‘Discovery’ watch – my thoughts and reactions – Part 6: Into the Forrest I Go

Mid-seasons are one of the worst media related things to come out of American TV, and yet they exist for some bizarre reason.
We reach the mid-season finale of Star Trek: Discovery. The stage was set from last week’s confusing episode. This time Saru’s character says the ‘last time in Star Trek: Discovery‘ instead of Lorca.
There’s been an interesting theory floating the Internet. The actor who plays Voq,  Javid Iqbal, doesn’t actually exist, and Voq was played by Tyler’s actor, Shazad Latif – and that the characters are actually the same, that Voq disguised himself as Tyler to infiltrate the Discovery. It’s a very interesting theory, given weight by the fact no one has apparently ever seen Iqbal, his picture is nowhere online, in no publicity photos apart from in costume, Voq disappeared the same time as Tyler appeared, Tyler claims he only survived because L’Rell liked him, and his only IMDb credits are for Star Trek. It’ll be cool to see if it’s actually true in this episode as it’s the kind of dedication to plot twists I like from a production team

We open with Lorca and the Vulcan admiral arguing over whether Discovery is to abandon the planet and its inhabitants. Lorca obviously wants to stay and fight, but the admiral doesn’t believe the Discovery is worth losing, and wants them to retreat to Federation space. Lorca pragmatically warps back to the base instead of jumping, telling his crew if they can figure out how to save the planet before they arrive, they’ll jump back. The crew scramble into work. He orders Staments to get a medical examination so they have a data trail to explain why they couldn’t use him to jump, although Staments is uncomfortable in case Culbert discovers his recent problems.
Cue crappy title sequence. I’m not letting that go. It’s terrible.

Saru and Burnham work out that the cloaks have imperfections that if they got more details on, they could work out an algorithm to detect the ships. They come up with a plan that involves using Discovery to bait a ship (ideally the flagship currently warping to the planet), beam a boarding party over in the small window between the ship decloaking and raising shields, and install the sensors. The problem is that they would need to be on the ship for days to collect enough data.

In sickbay Culbert discovers that the white matter of Staments’ temporal lobe has been completely restructured, but Staments denies any side effects. He leaves with Lorca, Lorca asks Staments to make over 100 jumps in under four minutes to get the necessary readings from every vector of the ship (I’m not sure how this correlates from needing time, unless the time came from having to remanoeuvre the ship??? Idk it’s not explained). Staments is anxious to do 133 jumpes, but Lorca shows him data he has been compiling from the jumps. Staments realises the data shows the possibility of alternate universes (*cough cough* Mirror). In a beautiful moment from Lorca, he explains that they have to win the War, but after that they continue to be explorers. This inspires Staments to agree and he leaves.

Lorca tells Tyler to organise a boarding party but initially refuses to let him take Burnham until she convinces him otherwise. Burnham and Tyler are wearing collarless uniforms which bother me less than the weird single collar uniform, so apparently those exist. Still no badge. Angry reacts only.

In engineering, Culbert gives Staments a cuff which will allow him to treat him while he’s in the chamber, knowing he can’t talk Staments out of doing the jumps. Tilly, assuming this means Staments has told him about the side effects, expresses her relief about him doing so, earning a glare from Staments.

Staments has the best glares

Lorca gives a ‘dramatic speech’ to inspire his crew for the task ahead. The crew jumps (mid-warm at that) back to the planet. Kol gives his own speech to his crew as the ship decloaks. Burnham and Tyler beam over. As they prepare to fight, Detmer gives a quip about how ‘it’s going to be a bumpy ride’ in what I think is her first line since the pilot.

Bunrham uses a Nintendo DS to locate the first drop point.

A really cool looking Nintendo DS.

They get into a storage cupboard and set up the device which is a super glowey device which will definitely not attract attention at all from anyone. On their way to the bridge, Burnham detects a human life sign on her device. Refusing to leave anyone behind, she claims they’re not far from the bridge, which Tyler agrees to (tactically speaking, I’d attempt the rescue mission after the primary mission’s been accomplished – after all, if they get caught or killed after that, at least the sensors are set up). They break into the cell and find the admiral, as well as L’Rell. Tyler points his pistol at her, and I suppose this is an interesting point for the ‘Tyler is Voq’ theory. While Burnham is distracted by reviving Cornwall, Tyler has a flashback to the torture he apparently went through on the ship. Cornwall is paralysed and Tyler is having a panic attack (it’s quite a good portrayal of a panic attack). Burnham notices and stuns L’Rell (for some reason she doesn’t just kill her – which is the logic and tactical thing to do when a Klingon notices you on their ship during a black ops mission). She gives Tyler’s phaser to Cornwall and leaves them behind to complete the mission.