Story: Context is for Kings
Michael Burnham, Starfleet's only Mutineer, is currently on a Prison ship six months after the event of the first two episodes (which ultimately served as a prologue to the rest of the series). But when the shuttle is attacked by space bugs, they are soon saved from the emergency from a Science Vessel, The Discovery...and thus we finally meet the ship of our new show's title.
On board the Discovery Burnham is clearly an outsider, as people know of her past and are a bit freaked out to see the very mutineer that put them all at war aboard their ship, particularly the Discovery's first officer, Saru.
Burnham is soon put to work by the somewhat shady Captain Lorca, who clearly gets whatever he wants and seems determined to take any risk to win the war...and one thing he wants is Burnham. So he assigns her as long as she is on the ship, and she is told to report to Lt. Staments, working on some top secret project. Burnham is suspicious of the project, believing it is probably a weapon. She does a bit of investigation to try and get to the bottom of it, and finds a bunch of fungi, which doesn't really give her all the answers.
When the Discovery's sister ship, the Glenn, has apparently lost it's entire crew during it's experiments with similar technology...and a small landing party is sent on the ship to see what it can find. Lorca sends Burnham along with his security officer, Staments, Cadet Tilly (Burnham's temporary roommate), and some red shirts...and on board they find the crew twisted up and inside out, and several dead Klingons...and then they find a crazy beast in the ship which tries to eat them all. They manage to escape, and it is revealed in the end that Lorca has a little lab where he has Gorn bones and dissected tribbles...and he has had the big beast transported and caged aboard the Discovery.
Lorca also sends the prison shuttle back on it's way, but with one less passenger, having decided to keep Burnham aboard and use her scientific abilities in the Discovery's experimental technology. Burnham refuses, not wanting any part in creating whatever weapon seemingly killed most of the crew of the Glenn...but when Lorca reveals they aren't creating any biological weapon, but a new form of space travel, the Spore drive, which can theoretically transport the ship anywhere in an instant, she decides to accept his offer. Thus setting the stage for the rest of the season.
In the end, this is essentially a second pilot to the show. The first two episodes (which were basically one extended episode really) are really a prologue to the series proper, and this is the true pilot of the series, introducing many of the main characters that will feature for the rest of the show, as well as seeing where the two main characters from the first two episodes have ended up in the six months that have passed since that story's events. It's a solid reintroduction to this new show, and sets up the concepts nicely in my view.
NEXT TIME: The Tardigrade
Written By: Gretchen J. Berg, Aaron Harberts & Craig Sweeny
Series: Star Trek: Discovery
Year: 2017Michael Burnham, Starfleet's only Mutineer, is currently on a Prison ship six months after the event of the first two episodes (which ultimately served as a prologue to the rest of the series). But when the shuttle is attacked by space bugs, they are soon saved from the emergency from a Science Vessel, The Discovery...and thus we finally meet the ship of our new show's title.
Burnham is soon put to work by the somewhat shady Captain Lorca, who clearly gets whatever he wants and seems determined to take any risk to win the war...and one thing he wants is Burnham. So he assigns her as long as she is on the ship, and she is told to report to Lt. Staments, working on some top secret project. Burnham is suspicious of the project, believing it is probably a weapon. She does a bit of investigation to try and get to the bottom of it, and finds a bunch of fungi, which doesn't really give her all the answers.
When the Discovery's sister ship, the Glenn, has apparently lost it's entire crew during it's experiments with similar technology...and a small landing party is sent on the ship to see what it can find. Lorca sends Burnham along with his security officer, Staments, Cadet Tilly (Burnham's temporary roommate), and some red shirts...and on board they find the crew twisted up and inside out, and several dead Klingons...and then they find a crazy beast in the ship which tries to eat them all. They manage to escape, and it is revealed in the end that Lorca has a little lab where he has Gorn bones and dissected tribbles...and he has had the big beast transported and caged aboard the Discovery.
Lorca also sends the prison shuttle back on it's way, but with one less passenger, having decided to keep Burnham aboard and use her scientific abilities in the Discovery's experimental technology. Burnham refuses, not wanting any part in creating whatever weapon seemingly killed most of the crew of the Glenn...but when Lorca reveals they aren't creating any biological weapon, but a new form of space travel, the Spore drive, which can theoretically transport the ship anywhere in an instant, she decides to accept his offer. Thus setting the stage for the rest of the season.
In the end, this is essentially a second pilot to the show. The first two episodes (which were basically one extended episode really) are really a prologue to the series proper, and this is the true pilot of the series, introducing many of the main characters that will feature for the rest of the show, as well as seeing where the two main characters from the first two episodes have ended up in the six months that have passed since that story's events. It's a solid reintroduction to this new show, and sets up the concepts nicely in my view.
NEXT TIME: The Tardigrade