It is rare that a “previously on” segment at the top of an episode will make me squee. Generally it’s just there as a reminder of what happened before and a primer on what will be important in the episode that the scenes are a prelude to. It’s paperwork, setting you up for the story to come.
But this week, Discovery made me squee—and also geeble and bounce and generally nerd out something fierce—when they kicked the episode off with a retro-style “Previously on Star Trek,” using the 1966 logo for the show, and then showing scenes from “The Cage.” They pretty much sold me on “If Memory Serves” from that moment forward. (It also was a big middle-finger to those who insist that Discovery simply must take place in an alternate timeline, as this firmly places this new show in the same timeline/continuity as the other six TV shows and the first ten movies.)
Luckily, the episode itself lived up to that tease.
Last week, I said I was looking forward to seeing Anson Mount’s Pike deal with being exposed once again to the Talosians and this week’s trip to Talos IV gave me all I was hoping for. But even before that, the cut from Jeffrey Hunter in the scenes from “The Cage” to Anson Mount on the bridge of Discovery was magnificent. I thought the casting of Mount was perfect when it was announced, and “If Memory Serves” just reinforces that.
But what really got me was the look on his face when the image of Vina appeared in the ready room. That was the moment I was waiting for, and Mount managed to show a tremendous range of emotions in that one instant: shock, confusion, desire, anger. His trip to Talos IV had a huge impact on him, and Mount shows us every emotion that this puts Pike through. I’m not one for soulmates, in fiction or in real life, but it’s obvious that Pike and Vina believe that they are each others’ soulmates, and the tragedy of their separation is etched on Mount’s face.
We get more new castings of old roles in this, the biggest being Melissa George as Vina. Some of Discovery‘s recastings have been lateral moves (Rebecca Romijn’s Number One, replacing Majel Barrett), some have been good if not quite as great as the original (James Frain, not as good as Mark Lenard—though he’s light-years better than Ben Cross), and some have been improvements (Mia Kershner, eclipsing Jane Wyatt and Winona Ryder). This is the first that truly fails, though it’s not so much George’s fault, as Susan Oliver was simply stellar as Vina. It would be hard for anyone to live up to that, and George really doesn’t. She does fine, mind you, it’s just mildly disappointing.
Talos IV is beautifully re-created, managing to evoke the broken mountainous landscape of “The Cage” while actually looking like an alien world instead of a sound stage and a matte painting with rocks strewn about. We even get the singing plants that stop singing when you touch them, a lovely callback. And the update to the Talosians’ makeup is also perfectly fine. I did notice that they avoided showing us the back of their heads, so the reason why I called them “buttheads” last week is not obvious. Having said that, they’re still buttheads for other reasons, as they exact a very nasty price from Burnham in order to get them to help sort out Spock’s mind. One of the ways in which the Talosians were impressively alien in “The Cage” and “The Menagerie” was the weird-ass makeup design, plus using male voices and female actors to play them. Twenty-first-century prosthetics make that much work not necessary, but the writing leans into the Talosians being emotional voyeurs, eager to experience life through others, that ability having atrophied in their centuries below the surface as telepaths. Remember, these guys kidnapped a whole mess of aliens for their little menagerie.
(Burnham’s setting a course to Talos only results in the computer telling her that the sector is forbidden, ditto Discovery heading there later. There’s no mention of a General Order, nor of the death penalty as a punishment for going there. This lends more credence to my theory: while Pike’s trip to that planet resulted in it being quarantined and classified, General Order #7 won’t be put into effect until after this season of Discovery, and may well be due in part to the events of this season.)
This is a superb episode, which manages to cram a great deal into its running time, without ever feeling rushed or overstuffed. We get revelations about the Red Angel, furthering the pitfalls of Culber’s resurrection, more intrigue with Section 31, revisiting Talos IV, showing us how Saru has changed since losing his fear ganglia, and finally explicating the rift between Burnham and Spock.
Speaking of Spock, we also finally get Ethan Peck really playing Spock, as opposed to just muttering a lot, and he nails it. Like Zachary Quinto before him, he’s not impersonating Leonard Nimoy, but he matches the late master’s body language and tone. I particularly like the economy of movement when he decides to escape the loony bin, calmly moving through the cell distributing neck-pinches and such.
I want to pause a second and sing the praises of Discovery‘s fight choreography, which has been stellar and suited to the people involved. The phaser fights in the Mirror Universe last season were all superlative. Georgiou’s fights all are perfectly tailored to Michelle Yeoh’s mad martial arts skillz. And the two fights in this episode each fit the participants, with Spock calmly taking his opponents down with efficiency, a minimum of fuss, and economy of movement (ditto for when Spock wordlessly forces Burnham to fly through the Talosians’ illusory singularity). Meanwhile, the Culber/Tyler fight in the mess hall is a (deliberate) mess, as Tyler tries to simply defend himself, and Culber is wild and undisciplined.
I was more than a little stunned by Saru’s response to two people fighting in the mess hall, to wit, to let them fight it out. Pike calls him on it, but gently. Saru himself points out that code of conduct regulations don’t really cover how a resurrected human should deal with confronting the human/Klingon hybrid sleeper agent who killed him. Besides, they both needed the catharsis. Pike agrees, as long as it’s a one-time thing, and he also mentions that the old Saru would never have acted that way. I have to say that I’m glad that Saru’s changes are being done subtly rather than the overt snottiness and insubordination we got in “The Sound of Thunder.” He should still be Saru, after all, but one with more confidence, and who will sometimes make mistakes. It helps having someone as subtle and magnificent as Doug Jones in the role of course…
Speaking of mistakes, Burnham, it turns out, made a doozy. The rift between an adolescent Burnham and a younger Spock came about because Burnham tries to leave home to keep Sarek and Amanda’s home safe from logic extremists who have targeted the ambassador because of the presence of humans and halfbreeds in his home. Spock doesn’t want her to go, so Burnham responds like a teenager: cursing Spock out and calling him names to get him to let her go.
As a revelation this is—okay? I guess? I mean, I can see how that would affect pre-adolescent Spock, but the fact that he still holds a grudge against Burnham about it decades later is more than a little ridiculous for someone who values logic over all. Though it does show why Spock went so far in the direction of choosing his Vulcan heritage over his human one, since his favorite human acted like a total creep to him…
Having said that, we do finally get Mount and Peck in a room together, and you see the respect and the friendship there. Pike’s loyalty to Spock has been muted by Burnham’s more familial relationship with the franchise’s most popular character. This episode reminds us quite nicely that this is a relationship between captain and officer that was deep enough for Spock to commit several crimes in order to aid Pike.
We also get a more significant look at Zombie Culber, and it’s not encouraging. Culber has the memories of Hugh Culber, but not the emotions that go with them—he knows what his favorite food is supposed to be, however he can’t summon any joy at eating it. Worse, Stamets is trying way too hard (not that you can blame him even a little bit) to bring things back to normal. Except “normal” isn’t Stamets waiting on Culber hand and foot, normal is Stamets spending way too much time in his lab. For that matter, “normal” isn’t having the guy who killed you be temporarily assigned to the same ship you’re on. (Not to mention that “normal” doesn’t usually include being resurrected from the dead.)
What’s great about the mess-hall sad-fight between Tyler and Culber is that it shows up how much alike the two of them are. Neither knows who they really are anymore. I’m really curious to see where this all goes. Star Trek has generally been dreadful at dealing with the likely psychological consequences of someone coming back from the dead (e.g., Spock following Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Uhura following “The Changeling“), and I’m glad that they’re finally rectifying that with Culber. We already saw last year that you can’t go back to the way things were, and Stamets and Culber are getting a nasty lesson in that now.
And then we find out that mysterious signals are being sent from Discovery and the spore drive has been sabotaged. Evidence points to Tyler being responsible for both, though he denies it. One assumes that Airiam—who has been compromised by the Probe From The Future—is involved. (Based on the previews, Airiam’s possession will come to a head next week, and I’m really glad they’re not stretching that out too long.)
There are still lots of questions here. Who’s the Red Angel? Who sent the probe back that is now infiltrating Airiam? Why has Spock been framed for murder? (Not that there was any doubt, but it’s nice to have formal confirmation that all Spock did was neck pinch a few folks.) How will our heroes save the galaxy? (We know they will, as we know the Trek universe is around for at least another millennium thanks to “Calypso,” not to mention Voyager‘s “Living Witness.”)
Keith R.A. DeCandido is quite sure that using footage from “The Cage” in the “previously on” segment won’t slow down most of those who insist that Discovery is in an alternate timeline, like, say, the one of the Bad Robot movies, but we can hope. Keith will be at Emerald City Comic-Con next weekend in Seattle. Find him mostly at Bard’s Tower, Booth 1121, alongside a bunch of other authors, among them Mercedes Lackey, Larry Dixon, and Jonathan Maberry, as well as the occasional bit of programming.
Directorial choices
That “previously on Star Trek” with clips from “The Cage” (1965) and the MTV-like transitions, then the cut to Pike’s face — like, WHUHHH? How are we meant to process the different film quality, costumes, Talosian makeup, and actors? I mean, audiences are already complaining that we’re supposed to take the aesthetic change on faith, and now it’s rubbed in our collective faces. It would’ve been more consistent (additional cost, but cheap relative to DSC’s movie-quality expenses) to re-shoot with new-Pike, new-Spock and new-Number One in new-quarry.
There’s a rolling camera exterior shot (the sort of thing introduced by the Abrams movies), then another rolling shot into the bridge of the Section 31 ship (dizzying!) but fortunately only one. (No turbolift-pinball this ep.)
The “workpod moving stuff around the docking bay, so there’s action in the background” seems gratuitous.
Worldbuilding and design
Confirmation that Section 31 is part of Starfleet’s command structure, since Leland and Georgiou get orders from admirals with normal livery. Interesting that it’s a group — four of them, representing the traditional four founding members of the UFP — human, Vulcan, Andorian, Tellarite.
The images of the future (Red Angel > Spock > Burnham) show several planets being destroyed, so at least we’ve avoided the “Earth is always the target” trope. Unfortunately the saga hasn’t really established distinctive looks for key planets so they’re recognizable at a glance.
The “Talos IV black hole” illusion is a look created for the movie “Interstellar” in consultation with physicist Kip Thorne (no relation).
Cameos
Brief speaking appearance by security officer Nhan.
In the background of the bridge (near Tilly) by the motorcycle-helmeted officer (not Airiam) last seen on the Shenzhou.
On the bridge by orange giant-head no-human-face XT.
By four of Reno’s “kids”, which hover into the mess to tidy the furniture after the Culber-Tyler fisticuffs.
Things that bother me
“The forests of Vulcan’s Forge”. It’s called “the forge” because it’s an exceptionally harsh desert (Memory Alpha entry).
Shuttle with a transporter, which is not a capability seen in TOS. A transporter stage (at least according to the intent of the published technical manuals) is just the tip of the iceberg, and that’s in the TNG era — you’d expect a TOS-era equivalent to be even bulkier.
By the same rationale, “the kids” are implausibly compact.
When Burnham’s shuttle returns to Discovery, its ramp unfolds in segments, rather like the gravity projector used to capture the asteroid at the start of the season.
XT characters with giant latex heads, but the rest of the body is entirely human in shape, with no differences in proportion or musculature. (That would incur the additional expense of a modified uniform.) Saru does it right, with the elongated digitigrade feet. Strangely, The Orville has featured more non-humanoid crew than has Discovery.
I’m disappointed that they didn’t keep the androgyny of the Talosians intact, or at least their physical delicacy. They were meant to be frail and thin because they’d evolved toward the mental and away from the physical.
Pet peeve: I see and hear a lot of people these days using the word “matte painting” to refer to a painted backdrop on a film/TV set. That’s not what the word means. A painted backdrop simulating a landscape is a cyclorama (while a translucent, backlit image of the sort used to simulate a cityscape or landscape through a window is called a translight). The “matte” in “matte painting” means “mask” — an image that masks part of another image to create a composite of the two. A matte painting is a painted image that expands a live-action image by having that image projected into a gap in the painting or optically/digitally composited with it in post-production. If there’s no matte (masking or image combination) involved, then it’s not a matte painting, just a painting. The Rigel fortress in “The Cage” was a matte painting, but the Talos IV landscape was a cyclorama.
@1/Philip Thorne: “That “previously on Star Trek” with clips from “The Cage” (1965) and the MTV-like transitions, then the cut to Pike’s face — like, WHUHHH? How are we meant to process the different film quality, costumes, Talosian makeup, and actors?”
Did you see Doctor Who: “Twice Upon a Time,” the 2018 New Year’s Day special? It opened in almost the same way — showing stock footage from 1966’s “The Tenth Planet” with William Hartnell as the First Doctor, then morphing him into David Bradley, who took over the role for the special, re-enacting some of Hartnell’s lines.
The way we “process” it is simply by understanding the difference between fiction and reality. This is not a documentary of real events, it’s a bunch of stories being told by actors and artists. The characters look different for the same reason that Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet doesn’t look like Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet — because this is theater, and the same parts can be played by many different actors. Why that should be hard for anyone to “process” is beyond me.
I remember The Six Million Dollar Man doing the same thing when they brought Jaime Sommers (the Bionic Woman) back from the dead to set up her spinoff. They intercut footage of Martin E. Brooks as Rudy Wells giving backstory exposition with flashback clips of Alan Oppenheimer as Rudy in the original episodes, and just expected the audience to understand that the role had been recast and not worry about it.
This episode killed, or at least horribly maimed, my pet theory that Michael ends up being the Red Angel. If the past that RA remembers — the one that leads to catastrophe, the one she’s trying to avert — includes Michael’s death, then the RA can’t be Michael. Right? Time-travel stories give me a headache.
And my one complaint about the use of Airiam here is that we don’t really know her well enough to care that she’s been co-opted by the Time Squids. She has been this alluring cypher up until now: not a redshirt, but at the same time completely free of notable personality traits or personal history. We’re not even certain what species she is, for pete’s sake, and most of the time I call her Robot Lady because I can’t remember her name. If this thread ends with her destruction, rather than her continuing presence and a better sense of the entity she’s supposed to be, I’ll be deeply disappointed, because what a waste of potential that would be.
Quoth Phillip Thorne: “How are we meant to process the different film quality, costumes, Talosian makeup, and actors?”
The same way I “process” that the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the X-Men, Thor, Iron Man, the Hulk, Daredevil, and Dr. Strange were created in the early 1960s and yet have not aged fifty-plus years in the time since. The same way I “process” that both Dick York and Dick Sargent played Darrin on Bewitched. It’s fiction, it’s not that difficult.
We’re not Thermians watching historical documents. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
My wife recently became a Star Trek fan after I received Season One of Discovery for Christmas. After insisting we watch all of it twice she wanted CBS All Access so we wouldn’t have to wait a year to watch Season Two. Since they were included we have started watching the other series as well, starting with Enterprise. (We started joking about how many episodes would pass before T’Pol got naked again. She didn’t in Season Four and the show was cancelled. Coincidence? LOL!) After we finished it I planned on skipping TOS and go directly to TNG, since even she, a new fan, had seen many of the original episodes. But before that I played the Menagerie for her, before last week’s episode, so she could see what happens to Captain Pike. So imagine our surprise when last week’s episode ends with Burnham & Spock leaving for Talos IV and then this week’s opening. She was delighted and that illustrates why I strongly disagree with #1 above. Star Trek is better when the past is acknowledged.
I too got a jolt during the first minute – I thought it was awesome.
Afterwards I also thought – there are going to be so many haters that didn’t like/get it.
C Oppenheimer: Thank you for sharing that. It made me smile almost as much as this episode did. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
For the “previously on”, quite aside from the visuals (the clips, and the transitions between them which look like nothing from Trek history, except possibly the “next time on” from the TNG era), there’s the “why?” I’m guessing somebody (showrunners or network execs providing notes) realized: “We’ve been coyly alluding to Pike’s experience on Talos three years earlier, but there’s a big segment of the audience who’ve never seen ‘The Cage’ — we’ve been trying to expand our viewership, remember? — and some of them won’t even register the allusions. Without some extra up-front attention to ‘before’ they’re not going to get the resonance of ‘after’.”
I’m curious how the other forums I follow (Trekmovie.com, etc.) perceive this (with appropriate discounting of the ad-nauseum naysayers, of course).
The “previously on Star Trek” opening was phenomenal. I was concerned that either we were going to get some kind of information dump scene in which Spock or Pike would relate the story of how they came to Talos IV and what happened there. Whoever decided to just show the “previously …” clips instead and trusted the we, the audience, could make the leap deserves major kudos. It doesn’t hurt that Anson Mount looks (and even sounds) an awful lot like Jeffrey Hunter.
I have to disagree with our esteemed reviewer about Melissa George as Vina. I thought she was phenomenal – particularly in the scene with Pike, in which we see that she knows that “her” Pike at the end of “The Cage” is illusory. Her sadness is palpable. Also, Anson Mount’s reaction to seeing Vina is the stuff Emmys would be made of if they didn’t ignore Sci-fi. I have to say, I think that it was also shrewd of the producers to keep Vina out of the previews for this one. Even with the “previously …,” I was genuinely stunned to see her walk up to the shuttle.
I initially thought it was awfully CONVEEEENIENT that the price the Talosians demanded for helping Spock was to reveal the dark secret that Burnham was holding. Then I realized that the Talosians were basically still the creepy psychic voyeur bastards they were in “The Cage.” In fact, it makes me wonder what ever happened to all the other cosmic critters they lured in after Pike left …
Ethan Peck definitely impressed me as Spock. Casting is a high point of the show in general. There were a couple moments in which Peck nailed the air of superiority that Nimoy pulled off so well in the Original Series (the crack about “greater minds than yours …” to Burnham in particular). I also liked the fact that Peck had the same sort of economy of movement that Nimoy had.
The stuff with Tyler was good enough, I guess. It feels a little too much like they’re setting him up for the Section 31 spinoff. I also feel like having Georgiou constantly boasting about all the races she’s annihilated is going to get real old, real fast. Also, I hope that the Mirror Universe Talosians just made it LOOK like she annihilated them.
In general, though, this one is definitely in my top two for this season (“New Eden” is still tops, but that might change on a rewatch).
Showing scenes from “The Cage” IMHO was also a big middle finger to all the rampant, erroneous speculation on what chards of intellectual property Disco is and isn’t allowed to use because CBS, Paramount, JJ, bs, bs, bs.
ALL OF IT! Star Trek: Discovery is now screening original series footage. Don’t EVEN tell me they HAD to change the uniforms or the Enterprise or they can or can’t use characters because of an ownership problem.