely reference to Kes' former role, which the Doc is now beginning to take on for Seven as Kes did for him, showing how good trickles down to others). As she would be later to Janeway's discourses, Seven is resistant, but is willing to give it a try, the difference being that her life and the ship's survival isn't at stake with this level of behavioural change, while with the latter and greater she feels it is. Her lack of trust comes from a kind of logic, and if there's an episode that sums up her character as a teenager going through all the rigours of puberty and trying to understand her place in the world, then this is it! I only wish there could have been a scene with Tuvok where she debates logic because she was doing a very good job of turning the tables on Janeway's explanations, but if he had had the time to show the flaws in her logic then there wouldn't have been such a big buildup to the ultimate rebellion against the Captain so I can see why they didn't do that.

Tuvok was much too busy having two dangerous alien visitors aboard (really good how they use his telepathic nature so 8472 can communicate, as it did with Kes in the previous encounter), one a prisoner, the other needing to be contained, and both deadly and unpredictable. One thing that stands out from episodes this season is how well the whole crew are used throughout the stories. It's true that it did become the Seven of Nine show with so many episodes dedicated to her character and the exploration of becoming more human and fitting into this miniature society, but with this season it was not yet at the detriment of the other cast members: Tuvok is very visible and active as Security Chief, B'Elanna, despite the actress' pregnancy, was important in Engineering and was attacked by 8472 when it leaps dramatically from the Warp Core (though not too seriously injured, suggesting it was only protecting itself, not out for blood). Paris gets to crack wise here and there (though I imagine he was joking about hunting a mouse through a Jefferies Tube as it seems very unlikely such creatures would be able to get aboard ships in the 24th Century, or survive all the adventures this one's been through!), and even Neelix is given a scene where Tuvok orders him to report for security duty, needing as many hands as possible for the capture of 8472, and recalling 'The Year of Hell' where Neelix wore a gold uniform in that alternate future, and took on those duties permanently. Only Harry Kim is lost in the shuffle, but not every episode can feature everybody.

Chakotay, often an underused character in later seasons, gets to show his Commander's mettle when leading the overly keen and forceful Hirogen on the hunt, putting the guest in his place regardless of his great physical stature and presence, not to mention the honking great gun right in his face. If anyone forgot that the First Officer was a Captain in his own right, so often has he been happy to support Janeway in her role as top dog, then it's scenes like this that are there to remind us his peaceful and cooperative demeanour is a choice and when pushed he has the strength of personality to be a true leader. And Janeway needed a strong First Officer in this episode, so full of tricky situations and hard calls to make. I love the fact that even after their previous encounter with the Hirogen, rather than take the better part of valour and run at the first sight of one of their ships, she orders about turn and heads straight for the enemy, instinct telling her it's necessary to patch in some kind of diplomatic solution or they'll be forever running. Her instinct proves correct, the bold approach, you sense, being the best way to deal with those that fire first and don't bother with questions, but this time there's no danger as the ship is disabled. At this point she could have got away with a 'well, we tried,' and headed them on their way, but she prefers to see this as an opportunity, both to learn about the species and as a potential act of assistance to an enemy.

Again she's proved right, even Seven having to admit that the risk was acceptable, though with the stinging addendum, "This time!" Her decision is to send an Away Team to find out what's wrong and then to beam the injured Hirogen back to Sickbay. The Hirogen character was perfectly cast, with Tony Todd carrying the haughty pride and glittering violence behind the eyes and voice that he does so well as a menacing Klingon. This appearance was sadly his last in Trek and I was very disappointed that an actor of his calibre, whom early on was touted for a recurring role in 'Discovery,' never materialised (I don't know whether he would have been one of the Klingons or if he was going to be the Vulcan Admiral Turrel which he would have been amazing as!), but at least he made the hat trick with this episode after being in both 'TNG' and 'DS9,' always one of the best guest stars the franchise ever had. How I wish he and Michael Dorn could both have been in 'DSC' together, that would have made me so excited, but who knows, maybe he hasn't finished with Trek roles now that so many series' are in the works? The Picard series would do well to cast someone like Todd as a main cast member! The Hirogen isn't his most fleshed out character, and he didn't have quite the same height as the previous actors to play the behemoth space hunters, but he's still very tall and it's in his manner and restrained power that you sense how dangerous this guy is. And because the Hirogen are so formidable, their prey is even more so - there's certainly the horror of it, 'DSC' far from the first Trek to show nasty stuff, as Tom finds when he picks up a Hirogen helmet only to realise it's a severed head!

I don't think I mentioned the makeup before, but the Hirogen were another superb addition to the Trek lore of Michael Westmore. They had the look of some kind of cream-puff pastry dessert, weirdly, but with all that metal armour, big guns and huge scale of everything about them, they were immediately unique and memorable, unlike a number of aliens of the week with a slightly different bump on the forehead. 'Voyager' needed to find new recurring foes on a season by season basis, roughly, as they were travelling through new areas of space, which they'd then leave behind, so to keep coming up with believable threats that tested the crew to its limits must have been a task and a half. I know they were just saving money by reusing the same ship set we saw last episode, but we get to see even more as the Away Team explores this sinister weapons cabinet/trophy collection that is their ship. I hadn't noticed before, but here we see without doubt the gesture-based controls they favour. Not since 'TOS' ('The Cage'), did we have the impression of such an approach to technology when Spock appears to switch images on the viewscreen by waving a hand, even if that was more likely a wrong inference, probably signalling to a crewmember off screen, but here it adds more mystique to the race. Tuvok even uses a word I didn't know to describe them, talking of the 'denaturation' of their prey, something I had to look up! You can see the influence of the 'Alien' and 'Predator' films in both the Hirogen and 8472, but these stories have more than mere fighting for survival, they're actually about something.

Like Klingons they have a certain type of honour code, though very different in specifics. They value the hunt above all else so that the Alpha-Hirogen actually relishes 8472's ability to disrupt the sensors they apparently carry on their humungous weapons, as if he prefers the purity of a hunt with only instinct and reactions, allowing his honed senses and reflexes to guide him. The importance of personal experience and judgement over reliance on technology is an important facet of Trek and it's also shown here in Janeway's attitude. Technology is just another tool for her humanity to use rather than something that enslaves will or thought or imagination to it, unlike how you sense our current world holds it up as something to aspire to in itself, to covet and chase after. Of course in Janeway's time they don't have money so all such things are readily and freely available, making them less desirable as things in themselves, but it's fascinating to see a Captain of experience being allowed to demonstrate it, and another reason how great this episode is. Her first lesson for Seven is in showing compassion, where Seven sees only threat, and I realised she's a character in fear, as much as Saru in 'DSC' - she doesn't understand beyond what her own experience has taught her, she can't grasp the complexities of situations that require more than a '1' or a '0' response, and it's her own desire in moving towards humanity that is as much to blame because she sees the value of herself and the ship surviving, but not the risks her Captain takes.

Janeway's story of how she was ordered to rescue an injured Cardassian soldier was a whole new part of her history that I didn't remember - I assume it was the same conflict that Chief O'Brien was part of, perhaps it even happened on Setlik III? Although the ship is stuck on the other side of the galaxy and the only familiar aliens tended to be whoever was in the crew, stories like this remind us that these are Starfleet officers from Earth and the Federation whom have served in the same period that people from 'TNG' and 'DS9' did, tying the series' together even though only verbally. While there was talk of Cardassians, there was a more obscure reference which seemed to be a connection to 'TOS' when the Hirogen speaks of tracking a silicon-based life form through the mantle of a collapsed star. The most famous of these was the Horta from 'The Devil In The Dark' (and now Captain Lorca's menagerie in at least one episode of 'DSC'!), and though they didn't seem to be a warp capable species, happily chomping through rock, who's to say they didn't have cousins in the Delta Quadrant? For me it brought to mind this bulky Hirogen scrabbling head first down a narrow tunnel deep underground, so if I was doing an illustration for this review it would be that! I did wonder what happened to the biobed in Sickbay which was removed when they keep him in there after he's defied Chakotay's order and tried to kill 8472 - did they beam it out thinking he could use its technology somehow? And those security guards were stupid to stand so close to the forcefield, allowing the Hirogen to take them out when it went down - must have been ex-Maquis!

One thing that almost never happens in Trek far and wide is the artificial gravity going down, but they bravely tackle it in this episode, I suppose because 8472 can survive in the vacuum of space. For a moment I thought Chakotay and Tom were going out on the hull, but then I remembered this isn't 'First Contact' and they didn't have a feature film budget for such stunts, as cool as it would have been. It was cool enough to get a shot zooming in on 8472 clambering along the outer hull, so creepy and alien. It's Tuvok that discovers the gravity loss as he suddenly starts floating up and I'd loved to have seen how he pulled himself along to a secure deck. As it is, we only really get the slight impression of no gravity when Seven fires at, and misses, a PADD slowly rotating in a corridor, or the fact they have to wear EVA suits with magnetic boots (was Paris unconscious after the Hirogen shot him, because Tuvok checks on him and it looks like he's only held up by his boots?), and later when they corner 8472 and it floats unconscious, curled up in a mass of legs and arms so that for the first time you feel pity for one of its kind, so violent and inhuman as they were. That's the crux of the episode: that 8472, no matter that it belongs to a fearsome race that had been intent on the destruction of biological life in our galaxy, was only a single, lost creature who wanted to get home, but was preyed on by the merciless Hirogen in their barbaric custom. Janeway takes the side of the weak and chooses to defend it against the coming might of a Hirogen fleet at the risk of everything she has because that is the Starfleet way, or the way of a humanity redeemed.

As happened with every enemy race throughout Trek from Romulan to Suliban, and even such bloodthirsty or relentless ideologically opposed races such as the Jem'Hadar or the Borg, we find some common ground with at least a faction of them. The irony is heavy when you think that Seven was a Borg, just such a race as merciless and relentless as 8472, yet can't put herself in its position. If only the creature had been around in 'Hunters' when the array collapsed, dragged into its own singularity power source as that's all it wanted to get home to fluidic space! Actually, that may have been what drew it to this region, that it was able to sense an opening to its home, arriving too late, but would explain its being hunted in an area near Voyager's current course. The masterstroke of the episode is in getting Seven into a position where she's placed in between the Hirogen, desperate for the blood of his prey, and the defenceless 8472 which she's been ordered to subdue with a burst of nanoprobes. She has the chance to seize her humanity, as her Captain sees it, and show her fellow crewmembers she's one of them, or stand up for her 'individuality' and go against orders. The Hirogen being there makes it easy because he sees she wants it dead and he's happy to comply. But she finds the third alternative to either Janeway's directive or the Hirogen's wishes: instead of taking out the Hirogen and 8472, leaving Voyager at the mercy of the Hirogen fleet, or allowing the Hirogen to kill his prey, she lets 8472 loose and beams both it and the hunter to one of the enemy ships when 8472 pounces.

As she later argues, it is her individuality that made her do what she did. I don't get the impression she hated 8472, only that she understood firsthand its level of threat and felt she knew best how to deal with it. It's interesting to speculate what would have happened otherwise: would Voyager have been able to beat off the Hirogen vessels with no warp drive to escape? Possibly, but at the loss of life on both sides, no doubt. How did Seven know that the Hirogen would honour their words when they say they'll leave Voyager if they hand over 8472? It wasn't in their nature, from what we see, to destroy an enemy without the pleasure of the hunt, so just as Seven must have known 8472 would spring on the Hirogen as its greatest immediate threat, allowing her to beam it off, she must have surmised the hunters would prefer to deal with this immediate hunt with the promise of Voyager still out there to chase in future. We also don't know how the hunt went - did the Alpha-Hirogen we know get ripped to shreds on the Hirogen ship? Was he already dying by the time he was beamed away (he didn't sound too healthy!), or would 8472 be overwhelmed by numbers and be unable to take on the dedicated coterie of furious hunters? Perhaps it went down as a legendary hunt for the Hirogen that they talked of for long after, we'll never know. It's not important to the story that we do, because it's really about Seven and her rebelliousness against authority that means she's crossed a line with Janeway.

And you don't want to cross the line with Janeway! We've seen so many crewmembers over the years get that final scene where the Captain comes to them to dish out a dressing down, telling them how disappointed she is, cold anger more terrifying than heated emotion. To let her down is something no one wants to do, except in this case Seven has shown so little allegiance to Janeway as leader, and only a general wish to help the ship and its crew in the best way she sees fit. She refuses to use the experience to grow and in a very un-Trek-like decision, goes against orders in a pinch. It is this that demonstrates she's not ready to be accepted as a part of the crew, and is literally sent to her room to think about what she's done. Janeway isn't stupid, she knows Seven still has much to contribute, which is why she allows her to continue working in Astrometrics, but she's in her black books again after coming so far over the season. It's a big setback and punishment can only be to no longer accept the trust that had built up, with the further threat that she'll be thrown in the Brig if she ever does anything like this again. Even in her disgrace Seven won't accept she was wrong, answering back so that the Captain no longer even wishes to talk with her, curtly stating "As you were," and stalking out, having failed to get through to this obstinate child-woman. And that's the point, the other crew that have let Janeway down at various points, were mature enough to be aware of her disappointment and humbly accept her judgement, but Seven isn't even at that point yet and can't even be got through to.

Because of this, it's quite a sad episode because Seven had really begun to seem a part of the crew, and as Janeway said she gave her more leeway in her unorthodox ways than she would otherwise, but perhaps too much - if she'd clamped down would she have got to this point or would she have been kept under the thumb? On the other hand she might not have gained or felt trust between them if she were too hard and held down too tightly. But it's also a good thing that this happened because it gives them somewhere to go with the character. It would have been truer to Starfleet training and attitudes if Seven had seen the error of her ways and had therefore defended 8472, learning the lesson Janeway was teaching her, and stunning the Hirogen. They'd have had to fight it out with his fellow ships, but that would have been the 'TNG' way. The episode takes a richer approach and, as you expect in semi-serialised storytelling, sets her up in a place from where she can go, either one way or the other. It's good to see Janeway fail, too, unable to get her messages across so that she's almost choked with anger at Seven's attitude. Trust can be lost as well as gained, and though the episode could be seen to end negatively, there's so much positivity throughout that it's a very pleasing one to watch and certainly makes you wonder where Seven will go next. They probably should have laid off on her for a few episodes and let her quietly work away in Astrometrics and maybe have the occasional visitor on a professional basis only, but show something's changed, to allow seeds to grow, though the next episode was immediately another Seven episode!

****

Trinity

DVD, Stargate Atlantis S2 (Trinity)

I needed a good one after the last few episodes had been merely passable, and though this appeared to be another mildly lacklustre story filled with techno-babbling science experiment and alien planets and names to try and keep track of, it turned into something much more before the end. A good title would have been 'Bumps In The Road' as the two plots running parallel show two people (or more in Rodney's case, but specifically two when you consider his and Sheppard's colleague status is upset), who betray trust, or trust in themselves too much, not considering their actions in the wider context, both ending on an uncertain note for what is a fairly comfortable franchise (that is until you get to 'Universe' where all the characters behave like this most of the time!). The best story is McKay's, but Ronon and Teyla's visit to an alien world to trade for something that will improve the crop yields is engaging in itself: Ronon strikes out twice when he interferes in Teyla's negotiation believing she was being treated poorly, she having to explain the art of negotiation is more complex than how he sees it, and she had things in hand.

Then when Ronon is thrilled to discover more of his people, thinking he was the last survivor of his ruined world, he uses her influence to arrange a meeting with his superior officer whom he promptly kills on sight for being a coward. However justified his actions might have been, at least in the eyes of the others working with Kell (in that they let him go free, showing it was common knowledge what a traitor to his own Kell had been), and Teyla even understand his actions, she knows the Stargate people would not approve and she fiercely condemns his use of her for his own ends. It's clear that as the two warrior outsiders, to some extent, they are drawn to each other, so Teyla's quite happy with him tagging along for an excursion, but she's not happy for him to carry his loose cannon traits into her carefully ordered world, especially as he seems to take orders from Sheppard quite effectively, so when she's in charge she expects the same consideration. But Ronon does what he thinks best, and in any modern series the secret between them of his murder of this man would come out to cause problems in future. This series isn't generally like that, though, so I wonder if it will return to cause animosity or issues as it should?

Ronon's not the only one who does what he thinks best to the detriment of the trust of others, with McKay putting himself on high one too many times. It doesn't matter how obnoxious he behaves to people, or how little he plays by the rules if he gets Weir and Sheppard a result, but if he fails then that's when the real trouble hits. The big deal is finding an Ancients' outpost on a planet with the blasted remains of at least one hive ship floating in orbit. They find out that the weapon these Ancients had developed is more powerful and energy efficient than even the ZPMs, and if they can harness it, it would make a show-stopping addition to the fight against The Wraith. If it sounds too good to be true it's because it is. The Ancients couldn't work it properly and it turns out it wiped out the inhabitants of the planet, too, but McKay is sure as sure can be that he can get it working. This after a power surge killed one of the team working on the project and putting its use in serious jeopardy from Weir. Caldwell steps in with a military interest, but it's Rodney himself who persuades Sheppard to trust him and go back for another attempt now that he knows what went wrong. But his self-importance puts them in danger too, when things don't go as he foresaw and they're forced to flee from the weapon, escaping through the Stargate only with the aid of Daedalus.

It's a humbling experience for him to be proved so wrong when he was so sure, and sets back his stock in the eyes of his superiors, not to mention the closest thing he has to a friend among the scientists, Dr. Zelenka, whom he outright insults and bulldozes over the concerns raised by him in good conscience. It's not a hardboiled 'Battlestar Galactica' ending where no one will trust him again, and I'm sure things will be much back to normal by next episode, but I wouldn't want it to be doom and gloom like that series and it was hard enough for McKay to realise he was wrong and admit it in his apologies. What made it stand out in comparison to the other episodes (aside from the season opener), was how high the stakes were, the moral equation when considering the death of a man in the experiment, and how scary the level of power of this thing is that it takes out a chunk of a solar system because it can't be shut down. The balance with the more personal story on the other planet Teyla and Ronon visit works well as a counterpoint, even if the set is clearly the 'medieval' set used a few times on 'SG-1' in the corresponding season. The military versus civilian angle worked well with Caldwell always there to provide a dissenting voice against Weir's authority, and it has a good blend of all these things to make it an important story that wouldn't have been out of place on Trek. Not sure where the trinity came into it, but whatever.

***