Prior to Discovery’s second season, we only knew of two specific missions of Captain Pike and the U.S.S. Enterprise. One was, of course, the journey to Talos IV that we saw in “The Cage” and the flashbacks in “The Menagerie.” The other, though, was the mission right before that one: a trip to Rigel VII that resulted in three people, including Pike’s yeoman, killed in action and Spock badly wounded (which is why Leonard Nimoy was seen limping in “The Cage”). One of the illusions the Talosians sent Pike and Vina to in “The Cage” was to Rigel VII, complete with castle and warrior armed with medieval weapons.
In “Among the Lotus Eaters,” that planet is revisited.
We get some more details on that mission to Rigel VII, including the fact that the planet is full of atmospheric disturbances thanks to a millennia-old collision of two moons. Because this is Star Trek, the debris field has other weird-ass properties, leading us to that good old standby, The Amnesia Episode!
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It feels like every genre show has done The Amnesia Episode at some point or other, including both the original series (“The Paradise Syndrome”) and Voyager (the “Workforce” two-parter), plus the Stargate franchise did it at least twice (“Beneath the Surface,” “Tabula Rasa”), and so on.
In this case, it turns out that the radiation from the debris field affects your memory, and you forget who you are. Enterprise didn’t stay on the planet long enough for the radiation to kick in the last time they were there just prior to “The Cage,” but this time they’re not so lucky.
It affects both the landing party—Pike, La’an, and M’Benga—and the people on Enterprise. In an amusing touch, Spock starts handing padds out to people with their personnel files so they can remember who they are—but one of the things everyone forgets is how to read, so the padds are useless.
Enterprise is returning to Rigel VII because a fly-by observation of the planet showed that a garden had had its grass mowed into the pattern of a Starfleet delta. Their job is to see what kind of cultural contamination happened and try to minimize it and/or get rid of it.
That proves to be quite the challenge, since the contamination is from none other than Yeoman Zac Nguyen (David Huynh), who’s not only still alive, but now the despotic ruler of the planet, having armed the locals with phaser rifles. (Why the original landing party had so many phaser rifles, and how Pike missed that they were left behind, is left as an exercise for the viewer. Pike himself says that inventorying their stuff wasn’t a priority when they were trying to get their wounded back to the ship, but that’s weak.)
The castle itself—a nice re-creation of the 1964 matte painting—is made of a material that is resistant to the radiation, as are the helmets worn by the castle guard, so Nguyen and his army are free of the amnesia.
What’s fun about this episode is twofold. One is that writers/co-executive producers Kirsten Beyer (who, full disclosure, is a friend of your humble reviewer’s) and Davy Perez understand how clinical amnesia works: you don’t forget your skills and you still have the same instincts, you just don’t remember direct information about yourself. This means that, for example, M’Benga’s instinct when he sees that La’an is hurt is to try to heal her, though he’s not entirely sure why. And also that Ortegas can still figure out how to fly the ship.
Ortegas is the other fun thing about the episode. She’s kind of our POV character for the stuff on Enterprise, starting with her enthusiasm for being on the landing party. Her piloting skills are needed to get the shuttle to the surface, but Spock’s analysis shows that those skills are even more necessary to keep Enterprise safe in orbit. Ortegas—who was especially grooving on getting to wear native clothing, particularly the hat—is massively disappointed. Melissa Navia beautifully plays both the enthusiasm and the subsequent annoyance (the angry way she puts the hat back on as she walks away from Spock is epic). Then, as the episode progresses, we see her helplessness, which much of the crew is dealing with. The best part is when she’s completely gobsmacked by the weird disembodied voice that keeps answering her questions. However, the ship’s computer is also able to provide her with the rather important information that she’s the pilot. Which is good, as she needs to be able to fly Enterprise to safety.
I particularly like the way Beyer & Perez use the phrase “I fly the ship.” At first it’s just something Ortegas says to start off her personal log by way of saying who she is. By the climax of the episode, it’s a mantra for the amnesiac Ortegas to get herself to sit at the navigation console and fly the ship. And in the end, for the pilot’s final personal log, it’s a proud declaration of her important function.
In addition, Beyer & Perez do a lovely job of showing how the culture of the Kalar, the native population, has developed when daily amnesia is part of your life. In particular, a local named Luq (Reed Birney), who helps out the landing party after they’ve been sent to mining duty, explains how the Forgetting, as they call it, is a blessing, freeing you from bad memories and awful experiences. It’s a beautiful bit of world-building, one that makes sense. Cultures adjust to their environment, after all, a truism that Star Trek rarely makes use of.
There are lots of nice touches all over this episode, starting with the costuming and set design, which is right out of the scene in “The Cage” when Pike and Vina were put in an illusion that re-created Rigel VII. When Ortegas escorts Uhura—the first person on the bridge to start losing memory—to sickbay, Number One takes over the helm, reminding Ortegas that she flew the ship before the pilot did. (In “The Cage,” Number One was serving at the helm.) And M’Benga expresses a certain bitterness over the fact that he was chosen for the landing party, not so much for his training as a physician, but for his combat skills. This is the third time this season we’ve seen M’Benga as someone experienced in hand-to-hand combat (beating up Klingons after taking the go-juice in “The Broken Circle,” establishing that he regularly spars with La’an in “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow“), but the first time we’ve seen that it’s not something he’s happy about. (It’s also a sop to the fact that Babs Olusanmokun is a black belt in jiu-jitsu.)
And we also get some fun stuff with Pike and Captain Batel. Melanie Scrofano’s fellow captain gets passed over for promotion, which both she and Pike figure is due to her not doing the job she was supposed to do when she prosecuted Number One in “Ad Astra per Aspera.” Pike feels guilty about that, blaming himself, and suggests they back off their relationship for the good of her career. She angrily walks out on him, and Number One subsequently castigates him for being an ass. After his experience on the planet (which included a gift Batel gave him before they had their spat, which Pike knew was important, even if he couldn’t remember why), he apologizes to her and they kiss and make up. Which is good, as Mount and Scrofano have excellent chemistry, and I’m fine with seeing lots and lots more of her.
Hyunh plays Nguyen’s bitterness particularly well, as he has good reason for being pissed off at Pike. A previous take on Pike’s time on the Enterprise was the Marvel comic Star Trek: Early Voyages, written by Ian Edginton & Dan Abnett, which also chronicled a version of the mission to Rigel VII in its third issue. Edginton & Abnett spent the first two issues establishing the character of Yeoman Dermot Cusack, whom Pike was very close to, who was then one of three people killed on Rigel VII, as established in “The Cage.” Amusingly, both Edginton & Abnett in that comic and Beyer & Perez here made the dead yeoman Pike referenced in “The Cage” male, even though the original series only had female yeomen (though The Undiscovered Country did present a male yeoman or two). In the case of the comic, it was likely done to explain Pike’s discomfort with a woman on the bridge, a horrid bit of 1960s sexism from “The Cage” that has aged particularly poorly (and which is nowhere in any kind of evidence in Anson Mount’s portrayal of Pike, thank goodness). Here, I’m perfectly fine with establishing that yeoman isn’t a gender-specific role and leaving it alone without comment.
My only minor problem with this episode is one that dogged season one: Number One was left in charge of the ship when the landing party headed off, but she plays almost no role in the Enterprise portions of the plot once the amnesia stuff kicks in; instead, it’s almost entirely Spock and Ortegas. We just two weeks ago spent an episode being told that she’s a great first officer, but we’ve hardly ever been shown it. I was really hoping this season would fix that flaw, but apparently not yet…
Keith R.A. DeCandido will be an author and musician guest at Shore Leave 43 this weekend at the Delta Hotel by Marriott in Hunt Valley, Maryland. (Another of the author guests is Kirsten Beyer, the co-writer of the episode reviewed above.) Keith will be doing various bits of programming, and also playing a concert with his band, Boogie Knights. In addition, he’s launching two anthologies: Double Trouble: An Anthology of Two-Fisted Team-Ups, which he co-edited and has a story in, and Sherlock Holmes: Cases by Candlelight Volume 2, which he also has a story in. There will be another cool reveal at the show as well. His entire schedule can be found here.
