Here we are about halfway through the last season of Discovery! The crew discovers a hidden wormhole at the coordinates of where Moll and L’ak’s warp trail ends. It’s opening and shutting, which makes it precarious to get through. Burnham and Booker take a shuttle into it, and Moll and L’aks ship destroyed…and a Mirror universe Enterprise! On board this Enterprise, they find out it’s a refugee ship that came over some time ago. They also find Moll and L’ak in the sick bay. In a standoff, a panel is damaged which traps Burnham and L’ak within the sick bay’s forcefield. Booker and Moll travel to the bridge in a truce to release them. We get some back story of how Moll and L’ak fell in love and then were wanted by the family L’ak was raised by. Booker also explains his connection to Moll. Moll, in a split decision, sends the Enterprise on a collision course with the opening of the wormhole, but Burnham and L’ak are released. Burnham is able to seize the next clue from L’ak, and the two escape in a small shuttle ship. Burnham and Booker are able to contact Discovery via tractor beam, and they are able to open the wormhole in a way that gets the Enterprise out and send them all on their ways.
And here we go with our thoughts!
Music
Mr. Daps: “The music was better this episode than the last one. There were a couple of moments that stood out. Is it a stand-alone piece of music yet? I don’t think so. It feels like the composers mainly focus on mood music with a few moments that stand out peppered in.”
Murray: “The music was a little more present in this episode, which was good and bad in my opinion. It’s nice to have a prominent soundtrack, but I did notice it in very unnecessarily dramatic ways. It’s slightly lost some of its uniqueness and is mostly background filler, to me.”
Design
Mr. Daps: “I thought this week’s design was pretty good. It was a good use of the Strange New World’s sets for the ISS-Enterprise. I also thought the wormhole effects looked pretty cool as well. I also liked the choices made on the Breen. Overall, this was a visually interesting episode to watch and look at the details for. My one complaint is a couple of the flame bursts on the Enterprise occasionally looked really digital. Overall, I liked the design on this episode.”
Murray: “I noticed the design of the Enterprise bridge was a bit Abrams-like. It works for it being from another universe. But, if it was trying to be an adaptation of the Strange New World’s version, it didn’t quite succeed there. I did like the Wormhole effects on the ships. That took a hefty budget. I also liked L’ak’s races visage when they took off the helmets. It makes it a very interesting race of aliens. Design did well in this episode, though I wish the Enterprise bridge did look a little different.”
Story
Mr. Daps: “This was an interesting-enough story for the most parts. It had some strengths and weaknesses. I liked how most of this episode really was about relationships. I thought this was interesting, even if some of the ways that did this were methods that have been used a lot before. I think my favorite part of this episode was the relationship and partnership that is being built between Captain Burnham and Commander Rayner. I do feel like, once again, the writers are trying to cram too many storylines in an episode so it watered things down a bit.”
Murray: “The story worked with the flashbacks of Moll and L’ak. But, I found that to be a bit too cliché. I wish it had been a little different of a story for them, or show Moll’s relationship with her dad. The Discovery crews’ stories was a very small part of the episode that it could have done without it. It was mostly figuring out how to get Burnham and Booker back, and a small one with Tilly and Dr. Culber having existential conversations. It didn’t seem to add a lot to the episode, but some of it could have been interesting in a different episode.”
Hit or Miss?
Mr. Daps: “This week was an ok episode but definitely wasn’t a hit. I think they tried to do too much with the episode. I really wish they would hone in on just a couple of things and do them really well. Instead, it seems like they are trying to over-complicate things. This episode (and season) seems to be proving the adage “simple is hard” correct. I didn’t dislike this episode but I didn’t love it either. Because of all of these things, this week’s episode was a miss for me.”
Murray: “I hate to give it a miss, but it was for me. It was enjoyable, but it didn’t advance the story of Discovery that much more. I thought the flashback story was boring and would have liked to see more action in the present scenes just to balance it out, like a ship chase or something like that. It’s not terrible by any means, but it’s just not a strong Trek episode and that makes it a miss for me.”
