Warning: spoilers as much as Discovery S05E07 inside.
Playing cards on the desk: I’ll watch something if it has Star Trek within the title. Hell, I’ll fortunately watch Enterprise, which infamously ditched the franchise branding for its first two seasons in an ill-advised try and modernise. It was a bit pants – an ill-fitting prequel collection the place the ship appeared far more superior than Kirk’s and had a captain unfit to lick his boots, within the form of Quantum Leap’s good boy Scott Bakula. On the time, all of us thought Star Trek may scarcely get any worse. Oh boy.
Star Trek, very like its hyperactive youthful sibling Star Wars, has succumbed to a destiny that befalls many legacy IPs in that these in control of it are so scared of alienating its present viewers that they not often, if ever, invent new stuff. And so each new addition to the canon turns into an train in navel-gazing: the place Star Trek was once about exploring unusual new worlds, it’s now largely about Star Trek. Star Wars is much less in regards to the star conflict than it’s about the identical twelve lads kicking sand on Tatooine. New Ghostbusters is an costly eulogy for Outdated Ghostbusters. Even Physician Who has favorite variations of himself. The listing goes on.
And look, I take pleasure in all of these issues. I’m not sensible or discerning sufficient to be above one thing that trades on nostalgia, removed from it. My absolute favorite of the brand new Trek reveals is Decrease Decks, which is basically an prolonged love letter to the “Berman period” Trek I grew up with. It noodles round in that world, choosing up lengthy discarded threads whereas machine-gunning jokes at an viewers of which it assumes an excessive amount of prior information.
Discovery is not any much less troubled with the franchise’s baggage and no much less eager to roll round in it. However it’s a irritating beast. There’s a good present in there making an attempt to get out from underneath all of the wet-eyed staring, the cloying overtures, and the tedium of season-long arcs that stretch single-episode concepts over a dozen torturous hours of drip-fed algorithm fodder. In truth, this season, the final ever, has been the most effective but for minimising all that.
In earlier years Discovery has oscillated between irritating and boredom-inducing with its erratic pacing and unfixable character points – which require a number of extra articles than I wish to write to correctly talk about, however it may be summed up as Michael Burnham having a number of dozen extra likeable characters round who’re not often given something to do past wanting impressed together with her antics. However Season 5 kicks off with a uncommon deal with: a full reveal of what all of the fuss is about earlier than the primary set of credit roll.
In a small manner, it’s a disgrace that it’s the ultimate season, as a result of this reveals actual progress. We all know very early on, because of a diegetic PowerPoint presentation made up of Star Trek: The Subsequent Era stills (nevertheless that’s alleged to work), that this season is all in regards to the Progenitors. That’s, a race of latex-smooth humanoids who had an unlimited Milky Method-spanning empire within the dim and distant aeons earlier than the Federation existed, who have been as soon as revealed to have seeded the genesis of all of Star Trek’s numerous bipedal humanoid races. This occurred in an episode of The Subsequent Era known as The Chase which aired round thirty years in the past and wasn’t meant to be some type of earth-shattering revelation for the viewers: if something, it was a little bit of a joke. A refined, model of the type of jibes Decrease Decks repeatedly makes. A bit of nudge and/or wink to a savvy viewers acknowledging that every one the aliens are simply common people with rubber glued to their heads.
In these days, it wasn’t deemed essential to clarify each possible quirk and aspect of a fictional universe. Significantly not if that real-world reply boiled right down to time and finances, as this stuff invariably do. Star Trek may have fortunately continued with out ever having answered the query of how a Vulcan and a Human can produce viable offspring. It by no means wanted to clarify why Bolians, Andorians, Romulans, Bajorans, Cardassians, and Trills all have the identical variety of knees and nostrils. It actually didn’t want to clarify why Movement Image-era Klingons had Cornish pasties for foreheads, whereas within the authentic collection, they have been simply dudes lined in Ronseal – and pointedly refused to, even throughout an episode of Deep Area 9 the place each eras of Klingon ended up side-by-side in a Area Welcome Break for causes I received’t get into.
Years later, Enterprise would spend two valuable hours of its jam-packed last season arising with a silly rationalization for the Klingon discrepancy that was as pointless because it was self-indulgent, invoking Khan Noonien-Singh and Knowledge alongside the best way for good measure. As a result of by that time, the rot had set in. The whole lot had a prequel. The whole lot had an origin story. We have been at first of a pattern in media that will finish with us right here, three or 4 Borg Queens later, the place now we have a whole TV present explaining how Boba Fett survived the Sarlacc pit (was it even essential for him to outlive?) as a spin-off from the present that explains his hat.
So now, years on from explaining why Mirror Universe ships have moodier lighting, giving Part 31 its personal fleet when it’s not even alleged to have a single-ring binder, and strolling again its personal try at a Klingon redesign with lore additions that frankly make no sense, Discovery is again to resolve the thriller of the Progenitors – besides first, it has to gaslight us into accepting that there’s a thriller to resolve.
TNG’s episodic nature not often left something unresolved after an hour. The Chase’s conclusion is not any totally different. The Progenitors are revealed to be, effectively, the Progenitors. Requested and answered. Directed panspermia has been a well-liked concept in regards to the origins of life on Earth because the mid-sixties. The concept this planet was “seeded” with the genetic code to humanity as a conceit venture by another humanoid species is only one of many science-not-necessarily-fiction ideas, proposed by legit scientists and philosophers, which were folded into Star Trek’s lore. Wormholes. Antimatter. Androids which have working willies. On the time of broadcast, the existence of an ancestor race was no roughly particular than a Dyson’s Sphere, or an area probe stuffed with cryogenically frozen capitalists, or some other single-episode concept.
There was no follow-up meant, nor was it deemed essential to reveal the means by which the Progenitors achieved their galactic seeding venture – Discovery’s now fabled “Progenitor Know-how” – into a particular factor. It was a time of 22-26 episode seasons, livid competitors for advert spend, and nothing in the best way of catch-up or on-demand TV service.
Issues change, after all. The Chase is now merely Half Certainly one of a multi-episode arc of streaming TV, one wherein the Progenitor’s tech has been retconned as a factor you may wield like a weapon, versus the huge multi-discipline engineering venture you might need imagined it being. Panspermia, as a rule, proposes asteroid influence as a supply mechanism, so it’s not laborious to think about how that particular bit might be used as a Large Gun. However individuals with warp drive and transporter know-how hardly want a sensible ancestor race to clarify “hit with massive rock”, so one assumes that when this Progenitor Tech is finally revealed, it’ll be some type of summary swirly factor that magics planets to loss of life. Or life. Kind of just like the Genesis Machine, which is a factor that the Federation already has. We’ll discover out in a couple of weeks, I suppose. Name me cynical, however I’m bracing myself for underwhelment.
It appears vapid to take one thing merely reflective of a author’s Clinton-era optimism, and reverence for the likes of Carl Sagan, and switch it right into a militarised MacGuffin. One other tedious thriller field for a present that’s obsessive about them. However, you possibly can moderately argue that the Progenitors are fertile floor for fleshing out, and that the producers of Discovery are effectively inside their rights to increase and mess around with this mythology. It’s not like there was ever a particular intent to by no means refer again to it. It will most likely have been way more attention-grabbing to look at its impact at a societal stage, a diplomatic stage, a spiritual stage – however Disco has a quota of cool flips to fill, and Star Trek being a affected person present about competent individuals having conferences is a factor of the previous. So, if one squints, it’s not laborious to see why this present is the best way it’s.
No quantity of squinting can clear up the horrendous determination to smash The Breen, nevertheless. It has stripped away the mystique of a Star Trek race whose complete USP was mystique. From scant mentions on Subsequent Era to their emergence in Deep Area 9 as a significant Alpha Quadrant energy of never-nudes, canonical details about them is intentionally scarce, obscure, and contradictory. What little we have been led to grasp in regards to the Breen homeworld, for instance – that it’s frozen – was contradicted on-screen by fan-favourite Dominion schemer Weyoun, describing the planet as “fairly temperate”. Was he telling the reality? Who is aware of. If that’s the case, why does the Breen want refrigeration fits? What do they appear like underneath their helmets? Are they androids? Are all of them Carrie Fisher? Beats us, however have enjoyable discussing it on TrekBBS!
However now now we have solutions to these questions. Solutions so contorted round these contradictions that they barely make sense. Refrigeration as a type of therapeutic remedy? The Breen are gelatinous except they select to not be, which they’ve an enormous cultural stigma in opposition to? Their mysterious language being an digital distortion of sounds they apparently make with regular humanoid throats? Nothing that Discovery may have imagined to fill in these gaps would ever have stood as much as a long time of fan hypothesis, nevertheless it’s gobsmackingly poor type to make them regular Star Trek guys.
Unmasking The Breen demonstrates, for what have to be the dozenth time, that the makers of Discovery have been let free on one thing that they barely perceive the attraction of. And it’s nonetheless irritating as a result of there are glimmers of a a lot better present midst all of this.
The earlier season finale handled Star Trek’s most alien race but – aliens from the sting of the galaxy whose language was so incomprehensible that precise problem-solving needed to be accomplished by the crew to decipher it. It was most likely probably the most sensible depiction of what an actual first-contact scenario can be like. Let’s not overlook that Discovery gave us the backdoor pilot for Unusual New Worlds, which is an virtually flawless Star Trek present for the trendy age that merely wouldn’t have been potential with out Discovery’s breakout success in reviving the franchise altogether.
This season has had some barnstorming motion scenes, episodic adventures, and the addition of an ideal new character within the type of Commander Rayner who provides some much-needed battle to the obscenely schmaltzy bridge dynamic. It additionally had a kind of episodes the place they go right down to a primitive planet and find yourself getting caught up in a seemingly innocent ceremony that seems to be a sinister human sacrifice ritual. That’s correct Star Trek, that’s. They even disguised themselves by turning into rags and drawing some crap on their foreheads. Bliss. The nineties are again, baybee.
We’ve nonetheless acquired three episodes to go, so it’s not over fairly but. However whereas I’ll keep it up till the tip as a result of it’s Star Trek and I’m a mark, I received’t miss it when it’s gone – I’ve a love/hate relationship with Discovery that leans a bit closely towards the latter finish. It’s typically tedious, the artwork path is edgier than a youngster’s bed room wall, it’s stuffed with bland characters, and a few of the retcons and lore additions it has made have been completely atrocious. Vile. Bordering on cultural vandalism.
And but, it defied the ranty YouTube critics who forecast its cancellation inside one season. Then two. Then three. Then 4. A few of these individuals will probably be gloating now because the present involves a very profitable run for an costly science fiction present within the streaming period, however solely to make manner for its second of three spin-offs: a Starfleet Academy-focused present which I’ve little question will probably be basically Discovery Season 6 in follow. And I’ve to credit score it with bringing again my beloved Star Trek for a spherical of recent triumphs: a definitive ending for the TNG crew, Decrease Decks, Prodigy, and the aforementioned Unusual New Worlds have all been completely value investing in.
Sure, it’s a bit crap. However what a legacy it leaves behind. In that manner, it might be probably the most Star Trek present of all.