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4thofelevenIn which there's nothing out there.
Star Trek's done this story before, of the ship being stuck in an empty void – TNG in “Where Silence Has Lease”, Voyager in “Night” and “The Void”, just off the top of my head. But generally they relent a little, with the crew finding something else out there, either the architect of the void or some other unfortunate trapped there. Discovery chooses not to give us that relief, giving us nothing but the ship, the crew, and oblivion for the entire story, and it makes for a very atmospheric story. There's something ironically claustrophobic about the image of being trapped in a black void of nothing, and the show plays up that imagery extremely well.
I'm enjoying that even though the DMA is now known to be a constructed artefact, the stories about it are still about an undirected, incomprehensible threat. We still don't know who built it, why, and whether it's doing what it's meant to be doing or not, and what that purpose might be. It still feels more like a story about a natural disaster, not one about combating an enemy force. It would not surprise me if it turns out Species 10-C is long dead, and while this artefact may have been built by them, it is now effectively a natural disaster.
Book's really getting a chance to grow as a character, and I liked how his story played out – that while he got a chance at closure with his father, he never fully reconciled. Closure with an estranged family member shouldn't mean having to forgive or forget the reasons you were estranged in the first place, and it was good that the show recognised that Book had reasons to cut ties from his family and people, reasons that aren't nullified by their tragic fate. I also appreciated that while his injury did provide data that helped save the crew, his personal story was kept separate from that; I think a lot of earlier Trek would have tried to tie his hallucinations more directly into the main storyline.
Meanwhile, Zora continues to develop. Zora's storyline's always been interesting to see develop – the idea of Discovery's computer gaining self awareness is clearly something that's been on the writer's minds for a long time, but they've always struggled to actually do anything with it. The Short Trek “Calypso” set things going way back before season two even aired, but that's increasingly feeling like a rough draft of the final idea we're now seeing executed, and “Calypso” may well end up in the unique category of being the only episode of televised Star Trek to be rendered non-canon.
I thought it was an absolutely brilliant idea to connect Zora with Grey, with both of them being characters who have had to deal with disembodied consciousness and adapting to a new form. Discovery this season has been really good about pairing up characters who haven't had a chance to interact before, and drawing new connections between them. Zora's struggle with developing emotions very much reminded me of Data's struggle with the emotion chip in “Generations” - though Grey and Burnham seemed a lot more understanding of Zora's struggle than Picard was. And, as someone with autism, the idea of Zora struggling to deal with overwhelming sensory input and needing help to find something to focus on felt very true to life.
I do wonder – Grey's a 32nd century native, is he more comfortable with artificial intelligence than a twenty-fourth century crew? Are there other sapient ships in Starfleet in this century?
Star Trek's done this story before, of the ship being stuck in an empty void – TNG in “Where Silence Has Lease”, Voyager in “Night” and “The Void”, just off the top of my head. But generally they relent a little, with the crew finding something else out there, either the architect of the void or some other unfortunate trapped there. Discovery chooses not to give us that relief, giving us nothing but the ship, the crew, and oblivion for the entire story, and it makes for a very atmospheric story. There's something ironically claustrophobic about the image of being trapped in a black void of nothing, and the show plays up that imagery extremely well.
I'm enjoying that even though the DMA is now known to be a constructed artefact, the stories about it are still about an undirected, incomprehensible threat. We still don't know who built it, why, and whether it's doing what it's meant to be doing or not, and what that purpose might be. It still feels more like a story about a natural disaster, not one about combating an enemy force. It would not surprise me if it turns out Species 10-C is long dead, and while this artefact may have been built by them, it is now effectively a natural disaster.
Book's really getting a chance to grow as a character, and I liked how his story played out – that while he got a chance at closure with his father, he never fully reconciled. Closure with an estranged family member shouldn't mean having to forgive or forget the reasons you were estranged in the first place, and it was good that the show recognised that Book had reasons to cut ties from his family and people, reasons that aren't nullified by their tragic fate. I also appreciated that while his injury did provide data that helped save the crew, his personal story was kept separate from that; I think a lot of earlier Trek would have tried to tie his hallucinations more directly into the main storyline.
Meanwhile, Zora continues to develop. Zora's storyline's always been interesting to see develop – the idea of Discovery's computer gaining self awareness is clearly something that's been on the writer's minds for a long time, but they've always struggled to actually do anything with it. The Short Trek “Calypso” set things going way back before season two even aired, but that's increasingly feeling like a rough draft of the final idea we're now seeing executed, and “Calypso” may well end up in the unique category of being the only episode of televised Star Trek to be rendered non-canon.
I thought it was an absolutely brilliant idea to connect Zora with Grey, with both of them being characters who have had to deal with disembodied consciousness and adapting to a new form. Discovery this season has been really good about pairing up characters who haven't had a chance to interact before, and drawing new connections between them. Zora's struggle with developing emotions very much reminded me of Data's struggle with the emotion chip in “Generations” - though Grey and Burnham seemed a lot more understanding of Zora's struggle than Picard was. And, as someone with autism, the idea of Zora struggling to deal with overwhelming sensory input and needing help to find something to focus on felt very true to life.
I do wonder – Grey's a 32nd century native, is he more comfortable with artificial intelligence than a twenty-fourth century crew? Are there other sapient ships in Starfleet in this century?