Weekend Trek “Choose Your Pain”

Rainn Wilson appears her as Harry Mudd, and while he doesn’t quite play the character the same way as Roger C. Carmel’s over-the-top, flamboyant take, I actually rather like the Wilson casting.  I even like the way the character is played here.

But that’s for later.

Essentially, two things happen.  The first is Lorca, returning to Discovery after a meeting with the higher-ups, is captured by the Klingons.  The second is Saru, acting as the temporary captain, realizes they need to use the spore drive to get into Klingon space, rescue the captain, and then get out again.  The second plotline has a problem:  Ripper seems to be dying the more he’s used to use the spore drive, and Saru refuses to listen to Michael or the medical officer Dr. Culber.

I want to take a minute here to point out that, in other Trek shows, we would have met all the main members of the crew in the pilot episode and they each would have been given a scene to let the audience get to know them.  The one exception there is the original series where they gave you Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and then introduced the others as needed over time because they were making it up as they went along.  Culber has appeared in a couple episodes, but this is the first time he’s ever really gotten much to do.  He’s not a fully fleshed-out character, but he sides with Michael over the treatment of Ripper while the one thing I do know about him is Stamets doesn’t want to listen to him.

The end scene reveal that Stamets and Culber are lovers who share quarters was a nice surprise.  OK, I wasn’t the slightest bit surprised Stamets was gay, but showing the two co-habiting actually explains a lot.

I also liked the development of the Saru-Burnham relationship.  Saru is really not happy with Michael, but he finally confesses that it is not fear but anger, that Burnham’s actions got Georgiou killed before Saru could ascend to the role of First Officer and learn from her the same way that Burnham did.  Saru had, earlier in the episode, asked for a list of the most decorated Starfleet officers, initially to compare himself to them, and Georgiou was on the list, alongside Robert April–a deep cut bit of Trek lore as the original captain of the Enterprise whose only previous appearance was one episode of the animated series--Jonathan Archer, and Christopher Pike.  Having Saru and Burnham patch things up, just as Saru suggests Burnham let Ripper go to save the alien thing’s life, is a very Trek sort of moment where characters famously were not allowed to do more than bicker unless you looked as DS9, and even then, Odo and Quark didn’t exactly hate each other.

But the Lorca plotline may be the better one, and not just because Harry Mudd is there being a traitorous jerk.  Instead, it has the most action.  It has Lorca, figuring out someone betrayed him, hatching an escape plan with fellow prisoner Ash Tyler, someone that their interrogator L”Rell seemed interested in.  It is rather convenient that, during the escape, Lorca and Tyler’s stolen Klingon weapons disintegrate every Klingon they shoot save L’Rell, who just gets a bad facial burn, so we will probably see her again.  But the thing is, Lorca has bad eyes.  They don’t tolerate light.  This episode reveals he could get them fixed but decides not to.  It also reveals how he got that injury:  during the war, his previous command was under attack by Klingons, and Lorca was the only survivor.  Not because he fled.  He blew up the ship to keep his crew out of a Klingon prisoner-of-war camp, and having seen the one in this episode, it is really hard to blame him.  Lorca watched his old ship explode and keeps the eyes damaged so he will never forget what happened.

That is…not the sort of thing I would expect from Star Trek, but it adds nicely to Lorca’s more multi-faceted character.  So far, he’s been a far more interesting character than, well…Michael Burnham.  Burnham is getting better, but so far, she isn’t doing much for me.

That said, if the series wants to give the spotlight to more of these characters who keep appearing in episodes with a line or two the way they did a bit with Culber here, I won’t object in the slightest.  Maybe that other crewwoman from the Shenzhou who appears to be the helmsman with that metal thing on her head.  She must be someone if Burnham addressed her by name when she first came aboard the Discovery.