LizstarTrek - Discovery Season 3 episodes 1 - 5

Every Sunday my Twitch subs and I watch Star Trek in my Discord. Here are my reviews and thoughts on each of the episodes as I see it. If you’re curious about a nerd’s views on Star Trek episodes, please read on, I go quite in depth with some of these episodes! I’ve watched some Star Trek before but not all of it!

I know literally nothing about Discovery, except for The Burn, and that it leads into Strange New Worlds. So uh… I’ve been dreading this one. But hey, who knows! Maybe it’ll surprise me!!

It has not so far.

That Hope Is You Part 1 - DIS 4.5/10

Already with this shit. Michael sure is the Special Boy, isn’t she?

We start with a weird scene of some guy scanning for signals every day of his life. Looks like a miserable life, dog. You know, when we used SETI, we had it running while we played Diablo 2. You could try that?

We’re introduced to a new character, his name is Book. As soon as we saw him Neli went “Oh hello new love interest”. Yeah, probably. I mean, we can’t have whatever his fucking name is anymore. Thank God. Maybe I’ll like this guy better. Anyways, Michael spins out of time travel and crash lands on some planet. She also vomits on screen. Great, thanks for that. She uses the suit and finds out that yes, turns out organic life ISN’T extinct in the future, so we won. Whoopie. I mean, we woulda won anyway, the evil AI was killed. Then she blows the suit up. What? Why???

She meets Booker, who she accidentally knocked out of the sky. They have a scuffle, he’s kind of a dick to her, refuses to listens her. Mocks her and treats her like crap. Oh goodie, I’m… real excited to meet this guy and have him forced into a relationship with the main character down the road. Michael ends up PLEADING for him to help her, so he finally does. He DOES have a cat though, which helps.

We learn a few things. 1) The Federation is no more. 2) Something called The Burn caused all Dilithium to just explode.

Michael reacts to this the same way she reacts to everything. By looking like she’s about to cry. They go to a place to trade some of her old tech, and then Book robs her, betrays her, and leaves her with the cops of this trade place.

The cops spray stuff in her face that makes her tweak out and tell them everything. Then while she’s tweaked the fuck out, she teams up with Book, AGAIN, and fights the cops AND the guy chasing Book. Uh… okay. The guy chasing Book is like “Can I shoot her? I wanna shoot her” WHY? SHE DIDN’T DO ANYTHING TO YOU??

Also it’s future, everyone has super futuristic guns. They’re MEga Man Blasters that makes people explode. Michael kills a LOT of Andorians. Michael punches Book THREE times in this sequence. After they escape, he does some weird magic thing to the water and heals Michael’s wounds. Also he’s shirtless, cause hot guy. He IS quite attractive, at least. He finally lets her use his communications, and she just… goes “DISCOVERY, COME IN”. Uh. Like, is she just broadcasting that to everyone??

The authorities catch up to them. They seem to know EXACTLY what he’s hauling, and then for some reason are still caught off guard when the giant worm thing eats them all. Her name is Molly. Michael and Book get a connection as they deliver Molly to a sanctuary where she can live in peace. Man, if only you had explained this all earlier, you didn’t need to be a weird asshole at first. After delivering the worm, Book shows Michael to a Federation station, one of the few that apparently still exist. He doesn’t help her at all. He’s the dude from the intro, and he’s like “God I’ve been hoping I could do SOMETHING for Starfleet so I’ve just been sitting here being useless for 40 years. Thanks for at least asking me to do something”. Damn dog. That’s…. sad. She gives him a reason to exist though by asking him to keep looking for her ship. Whoo, what a… triumphant moment. Book is just sitting there in the background watching.

This was… FINE if you look at it from a completely different perspective. Like, if you pretend it’s a new Sci-Fi series. It’s… more Star Warsian than Trekky, in many ways. Like, honestly, that’s how Discovery has ALWAYS been. I have nothing against adding new things, but it’s… a lot. And I haven’t even BEGUN to shit on the Burn as much as I should be.

Far From Home - DIS 5.5/10

…NOT That Hope Is You Part 2???? Weird.

We start with Discovery blasting through the wormhole and crash landing on some icy planet. Clearly not Terralysium like they planned. Some people are injured, but the goal right now is stability. They need to make sure the ship is livable, and get scanners up.

Okay, I’ve had some comments and complaints about Stammets and Culbur’s relationship. It’s been a lot of saying they’re in love but not really actually showing it or making it feel real, but they have a REALLY good scene here, it’s cute. Culber gives him a shot. “Ow! Are you punishing me?” “Yes. Also, I love you!” That’s adorable.

Georgiou is being shitty and awful, pushing for them to do awful illegal shit so they do it faster. …We are seperate from starfleet command, why are we still allowing her to be around? Lock her the fuck up. No one likes her and she’s extremely insubordinate. Why is she still here??? She’s a fucking tumor hanging onto us from the mistakes of the first season. Which is a REAL shame cause Michelle Yeoh is fantastic. Very bad use of your Michelle Yeoh.

Tilly and Saru go out and find some miners who are SUPER skittish but willing to help after they offer them some dilithium. We find out WHY they’re so skittish.

There’s a guy named Zareh, he’s their courier. He’s been abusing them and stealing their shit. He violently kills the guy who was offering to help them. Oh goodie. They hold REALLY long on him bleeding out the eyes and struggling as he dies. Wow they uh… they’re still like this, huh? They’re STILL doing this. We also learn the ice they crashed on is… “parasitic”, whatever that means, and will crash the hull.

Okay, I DID say they were wasting their Michelle Yeoh, but they are doing one thing well… letting her get into a bunch of fight scenes. She and Saru beat the shit out of the thugs and capture Zareh, but now it’s night time, and the Discovery is gonna be crushed under the ice. They let Zareh live, actually, and he is exiled to the frozen wastes in the middle of the night. That might be…. worse than death actually. I’m sure this won’t bite us in the ass. Anyways, the miners give them a personal transporter and they make it back to their ship safe and sound, as Stamets injurs himself to fix the ship. Stamets injurs himself a LOT in this show.

They try and lift off, but are captured in a tractor beam… by Michael! She contacts them and looks like she’s gonna cry, which is 80% of her emotions, as she tells them it’s been a year since she got there, and then the end.

People of Earth - DIS 6.5/10

Michael has been a courier for the past year, with Book. But now she’s reunited with her friends and family. So now I guess it’s time to find out what we’re doing here in the future. Also Michael has a new hair style :D She DOES look good.

We also finally, FINALLY get Saru as Captain. About damn time. We were teasing that for 2 fucking seasons. I can’t help but feel it’s a stopgap. We’re gonna get Michael as captain by the end of this show.

We get lots of scenes of people meeting people and/or re-meeting people. Tilly and Michael hugging it out. Book meeting Georgiou. Why is she NOT SEALED IN CARBONITE?! We also get a lot of people being like “why is Michael still here? She’s clearly not feeling it” even though that’s not coming through her acting at all. Show, not tell.

This quote is literally modern Trek personified.

They get to Earth and are IMMEDIATELY taken into custody by some Earth Defense Force that’s like “oh you’re clearly pirates. Please wait to be inspected.” They get inspected, and it SEEMS fine. But there’s no Federation here. Earth hasn’t been part of the Federation in years. They’re VERY standoffish, and rude. Michael got a message from an Admiral Tal that came out 17 years ago about Federation on Earth, buuuuut that guy died two years ago, and no one knows where the Federation’s HQ actually is now.

Some raiders show up and cause problems. Also, there’s a teen genius type character who seems to sabatoge the ship so that no one can beam off it. Also everyone keeps misgendering them, if what I know about this character is true. Michael does some kind of maneuver and captures the raider’s captain. They force the EDF captain and the raider captain to talk. The raider’s like “they just hoarde dilithium while people out here suffer!” “Well they’re mean and don’t like us being fascists >:(“ Uh okay. The bluster also goes out of the EDF’s sails when she finds out the raiders are Human. “Oh no, I didn’t know I was hurting another Human!” I don’t like the EDF.

We learn who this teen genius is. Their name is Adira Tal, the kid of the admiral who disappeared. They’re been looking to a Starfleet vessel for ages, and just sabatoged the ship specifically so they could stay here a little longer to see if they could trust them. Turns out actually, twist, they are NOT the kid of Admiral Tal. They ARE Admiral Tal. Kind of. They’re Human, but they have a symbiont in them. Weird, but technically we’ve seen that can work, kind of. They ask to stay, which of course we allow.

To trade the new character, we get rid of an old one. Book stays behind, he’s not joining the team. Michael seems a way about this. Anyways, we have our goal. They need to find the pockets of where the Federation is, and help reform it to its former glory.

As the usual joke goes, this is like if a cog was transported to the modern day and attempted to reform the Holy Roman Empire. It’s a LITTLE silly. It’s not quite a fair comparison.

If I’m being fair? I do like this more. As a plot, it’s… interesting. And it can do some cool fun stuff. I DO like “this lost fallen symbol of unity and peace in a wartorn post apocalypse, but we have to live up to its standard and help people”. It’s unique and I like it. But I think the Burn is dumb as hell, and I don’t like that it’s just the Canon now.

Also some characters are fun. It IS weird that our three best characters are now all engineers. You shoulda spread those out.

Forget Me Not - DIS 6/10

Their best thread is Adira Tal, the human with a symbiont in them. But they have no memories. So either we go digging in their hypocampus, bad, or we go to Trill and ask them for help. Obviously we do that. The Trill are like “holy SHIT, Federation?! Uh, yeah, come on down, we’ll help the symbiont, of course.” Ohhh please don’t fuck this up.

Meanwhile, Stamets is having a moment. Saru asks him to PLEASE try and come up with a way to jump that doesn’t involve him, cause if something happens to him again (like being hit with a spike and going into a coma for example, which happened), they are fffffucked. He is not happy about this. He was trying to do that for DECADES.

We got A and B plots :o in the A plot, Michael and Adira are going to Trill, and are treated like Adira is an abomination. Oh great. In our B plot, everyone is stressed and Saru needs a way to get them to come together. Uh, trust falls? Also for some reason the computer starts freaking out and acting weird. Not… MALICIOUS, just weird.

“The Burn decimated our numbers, and now there are barely any Trill who can be joined.” Um. DS9 proved that’s fucking bullshit, like 50% of Trill can be hosts. Yes, that was a secret, but it’s been a thousand years. The leaders want them off the planet cause they’re a freak. But someone leads them to the caves, hoping they can save the Trill.

Saru throws a chill dinner to bring the crew together. He invites Georgiou for some reason. I don’t think that will help the vibes. Honestly I expect the communion with ancient Trill in a hostile environment to go smoother.

Also, remember Detmer? She’s… being REALLY weird. They’re doing Haikus and she does one about Stamet’s blood. Jesus christ. Yes, it does in fact, not end well.

Adira goes into the pools and then for some reason gets DRAGGED INTO TRILL SPACE UNDER THE POOL. Just… not in the physical realm. They send Michael in there to get her out. Luckily Michael is the best at everything and helps Adira realize the Symbiont is trying to help her, even though it feels scary and weird. Man, imagine if this was a character moment where Adira figures it out herself. No, we need Burnham to fix everything.

Anyways, we learn more about Adira. Adira had a boyfriend, Gray, who was an unjoined Trill but was about to become joined. Also, Gray appears to be trans, which is neat. We see scenes of them being all in love and shit, but it keeps getting interrupted by Adira being like “NO I DON’T WANNA REMEMBER, IT’S BAD” and Michael keeps pushing them “NO YOU HAVE TO SO THE SHOW CAN HAPPEN”. Shut up, stop interrupting us and show us how Gray died.

Gray dies in an accident, and Adira takes the Symbiont to keep some part of them alive. Yeah, that’s… about what was obvious, but okay.

We get Adira finally connecting with their previous hosts, and Tal accepting her. They move past their traumatic block, and grow… and also Michael is there! Why is she there? Why???

The Trill leaders apologize for being awful, and are like “okay maybe we’ll rejoin the Federation if that ever becomes a thing again”. We’re gonna be doing that for all of the different planets I guess, right?

And yes, the dinner didn’t go well, but Tilly and Stamets make up! Stamets gets his head out of his ass and apologizes for not telling Tilly how important she is to him as his little scrimblo. Meanwhile, Detmer goes to therapy, which she CLEARLY needs, and the crew all reconnects by watching a movie together. Holy shit. Watching the crew just interact and watch movie night is nice…

We were complaining earlier, why the fuck does no one in modern Trek have hobbies? Just watching them watch movies is a good start. I dunno why they’re laughing so hard at the black and white movie but whatever. Maybe they’ve just never seen a movie before.

The episode ends with Adira having a mind date with their old trill boyfriend, who is now in their mind.

Die Trying - DIS 3/10

We reach Starfleet HQ, and we see what Federation ships look like in the new modern day. They are… a design choice. Neli, my partner in watching Trek, is a HUGE ship design nerd, and spent this entire time complaining about the ship designs. I don’t relaly have that bug so they’ve always looked okay to me, I guess.

Saru, Michael, and Tal go to HQ and meet our new Admiral. His name is Admiral Charles Vance, and he is agressively hot. I am EXTREMELY normal about him. God I love being a bisexual mess. I don’t really trust him though, cause he is, in fact, a Starfleet Admiral. And you can’t trust any of them. He is also quick to take over Discovery, kick Saru and Michael out of this. They’re breaking everyone up, and retrofitting the Discovery. People can be moved anywhere, based on their whims.

We get lots of scenes of them being interrogated by AI about all of this. Everyone is kind of…. blown away by whatever the fuck Discovery is.

We also meet this guy who quietly watches Georgiou. I’m sure he’s important. He looks like he’s generated by AI, but that’s just what Cronenberg looks like tbh. They end up having conversations about Terrans. That’s fun. I like Cronenberg.

What basically transpires is Michael going “You have a problem we can fix it.” “No.” “Yes.” “No.” “Yes.” “No, and stop being insubordinate.” “Yes.” “Okay.”

We get an away team mission where they need to go on a seed vault ship and collect some plants. Culber gets to go on an away mission, yay! Nhan is here too. The ship is a little scary, with holographic logs playing in loop. They also hint that something Bad happened. The guy in charge of the ship froze his kids, who were dying of a disease, and then seems to have disconnected from reality, phasing in and out of existence. This guy is actually one of Nhan’s species, and after they fix his phasing problem, they need to get his help to get the seeds they want.

According to Nhan, their species doesn’t view death the same way, and even though his family is actually dead, he hasn’t fully accepted it. Nhan tries to ask him for their help so they can save other families, he ignores her. Culber is like “only you can do it Michael”, so she says the EXACT same thing Nhan did, but decides to help them instead.

….

Like, we’re not just making up the Michael Is The Special Boy joke, right? It’s EXTREMELY distracting. WHY DID SHE HAVE TO BE THE ONE TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM? SHE JUST DID THE SAME THING NHAN DID BUT HAD LESS OF A CONNECTION. LET OTHER CHARACTERS HAVE CHARACTER MOMENTS.

The guy decides to stay and die with his family, which is weird but okay. It’s his choice. Oh wait no, Michael is forcing him to go and get healed instead. Uh… sure. Nhan decides she’ll stay instead, so that his family gets a proper burial, and so she can see her home planet again. Uh… okay, bye Nhan. But not before she strokes Michael’s ego, like “you’ve ascended to something special, Michael.” YES WE KNOW, SHE IS THE SPECIAL BOY. PLEASE.

It’s a tearful goodbye for Nhan, who was barely consequential for any episodes. I only remembered her name cause I looked it up. Whoops. Her character trait is she can’t stay in one place, cause she was from Enterprise, then decided “no I’ll go to the future with my NEW family, Discovery” then in just a few episodes went “actually no I’ll be on this ship of the dead for a while”.

The mission is a success. And with MICHAEL GIVING ONE LAST SPEECH FOR “YES”, the Admiral decides “okay fine we can accept you now.” Cool.

We also get some hints about a melody being important, and Georgiou is acting weird, being frozen in the hall, as people just walk past her, except Michael who stops to ask if she’s okay. Usually I’d say it’s weird the crew doesn’t care, but it’s Georgiou.

I didn’t like this one as much.