Following a montage of at least a full minute of every member of the bridge crew's facial expressions we finally get to the best bit of this episode: Culber, Saru and Burnham beam down to the Khi'eth and appear as different alien species: Culber has become Bajoran, Burnham is a Trill, but Saru is human - so we get to see Doug Jones minus makeup! (Image credit: CBS All Access)Īs the away team readies itself, Culber explains they must take radiation meds in order to remain safely on the Khi'eth and as soon as the Discovery's shields are back up to full strength, it will return for them. There's no adequate reason why Saru should appear human, but it's fun to see Doug Jones for real. Moreover, more often than not, any surprise in a scene is given away in advance by the incidental music that's already accompanying it. It tends to drown any dramatic scene and there's little noticeable variation other than different orchestral arrangements of the main theme. One of the consistent flaws with this season has been the music, surprisingly.
It's an attempt to bring a tiny bit of small scale, real world, relatable dialogue to this episode and for the most part, it works as Burnham explains how there's a tiny metal burr under the left armrest of the captain's chair that's basically leftover from original construction and whenever Georgiou would get into a sticky situation, she would press on it with her thumb to "stay in the moment." Burnham gives Tilly a pep talk before her big debut as second in command. Culber (Wilson Cruz) about his partner going on the away mission and Culber gives some poorly written reasoning about how lost he was when he came back from the dead.
Surely, this is purely for the sake of potential friction and even just personal growth on Saru's part and not a set up for Burnham to eventually become captain? Either way, it feels slapdash, like so much of this season of "Discovery." We sincerely hope that Burnham isn't about to go through another significant personality change following the five-second "You're meant for more than this" conversation with Georgiou before she stepped through the Guardian's space/time portal last week. And if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black, well then I'm a sentient sponge pudding from Ceti Alpha VI. (Image credit: CBS All Access)Īnd then we have a strange scene emerging from sickbay, Burnham tells Book that she's worried about Saru - she's not sure if he can be objective and how he'll handle it if he has to make a hard call. We see his ship do that "Transformer" thing, which really makes no sense and we're still amazed that if the technology exists to allow his ship to disassemble into different sections, remaining in close proximity, continue to fly in formation then reassemble into the same, original shape whilst retaining hull integrity and without losing full operational control, then surely the technology should exist to make the flight controls thought controlled by now.Ī planet made almost entirely of dilithium? That'll certainly help the Federation get back on its feet. However, Discovery cannot penetrate far enough into the nebula without risking a collapse of its shields from the ionizing radiation storm, so Book (David Ajala) suggests that he take his ship into the storm to find a safe position where the Discovery can remain. And so the Discovery sets course immediately for the Verubin nebula. Issa is not the survivor: the marks on her forehead observed from the holographic message were not caused by radiation poisoning as first thought, but an indication that she was pregnant. Captain Saru (Doug Jones) deduces that Dr. Gray (Ian Alexander) finally makes an appearance to Adira (Blu del Barrio), so they finally get a chance to talk some things through, and Lieutenant Stamets (Anthony Rapp) is alerted to the fact that their analysis of the KSF Khi'eth data has revealed a life sign. We pick up right where we left off last week with Georgiou's wake in the mess hall.