Broken Bow

DVD, Enterprise S1 (Broken Bow)

'Begin at the beginning' is good advice, and you couldn't get much closer to the beginning and still be able to call it 'Star Trek' than the time period 'Enterprise' inhabits in 2151, over one hundred years prior to 'TOS,' two hundred prior to where the previous series, 'Voyager' left us, and a hundred years after the events of 'First Contact' in which the 'TNG' crew went back in time to make sure the first warp flight went ahead as planned and gave the Vulcans reason to notice us and come down out of the stars, marking the origins of Trek's trek beyond our world. But to still be able to call it 'Star Trek' was not on the agenda for this series, the first sign it was trying to set itself apart from what had gone before. It was a dangerous gamble with the possibility of alienating the dedicated right from the off, but 'Enterprise' did a lot of alienating, and many of the problems with Trek made in the 21st Century can be traced back to it. There's a good reason why it was the first Trek to fail, unable to survive beyond four seasons, and only then with much shaking up and soul-searching, and why it is (or was, until the misery of 'Discovery'), my least favourite in the canon: they dared to be different, but they went too far, setting precedents that the Kelvin Timeline films, 'DSC,' and probably any other Trek productions forthcoming, pounced on and bloomed into full fruition. The more simplistic nature of the storytelling, the lack of a direction, the attempt to focus down on two or three main characters more than an ensemble - in short, it went back to the roots of the original.

Trying to be 'TOS' in the modern age seems to be both a masterstroke and a complete failure to understand what appealed about Trek. It's true that Kirk, Spock and the starship Enterprise have remained in popular culture to a surprising extent, so tapping into these rich veins of money-making potential was a wise move. However, from 'TNG' onwards (and arguably in the film series, too), the emphasis was laid on creating new characters, expanding the scope of the world in both time and technology, and building a cohesive universe. But that's not the pop culture world we live in now, where branding is key, blandness is prevalent, and it's all about the lowest common denominator to get the masses hooked on a brand. So yes, it was a good business decision to try and get back to the nostalgic Sixties approach of fighting and taking on weird aliens, but it didn't in turn bring the intellectual side of 'TOS' up to date with along with that cowboy-esque style. That's where they failed - 'TOS' was a product of its time, completely episodic, but it stood out then and for years afterward as the gold standard for what sci-fi could be, featuring recurring aliens of various kind that became the staples of its world, ironing out the initial inconsistencies of terminology and protocol, and presenting us with a world that was ripe for further exploration because it was set up to be real. 'TNG' expanded that exponentially, 'DS9' built on all that came before, becoming a hub of all Trek, and 'Voyager' took off to explore part of the galaxy that had been spoken of, but not explored.

'Enterprise' came along as an antidote to the 24th Century Treks, but they were still popular at the time, and I can never escape the nagging thought that had the studio got its way, and another series set in that time period had been produced instead of a prequel, Trek might have endured well beyond a further four years, and perhaps there wouldn't have been a need for JJ Abrams to 'reignite' the brand (burning it, more like), by rehashing it in a 'Star Wars' mould, and so on and so forth. There are arguments against such thoughts, namely that 'Nemesis,' the final 'TNG' film, released during the run of 'Enterprise,' was the first complete box office failure (though that's mainly down to it not being a great film, let alone a great Trek film - lessons should have been learned there in putting someone in charge who didn't know the franchise), and then there was the coming division in the mid-2000s of the TV and film rights as Paramount broke apart. So disruption may have been inevitable, but on the other hand, if we'd had a 24th Century series to continue the story post-'Voyager' there would have been the instant hooks of bringing in favourite characters, perhaps even have one or two main cast members from previous series'. What 'Enterprise' did was to divorce itself from all previous Treks and so it had to stand alone. That makes sense from the perspective of getting new viewers interested, because, as with any large body of work, it could be daunting if you thought you had to catch up with everything to understand the new series, but also isolated it from the fullness of the vast Trek toy box.

Nowadays that's less of a problem when many people have access to every iteration of a franchise, rather than having to be interested enough in the first place to purchase all the videos (yes, 'Enterprise' Season 1 was the last Trek series to be released on VHS tape, and 'Broken Bow' was probably the last new video I ever bought!), or DVDs. But even now there are people that won't watch Trek because they'd have to view a load of old episodes or films, that's the impression they have, anyway. If 'Enterprise' was trying to be pure Trek, separate from everything that went before, it was in a much different manner than 'TNG,' which also had the mandate to stay away from the original's familiarities as much as possible. It created new technologies (like the Holodeck and the Replicators), featured entirely new types of character (Data), and preferred not to use the existing races as much as possible - at first. Once it became comfortable in its own skin, it could delve more deeply into the old races than even 'TOS' had ever done, eventually bringing in characters played by the original actors to enhance that sense of history and depth to the continuity. Even in its pilot it had the good sense to bring in a familiar face to send them off on their mission (an ancient Dr. McCoy), setting a tradition that every Trek series followed, even the Kelvin films (Leonard Nimoy back as Mr. Spock), though sadly abandoned by 'DSC.'

'Enterprise,' not one to completely ignore all traditions and aware of the need to include some kind of Trek royalty, even if a minor prince, brought in an aged Zefram Cochrane via the device of a recording of an important speech he made thirty-two years before the episode. This was one of the highlights of this pilot, as James Cromwell returned to his 'roots' of appearing in a number of roles across Trek, to reprise his popular iteration of the famous 'TOS' character he'd played in 'First Contact.' He shot to fame with 'Babe,' around the same time as that film, but he had some loyalty to Trek for the roles they'd given him before he broke into films, and even more with this small appearance, he must have been doing them a good turn because he was still a well known film star at this time and for years afterward, so it brought a tear to my eye to see this happen, and it's a beautiful retcon of where the famous words came from at the start of 'TOS' and 'TNG,' rather than a 'Captain's Oath' that the Kelvin films retconned it into (more like Captain's Oaf!). That wasn't where 'Enterprise' ended its adherence to other Trek, because it begins with an exciting chase through a cornfield that combines new and old into an impressive opening: we get a Klingon warrior plunging through the corn, such a strong visual of this 'Smallville'-like field of green, bright blue sky, but also a deadly urgency. And you get a new race, the yellow and black mottled faces of the Suliban that were yet another triumph of Michael Westmore's invention after fourteen years going strong.

Importantly, though the scene is superbly directed with a free-flowing, fast moving camera, beautifully setting off the first Trek in widescreen, the Klingon looks right (even though he was bumpy-headed like the post-'TOS' variety, a wise decision, and one that would eventually be explained in Season 4, much to my satisfaction), and the aliens are truly alien (they can become malleable enough to squeeze under a door!), it's the fact that it all makes sense that underlines everything - the Klingon doesn't just turn and fight with his pursuers, he uses his brain, luring them into some kind of methane tower and then blasting it to smithereens! It's spectacular, but it's also thoughtful, and that used to be the hallmark of good Trek. It's not only the action side of things that is done well in this episode, you also have a feeling of nostalgia, and not what you'd expect, a skin-deep love of 'TOS,' but a reminder of the past, in particular Jonathan Archer's personal memories of his time with his now-deceased Father, a universal nostalgia anyone can understand, whether they know Trek or not. This is something the series failed to do for the most part, creating characters with a history, and who we can identify with, but at least in this episode they carried off that Trek ability to appeal to the thoughtful and emotional in humanity, something I've not seen in any Trek series or film since, preferring to portray emotional characters rather than evoke emotion in the audience.

A big problem with the ongoing series was its lack of direction. 'TNG' was made the same way, but then that had debuted fourteen years earlier, and in a different TV landscape. Things were beginning to be more commonly serialised, with ongoing arcs, yet 'Enterprise' chose to dumb it down, failing to act on its own arcs, which had such great potential. Potential is the key word about 'Broken Bow,' because I remember watching it for the first time, buying the video in the Summer of 2002, a couple of months before it was shown on terrestrial TV, (Channel 4, with adverts), and being very impressed with what I saw - I even felt that if this was how strong it started, loosening up the constraints of past series' in terms of a more dynamic presentation that made you feel you were there, maybe it could become my favourite series of all, that's how optimistic ("Optimism, Captain!"), I was for the series' future. I was a lot younger then, and still more easily impressed than I became in the following five or six years, but 'DS9' and 'Voyager' were my favourite things, so to even think that a new Trek had the capability of surpassing them shows how well put together this pilot was. The big deal that made me more excited than anything else was the concept of the Temporal Cold War, this conflict connected to the 'distant future,' one that we would learn more about over time, but crucially, was eventually dropped. Though it played something of a role in Season 3's Xindi saga, it was all very vague, and one thing I was always thinking early in the series was how one day I'd be re-watching it with the knowledge of who 'Future Guy' was (the shadowy operator who orders Silik around from his temporal chamber).

Sadly, we never did learn what it was all about, and I now have no real hope that we'll one day see a Trek series that deals with it at all, or if we do, it will be ridiculously fantastical, just as 'DSC' is so much fantasy that it's hard to take as 'Star Trek.' But it was the potential, initially, that I was invested in. The TCW had been included as an order from on high, the studio wanting a connection to the 24th Century in case there were opportunities there, even if the series itself wasn't to be set there. For once, I'm totally onboard with the studio in this regard, I think it was a brilliant idea and one that should have been used regularly through the series, rather than an episode in the middle of a season, and one at the end. Every few episodes should have dealt with it in some way, but it was squandered, probably because the writers didn't really want it there. So they hurt their own series - there was talk early on of 'maybe we'll get Patrick Stewart to direct an episode in Season 2,' 'maybe we'll have Guinan guest star,' but in truth, connecting to other Trek wasn't one of the series' strong points and it is the most separate of the lot. Not in terms of the lore, because unlike 'TNG' it was happy to pick up the races and situations of established Trek, the Klingons, Vulcans, and soon to be seen Andorians - all had some kind of ongoing arc, but they were also generally a little underdone compared to the excellent cultural exploration of previous Trek.

In 'TNG' it had been stated first contact with the Klingons was disastrous, but here we see humans helping the warrior race and it's a little ambiguous as to how they reacted to this. Early episodes had the Klingons nosing around and being unfriendly, but it was never well adjusted to fit with what we thought we knew, and they were simplistic caricatures of the race, lacking the texture and depth of other Treks before it, no Gowrons or Martoks to be seen. If the Klingons were an uncertain component of 'Enterprise,' the Vulcans were the exact opposite, integral to the series with a clear role, just not the one we expected. The change in Vulcan temperament and position was the biggest controversy of the series, and my personal low point. I could buy they were devious and deceiving when it served their ends, justified by logic (after all, logic is only the beginning of wisdom…), and manipulative, but what I couldn't get onboard with was the sudden dramatic change in how Vulcans were portrayed. In all other Trek they were calm, dispassionate and betrayed no emotion on the surface. That's what made them such compelling aliens, because we know underneath there's violently raging emotion they keep in check their whole lives. To destroy this central dramatic and cultural aspect of the race is to lose most of their credibility and draw. Vulcans have (had, until 'Enterprise'), always been my favourite race - all Trek races are a facet of humanity, and they seemed to represent that struggle we all have in how much we show of our inner selves, whether that be in anger, sadness or joy, and so they were an attractive proposition for being so strong and in control. A number of things conspired to create the perceived need to change them, the main one being that they were too cool, too powerful, and this is a humanist franchise, written by humans, for humans. Vulcans were often 'shown up' as the killjoys or the social outcasts, but they didn't mind because they singularly followed logic.

Sure, sometimes Tuvok or someone would see the 'error of their ways,' to the extent that they came to understand that working within human guidelines meant they needed to adjust their behaviour, mainly because the truth is that Vulcans are largely superior to humans. Physically, mentally, but humans have to have an edge, and that's usually their 'gut feelings,' listening to intuition, not being rigid. The two species complimented each other, and though humans often gave Vulcans a hard time, the Vulcan way was often shown as being right - one good example in this episode is when T'Pol deals with bread sticks - rather than eat with her fingers as they prefer not to do, she patiently and carefully saws through it with her knife, proving that 'with proper discipline anything's possible.' Attitudes of patience, self control, self denial have become increasingly irrelevant to modern society, fewer people seem to think they have value, and so Vulcanness has itself been downgraded. And because we want humans to be the best that gave them another reason to make Vulcans in 'Enterprise' into the bad guys. Condescension, irritation, impatience, these are all displayed by Vulcans even in this first episode, and this idea of their emotions being barely contained has sadly stuck so that even in current Trek productions set practically at the time of 'TOS,' it's now standard to use this method of portrayal, the single biggest flaw 'Enterprise' gave to the world. I've even heard people claim Vulcans were always this way, we just saw ones that were with humans a lot, for example. But if you look at Spock and Tuvok, the two main Vulcans, they didn't behave emotionally except in extreme circumstances, something you could rely on.

That Vulcans were reliable and reassuring was one of their greatest assets, but it seems that people felt they were boring and wooden. If Vulcans had never changed from other iterations then I wouldn't have been so put off by the ones in 'Enterprise'! T'Pol I can accept because she was shown to be a bit flaky over the course of the series, but every other Vulcan being hot-tempered or mean? Archer even calls attention to Ambassador Soval when he raises his voice in anger and though that was a pretty good scene for showing that Archer is this man of action and Captain material, it also draws attention to the illogical manners of the Vulcans of this version - Archer even says perhaps they've been living among humans too long, but T'Pol and the other Vulcans never left the Vulcan compound on Earth, and as I said before, we saw other examples of the race behaving far more dispassionately within Starfleet. So it's definitely society's attitudes that have changed and taken the Vulcans' uniqueness away, much to my dismay. It can't even be explained away as them being a hundred years prior to 'TOS' because (as is said in the episode), they have a lifespan of two hundred years which means that most of the Vulcans who are in 'Enterprise' would still be around by 'TOS,' and some might just still be alive in the 24th Century!

'Enterprise' ruined the Vulcans and went out of their way to show emotional ones at every opportunity, but our society (or those that make our entertainment), seems to think we want to see emotions, we don't want to bury any thought or feeling, and then they wonder why people are so mean and nasty in the anonymous world of the internet! 'Enterprise' also defanged the Klingons, as I noted before, but fortunately for canon, stayed away (largely), from the other major race, the Romulans. They could still come up with interesting new races, and the Suliban are the latest villain of the piece, augmented by future biological enhancements that enable them to camouflage against any surface, climb up walls and across ceilings, and manipulate themselves into almost any contortion, so they were a formidable threat right away. Again, over time they lost this threat as the TCW moved further into the background, but at least in their introduction I loved this idea of Archer and his Enterprise stumbling into something much greater than themselves that they don't really understand, but acting on their best impulses to try and do right. It's a bit tricky for them because it's as much about proving themselves to the Vulcans on their readiness to go out into space and take their place on the galactic stage, so theirs is a motivation of pride to some extent, but Archer genuinely wants to do the right thing, not backing down, and there were a number of things that made him seem a strong Captain, which is not how I've come to think of him.

In my mind he was a bit weak, although this could be as much about the ship and technology he had access to as it was about his character. One thing that made this era feel different to the 23rd or 24th Centuries presented before it was in how primitive things were in relation. So the NX-01 (NX being the usual prefix for an experimental vessel, long established in Trek), was often outgunned and overtaken in size and speed by the ships of other races. They were cramped conditions to travel in, and though it was all shiny and new, it was prone to the kind of problems new technology often has. 'DSC' and the Kelvin films completely went in the opposite direction with everything new being sparkly and huge beyond established aesthetic of good sense, continuity be stuffed. 'Enterprise' at least had an aesthetic in mind that fitted with established canon, inspired by submarines - so there are handles all over the place, tight corridors and poky rooms. And so many things that date this to pre-'TOS' in advancement: like 'TOS' they have wall-mounted Communicators rather than some invisible intercom system ('DSC'), or always using hand Communicators. They wear Landing Party jackets that look like more expensive versions of those seen in the very first episode of Trek ever made, 'The Cage,' which were beautiful and looked terrific. They can't just hop back onto the ship, they have to go through decontamination first, and no one wants to use the Transporter because it's new tech and hasn't been tried on a human! They even have grappling hooks rather than tractor energy beams and hand Phasers are new (Phase Pistols!).

Despite all this, as is the case with whatever the latest iteration of Trek is, I always find myself comparing it to what I'm watching, and was surprised by how many parallels I found with 'DSC' that I didn't like in that. A major example is when Reed and Mayweather watch the alien dancers on Rigel X, and Reed wonders if the butterflies their long tongues snatch out of the air are real or holographic. So they did have some kind of rudimentary form of holography even at this early stage (but it's far from shoving a Holodeck in our face when it had been previously established that 23rd Century ships didn't have them!). Also, the hand weapons they use before Reed brings out the Phase Pistols shoot bolts of energy (another precedent that has sorely damaged Trek's cool factor), rather than beams. The difference is that neither of these things ruin Trek's feel and are indeed minor parts of the episode, the 'norm' being shown as the fantastic Phaser battle on the snowy rooftop with beams ripping through the storm to great effect. I was surprised to see that Archer even uses two pre-Phaser weapons at one point in the same way I derided Burnham for doing in a Season 2 episode because it doesn't make sense, but we don't know what these bolt energy weapons actually are. I was surprised to see the first weapon fired on the series was an energy bolt rifle, in the scene in Sickbay when the Suliban Klingon-nap Klaang (how did the one Suliban lift that Klingon? They couldn't have beamed out as there was no sound effect or light).

Another issue for me has always been that Vulcans don't like to touch due to being touch telepaths and are extremely restrained in this area (witness Sarek and his wife merely touching fingers as a sign of affection), something about them that has been totally forgotten. Again, 'Enterprise' leads in that regard here as T'Pol has to rub decontamination gel on Trip's body in what was a rightly derided cynical attempt at a ratings grab by featuring a couple of character stripping down to their underwear. 'Enterprise' was trying to inject more of the innuendo back that had been in 'TOS,' so the Captain is kissed by an alien woman (albeit as a way to 'measure his trustworthiness' - yeah, sure!), we get the skintight alien dancers, and Trip and T'Pol in decon. It's also true that much of this first episode is about an action-packed adventure rather than exploring or philosophy, but that's often the case for a feature-length Trek pilot, the closest we got to Trek films other than Trek films themselves - it became an exciting thing to look forward to as you always knew a new Trek series would start with great scope and drama. But they did a good amount of characterisation, too, another important aspect of Trek that has lessened as time goes on. Sometimes I wanted more context, such as how Archer knew Hoshi or Trip, but as most of the characters were meeting for the first time it wasn't a huge problem.

Something the pilot got very right was in giving us things we'd never seen before. The sweet spot within the ship is a good example, as zero gravity had always been something to avoid on Trek for the cost and effort that had to go into it to make it work. It's only a little moment (and as far as I can remember was only used once more), but it was a terrific idea that excites you about what might be possible on the series. The fight in the temporal chamber between Archer and Silik was also very memorable and unique, their actions preceded by a future echo of what's about to happen. I have no idea to this day how they pulled it off, I only know it looked amazing. Sure, Archer kisses a woman and gets in a fight (these uniforms are much more utilitarian so they don't rip like Kirk's flimsy things!), but he also has a statue of Zefram Cochrane over his desk - it's not called out, you wouldn't get the reference if you didn't know it, but you can tell it's him from the way it's a recreation of the statue Geordi La Forge described in 'First Contact,' and is an example of the kind of beautiful touches which employing people who know Trek and its history gets you! The fact they have a horizontal warp core is another brilliant callback to how things used to be prior to 'The Motion Picture,' and the sets are generally great. I didn't even mention the doors that have to be opened by a button on a panel next to it, nor that a chef prepares the meals, and I loved the exoskeletal detail on Klaang.

The technobabble is all present and correct, but sometimes, as in Archer's first conversation with Dr. Phlox, he cuts through it to demand a simple answer. The important thing is that they don't talk down to the audience, while also making it understandable, rather than just throwing it in occasionally to remind you that people have to do complicated stuff ('DSC'). And the ship is a character - every new starship should get a scene where people have a flyby to examine it close up, but Trek's ability to move between action and excitement and building up its internal world has been lost of late (say, the last ten years or so!), so it's wonderful to see it still in evidence in this version. A starship is a lady, a being with personality, and Archer has a feeling for his ship: 'take her out straight and steady.' We're also given plenty of opportunity to see the ship in space, and it looks lovely. The effects are very good, even with some CGI being slightly shaky (the squished Suliban), there are still many scenes that stand out even now - witness the Suliban creeping across walls and ceilings, or the NX-01's encounter with the little cell ships in the gas giant. Drama is heavy in certain scenes such as Archer and Trip going off in a captured cell ship and T'Pol has to decide whether to remain in position so they can find their way back, or move out of the way of the 'depth charges' that could destroy them. The arc of the episode is that humans and Vulcans can work together, despite their differences and it is cheering to see T'Pol do what was in the Captain's wishes when she has command.

The characters work well together, there's nothing to take you out of it, and whether it's the creepiness of aliens boarding Enterprise and the power going out, or Archer leading a team to get Klaang back, it's full of old-fashioned thrills. It even has subtitled Klingon spoken, just like 'DSC,' another connection between the two. It's funny that this became the least loved series and yet, because everything since (until 'Picard'), has been prequels, it's the most referenced in modern productions. Some say it was in a different timeline to all the previous Treks because of the Borg's time travel in 'First Contact,' but you have to go with the intent of the writers that this was in the same universe as what went before, and because it's so removed from the others in years I always bought that. Even though their Tricorders are small and the Communicators diddy, I just put it down to them being less advanced in what they could do than in 'TOS,' and I absolutely loved the uniforms that pay tribute to both future Trek and real space exploration of our day. It's funny to think that the model hover drone ship young Archer and his Dad play with was sci-fi then, but a reality now! Even with the inconsistency of the Vulcans I loved this episode and it does an excellent job in creating the parameters for a new era, while also being firmly created in the tail end of the Golden Age of Trek. Part of that is how they use the races and tech at their disposal, but it also goes down to the beautiful montage of the opening credits, combining historical footage with that of Trek's own future history, which was a bold move away from the traditional space shots of all other Trek.

It showed once again what was possible within this world without breaking it, and although the theme music took some time to get used to (and it probably would have been better if they'd used the orchestral arrangement that was Archer or the Enterprise's theme), it does stand out as embodying the message of the series and the Roddenberry vision. There are also a number of familiar faces that further help to position the series as part of the greater Trek universe. Aside from James Cromwell we have Vaughn Armstrong, the man of the most different faces in Trek, as Admiral Forrest (named for Deforest Kelley), John Fleck, another regular face in 'TNG,' 'DS9' and 'Voyager,' Gary Graham's Soval (he'd been an Ocampa in 'Voyager'), James Horan of many other roles, and Thomas Kopache (best known as Kira's Dad on 'DS9,' among many others). Even Henry Archer (Mark Moses), had played a character in 'Voyager,' and Joseph Ruskin's credits stretched back to 'TOS,' though you wouldn't recognise his face here as a Suliban doctor, so it really was a collection of the old with the new! That should have been the ability of 'Enterprise,' combining new with old, but they sadly were riding the very end of the wind that had blown Trek across the entertainment oceans of success, and though some cast members were careful, saying they'd take one season at a time, others were caught up in the hype and talking of it being the closest thing to a seven year gig in the business.

It was not to be, but not from any failure with this pilot which did a very creditable job of presenting a previously unseen era, continuing to shoot higher with its scientific jargon and concepts so the audience had to keep up, and not straying into fantasy. In a way I am glad we got to see this pre-Federation Starfleet, even if it didn't give us what we hoped for, namely the Romulan War which would have been coming in the Sixth Season, and the founding of the Federation beyond that. It began optimistically and gave a new sense of danger and menace to space travel where even the shakes of the deck plates worry some - Hoshi is actually less timid than in my memory and has a nice moment when she gains T'Pol's respect, and I'd say again that the potential was all there with these characters, their ship, and a galaxy of new political situations and hierarchies into which humans were trying to carve out a niche. Politics and culture were some of the things that often got lost and marked this variation of Trek out as a simpler, less ambitious one, but again, I can't fault the pilot for that. For me it ranks just below 'Caretaker' that began 'Voyager' and 'Emissary' that kickstarted 'DS9,' but it's better than all the other pilots and most likely will be the last great pilot of Trek, because even though we're getting more series' these days, they're not made by a majority of people at the top who understand what Trek is. 'Enterprise' may not have always got it right, but it succeeded enough that it's a series I like to watch again, and is an intriguing vision of a future before the future we know so well.

*****

Reaper

DVD, Smallville S1 (Reaper)

Another of those that was slightly better than I remembered. I think I just had a moderately negative impression of some of it because it is a grim opening and it does deal with uncomfortable subject matter of pain, living beyond what you can cope with, and euthanasia, but it also has very strong examinations into Fathers and sons, the constant parallel between Clark and Lex' situations and upbringing, but this time also bringing in Whitney's own issues. And it's all dealt with in a sensitive, grounded way. Well, most of it. Once Clark is going up against Tyler, the human Grim Reaper, who both purposefully and accidentally reduces people to ashes, it might be a touch jarring compared with all the personal stories going on. But yes, that opening is truly grim and distasteful when this young man is emotionally blackmailed into doing what he doesn't want to, and put his ill Mother out of her misery with a pillow to the face - she says if he loved her he'd do it, but if she loved him she wouldn't ask such a thing of him! So there's that, and then the poor coroner, or whatever they're called, those that chop up dead bodies to find out cause of death, is the first to suffer at the dead hands of death. Tyler didn't do it on purpose so you can forgive him that one, but he should have at least taken responsibility. But he had a mistaken belief that he'd been 'sent back' to save people from pain, a mission that gave him the ability to cope with this weird and way out happening instead of it being a mere freak (of-the-week), accident.

Like Chloe in that other recent episode, he goes out of a window and hits the ground, but unlike Chloe he dies and his Kryptonite bracelet (of which we never did hear an explanation for its origin), becomes embedded in his wrist, and activated when it's pulled out by the mortician, or whatever he's called, sending a wave of green energy through his body. The episode appears to deal with the issue of euthanasia and seems to be pro-life pretty clearly since Tyler's actions are proved to be rash and coming from the wrong mindset, that of believing himself to be there for this purpose when in fact he was removing life unnecessarily - I always go back to Dr. McCoy in 'Star Trek V' where he's carried this pain around for much of his life of turning off his Father's life support to ease his pain, then a cure being found for his ailment shortly after. The point is no one can know how long a person must suffer, and no one can know what good could come out of it, or despite it. As Clark says, while there's life, there's hope, and Tyler was taking that away and becomes the villain through doing that. We don't know if the first old lady he murders would have agreed if he'd told her what he could do and asked her permission to 'help,' but although she was in pain she was conscious enough to enjoy having a little dog as her constant companion, she was watching TV and appreciated the flowers brought to her, so it wasn't like she'd given up all semblance of living, or all interest in life.

Tyler is more complex than the average meteor freak because he has a purpose he's defined and thinks he's acting selflessly, but as he realises at the end, it was his own pain he was trying to silence. It was a bit too tidy for him to commit suicide, pressing his own hands together (so he'd never accidentally touched his own skin up to that point - or did he have to consciously do it like that for it to happen?), rather than either facing what he'd done, or stay to be with his Mother in her last days or hours, we don't know how long. All we know is she'd improved enough to be sent home and it's very likely she'd have been overjoyed to see her son again. The emphasis on the episode is definitely about parents and children spending time with each other, and that's where the real drama comes from, not a creepy guy murdering people with a sense of duty. The biggest part of that has to be Clark and Jonathan falling out when Clark doesn't want to go on their annual fishing trip, feeling too old for that now, and in his mind it becoming his Dad's thing that he's making him do. Once he understands it has nothing to do with fishing, it's about being together for the day he's happy to do it again, but it takes a turn down some avenues to get there!

It's never a good time to invoke Lex Luthor's help in his Dad's eyes, but this turned out to be the absolute worst time for Clark to ask a favour, as Dominic, Lionel's lackey is investigating Lex and finds out about his 'secret' project to explain the accident. Whether it was to create more trouble for Lex, or that was just a side benefit in his main mission to find out about this mysterious episode for his employer, he's open with Mr. Kent about Lex' endeavours in this regard, which is what blows up what was a simple dislike of Dad being too protective and treating him like a child, from Clark's point of view, to the ever-present bias against the Luthor name that Jonathan has every reason to uphold, considering the history. I like how Lex goes to Jonathan and when he suddenly brings up this investigation into his family, Lex sees there's no point hiding anything and comes right out with it. I still get the impression that the investigation is open, but he's very good at seeming genuine. But that's the trouble, you're never entirely sure now. Lex is treated without compassion, both by Jonathan in his failure to be moved by Lex' reality with his Father, and Dominic, who always has a cold rejoinder to any 'opening up' Lex does to him on the subject of Lionel. It's great how you wonder the lengths Lex will go to right to the point when Lionel opens the boot at their secluded Metropolis meeting place - has he killed Dominic and is returning the body? No, Lex hasn't gone that far, and Lionel even congratulates him on how he's handled the situation as if it was just another test.

Sometimes Clark can come across as a little holier-than-thou in his attitudes, mainly because he is still a teenager and hasn't the life experience to know what to say to people. He can be forgiven for what he says to Whitney, though, clumsy in some ways, but also striking his fellow student in just the right place. It's sad that Whitney admits how Clark will always have his Dad there for him, but Whitney won't, that's the basic dividing line between them, but in reality Jonathan wouldn't be around for many more years. But Clark does seem to care, and again, it's a great way of showing how he was responsible for Whitney getting to play with the Metropolis Sharks as he'd wanted to in front of his Dad - at first it seems Lex is just being a good guy, and maybe it was set up for us to see Jonathan and Lex find common understanding, but then Lana guesses it was Clark who asked him to arrange it. At first I was thinking, why is Whitney doing this, I thought he lost the chance to get into football, until you learn it's a favour. Then I was thinking why would Lionel, the owner of the team, have gone along with this favour to Lex, who must have asked him to get them to let Whitney play for this one-off experience, but of course, Lionel would reward his son when he's done something he approves of.

It all seems to make sense, for an episode of 'Smallville,' aside, perhaps, from the fact that no staff members come running in the Smallville Medical Centre during the physical altercation between Tyler and Whitney (he came to help him and his Dad - knocking him out against a basin doesn't seem much like help to me!), and then Tyler and Clark! Then I didn't get how Lana and Tyler knew each other as when they meet at the graveyard they do seem tom but haven't met in the episode. And why was Tyler just standing there in the SMC ward, when Whitney comes in? Had he just got there and heard the lad outside? But that's about it, and its just another feel-good story in the 'Smallville' world that is a pleasure to watch by the end. Maybe they don't go into the ethics of euthanasia very deeply, but I like that Clark stands for life, especially because wherever he goes he's there to keep it safe, such as when he defends Martha from Tyler and the Kryptonite power doesn't turn him to ashes (fortunately for the series' longevity), but merely drains some feeling of life from his face where he was touched. Good stuff.

***

Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2

DVD, Discovery S2 (Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2)

I don't recall what the length of the longest episode in Season 1 was, but this finale may well be longer than any of them at sixty-two minutes, and it feels like it. It's a strange one which for much of the running time I thought I'd be saved from having to write much in my review by the fact that so much of the goings-on were the kind of mindless spectacle that you could easily turn your brain off for, the kind of thing prevalent and prevailing throughout the Kelvin Timeline films, but partly due to its length, and partly due to lots of things happening that require detailed discussion, I wasn't saved from a lot of writing, and unfortunately, neither was the episode saved by an ending that attempts to tie up as many loose ends as possible. But the ending with Spock (mainly), being the one to sort out all the inconsistencies with canon, his discussion on the various intricacies of Burnham, her mission, and the USS Discovery, culminating with taking his place on the Bridge of the USS Enterprise, was undoubtedly the high point and pushed the episode up a star in the ratings, which would otherwise have been rock bottom for me. While they labour to sort out the canon quandaries posed by Burnham and her ship, the physical problems remain just as large - I can't accept that this is the same Enterprise, these are the same people and this is the same universe I've always known and loved.

My new theory on the core of the series, where it's coming from and what its aims are, doesn't help me to appreciate it. While many will love the feminisation of Trek, it's gone beyond even the point of political correctness as it's basically all women doing everything of consequence. This may not be a bad thing for some, but it doesn't engender my respect and admiration, nor does it encourage or delight me. In short, it's not my cup of tea. The role of the male characters seems to be merely to throw a paper-thin shroud over the reality that the women are the ones with agency. I counted up everything that was going on, and I don't usually do this, but it was so in your face that it stuck out: Pike is commanding the Enterprise, true, and Saru, the Discovery, but they're essentially just there in the background while the real work is done by the female members of the crew in every respect! Whether it be the typically male attributes of hand-to-hand fighting with a villain (Fake Georgiou and Naarn taking on Leland in inexplicable physical confrontation instead of using their weapons); or even the skilful side of bravery, attempting to disarm the torpedo lodged in the Enterprise's forward hull (Admiral Cornwell and Number One, who curiously, we never heard the name of as I was expecting), and sacrifice (Cornwell staying to the end as the only solution). The trope of allies from an unexpected quarter swooping in to provide cheering assistance at a moment of dire need is fronted by Siranna of the Kelpiens leading the charge and L'Rell of the Klingons. Even the shields have to be saved by Tilly going up some ladder amid explosions, and her friend Po, the Queen of Xahea (can't imagine what her bodyguard must be doing, unless her approach is not to have any retinue, further deviation from realism), is the one to provide the plan of action!

Pike, Saru and Tyler are relegated to standing or sitting on their respective Bridges as they watch things unfold, powerless to do anything, it seems! Even Spock, who's intellectual process enables him to provide the necessary advice to Burnham, is stuck in his shuttle and is merely the mental and emotional support for Burnham, who's doing the real work out in her time suit. It is truly bizarre the way they've turned things around from the traditional Trek way, and I'm sure feminists the world over are cheering with joy at the coup achieved by 'DSC.' Even amid all these cold observations, I felt the episode would have worked reasonably well as a permanent ending for the most sorry excuse for a Trek series I could have imagined. It does sort out the hanging questions of how this ship and its unique propulsion method in the spore drive were never heard of again in 'future' Trek, or why Michael Burnham was never spoken of. That it is Spock who respectfully suggests all information regarding Discovery, its drive, its crew and the time suit, should be erased from the records and considered treasonous to even speak of to prevent tampering with time, is, I suppose, the only reasonable way to deal with all the painting themselves into a corner they've done from the genesis of this, essentially, reboot of the Trek universe, and legitimises it in the same way that Leonard Nimoy's presence in 'Star Trek XI' did the same, and if there is one bright thing in this whole season, it is that Ethan Peck did a creditable job in the role.

Nevertheless, ending the series here would have been preferable. They do mention a nine hundred odd time jump into the future, but it's far from being clear (as is common on the series), what this means exactly, and only from news about Season 3 would I have understood that they were going to the 32nd or 33rd Century (I forget which), further than any Trek has gone before. That's a big problem, not being able to be clear on such important points and leaving it to minor lines of dialogue for people to understand the big things that are happening as I don't think it would have registered with me on first viewing if I hadn't already had prior knowledge. Knowing their destination I did wonder if the ship would only be in the future for a season, considering that each season is a separate story, and also that Fake Georgiou is set to head up the 'Section 31' series that is unfortunately still to plague us at some point in the near future. But jumping ahead or behind a thousand years is nothing for this series, another reason it feels so much like the film series that it has clearly taken much of its inspiration from, not having a sense of propriety or moderation, respecting boundaries. Or it could be that with the popularity of Pike and Spock, they quickly developed a plan to leave the 23rd Century to them and 'S31,' while 'DSC' can ruin the distant future with gay abandon.

Either way makes no odds to me because I realise, and have realised on an ongoing basis, that this new 'golden age' of Trek is unlikely to have anything in it for me, because everything is so far from Trek's rulebook and believability, its patient, careful building of a cohesive universe that has endured for so long. Until it was sabotaged by the film series. They claim that it's all 'Prime Universe,' but you can't do what they've been doing and be true to the past that they've chosen to treat as a malleable commodity. The trouble is they don't have the writers, production personnel or even the man at the top with the dedication to Trek history, and even where they do, it's only in part. For example, Kirsten Beyer is the champion of Trek past in the writers' room, but she's a 'Voyager' lady, writing the novels continuing that series even today, so her heart is obviously in the 24th Century. We haven't got that generation of people who grew up in the Seventies on 'TOS' and the subsequent films and venerate its history and production. The Okudas, the Doug Drexlers, the Ron Moore's to name a few. We haven't had this base of Trekkers in a position to keep the torch burning brightly and things on track. Instead we have a younger generation whose only exposure to Trek may have been the Kelvin films and its emphasis on thrills and spectacle and a disconnect with Trek continuity, not just in fictional terms, but in purpose and goal, and this can only hurt Trek's storytelling potential and integrity.

This episode felt the closest to one of those Trek films than anything they'd done before on the series, and to a casual observer I'm sure it was a rip-roaring success with a big battle, countless drones, robots and quick cuts, flashing fury of light and sound, sassy, snarky dialogue and brief suggestions of weird alien faces. Like that red harpy on the Bridge of the Enterprise - how I wish Michael Westmore's genius was still in evidence, a considered brilliance that was as much about a race's culture and character as it was throwing bizarre shapes and colours onto the screen, which is how most other humanoid aliens are done in sci-fi in general. It's very much the 'Star Wars' way of a suggestion of depth in a room full of alien faces rather than the Trek way of feeling out a race rather than being just for show, creating reality rather than suggesting one like a bag of colourful sweets flung in the viewer's face. It shouldn't be surprising that if this new era of Trek is following the Kelvin rules and attitudes, it would also be very similar to 'Star Wars' because those films were JJ Abrams' attempt at pulling off a 'Star Wars' film without it being one and before he even knew it, it was an audition for him directing real 'Star Wars' (well, it's debatable that the recent trilogy can be called that, but like Trek, it can't be denied that it's 'real,' just that it's any good!).

Hence we have space battles full of the debris of tiny ships, fighters, drones and blasters blasting. I wonder if we'll ever get back to that idea of starships as these huge lumbering sea-faring vessels that don't turn on a dime or swerve around like jet fighters, nor do they carry a compliment of drone weapons in case of war. Starfleet was always very hands-on, things were done by people, not left to robotic claws, but that's another instance of the changing of Trek's attitude. Here, we see drones zipping about on the hull exactly like R2-D2 and his fellow droids fixing things. It's antithetical to Trek's approach of humans doing things for themselves and is another clear indication that this current regime do not understand the property. And so it has become 'Star Wars,' and as I said, this episode is the closest to being like an actual film. It's presented in cinema screen ratio as all episodes have been this season, it's full of special effects and every cliche you'd expect, whether that be the allies suddenly showing up to join a losing fight at just the right moment, to a villain needing to be dealt with in person in the bowels of the ship… It gives the modern audience what they expect and there isn't really anything beyond that, other than the sheep's clothing of characters like Spock and Pike that are known from the past. I'm guessing this is the one that was called a clips episode as it shows Burnham going back to various places the Red Angel had been seen through the season, and it's really only clips from those episodes. So it's not in the category of 'Shades of Grey,' but I'm guessing they did that to save money - even this shiny modern Trek is trying to save money (though probably more from wasting it on the wrong things than austerity)!

Burnham becomes what she was meant to be from the start: a comic book superhero. She melds into her time suit, crystal-ed up and ready to strike a pose as the female Iron Man, to lead her ship into the future and get that Sphere data out of the clutches of the odious Control. I will even say there was one good moment in all this, where she launches out into space to get to a place where she can initiate the time jump, or time vortex, or time whatever, far enough away that other ships won't be pulled in. It struck me right at the start of the episode when they were running through the recap that it might have been more sensible for them to go backwards in time as Control wouldn't exist, whereas in the future there's no guarantee that it isn't still out there somewhere (and I hereby predict that Control, in the form of Leland, will indeed make a 'surprise' return at some point, just as all super-villains do in comic books). I think part of the point was for her to rescue her Mother, who was in the future, so maybe that was the rationale, but in that case she's risking everything for her Mum when she should have gone back in time to be certain the Sphere data wouldn't fall into the enemy AI's digital control. The real point, of course, is to excite the audience with thoughts of the possibilities of this future, but for me it just makes me fear that they'll be unable to craft a believable future since they were unable to resurrect the 23rd Century and had to completely redesign and redefine its parameters for it to fit with today's audience, an action which negated the point of its existence in the first place - literally no point in going to different eras if you ignore the limits that make them unique!

I wouldn't be surprised if it was also a bit of a suggestion that future Trek will tie together for some big, overarching mission when the time is 'right,' since 'Star Trek: Picard' had been announced before this season was released and everyone was anticipating the arrival of an era they really wanted to see, instead of continual prequels for the last twenty years. Since 'Picard' is set in the future, wouldn't it be a thrill for Jean-Luc and Burnham to team up, again like the mega-successful (and totally soulless and boring), comic book films of the Cinematic Universe age we've had to endure. They've since said there are no plans to do that, and they might be right going by the negative reaction I've heard appearing to greet 'Picard' on its debut season, but then again, perhaps to boost subscribers (it's no longer about ratings, but it is about subscribers so the old rules do still apply after all!), they'll need to tie the arms of the franchise together (maybe they could also tie the legs, gag it, and throw it down a well while they're at it, as it would be a more humane end to a storied franchise than what they've done to it!), and don't forget they're copying the film side of things in every respect - remember "Benedict Cumberbatch is not Khan"? Well, they said Spock wouldn't be showing up, too. So you can't trust what's said, because just as in other parts of the media it's about inflaming passions, whether they be good or bad, it doesn't matter, as long as people are reacting rather than being ambivalent.

And how they have followed the films in style, content and intent: you don't even need to look at the cinematic approach or the battle scenes or the 'Star Wars'-ification of fighters and drones and pew-pew-pew. We need this precocious teenage girl to tell us how to win, old Captain Pike obviously too stupid to be able to work out a plan of action for himself. Some Captain he turned out to be, and yet people are clamouring for a TV series based on his adventures! His "Get it done," sadly has connotations that I suspect the writers and more than half the audience either never knew or had forgotten (remember irritating Captain Ronny Cox on 'TNG'? That was his catchphrase - what's with this urge for a Captain to have one anyway?). As soon as Fake Georgiou suggests Saru invite Leland aboard which will stop the fighting, I knew why she said that, or at least why the writers wrote it. Because, as I've said before, her role on the series is twofold: to be bad, and do and say the things our 'pure' Starfleet heroes won't, and because Michelle Yeoh is a martial artist more than she is an actress. So it's imperative that she gets her shot as much as possible at doing what she does best. Even when it's irrelevant to the Trek universe or the story. So as soon as she said that I knew it was an excuse to bring her and Leland together for the same old cliched fight, and lo and behold, that's exactly what happened. Okay, not exactly, Leland beams himself aboard, but the intent of the 'story' was the same.

Fake Georgiou's fine sentiments are given yet more airing: "I leave very little to chance - especially when it comes to revenge." We're supposed to like this character, that's how they always present her, as this loose cannon, irreverent and fun. To me she's objectionable and the biggest slap in the face on the series where it comes to Trek's morals and outlook. I've said it before, but the statement of intent made by killing off her Prime counterpart, a Picard-like diplomat, wise and caring, in exchange for the truly evil, violent and vile offender, a multiple murderer, a tool that Starfleet has used through Section 31, is abhorrent. We're supposed to react with glee as she finally gets the nasty Leland into the spore chamber and laughs as he suffers - torture your enemy, let's hear him scream, it's okay because he's evil. To me that's the opposite of Trek's message and once again follows the new 'traditions' laid down by the Kelvin films, in this case enjoying the destruction of your enemy, just as Kirk and Spock did at the end of 'STXI' where they kick Nero into a black hole or something. Yes, Georgiou is alone when she does this thing, even Naarn, her ally in the fight, is absent (did she survive, I can't remember?). And yes, we've often had other characters look askance at her attitudes. At the same time she's still allowed to participate and they are even happy to use her talents when it suits them. It's as if that 'Voyager' episode ('Nothing Human'), with the Cardassian Dr. Crell Moset, never happened! I've sometimes thought of Garak in 'DS9,' but even he would balk at some of the things Fake Georgiou has done. Or maybe he wouldn't, but he'd have the approbation of Dr. Bashir and the others, and there would be consequences.

When Trek did go into the dangerous area of ends versus means, it was for a specific story (the greatest and most notable being 'In The Pale Moonlight'), but we always knew the rights and wrongs of it. Morality is very blurry on this series, right often coming across, through Pike, as a blind obedience to rules and regulations, and the bad being the looser ones who justify easier ways, but even then it's not that simple. The confused morality is something else I largely attribute to the films, though even in 'Enterprise,' thanks to reaction to the 11th September attacks, they added in a harder edge to their Captain, without the complexity shown in 24th Century Trek series'. I experience Trek as a malaise now, that doesn't really know what it wants to say, other than elevating political correctness and injecting size and shininess where once was rational design and development. I've often likened the Kelvin films (especially the first two), to being Trek as if it had been treated with steroids, an artificially inflated, muscular Neanderthalism. In 'DSC' they've often taken that, though they have managed to drip in a few tiny snippets of Trekness, more so than the films did, for sure, more on which in a moment. But they even nicked the space jump - as I said, that bit was one I liked thanks to all those drones and shuttles piling round Burnham like a protective cocoon, holding off the constant blasts as she's the most important to the mission. But it's all too little. In general the whole battle and all that happened on the action side of things was a laughable parody of action drama.

So to the little scraps of Trekkiness that squeeze through amidst all the sorrow that is not sweet: Spock is injured and you see a few specks of green Vulcan blood, as you should - see! See! They can do little details right when they choose to! There's an exploding console - check, which knocks over the crewmember and their chair - check. There are some actual Phaser beams (I should really start calling them Actual Phaser Beams, it's so rare to see them in operation), though like the films, they emanate from tiny cannons coming out of the ship's hull (ugh). They even demonstrate how effective a beam is at quickly eliminating threats when they zap, zap, zap the little dead drones that no longer have Control's, er, control. So you didn't need those bullet pulses of Phaser energy after all! (And it looks so much cooler, what is wrong with you people?). There's the time jump when Burnham goes off in her suit which went all 'The Motion Picture,' just like the Thruster Suit Spock wore in that film. And who could forget "Today is a good day to die," ringing out on the Bridge of the Klingon ship! We even get a new hairy Klingon and from the end credits you can see it was Glenn Hetrick, one of the head makeup guys, giving himself a cameo. More interestingly, he was called K'Vort, and so must have an important future since we know there were Klingon vessels in the time of 'TNG' that were K'Vort-Class. Nice little Easter egg, but it would have been nice to hear his name obviously spoken on screen and not have to get it from the credits (same with Yeoman Colt - again credited, but I never caught a mention of her).

It could also be said that Burnham's advice to Spock about "…A galaxy full of people who will reach… for you," was a reference to the hippies in 'The Way To Eden' which Spock 'reached' ('we reach, brother'), as a real deep catch. It could also be taken that Burnham's words were what encouraged Spock to form friendships with Kirk and Bones ('the furthest from you, let them guide you'), as otherwise it just sounds like pointlessly self-important waffle without any real meaning except to display Burnham's affection for her brother, and her emotional state (what? Burnham getting emotional? Again? Was she raised by 'Enterprise' Vulcans, or what!). And I really am tired of her trickling down tears every episode, or stopping what she's doing to get something off her chest at a critical moment when haste is required and people are dying: Oh Spock, I don't want to lose you, boo hoo, blah, blah… Do your duty woman, and get on with it. Mind you, even Cornwell (whom I will not be mourning the loss of, remaining ambivalent to her), stopped what she was doing to shake hands with Number One before she left from trying to disarm the torpedo, so Burnham hasn't had the greatest influencers around her. There's some pedigree in dealing with a torpedo wedged in the ship, off the top of my head I can think of two key episodes, one from 'DS9' ('Starship Down' - Quark has to use his Ferengi instincts to gamble and comes up trumps), and one in 'Voyager' ('Before and After' and/or 'Year of Hell' - a time crystal torpedo, in 'DSC' parlance!), so that's fun, but still laced with stupidity in this case.

If I can go into the nit-picky for a moment I will point out some of the wrongheadedness of this current generation of Trek makers: zips. We don't have zips in the future, in fact on 'TOS' they made a point to conceal zips from view so clothing had a more futuristic appearance to it - how does it go on or come off (well, with Kirk it's usually ripped off in a fight, but…), we don't know, adding to the mystique. In 'DSC,' though everything is either not explained or not very clearly, a fudging I get the impression is there to disguise the writers' own lack of surety, they do choose to show some things that old Trek was wise to avoid (it's also highly possible they don't actually know these things). And so we do get Burnham zipping up. In contrast, her Iron Man suit magically folds around her in some kind of post-24th Century way that doesn't fit with Trek's established methods, but that's by the by, the same way everything has to be BIGGER. But it's the consistency episode to episode that has been as much at fault as the choices they've made. I mentioned in other reviews about contradicting themselves as if they're unsure what they're doing, and this time it's revealed that the time crystals show possible futures rather than the definite article. Cop-ooooooooooout. In the same episode Chris Pike wants to stay with Cornwell in the torpedo room because he thinks that his future is certain from what he saw on Boreth. While we're there, I'm sure it's nice how the Admiral bravely and calmly faces her death, but if I was her I'd be working on that off switch to the very last second! Just me? Plus the Enterprise has been badly designed if you need to bring down the blast door from the inside! Matt Jefferies, what did you do? It wasn't his fault? Oh.

Still on the subject of clarity, if I hadn't known better I would have got the intimation that this was where the accident with Pike was due to happen. Obviously that was a number of years down the line, but the way things were set up, even I was wondering if they were actually going to do it early and blame it on the time crystals or something, because he leaves the Bridge to go down to the torpedo room and it just has that ominous feel, much like when Spock left the Bridge to save the ship in 'Star Trek II.' Instead, he's just going down to offer his services to Admiral Cornwell. The Captain of the ship isn't the best person to be attempting to deal with something like this, where are all the Engineers, busy? It makes even less sense for someone of Admiral rank to be dealing with an unexploded bomb, surely they have people for things like this, and she's the most important person on the ship. It's all so artificial the way she's the only one that can be there, and then it comes down to something as simple as closing the door from the inside. Any Engineer half as good as Starfleet's best would be able to rig something so that wasn't necessary, but it's all in aid of giving Cornwell a 'hero's' death. Unfortunately, it was a pointless and unearned one. And talking of people being in the wrong place, like last season, I don't know about the soundness of the ethics of Culber treating Stamets, it's obviously done so they have some screen time together, but it's debatable whether Culber should even be back in a medical uniform after what he went through. The series is consistent in its unreality.

The whole silly fight between Fake Georgiou, Naarn and Leland/Control, with it's snarky women trading barbs with the villain, was silly, but at least it had some originality with the shifting gravity in the corridor. It's not a patch on another weird Trek fight (I love the time-slippage one between Archer and Silik in 'Broken Bow' - truly something I'd never seen before), but it did feel different. Until I thought of 'The Matrix Revolutions,' and then even 'Star Trek Beyond' had an elaborate version of it, so I'm afraid even the series' best ideas are nicked from other productions. My biggest confusion, though, came from the fact that if Georgiou has Leland/Control trapped and defeats him by, er… doing something with the spore room (how does she know what to do, she doesn't seem a very scientific type?), isn't it problem over? Do they still need to go into another time? Or is Leland only one host of Control, and there are many more it can jump into? And why is it that everyone interviewed has to lie about Discovery 'exploding'? This is Starfleet, are they the bad guys? Is the idea we should never trust Starfleet? Is it because of the close links to Section 31, that notorious 'secret' organisation - the guy interviewing them, who isn't worthy of a name or face (it seems Starfleet prefers to do things this way, since Burnham was convicted by superiors hidden in shadow at the start of the series - this time it's just not shown to us, as if saying he's a faceless representative of Starfleet). If so, then they even say that 31 needs a radical overhaul and more transparency. Erm… a top secret intelligence agency needs to be more transparent? This is the same 31 that we learned about in 'DS9,' the one that had been operating autonomously since the founding of the Federation, is it not?

I could go on and on - we get Siranna showing up with the Ba'ul ships, and no explanation of how and why. Are the Ba'ul allied with the Kelpiens now? Did they steal the ships? How long did it take this technologically backward race to learn how to fly them? It's all very ill thought-out, but that's what it's designed to be. They don't want you to think about anything deeply, they want to impress you with melodrama and pretty effects and move on. It must be the first Trek that actively discourages thinking, and that's quite an achievement! Burnham will be forever forgotten, never spoken of by Sarek, Amanda and Spock. How harsh! Is that really going to make any difference, and wasn't she the 'hero' at the end of last season, rewarded in front of all of Starfleet, along with her crew, who are also missing now. And everyone's just going to swallow this fake story about the ship blowing up? I was never really bothered about Burnham being part of Spock's life, and his family's life, because we never knew about Sybok until the film where he appeared - Vulcans are a secretive lot, but to put this as the reason we never heard of her? If she does ever come back to the 23rd Century (and I can't really believe Discovery will remain in the far future), then that undoes that, but was it logically necessary? And although I don't think Number One is too bad, she is far from the restrained, Vulcan-like character we met in 'The Cage,' just as sassy and sarky as all the other women on the series, almost as if it had all been designed by women. Funny that.

I will say it was nice to see a drydock, just like 'TMP,' but now, thanks to all those ridiculous robots and drones I have to ask why they would have these worker bees and humans doing any of the work? Ill thought-out. That's the very nature of the series, to give you something that reminds you of what it's connected to (like a fun spot of lock rerouting to open a door), while at the same time happily doing everything it can to feel off from that universe. Couldn't they have given us the old rubber band stretch for the Enterprise going to warp at the end, just this once? It's incredible how close it is to the Kelvin films, they've certainly achieved something there, except it's the opposite of what I hoped a new Trek series would achieve! Two-dimensional comic book heroes to suit the comic book action and mindlessness, a strong 'Star Wars' influence, zips and bings, and bangs and booms… I had actually forgotten how little I esteemed 'DSC' by the end of Season 1, and by the time I got around to viewing the DVDs I was genuinely interested to see how they'd improved it. With all the talk of course corrections it sounded as if they were finally going in the right direction, but it turned out these were very minor - the Klingons remained stupid and mainly ugly, even with hair, the Enterprise was a major disappointment in keeping strictly to the huge, shiny aesthetic with its massive window, and even Pike wasn't quite the revelation the series needed, too often reduced to a lesser, regs-spouting stereotype of 'old' Trek and overshadowed by the format's need for Burnham to be the decision-maker and fulcrum everything rests upon. Even the proposed theme of science/faith was forgotten, and even in a fourteen episode season they failed to keep a (mildly), compelling serial going. Instead they descended more and more into anti-intellectual feminine fantasy and only made me look forward to returning to genuine 'Star Trek,' and to realise that's all there is going to be, we're never going to get what Trek was and should be, the door of setting a precedent having been kicked wide open to the detriment of true Trek. At least there's enough real Trek for a lifetime's re-watching.

**

Stray

DVD, Smallville S1 (Stray)

Another of the many from this season that I think of fondly, and it doesn't let you down with a strong opening, a happy ending and plenty of good bits in between. Ryan is the stray of the title, a young lad who would return the following season. It's not explained in this episode (and I can't remember about the sequel), whether his power of hearing the thoughts in people's minds was something from the meteor shower or not - he seems like he might just about be old enough to have been a baby when they hit, maybe not, but perhaps his Mother was affected in some way before she had him. That's the biggest question left open by the episode and I was surprised to find it wasn't even considered. I suppose that was due to his secret being inextricably tied to Clark's, so Clark couldn't discuss it with Chloe (or Pete, who is once again, along with Whitney, absent from the story), which is how we usually get a backstory for a freak-of-the-week. It doesn't harm the episode, however, it's just different, and the real point of the story is to set up a few things for the future, tease a little bit about the characters, just as Cassandra did with her ability to show moments of a person's future to them in 'Hourglass.' There are some similarities as both situations were about others' personal secrets and inner lives, one coming from someone at the end of her life and now one who is at the start of a new life, and both were drawn to Clark in friendship.

It's a good job Ryan was a decent chap as if he'd been a little terror like most of the meteor-affected he might have found out Clark's secret and held it over the family, but in actual fact if he'd been a bad lad he probably would have revelled in the company of his Stepfather and wife who were only intent on getting rich from armed robberies. I suppose their previous felonies weren't very fruitful, unless they spent all the money before it was on to the next town, which wouldn't be a surprise considering how low their morals were - the guy even killed his wife before the end, not to mention innocents! It's another case of Clark possibly being a killer himself as a bowling ball travelling at that distance, at that speed, enough to burst through the machinery to thump right into the bad guy's chest with enough power to fling him back against the wall… well, could he be likely to survive that? As often is the case on the series that side of it's glossed over and we don't hear any confirmation or denial - if they'd only said he had been treated and then taken to prison it would have been fine. Otherwise you'd think the Sheriff's office would have a few questions for Clark about how he was able to throw that ball with such force! That's not the only questionable thing he does - when he rescues Ryan did he have to rip the back panel off the rubbish lorry (or garbage truck in their parlance)? He did the sensible thing in ripping out the hydraulics to stop the crush, but couldn't he have got the driver to open the back?

I know it was meant to evoke imagery of Warrior Angel, the comic book hero Ryan so idolised until he met a real life hero in Clark, but where was the driver in all this? Didn't he notice his truck had stopped working? Didn't he see the panel had been forced open? Or did Clark pull Ryan out and then bend the thing back into shape? If so, then the driver must have gone to sleep on the job! As ever, these minor inconsistencies that are so much more noticeable in later seasons, are easy to ignore because the rest of the story, acting and drama is so good, whereas in those latter seasons they were suspect and didn't have the weight to distract from the narrative or logic flaws. Here, Ryan is this quiet, but nonetheless insistent young fellow who has had to deal with physical and mental abuse and has found an idyllic refuge from the outside world. I don't know why they couldn't have adopted him really, except that for all its ongoing plots, it was still birthed in episodic structure so things were likely to reset by the end of the episode. Will Lex leave for Metropolis to accept his Dad's job offer? Will Lana admit where she stands with Clark? Will Chloe admit she wants to go to the ball with Clark?

There was a lot of material to mine from this particular power, probably one reason they brought him back the next year, and although Ryan's tragic story allows Clark to be the hero he's always going to become, now, in a small way, it's as much about setting up the end of the season as anything else: Lana becoming available, Chloe and the prom, Lex having a moral choice to make regarding loyalty or enmity with his Father. Is he really bad deep down as Ryan suggests? Well for a start he can only read people's surface thoughts (which begs the question why Martha was thinking of the spaceship in the storm cellar so he knew about it - maybe she was half worried he might explore and find it for himself?), so there might be a slight touch of the Pete best mates jealousy that Lex is so high in Clark's esteem, but we know there are still undeniably suspect parts to Lex. At the same time, what he says to his Father is true: he has turned his life around, he doesn't party, he's worked hard at his projects and senses his Father's disquiet with his new behaviour. Clark likes to give him the benefit of any doubt. Clark is a good guy, he can be a little naive in his belief in the best of people, but it's also inspiring because he is such a positive person. And although he's a few years older than Ryan, he is still learning the ropes, he does have a lot to go through before he really becomes Superman in that far future we'll eventually see right at the end.

Ryan precipitates a microcosm of Clark's life, observing his powers firsthand, noting the realities just below the surface pertaining to Clark's closest friends, but at the same time being unable to read him, which was intriguing and fit perfectly with Clark's alien nature. Reminding us of the storm cellar was also a wise move considering how much of a part it would play in the season finale. As so often with the series (at this stage of it, anyway), they get the domestic side as right as the criminal or action sides, with plenty of scenes with Ryan wishing he had what Clark has, making breakfast for the Kent family and in a typically childish point of view only seeing things simply. Why did he run from his Stepfather when he had Clark and his friends around? He didn't know about Clark's powers at that point, although he did know he was different (I liked that he was able to feel peace around Clark because he couldn't detect the thoughts he got from everyone else around him), so maybe he was scared the guy would start shooting up the place, or maybe it was as simple as not thinking rationally and reacting in a fight-or-flight way to immediate danger. He was guileless in his revealing of people's personal thoughts (although the way Lana says he was right about her employee, she was stealing from the till, it sounded like he had suggested that specific thing himself, which he didn't!), which made it hard for people to be angry with him, but as always you'd think they'd pay heed right away to anything that was slightly weird - instead Clark thinks he's just making up stories, kids, tsk tsk, etc!

There's plenty of charming meandering pensiveness about what might have been and what Clark means to his parents, so although it's not full of excitement it is a bright, happy place to be, which also serves to contrast the vicious and ruthless violence of the enemy. He's not difficult to defeat as he has no power to harm Clark except vicariously by his power to hurt Clark's parents or Ryan, but whenever the shocking scenes of this maniac are on they are jarring compared with all those colourful happy moments. I'd thought Clark took Ryan to see Lex' Warrior Angel collection, but that must be in the sequel. I'm not sure now if Chloe did buy a dress in advance of the prom or not, as Ryan says she did and she protests that she didn't actually buy it, so maybe she just tried it on and to Ryan's mind that meant she'd bought it. Or she was lying to Clark in her embarrassment! It's also a little funny when Clark whips up and finds Lex lying in the road having been ejected from his limo by the hijacking pair - he was a little dazed, but where did he think Clark had come from? Just out jogging and he's going to go off and run after the car? Or was driving by, in which case couldn't he have given Lex a lift instead of leaving him injured at the roadside! And there's also the thing that Clark always does where he runs super fast until he gets near somewhere he needs to be, in this case the bowling alley. Why not keep going at that speed to scour out the whole place, it doesn't make sense he wouldn't, but obviously for the audience's sake we need to see him do stuff as the whole thing can't be in slow motion!

The upshot is that in some ways it is quite silly, but then that's the series, and the key thing is that it's pleasant and reassuring, bright and positive, the Kents, Clark and others being shining examples of good human beings doing the right thing. That's what makes you want to come back week after week, not how far Clark throws a villain, or what special effects they use (the x-ray vision gets a good workout, even down to spotting a photo in Ryan's backpack). It's the outdoor domestic bliss of country life and family, deliberately lit brilliantly and designed to be full of primary colours to create a feeling of happiness and joy, while also showing scary, nasty scenes that Clark has to keep at bay from his world. It's easy to see why Ryan would want a piece of this pie, as everyone would (though I'd recommend against eating one of those cooking apples Martha was using to make apple pie - he grabs one from the bowl on his way out!). That's the most success you can get, not the heartless moneymaking of the Luthors, and that's the lesson of the series. We get to hear about a brother of Lex' who died as a baby (Julian). I'm sure there was another brother we meet next season, too (Lucas?), so there were more revelations to come in the Luthor line. Oh, and witness a pre-'Battlestar Galactica' (and very pre-'Star Trek: Discovery'), Rekha Sharma as a nurse or doctor at the Smallville Medical Centre. I didn't recognise her until I saw the name in the end credits.

***

Such Sweet Sorrow

DVD, Discovery S2 (Such Sweet Sorrow)

Sweet, no, sorrow, yes. It's got to that point again where I can no longer overlook the flaws in this series. Apparently to a lot of people they aren't flaws, they're positives as I don't get the sense that it's unsuccessful. I'm not surprised because it is very modern, but I'll say it again, it's not Trek. And I'll correct myself again, it's not good Trek. Throughout these last several episodes I've taken the one good point that Spock was a reasonable version of the character, especially compared with what I was expecting, and because of that minor success I was really hoping the Enterprise would come close to matching. Knowing we were going to be getting the classic ship in these last two episodes of the season I was holding out hope that this at least I would like and feel as if it were part of the universe I grew up with - you know, the one that paid tribute to its past and didn't needlessly update everything to appeal to the magpie generation who are only drawn to shiny, pretty things. As usual whenever I try to take this series seriously as a part of Trek canon, I couldn't muster strong feelings, but instead an inevitable lethargic pall of disappointment chilled me and once again my only hope for this era of Trek is that they one day decide that, yes, it's all different because this is yet another alternate universe, not the original, the 'Prime' timeline. I didn't used to think that way, but I care so little for what they've done with, no, done to, Trek, that it seems the only way out.

It's laughable the way they throw out that line confirming holo-communications will never now be possible on the Enterprise, as if that papers over all the cracks in the universe by their insistence on changing the iconic, classic interiors of the ship that started it all. Less standing on the shoulders of giants, and more spraying gloss paint into the giant's face as it sinks to its knees in anguish! I can't say I was horrified by the 'updating' of the Bridge, corridors and meeting room, just completely disappointed, frustrated and alienated. You can spot many elements of the original ship: Sulu's navigation viewer, the same Captain's Chair and Bridge chairs. Even some of the same monitors displaying coloured blocks on black. But these things stand out as a collection of classic decals stuck on top of a souped-up sports car that neither fit, nor disguise, the underlying ugliness of The New. In keeping with this bizarre desire to pump everything up in size, as if that's important (forgetting that smaller sets make for more drama), the Bridge is simply huge. It has the same shiny floors, glistening surfaces, ridiculous lights shining out of everywhere, and stupid great window in place of a viewscreen that Discovery pioneered. No, wait… Discovery didn't pioneer that, nor even the Shenzhou - it was the Kelvin Timeline version of the Enterprise and other ships in those films that so abused the basic format of established Trek.

Those films ruined Trek forever, it seems, because although we're supposedly in the true universe with these CBS productions, it's all academic since they take all their inspiration from those films, and deliberately so. I don't know if Alex Kurtzman hadn't been hired, that we would have had an aesthetic closer to the Roddenberry/Berman eras, but it can't have helped to have the guy spearheading the new TV wave be the same one so heavily involved with all the things people like me couldn't stand about those films. I've heard the term 'Second Golden Age' bandied around in regard to Trek's current state of health, and I can only assume that I'm a minority, that people like me who value so many aspects of Trek, not just its content, but its presentation, too, are such a small section of the audience as to be negligible. Because for me, 'Discovery' has heralded a Trek Dark Age! I'm not condemning every production this CBS team is making (I haven't seen them yet), nor can I put all the blame on their shoulders - again, a lot of the terrible things about it go back to the modern films, but I'm back to complete ambivalence as to what they'll do next with the property. I was hoping Season 2 was going to be an improvement on the first, and in some ways it was, but it turns out those ways were minor. I hear cries going up for a Captain Pike series, and at first I was okay with that, but now seeing the Enterprise it's dashed any meagre hopes it would be truer to the classic era.

I had thought my final realisation of the feminine skew of this series (which I came to see during the previous episode), would actually make it easier to understand and accept, but in fact it's just made it easier to spot the deliberate mechanics that have made it so female friendly: so I cringe at it being Sarek who feels he must apologise to his wife and adopted daughter for not being a better husband and wife, and I cringe at the girly-girly friendships constantly being at the forefront. The montage where some of the characters (again, almost exclusively women), record personal messages home as if they're sitting on their beds holding up a mobile phone, is so uncomfortably 'women's TV' that I struggle to comprehend who they're marketing this series at? Traditionally sci-fi has been a male-dominated genre, and I suspect that even now the balance would be heavily in that direction, so I'd love to know why they think men are going to enjoy the kinds of things they've done! It's so female-centric as to be unappealing, and these core values which I took so long to recognise play a huge part in ruining the series for me. Added to the modern aesthetic, rewriting the look and style of everything and not paying tribute or significant attention to the history and canon, and the shameful stupidity in the writing, it is by far the worst Trek series and I see no indication of its improvement since they don't see any of these things as brokenness!

I wouldn't even put the series in contention as good sci-fi (which would make it only one level down from Trek, which is great sci-fi: the average episode of Trek has been good, where the average episode of other sci-fi is merely average!), it hasn't managed to do anything surprising or worthwhile, and if it had created well-rounded, well-written characters and plots, it wouldn't matter if there were cringe-inducing scenes every episode. There just isn't anything to draw me in, despite it having the words 'Star' and 'Trek' on the bonnet. I guess the engine is coughing and spluttering underneath and the series isn't going anywhere. Correction: it's going to the future. I knew this was coming, it's practically impossible not to get some kind of spoiler, just as I knew the Enterprise was going to show up at the end of Season 1. It seems they don't even have enough of a plan to know what to do in the era they've chosen to exist in. Have we learned anything about the politics of this time? Have we developed the races or met compelling new ones? There's been a half-hearted attempt to drill into Kelpiens, and surprise, surprise, that episode was the standout of the season, because that is what appeals about Trek. Not rogue AI co-opting a fleet of Section 31 ships! Not a murderous Mirror Universe Emperor finding her place! Not even time travelling signals from the future, although that had the biggest (and only), potential in the season. I feel like I'm summing up the whole season in this penultimate review, but I don't expect any changes that are going to save it in the finale, having experienced Season 1's poor example. This one wasn't quite as bad, it had mildly less bad moments such as Pike officially taking his leave of those he'd captained, but it's in the same area.

Even there, it makes a nonsense of Starfleet, procedure, protocol and a sense of reality! What, he just promotes Saru to Captain of Discovery? It's not even as clear-cut as that, it's like a woman's view of military matters, which is probably what it is, since there is a heavy female bias in the writing staff. So there isn't even a definite promotion, it's just sort of hinted that Saru is the one to take over and he says he'll just leave that for now! A ship needs a Captain, you can't do anything without it! Saru needed to step up, but it's as if we need to not have too much power over Burnham because we know she's really the one in charge! It's just embarrassing, and I can't imagine what Roddenberry himself would have made of this utterly abused version of his future world. When a 1960s TV series makes more sense and has a better impression of reality than something made with all the bells and whistles of today, you have to wonder what's going on. I guess it proves beyond doubt that writers' brains are the most important thing in creating great TV, not production value or computer effects, but that was never really in doubt for me in the first place! That's why all the previous Treks hold up (even 'Enterprise,' by far the weakest until now, looks intelligent, serious and sensible in comparison), because they had a rulebook which they ran by, they had people with a personal understanding of the military, and of dramatic structure. They had big budgets for the time and they used them to the full, and guess what: the production side isn't the part that went down in history, it was the storytelling and the ability to play with characters in a created world.

There's no point ranting on about current Trek, but it does remind me why I was so unexcited to get back to 'DSC' in the first place, and though there have been occasional things along the way that almost distracted me from the failings, that hasn't changed. And so to this episode, now that I've talked generally about the series: in its defence it isn't an action-packed entry, and in fact has a lot of character stuff going on, which is exactly what you want. Or it would be if I cared about the characters and their fates. As I said before, it's all so female in its execution and its focus, so you get the scene with the ex-boyfriend, or the scene with the girly best mate, or the one where Dad says he wishes he'd been better. You get roomfuls of women discussing problems while Spock quietly stands at the wayside. And you get the slowest and most pointless starship evacuation ever! I ask you, if there was one scene where they could have legitimately injected tension and drama, it was in leaving this starship that has become their home to hitch a ride on the Enterprise. But again, because of the feminine approach, we've never even got to a point where we bond with the ship itself, so who cares? How often do we actually get to revel in its lines and gracefulness? No, we have to cut inside and space is mainly seen from the Bridge window! And then of course, after all that slow evacuation, and a rather useless remote auto-destruct that fails because the Sphere data won't let the ship be destroyed, they trudge back aboard!

In the past, auto-destruct sequences were great sources of drama as a clock counted down and the Captain and First Officer had to go through a short procedure of voice confirmation, etc, but here Pike and Saru do a handprint on touch-screens and then they have to activate it from the Enterprise! It's a miserably poor evocation of such an important moment in a starship's life, in keeping with the usual tragic lack of interest in the staples of Trek! They even have these silly evacuation corridors that unfold to the opposite ship, with only a forcefield between the evacuees and space! I thought Burnham was going to stay behind and decide to take the ship off on her own, but in actual fact it seemed like the only reason for the evacuation was to show off their newly-minted Enterprise sets, although you could tell the corridors were just redressed Discovery ones, and perhaps the Bridge was, too? It was certainly big enough and ugly enough. Burnham gets to be unprofessional again, perhaps her female intuition allowed to work, since as soon as Pike's left the room (was that a lab just off the Bridge?), she touches the crystal to see a vision of her future, but that's encouraged because she was able to see the destruction of the Enterprise (I think), and so prevented it by warning them not to do something… I think. It's a bit hazy, as the series so often is (apparently Yeoman Colt was in there somewhere, but I only know that from her name coming up in the end credits - talk about keeping cards close to the chest when they should be celebrating the Enterprise and its past!).

It was nice to see the handrail control in the Turbolifts, something that should have been standard in Discovery if they'd cared a jot about history, so putting them in now is a bit late, though it's one of the few things I liked about the episode. But was it really sensible to discuss things like there being no holo-comms now in the middle of an evacuation? They need to get their priorities straight. After getting past the gut-wrenchingly, woefully sad ruination of the beloved Enterprise (actually, I still haven't, and it cast a shadow of misery across the episode), they go back to Discovery having failed to destroy it, while Leland and his mighty fleet of ships is still on the way. In the meantime, somehow Sarek (using his katric connection to Burnham), and Amanda find them to say goodbye to Burnham. Again, so incredibly stupid: how can they get to wherever the Discovery was in that short a time, and yet Leland is on the way and is still some time off? Nothing about it makes sense, and the writers don't care. All they care about is how they can get Burnham to shed a tear so the female audience can clap their hands with emotion at all this display of emotion, emotional, emote, emotive emotion. It's emotional, you see? They perform a spore jump yet again, as if it's nothing, the only reference to the fact that it's supposed to be dangerous for Stamets is that Culber comes to check if he's alright after doing it. They have no idea about drama, do they? To be honest, they've done so many jumps that I can't even remember what the issue was supposed to be with using it, that's how clear and consistent the writing is on everything. You're supposed to forget whatever rules were laid out because, like 'Dr. Who,' they don't matter, only there to provide 'drama' for a specific scene or episode, not something to be kept track of as if Trek was supposed to be an internally consistent entity. Hah!

They stop off at Xahea for some reason I can't remember, and Tilly's friend from the awful 'Short Treks' episode 'Runaway' makes her debut on the series proper as this Wesley Crusher-esque engineering genius that can do anything the writers need her to do. I'm reminded why I thought Naarn was of the same race because they do look similar, even down to the hairstyle. As usual we eschew any protocol for a laugh at the taken aback Pike, dignity lost, but it's okay because it's funny and Tilly gets to see her girly fwend again. Ooh, isn't this charming. Ugh. They need this child prodigy to be able to make the time crystal work because they haven't got a time suit so they're going to make Discovery be the suit, I think. Again, wasn't following what was going on very clearly, but then you don't have to, it's not important and doesn't have much reality to it. I was guessing that Georgiou would knock Spock out and take his place with the others who volunteer to go permanently into the future with Burnham (maybe she still will?), so the Control AI will never be able to get its hands on the all-important Sphere data which will somehow give it some kind of power, or something, I don't know, it's all ridiculous and childish. We know Spock isn't going to be lost in the future, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't go, so something's going to prevent him next episode, even though he had a heart-to-heart with his 'sister' and wants to be with her, even affectionately patting her hand (Vulcans don't touch because they're touch telepaths! Grraaargghhh!).

Why did Dr. Burnham record all those YouTube videos on how to operate the time suit? I guess she just had nothing better to do. I was thinking, if Pike had any sense he'd be going with them into the future to avoid his grisly fate, but of course he's not going to do that because that would go against the canon of what we know will happen. But it doesn't make sense! And why choose some bits of canon to keep to while ignoring the majority? They have no idea what they're doing. At least if he did go we'd know this was an alternate universe, unless they are set to come back from the future at some point, which I suspect they are, because as much as I think they're going to ruin the future as effectively as they've ruined the past, at least it would make a semblance of sense that Discovery isn't around later during 'TOS,' but it's all silly anyway so it doesn't matter either way, I don't see this team or era ever doing anything good with the series, or even, sadly, the franchise. Then we get swarms of shuttles, more than could be carried by a fleet of ships, and apparently they all came from Enterprise and Discovery - just like that scene from the opening to 'Star Trek XI' where there are hundreds of shuttlecraft floating away from the USS Kelvin! It's that same level of idiocy that ties the films and TV together in a destructive dance of horror, trampling Trek's entire world and its credentials to be proper sci-fi, collapsing any reality the series ever had.

Oh, but then Leland's fleet warps in and Burnham says they're surrounded and we see a graphic with the ships all around them ON A 2D PLANE! It's like Khan's two-dimensional thinking in 'The Wrath of Khan,' they could still escape up or down, they're not really surrounded! After all that spatial orientation business (and we even see it in this very episode when Discovery orients itself to Enterprise to connect the stoopid evac corridors!), they've gone back to ships being on the same plane. They contradict themselves in the same episodes (same thing happened in the previous one)! I despair, I really do. I don't know where things went wrong, but they've been wrong from Day 1 on this series. I genuinely wish Trek had never come back so that I could say without reservation that I loved it. Now if I said that it would be like a validation of the last ten years of idiotic films and the awfulness of 'DSC,' and possibly 'Picard,' 'Lower Decks' and 'Section 31.' It's like they've made it for the brains of children, fire and forget, nothing matters. And I still have one episode to slog through. And then I'm going to have to watch through the season again in quick succession to understand things better without needing to write a review. Not looking forward to that. I suspect I'll be giving up Trek eventually because although it's 'alive' again, when it had 'died,' it's been reborn as something I… not detest, I don't feel that strongly about such a mush of misery, but it disgusts me: in other words there was something exciting about it still being produced so that you never knew if a character, ship, or race would reappear, new information uncovered, new perspectives on the history and more history would add to the lore, but instead it now just overwrites what came before and kills it deader than ever. Should have called it 'Star Trek: Mort.'

*

Nicodemus

DVD, Smallville S1 (Nicodemus)

By any other name, 'This Side of Paradise' from 'TOS,' and in fact the kind of story every sci-fi series does at some point, it's just that in that Trek episode it was specifically about flowers that puffed their pollen into victim's faces and made them effectively drunk so that they behaved without inhibitions. In that story the problem was solved with provoking strong emotion in the victims, but this episode isn't really about the problem itself, more about what inner feelings it lets out of people so we never find out how a cure was reached or what it was, just the ever-useful, unseen team of experts in Metropolis the Luthors keep on call at all times to handle any emergency, 'dealt' with the issue, solved it, and everything's fine, except for the obvious exception of the minor character who was first to be infected, but he doesn't matter to the larger world of 'Smallville' so it's fine! In truth I didn't have that many specific memories of this one, apart from the flowers and Mr. Kent driving around with the door of his truck open, screaming at other motorists and passersby and packing a shotgun, but that's probably because his turn at being 'free' is the most memorable. I thought a lot more characters were exposed and became their uninhibited selves, but it's really only Jonathan, Lana and Pete, and they were a more than plenty handful for Clark to deal with.

Deal he does, whether it be family, romantic interest or best mate, he has different tactics with each as the understanding of what's going on develops. It does strike me as strange how long it takes people sometimes to recognise that someone is acting out of character, almost as if they think it's just a phase or they woke up that morning and decided to be different. Maybe that's what some of them do on occasion, otherwise you'd think they'd be showing concern and asking if they'd had any concussions lately! This is, after all, a world in which crazy things happen on a regular basis so when one of their own acts up surely the signs are clear that some meteor rock related solution is to blame. But no, they just go along with it, all for the drama of the episode, I suppose. I'm not going to pull it apart, it's a fun episode, but the one thing I did find it hard to accept was how Clark managed to get Lana up that rickety windmill at the end! She has her eyes closed like he's blindfolded her and led her into a room, yet they're metres up in the air and she must have known what was going on. Obviously he convinced her to climb up herself with eyes closed so as not to be afraid, but I'm not sure that would be a good idea! It's a lovely ending to the episode, even with the fact you can tell it's green screen and they're not really high in the air, just as you can spot their photo doubles when the camera pulls away, but it's a nice shot nonetheless.

If there is a real complaint, it's a very minor one, in that the CG flowers look very fake, something 'TOS' has the advantage of since they only had the option to build physical props. Sometimes CGI can be overused, and perhaps an in-camera solution would have been better. Then again, seeing the rudimentary movement of the flowers in jars suggests it might not have worked. It's good to have Dr. Hamilton back again, as well as Principal Kwan in his one minor scene that was quite expressive without any words, all helping to continue the feel of a living, breathing community of people that still exist and live out their lives even when we don't see them on screen - Nell is mentioned as being away in Metropolis, too, furthering that feel. What marks this episode out as special is that it puts Lex in the position that Clark is usually in, worried about something he's indirectly responsible for, while someone reassures him it's not his fault (usually anything related to the meteors since Clark came down in their shower). Lex blatantly lies this time, persuading Clark he doesn't have anything to do with Hamilton or the problem, which we can clearly see is complete fabrication. And for once, though Lex is doing the right thing in trying to contain the outbreak and cure it as fast as possible, he doesn't appear to have any altruistic motive other than curiosity for its own sake in the meteor rocks and their effects. He outright lies to Clark, the exaggerated distrust and even hatred displayed by Jonathan and Pete having merit, despite coming from an untrustworthy reaction, and is shown to be based in truth.

I do believe Lex was intent on doing everything he could to save Jonathan, but now we can't take anything at just surface value if we ever could and he has taken a step towards the villain he would become, or the villain his character is supposed to be. Clark gets to be seen by Pete doing something impossible when he grabs the gun off him at the Luthor Mansion, but it's okay because he doesn't remember what happened - I wonder how he'd have explained that if Pete had remembered. It's also a step for Pete, who we learn has deep-seated reasons for his dislike of Lex stemming from the way his family had been treated by the Luthors and the way Clark had taken to Lex as a pal, something we hadn't seen much of before. What he says about how they used to be best friends turns out to be true, because Pete would leave shortly into Season 2, unable to remain friends with the heavy weight of Clark's secret on him, and the lack of trust Clark showed in him, and you can see that Clark's problems are far from being as simple as fighting crime or super-powered villains: he has to deal with all the people problems everyday mortals experience, too. Issues of trust and dependence, and also the realisation that super speed and strength can't do anything against diseases. Perhaps there's an underlying message there that doctors and scientists who examine, research and treat patients are the real superheroes, doing what others can't.

The downside is that it is probably the teen soapiest episode so far, the kind of thing I thought the series was going to be all about, but wasn't. So we have Lana misbehaving and pouting around, throwing her weight about at school and the Talon, insulting Whitney and casting him off, before rushing straight for Clark and leading him on. There was a scene missing in which she made up with Whitney and apologised, we're only left to hear that she did do that to various people. You can almost see the cracks of the cast appearing as Whitney and Pete are shown up as the extra bodies they were. I personally like both of them, and prefer the series with them in it, but these are little signs of the series running out of steam in a way, being able to spot that they're not making good use of them, but not that they're heading towards getting rid of them. It's also one of the first to be about characters acting out of character - yes, we had seen it on occasion, but not on this scale, something that would be happening all too frequently as the series 'progressed.' Seen as it is on its own, and with its own merit, it's a fun story: Martha gets to tell a little tale about meeting Jonathan (though her weepy admittance that she still has the thought that Jonathan would marry her didn't make sense as they are married, but she was at the end of her tether!), Chloe and Pete get to go snooping, there's another clear out like Level 3 where everything's taken away and only an empty space is left of Hamilton's lab, and this time a friend of Clark's falls to certain injury he's there to catch her. There's not a lot more to it than Lex lying to Clark, but it's enough and makes for another good instalment.

***

Through The Valley of Shadow

DVD, Discovery DVD (Through The Valley of Shadow)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

**