User Reviews

Synopsis: The anomaly threatens an Emerald Chain asteroid colony. Starfleet goes to rescue.

They made it sound like evacuating 1206 inhabitants was a challenging task. That's like 10% the capacity of a Galaxy class. A 747 carried 1088 to safety during Operation Solomon. Heck, Discovery's turbolift shaft could easily house a million! Just Ctrl+A and beam entire houses to the shuttle bay, maybe? But then Star Trek is never really good at numbers. 43 died in Kendra Valley Massacre (Bajor). Entire planets, or races, have population of thousands. Meanwhile other Sci-Fi IPs have more realistic numbers, like populations of the order million/billion/trillion.

Somehow, Burnham created an artificial bottleneck by funneling all refugees through Discovery, limiting transport to 40 at a time, despite having a whole fleet of Federation starships on site.

Burnham, who was in charge of the evacuation while Saru would command Discovery, personally went to rescue some prisoners. Is this what leadership looks like in the future? Send Cmdr Rhys or Nilsson perhaps?

They also managed to rip off Battleship (2012)'s attack-spinning-gear-thingie (shredder drones) and put them in... landmine beetles? Creativity 120%!

Meanwhile the scientists studying the anomaly have to do it onboard Discovery during the evacuation, instead of researching it in a lab somewhere safe. They couldn't wait an hour till the evacuation's complete, and elect to do something that would threaten the whole crew to get extra power.

Also, yelling at people is good. Yelling at your commander is great! That's the moral lesson.

In the end, we do have a few reasonable story arcs: moral dilemma in the prisoner rescue, Dr. Culber's struggle, and two mad scientists running a dangerous experiment. Whether they fit together in the same episode is another story, but individually they resemble the theme of a traditional Star Trek episode. Hence I give this a 6/10, the highest score I've given in this season thus far. Let's hope the writers stay on "trek".

Star Trek Discovery suddenly remembered that they they have a central season arc. The DMA that they have declined to bother too much about in the last few episodes.

An arrogant scientist called Tarka arrives to study it. The DMA might be sentient and may also had been created by some unknown powerful race.

Stamets is at first wary of Tarka. However the latter has a hidden agenda and has a way of using people's emotions.

As for Burnham and Book. They go on a planet that is about to be destroyed to rescue prisoners that have been left to die. It seems most of them were imprisoned for life for minor crimes. The rulers of the doomed planet forgot that they will soon all be refugees.

It was notable that Rhys one of the bridge crew accompanied Burnham and Book so he can have a character moment.

A better episode this week. Only because the DMA has some interesting aspects to it. The problem about trying to be like the old Star Trek shows. That was a long form series, so you had filler episodes about Data's quest to be more like Pinocchio.

Some people liked it, I found it dull knowing the producers were biding time so they have the budget for a more action packed story.

Once again Star Trek: Discovery finds itself stuck. A shorter form big budget series that hits the brakes too often thinking exploring stories that were done over 50 years ago or over 30 years ago will excite the crowd.

Besides the occasional whispering and tearing up, this was a decent Star Trek episode.

There was humour, science stuff, banter, moral and ethical dilemma's, some new and interesting developments regarding the DMA and less focus on Burnham.

There were some heart to heart talks but they were earned and had the right length. I really enjoyed the Culber -Kovich talk, it is a natural consequence of Culbers experiences so far. I really enjoyed the Tarka-Book talk at the end too. Tarka is a strong character and a great addition to the cast this episode.

Just for the USS Janeway and the presence of Reno I'm inclined to rate this episode even higher. How I missed her snarky and sarcastic humour!

Again a snippet of backstory for a bridge member. We now know Owo is from a tribal village and can hold her breath a long time, Bryce likes to surf and Rhys was evacuated by Starfleet from a natural disaster at young age. Please keep this coming and flesh out these characters some more. One question: where were Owo and Detmer?

All in all I enjoyed this episode quite a lot and it is a step in the right direction for season 4! I have been hard on Disco these last few episodes but if continues like this last episode it might actually redeem itself.

I really liked the way michael greyeyes showed an example of how every lives matter. It really speaks about the native movement that's happened about the atrocities that happened to the native people and how today they are arrested and detained in prison for petty crimes.

I enjoyed this episode, albeit the main story (evacuate, free prisoners, time is ticking) is pretty simple it's very much Star Trek, and that is after all what I seek in this.

DMA arc story is also progressing nicely, not too impressed by the whole experiment drama (we need more power!! But but you can't have it!! But we NEED IT!! Okay fine!) but it's alright. The new science guy was interesting, and I hope he comes back in future episodes.

One weird flaw; The prison escape took place with no communication because of the prison shield, but the captain then suddenly hands over a small "phone" to the remaining prisoner allowing him to talk with her while she is in the ship... what!?

If viewers could look past their hatred of Michael Burnham, they might see that this episode presented some interesting factor. It deals with the whole business of risking it all without the permission of the all. That hotshot engineer could have destroyed the ship to prove he was right. We have the issue of arbitrary prison sentences handed down by a modern Javert, including stealing a bit of food to feed a family. Finally, we get into a person's right to make decisions about their own fate--a right to die, if you will. One of the prisoner that Miraculous Michael is rescuing (using knowledge that it would take a 100 people to know) feels his sentence is justified. He chooses to stay on the planet as it is destroyed. Booker is beside himself and when Michael makes the unpopular decision, leaves her alone. The episode is filled with moral dilemmas and that makes it just fine.

Burnham goes to rescue people on a colony and then sidetracks for 6 prisoners as the anomaly approaches. When she goes to release them they stay to negotiate and moan.

Meanwhile on the Discovery they start generating an experimental wormhole. You know, the kind of thing you'd do in the middle of an emergency evacuation.

If you removed Burnham from this episode it wouldn't be a bad star trek episode. Put Saru there or just anybody else but Mary Sue, it would be fine. But can it be for a while that she doesn't some how magically solve the problem all by herself, plus a bit of crying and whispering. How this series has matched Enterprise in the number of seasons I will never know. I don't think this series will ever be looked back upon fondly or for the rewatch value. Take Burnham out and it might just have a shot with a few people.