So the finale of Star Trek Discovery is upon us, “That Hope is You, Part 2”. I’m
Ric and Spoilers ahead for this episode review, this one was over an hour long so let’s
get stuck in. But as a finale, however, this episode was very mixed. I like it, but strange
choices kept pulling me out of the moment. I’ll start by looking into the sections
on the Dilithum planet with Su’Kal before we delve into the scenes aboard the Discovery
but I’ll start off by saying there were few surprises this time, with the big curve
ball being thrown in the last episode. There were some annoyances that bugged me just as
much now as they did back then, but I’ll address them when I get to them.
Beginning with the deteriorating dilithium planet and the stranded crew. The welts formed
by the radiation looked pretty painful, not gonna lie and the degradation of the hologrid
made for a sense of peril as time ran out. In regards to the failing holodeck, I liked
how the edges of the program were frayed, resulting in these little cubes of corrupt
data floating about. I am curious as to how the holograms recognised Grey as a separate
entity and projected a holographic form around him, but we’ve seen that these holograms
can even create illusionary senses, such as Saru feeling although he was walking as a
human would, and the burying of their equipment under the projected clothes. Without more
exploration of this tech, I can’t really criticise the feasibility of it. That and
it’s… you know, made up Trek stuff. But I think the point was to anchor Grey for Culber,
who has never met this person, He believed Adira, but now here’s undeniable proof that
Grey’s consciousness is separated and behaving in a very un-Trill like form. A mystery and
puzzle to be tackled in the future. As the elder explained last episode, Su’Kal
is going to have to confront his fear, which is of course, the sudden return of reality
into his safe fantasy realm. I think the irony here is that his holodeck is nowhere near
as safe as it used to be anyway, especially with the addition of the fairy tale monster.
Saru’s very careful delivery of information was a good way to ground Su’Kal, making
him question things out of curiosity and easing him into the revelation.
It seems obvious in hindsight, but didn’t occur to me that the door through which the
kelp creature was captive housed the holodeck controls, and more than that, the dead bodies
of the Khi’eth crew including Dr Issa. Young Su’Kal literally saw his mother die of radiation
poisoning which in turn cause his outburst. So. The cause of the Burn is speculated on
by Culber. He comes to the conclusion that the audible cry of Su’Kal has a subspace
frequency to it which interacted with the surrounding dilithium and caused the Burn
wave to propagate throughout subspace. I wish they’d focused on this a bit more, as they
do make it clear that taking him away from the planet will nullify the chance of another
Burn, so clearly Su’Kal isn’t the source of power behind the wave. A galaxy spanning
wave being emanated from a Su’Kal by himself is a bit of stretch to say the least, so I’m
glad some hints were dropped that it was his ability combined with the planet itself, but
as a nit-pick, I’d like to have seen more on this.
Touching on the Discovery side of things now and that is certainly where the action is.
Osyrra goes back to being full on bad guy this time, even choking out Aurellio, which
seems a hell of a reversal to their earlier discussions, I clearly have completely misunderstood
their level of friendship, feigned or no, but I guess it’s a very quick way of illustrating
that she’s a pretty irredeemable character, I would have thought there’d be more scenes
of him attempting to sway her, even if she ultimately rejects him, but there wasn’t
even a hint of remorse. The rest of the command crew gets a lot to
do here and Owosekun proved to be the surprising star of the show. We already knew from season
2 that she grew up on a luddite colony, but apparently that included freediving in underwater
caves, leading her to be able to hold her breath for up to 10 minutes. I’m going to
assume this was without actually swimming because that enters into world record territory
for static apnea. Of course if she could oxygenate her blood beforehand, which a luddite colony
probably wouldn’t do, you can get up to anywhere between 12 to 24 minutes before you
need to breathe. But all this is again, without moving much, so kind of irrelevant right now.
Point is, she can fare better on low-oxygen than the others and is therefore the key to
saving the ship. I said it before, but it still holds true, I really enjoy it when we
get background on these characters and they get the limelight for a while, it makes me
care about them and I was rooting for their survival.
I was wondering however, how the hell were they going to get to the nacelles, considering
there was a point made about how they were now detached from the secondary hull and the
transporters were down, but it looks like they are actually connected again when at
warp speeds. However, as for things that make no logistical sense…
The turbolift fight scenes were really cinematic and cool to watch. But I really, really do
not like how cavernous and empty they make Discovery look. All this empty space with
turbo lifts flying through it is just ridiculous and makes the ship look like the size of a
Starbase. This sort of scale really breaks my immersion in the world as there’s no
real reason for it, especially on a space ship where space is a commodity, no matter
what era you’re in. It made for an epic couple of fight scenes but the sheer lunacy
of this layout still bugs me. Speaking of cool scenes, the warp core explosion
was sweet. I like a good core breach, and I enjoyed it as the victory boom it was, safe
in the knowledge that the USS Discovery was completely fine. They weren’t going to kill
off the full crew, despite rumours that they’d be on a new ship come season 4.
However, what was the point of the D.O.Ts? The cliff-hanger for last episode had the
sphere data present itself in the droids, then they did nothing drag Owo to safety.
Wouldn’t they have been the perfect foil to combat the life support shutoff? Again,
there role seemed tacked on and could easily have been replaced.
So Burnham gets command of the Discovery at the end of it all, which was frankly expected,
I feel. Vance makes a speech to her about how he is glad that her way of doing things
worked out, despite it not being the proper way. This a sentiment is very much reflected
in TNG era crews when they look back to the 23rd century ships, there’s a line from
Janeway about the TOS era, that people like Kirk “had to bend the rules a little”
and “would be booted out of Starfleet today.” And this episode did a lot to try to emphasise
that Burnham, and the crew of Discovery are very much from that time, with Michael even
indirectly quoting Kirk with his philosophy on “No-Win scenarios.” What has worked
for Starfleet, has done well to maintain it in its dire times, but it needed a shake up
to get things moving again, and for this Vance seems equal parts grateful and surprised.
Honestly, if the writers had put Burnham in the command chair at any point prior to this,
I would have thought it unearned, but season three did a lot to develop her character in
a clear way that has improved it loads. So I’m alright with this choice, although I’m
curious to see where Tilly goes now, I assume she’s still the acting X.O, but when Saru
returns, what then? Will he be demoted to commander again as his captaincy was in actuality
self-appointed by the crew and not officialised? I hope he remains a captain, even if that
means he gets his own vessel, but it would be strange to see a Discovery without him
in that case. When it all wraps up with Burnham accepting
captaincy of the Discovery, I was happy to see them all change over to the 32nd century
uniforms and I’m eager to see what exploration in this era looks like as Starfleet and the
Federation rebuilds. Did anyone else get the feeling that Admiral
Vance’s family is long dead? The evasive way he answered Burnham’s inquiry about
it very much had a note of regret to it and we had that line from him earlier to Stamets
about how he understands exactly what he’s asking Stamets to give up in regards to Hugh.
Hrm. Speaking of Stamets, there wasn’t much time
in the closing montages to have a scene between Burnham and him, but there is definitely unresolved
issues here from those glances at the end. The way Stamets was treated in the last two
episodes has been horrid. Necessary yes, because he was a security risk, but now he’s no
longer needed as part of the ship to fly it, coupled with his treatment at the hands of
Michael and Vance, I wouldn’t be surprised if he has serious doubts about staying in
Starfleet. We end off with a quote from Roddenberry about
how connections are important among people, which was the apparent theme of this season
since early on, and throughout season 3, this has been an identifiable constant, seldom
muddied or lost, not to mention a very Trek like core message, far more consistently displayed
than in the past. With that, Discovery season three is done.
Let me know if you’d want a full series overview or something similar, but in short,
this has been the best series of Discovery so far, which admittedly isn’t a high bar,
but after the course correction season two attempted, at least this one made clear that
it’s found its footing. I could harp on about how much series one damaged continuity
and so forth, but it’s all been said before and what’s done is done. Series three was
the first one where I was going into every episode with less apprehension and if it continues
to follow this trend, I’m glad. So thanks for watching my reviews, I’ve
been Ric and I’ll find something else to fill the Sunday slot with. Until then, thanks
again for watching and I’ll see you later. Goodbye!