Episode two of Star Trek Discovery season three has come out, “That Hope is You, Part
2, no, wait… Far From Home”. Huh. So let’s take a look at it shall we? There will be
spoilers that follow. Straight off the bat, this is a heavily character
focused episode centred on the rest of the crew. It spares many of the revelations that
Burnham was exposed to on her arrival a year earlier, sparing us a reiteration of lore
the audience already knows. What was presented were the elements of this universe that we
were already aware of, such as the shortage of dilithium, the reliance on couriers and
the fractured nature of Starfleet to the point where the Federation is all-but non-existent.
Honestly though, I did like this episode, but as opposed to the opener, where I went
in full of questions and had many of them answered, part two does little to advance
the plot or lore and as a result, feels comparatively underwhelming. With the benefit of hindsight,
maybe they should have spread the world-building over both of these introductory episodes,
rather than frontloading the series with a ton of exposition, as welcome as it was.
Many of the characters that were properly introduced in season two get things to do
here, a couple fall by the wayside, but it does a far better job of building the team
dynamic in one establishing episode. Watching the crew all scrambling about to get the ship
airborne again as quickly as possible did create an impression of unity and Saru continues
to develop as a leader. If he doesn’t make captain, Imma gonna riot, very quietly in
my room so as not to disturb my neighbours. But there will be a lot of tutting.
Georgiou however proves to be a wild card, answerable to no-one in her eyes, but now
without wartime Starfleet, or Section 31 to back up her authority. She puts on a brave,
psychotic face, but her power over the crew is severely limited now that Discovery is
effectively isolated, it’s crew of 88 having to rely on one another, while her attitude
pushes her to the outside. Burnham is her only tether to the Discovery, and we’ll
have to see if that will be enough to keep her cooperative, because without a doubt,
she’s right when she observes how easy it would be for her to set herself up in this
fractured future. The crew of Discovery face a similar choice
now as did the crew of Voyager when they found themselves stranded in the Delta Quadrant,
although now its centuries being the dividing line, not lightyears. That question is, do
they hold firm to their Starfleet values, in a world where arguably it doesn’t matter
and can even be a liability, or give in to the Georgiou approach which may allow them
a greater chance at surviving, but at a cost. Although I think that letting Zareh free may
come back to bite them in the ass. I didn’t get a more than villain of the week vibe from
him, but he is still alive, I just don’t really feel compelled to see him again.
Kyla Detmer is being teed up for something, at first we are to assume it’s a case of
concussion discombobulating her, but that gets cleared up by medical soon enough and
she remains visibly shaken. I’m guessing that its trauma from everything the Discovery
has endured, from the control issue, to being dumped onto a planet, to being consumed by
ice, it’s been nonstop for a couple of days. On top of this, it’s only a matter of time
before they realise just what they’ve been forced to leave behind, everything, and I
wonder if that is dawning on her. There was an odd subtitle on the Netflix version that
had the doctor talking to her apparently “telepathically”, but medical officer’s mouth was moving and
it sounded more muffled than psychic so I wonder if this is a miss-subtitling as has
happened before with the Netflix versions. Let me know if you saw an alternate as of
right now, I’m writing this bit off as an error.
Speaking of sickbay, it was warming to see Culber once again and the introduction shot
of Stamets in awakening from the coma was creatively done, the isolation of his self
being suddenly washed in the flurry of activity. There was a lot of that in this episode too,
playing with sound and camera work and it worked for me as opposed to it being distracting
like last episode. And I do like me a good Starship crash.
The Stamets-Reno scenes were fun, with their sparring dialogue, although some of the references
or barbs did pass me by, not going to lie. The fact that the two responsible for keeping
the ship in working order are themselves hanging by a thread is reflective of the rough time
the crew has been having. We have Stamets putting on a brave face and trying to ignore
his injuries clashing with Reno’s sarcastic levity she uses for both defence and to goad
him into taking rational action. But they’re as stubborn as each other so naturally neither
back down. Ultimately their sacrifice is worth it, repairing the EPS damage that was interrupting
the grid and getting the ship into the air just in time to be rescued by whatever vessel
Burnham now finds herself aboard. Which does raise a valid point that the crew could have
chosen to sit on their hands the whole episode and they’d have been rescued anyway. Although
now at least, they have allies with the Coridans. Tilly is brought along and is as endearing
as normal, but is basically more Sylvia Tilly. She does show some courage in facing the unknown
hostile situations Saru and she encounter though, and I look forwards to seeing her
character grow further as I feel it’s about time that she begins to forge her own path.
I’m ready to see her be more than just the injected comedic tone, by all means, keep
these charming qualities, they’re a part of her, but I would like this develop more
confidence in her and her abilities. Here’s hoping this series provides.
The Coridan mining colony that we see is frustratingly is not given a location. But fine, but the
Coridanites were encountered by Starfleet in 2151 by the Enterprise NX-01 it was good
to see a recurring species. The planet itself plays host to a type of
environment hazard that they term parasitic ice, which suggests it is alive in some limit
fashion. This makes me wonder then, if the elevated chunks of rock are deliberate, a
way for colonists to avoid walking on the dangerous surface, as there was a lot of buildings
grafted to the base of these floating rocks with only the mining equipment on the ground
level. From orbit, it looked like an entire segment of the crust had been blasted into
orbit, a long while ago too, judging by the growth over the scarred land.
We get the emergence of a new language, one that Saru doesn’t recognise (which is saying
something) so presumably its one that evolved in the 930 interim, called Pidgin, which in
reality is a grammatically simplified mashup language devised as a common basis for communication.
So I guess this is something similar. However, the term V’draysh comes up again when referring
to Starfleet, the same term that was applied to the organisation when Control had usurped
the entire Federation and used to enact its genocide. At least that future never came
to pass. I haven’t seen a preview for the next episode,
but I imagine it will be getting the Discovery crew back up to speed with this new time,
but I do wonder how much progress the Federation has made in its restoration if any in the
year since part one. Overall though, this episode, with its Wild
West ‘town-under-someone-else’s-heel’ feel did little to add to the overall narrative,
but may have been setup for things to come and it was a chance to reintroduce the characters.
Enjoyable and slower paced than the opener, but it’s what comes after that I’m really
interested in as the crew didn’t really have time to come to terms with their situation
in this episode. What do you think? I’m certain some are not going to have fully considered
what jumping out of their time would entail. Thanks for watching my impressions and review
of episode two, I’ll see you maybe next time for another one and until then, I’ve
been Ric, thanks again and goodbye!