The Colony

Story: Far From Home

Written By: Michelle Paradise & Jenny Lumet & Alex Kurtzman

Series: Star Trek: Discovery

Year: 2020   

 

Discovery has come through the wormhole and crash lands on a planet.  While repairs are being made to the ship by the far too recently healed Stamets (working too hard too soon after his accident in the season 2 finale) and the also pained Jett Reno...Saru and Tilly head off into this strange planet they are on to see if they can find the materials they need to make full repairs to the communications and find Burnham.  Unfortunately the planet they've landed on has been hit hard by the Burn and has been exploited for sometime by a guy who gives them supply deliveries but takes too much from them.  With the help of the sneaky Georgiou, they are able to take out this marauder guy and gain the trust and help of the colonists on this planet.  They repair the ship and are nearly able to leave the planet before it is crushed by the parasitic ice on the surface...they are almost done in when they are taken in by a tractor beam of an incoming ship.  They are saved, but they don't know the cost...but their captor is put on screen...and it's Burnham, who has been waiting a year for the ship to arrive.  

The episode has some decent moments, I probably enjoyed it more than the premiere...but I am just finding myself not enjoying it as much as I would like to. It just feels too dark and gritty and depressing.  I also relies a little too much on the action sequences for my tastes.  It isn't that action and violence can't be apart of Star Trek...that has been there in some way since the beginning.  I think what I have found so disheartening in the modern series of Trek is the reliance on fight scenes and the grim nature of that violence.  A fight scene on TOS or TNG would be pretty innocuous.  In Discovery or Picard, it seem to have such emphasis, and then it is always so dark and disturbing. It just brings me down.  I miss watching Trek for it's brighter look of the future.  It was happy and colorful, people were generally nice and the stories seemed to be about something deeper. Now it is dark and mean spirited, and people die in horrible agony...slowly.  It just bums me out.  

I started Discovery trying to always look on the positive.  That second season also started off so good, I really thought the show was heading in a direction I could love.  But it found it's tone by the end of Season 2, and it seems to have decided to live there. Picard carried it on too. And that tone just makes me sad.  It is a lot of violence and anger...it is dark, it avoids the colors of past Treks like he plague.  And the idea of a hopeful future is constantly paid lip service but never feels like it is truly a part of the universe these new shows inhabit. 

For positives, I really enjoy Jett Reno as a character.  I think Saru is a great Captain, I would be perfectly fine if the series keeps him there for the remainder of it's run. They seem to be trying to do something with Detmer, maybe I will actually get to know her character this time around.  I also hope this show just veers away from the idea that Burnham is the lead...and just lean into the cast as an ensemble.  Burnham isn't a bad character at all, but they have not yet made a compelling case for her to be the "main character" over anyone else. Not that I loved Picard, but at least there was a reason he was the lead...Burnham is just a science officer who for some reason they are building an entire show around...and in general I don't feel like she is any more interesting than most of the bridge crew I barely know.  She certainly isn't as interesting as Saru or Stamets or even Reno.  She is just fine.  So I am trying to look at this episode's focus on everyone else as a positive...that maybe the show will work towards that ensemble style. 

NEXT TIME: Disco Reunion