This devastating event, known as The Burn, caused space travel to be a possibility for far fewer people. For those of you who didn’t keep a “Star Trek: Ships of the Line” calendar on your wall as a kid, dilithium is the crystalline material that allows warp drive to function. Apparently, the Federation suffered a cataclysm over a century earlier: suddenly, all over its part of space, dilithium just exploded. His role in the first episode is largely to provide exposition about this strange new galaxy Burnham finds herself in. It’ll be interesting to see how Book develops over time. Sorry to cross-pollinate franchises, but he’s a Han Solo-type, a daring rogue who might betray you at any moment - but who really has a heart of gold, and a deeply felt mission. “This Hope Is You” is one of the best-looking episodes of any “Trek” series ever, showing off massive, wide-angle helicopter shots by director Olatunde Osunsanmi, who’s quickly become a “Trek” MVP.īefore she landed, Burnham crashed into a ship piloted by a smuggler, or “courier,” named Book ( David Ajala). Along with Jordan in the pilot episode of “Discovery,” this is one of the very few times that any “Star Trek” show has filmed on location outside the U.S. Though that granite-gray planet is some strange alien world in the show, in our world it’s actually Iceland. We won’t reveal for now what actually happened to her starship, but Burnham has to adapt to 3188 largely on her own. As Season 3’s first episode, “That Hope Is You,” begins, Burnham and the crew are separated. Remember, she had to fly in an Iron Man-type suit through a wormhole in order to blaze the trail for the USS Discovery to follow her into the future and out of the 23rd Century where it had become impossible for them to remain. Landing on a desolate, granite-gray planet of high dunes and tranquil seas, she’s all alone. Burnham finds herself truly in the unknown. All that does matter is good storytelling.Īnd good storytelling is what we get in the first four episodes of “Season 3” that have been made available for critics to review. How something fits into existing canon no longer matters. With a time jump into the 32nd Century at the end of Season 2, she feels truly liberated. The remarkable thing is that, through all that franchise red tape, Martin-Green imbued extraordinary life into Michael Burnham - and gave her one of the clearest arcs any “Trek” series lead has ever had, from Vulcan restraint at the beginning to human emotions flowering in full when we last saw her. Prequels are fun, but they have the potential to be more about recontextualizing characters and events we already know than in actually breaking new ground for original characters. ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ Is Mike Flanagan’s Spectral, Vicious Screed Against Actual Ghouls CBS All Access wanted to go in a different design direction, okay? “Why do the Klingons look so different?” went another. That myopic question was posed by fans who completely forgot that Spock also had a secret brother, revealed in one of the movies. “Why didn’t Spock ever talk about having a sister?” went one, referring to series lead Michael Burnham ( Sonequa Martin-Green), a human raised by Spock’s parents on Vulcan alongside the future Enterprise science officer. Some of the fan quibbles lodged during the show’s first two seasons have been undoubtedly silly. Up till now, “Discovery” has been a prequel, set 10 years before “The Original Series” and more than a little bogged down by the limitations involved in having to weave an original story into a time period in which so much franchise mythmaking has already taken place. And though no one involved in the production has explicitly said so, it seems like this creative choice was fueled by a desire to have a blank slate to do whatever the producers of this CBS All Access show want with this extremely talented cast. That seems to be the primary motivation for “Star Trek: Discovery” to jump ahead 930 years from its 23rd Century setting all the way to the far-flung year of 3188. Sometimes you just need to get away from it all.
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