Sunday, January 21, 2018

Star Trek: Discovery -- "Vaulting Ambition"

Lots of things happened this week.  I only have the energy to talk about one.

Apparently, Captain Lorca, commanding officer of the USS Discovery, has been a sleeper agent from the Mirror Universe this whole time.  Remember how I said that mirror Lorca was presumed dead after attempting a coup against Emperor Michelle Yeoh?  Rather than dying, he escaped into our universe where he assumed command of the Discovery with the intentions of 1) regaining the services of his right-hand woman, Michael Burnham (albeit "our" Michael Burnham) and 2) using the mushroom drive to get home and finish what he began.  I guess I should be happy that there is a reasonable explanation for the gratuitous mushroom jump home that "went wrong," sending Discovery into the Mirror Universe (it was an intentional inter-dimensional jump orchestrated by alterna-Lorca), but...

Now, not only is it commonplace for starships to cross over from our Universe into the Mirror Universe, but Terran officers from the Mirror Universe are involving us in their intrigues.  At the risk of sounding like a broken record: how did Captain Kirk not know about this?

It is starting to seem obvious that the point of this season was to tell a Mirror Universe story.  I'm not sure I find that interesting.  Insomuch as alternative universe stories (and I'm not just talking about Mirror Universe stories; in "Parallels," Worf visits dozens of alternate universes, each unique) are fun, they are fun because they give us a brief glimpse of how things could have been if the stories we know had not unfolded the way we know them (what if Captain Picard had not de-assimilated himself by sheer force of will at the end of "Best of Both Worlds"?).  That is why I give Deep Space Nine's "Crossover" a pass: it was interesting to learn what the result of Captain Kirk's heart-to-heart with fascist Spock were.  They weren't an unalloyed good.  This current story lacks that context.  There are no stories to unfold differently because we haven't been told any stories, yet.  This is the first story.  By extension, whatever happens in this story will have, at best, limited effects on the stories we will be told later.  Yes, the characters we are supposed to live with during Discovery's run as a series will have lived through alterna-Lorca's betrayal and coup (and yes: I understand that characters are the heart of any story, but I am, before all things, a Tolkien fan, and thus a world-builder), but all of these events will take place in a Universe that (I hope) no one will visit again for ten years.  The Federation-Klingon war will play out however it will play out without Discovery.  Assuming Discovery ever gets home*, no one will know or care how its crew spent the last three months.  Their actions will have no consequences in the world around them.  The stakes seem very low at this point.

*If the entire run of Discovery plays out in the Mirror Universe.... let's not contemplate that outcome.

My final thought is that it seems that Star Trek has wandered into dangerous waters previously charted by Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse" and HBO's "Westworld."  Captain Lorca has been behaving very erratically lately.  When we first met him, he was, to put it mildly, an impersonal stereotype of a Military Man.  All he looked for in a colleague was "how good is she at killing Klingons?"  At the mid-season break, a phase change occurred.  Lorca became a sympathetic commander interested in relating to, motivating, and supporting his crew (you know: a Starfleet Captain).  It didn't make sense at the time, but so few things about this show made sense that I let it pass.  Now we learn that there was a reason for the shift: Lorca was close to getting what he wanted and needed to use manipulation rather than brute force to close the gap.  Unfortunately, if the explanation "he's actually his Mirror Universe self" (or "he's a Doll" or "he's a Host") is now a reasonable explanation for erratic behavior, what is the point in trying to evaluate anyone's actions?  I have not yet met the actual Mirror Tilley.  I am told there is such a person.  Am I sure the Tilley we know isn't the Mirror Tilley?  I know that I am stretching here.  The show went to great pains to introduce us to the fascist versions of everyone except Burnham and Lorca, but, given the rate of trans-dimensional crossing lately (how did alterna-Lorca get into our Universe, anyway?), are we supposed to hold every new character to this standard?  What Universe is Admiral Cornwell from?  Show me your papers!

I am being petulant.  When I heard there was a new Star Trek series coming, I was excited to see what has happened in my second favorite fictional Universe since that unfortunate incident in which an attempt to clone Captain Picard produced Tom Hardy instead.  I am not really interested in what is going on in (yet another**) alternative fictional Universe to which I have no allegiance.

**Abrams Trek: I am looking at you.

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