star trek discovery season 4 episode 5 review

Perhaps a more nuanced character than Tarka might have made this second betrayal more emotionally impactful than it actually is. Honey, we get it, trust is a big part of both your formative culture or whatever, but there is placing your faith in concepts like trust or an honor system and then there’s straight-up idiocy. Star Trek: Discovery Needs More of Saru and T’Rina’s Sweet Flirtations By Lacy BaugherĮlsewhere, let’s take a second and pretend to be shocked that Ruon Tarka, a man who has repeatedly lied, misled, and betrayed Book and the Discovery crew has once again lied, misled, and betrayed the Discovery crew! At this point, it’s honestly getting difficult to feel a lot of sympathy for Book, who just keeps making the dumbest possible choice at every turn and trusting the wrong people. ( Discovery Season 5 request: Can we just watch this crew go around making first contact with increasingly bizarre aliens and learning about their cultures? I’m here for it.) The unique tension of trying to find a way to linearly convey with numbers both the peaceful intentions of the Discovery and her crew and the threat that the 10-C’s DMA poses to Earth and Ni’Var-it’s so incredibly dorky and so fascinating to watch unfold. Did I expect most of this long-awaited first contact to take place opposite a screen that looks like glowing cotton candy? Or that it would largely consist of a half dozen characters animatedly discussing mathematical equations and light patterns together? Not really, but this kind of thing is exactly what Star Trek does best.

Much like last week, this episode shines brightest when it’s at its absolute nerdiest.

(Plus, given budget and technological constraints, it’s probably better if we don’t see these creatures, since they would most likely have to be completely CGI.) (Sidebar: I can’t be the only person who definitely made several “All Hail the Glow Cloud” jokes in my head, can I?) And how small we, for all our own hubris about our importance in the wider universe, truly are. But, for me, the decision to shroud these creatures in mystery effectively conveys just how far removed they are from our expectations and understanding. Your mileage may vary, of course, on whether you think the way the show chooses to illustrate the 10-C as a concept-as beings whose very existence is framed as so advanced it’s something we can’t understand and whose physical forms we never even fully see-is effective from a visual or a storytelling point of view.

And the end result is an episode that manages to (also, finally) find something close to the right balance between pushing the plot forward and indulging in the sort of extremely nerdy, deeply philosophical discussions that are a big piece of why we all fell in love with Star Trek in the first place. Star Trek: Discovery Season 4 Episode 12Īfter what feels like at least half a dozen episodes of spinning its wheels on this particular plot point, Star Trek: Discovery finally introduces us all to the mysterious Unknown Species 10-C. The following contains Star Trek: Discovery spoilers.

Star trek discovery season 4 episode 5 review