ST: Discovery 5.03
A pretty standard ST episode, I thought. Also, is Disco the modern Trek with the most DS9 references?
Both the main plot where the true test was to see whether Michael behaves like a decent sentient being if she really wants to have something and the ones seemingly denying her that aren't of her species, and the subplot about newly demoted first officer Raynor and the crew. This isn't meant harshly: those tropes are tropes for a reason, and we got to see more of Trill this way, complete with some additional info. (Mind you, if 800 years are old even for a symbiont - not that there aren't those of that age around, but not many reach it - chances are the Dax symbiont is no longer of this 'verse, given Dax already had lived a great many lives. Here's what irks me, though: no more Dax, but there are still Vulcan purists around? Nine hundred years after Disco invented them for Michael's backstory? In a reunited Ni'var? This is not logical, she says with her best Vulcan eyebrow raised.) Also, Wilson Cruz got to play someone other than Hugh Culber, and that's always fun for an actor in a tv show. I think this is the first time the Z'hin'tara came up since DS9 did it, in that episode where it was used for a very DS9 mixture of broad comedy (Quark as Audrid), late season serial killer sensationalizing (the host between Joran and Curzon who when last we and Jadzia saw him was, while guilty of having killed someone, not a psycho and symbolically embraced her in the great white pool, is now Trill Hannibal Lecter), and truly intriguing character stuff (Curzon and Odo). It still doesn't make much sense to me that the current host wouldn't have access to those same memories as well, but hey. Jinaal the Trill, friend of Vellek the Romulan and torn between wanting to be responsible scientists and wanting to be optimistic about sentientkind, did make me wish as mentioned in the cut that we might get, if not a miniseries, then at least a flashback episode showing those questing space archaeologists. BTW, Jinaal's reason for NOT telling the Federation about their findings back then - that the Dominion War was raging and he had a pretty good idea this knowledge would be abused by TPTB - is excellent continuity, bearing in mind that the Federation back then did end up using a virus on the Founders. And I suspect it's also a bit of a callback to Discovery's own past, s1 when Stamets was anything but thrilled about his mushroom project being hijacked for the war effort, and the fact that Lorca manipulated him expertedly did not help. Given Stamets is now enthusiastic about this quest and thinking legacy thoughts, I wonder whether we'll get more scientific dilemma situations.
This also gives Raynor's existence on the show this season another resonance. He parallels early Michael in some ways, but in others he parallels pretending-to-be-Primeverse-Lorca (i.e. not Lorca's Mirrorverse self so much as the personality he let people see earlier that first season), and Tilly having by now the experience and the confidence to talk back and point out that bonding with the crew is different from analyzing the crew shows how much she's grown through five seasons. We've never met the real Primeverse Lorca, and can only guess what he's been like based on the fact it took the observant Kat Cornwell a while to twig something was seriously off, and it wasn't standard PTSD, but I wouldn't be surprised if the original pitch for Raynor's personality was "Primeverse Lorca, to bring things full circle for Michael and the crew of Discovery".
Lastly: as last week hinted heavily they would, Adira and Gray break up, deciding long distance romance does not work for them after all and also they've changed, but they still promise to be there for each other when needed. Given both of them are actually still teenagers (Adira was what, 15, 16 in season 3?), and access to past lives knowledge does not automatically make you grown up, you know - this actually works for me. Yes, they had the transcending life and death passion in s3, but again: teenagers. They're allowed to fall deeply in love and fall out of love more than once! And I suspect the writers weren't quite clear on how to write the two of them as a couple once Gray wasn't a ghost anymore.
Speaking of couples: I see we're still following Saru despite him having left the ship, which is good. As mentioned above, I'm not crazy about Vulcan purists still being a thing 900 years later, but Saru and T'Rina having their first argument because he'd been conned by her assistant into "protecting" her and she wasn't having it, and Saru learning that arguments (and reconciliations) are part of a long term relationship, it's never going to be sunshine all the time, that did work for me. As did Saru proving his ambassadorial worth by suggesting a good compromise to the representative of the smaller system. Also: T'Rina might just be my most favourite female Vulcan since Saavik.
Both the main plot where the true test was to see whether Michael behaves like a decent sentient being if she really wants to have something and the ones seemingly denying her that aren't of her species, and the subplot about newly demoted first officer Raynor and the crew. This isn't meant harshly: those tropes are tropes for a reason, and we got to see more of Trill this way, complete with some additional info. (Mind you, if 800 years are old even for a symbiont - not that there aren't those of that age around, but not many reach it - chances are the Dax symbiont is no longer of this 'verse, given Dax already had lived a great many lives. Here's what irks me, though: no more Dax, but there are still Vulcan purists around? Nine hundred years after Disco invented them for Michael's backstory? In a reunited Ni'var? This is not logical, she says with her best Vulcan eyebrow raised.) Also, Wilson Cruz got to play someone other than Hugh Culber, and that's always fun for an actor in a tv show. I think this is the first time the Z'hin'tara came up since DS9 did it, in that episode where it was used for a very DS9 mixture of broad comedy (Quark as Audrid), late season serial killer sensationalizing (the host between Joran and Curzon who when last we and Jadzia saw him was, while guilty of having killed someone, not a psycho and symbolically embraced her in the great white pool, is now Trill Hannibal Lecter), and truly intriguing character stuff (Curzon and Odo). It still doesn't make much sense to me that the current host wouldn't have access to those same memories as well, but hey. Jinaal the Trill, friend of Vellek the Romulan and torn between wanting to be responsible scientists and wanting to be optimistic about sentientkind, did make me wish as mentioned in the cut that we might get, if not a miniseries, then at least a flashback episode showing those questing space archaeologists. BTW, Jinaal's reason for NOT telling the Federation about their findings back then - that the Dominion War was raging and he had a pretty good idea this knowledge would be abused by TPTB - is excellent continuity, bearing in mind that the Federation back then did end up using a virus on the Founders. And I suspect it's also a bit of a callback to Discovery's own past, s1 when Stamets was anything but thrilled about his mushroom project being hijacked for the war effort, and the fact that Lorca manipulated him expertedly did not help. Given Stamets is now enthusiastic about this quest and thinking legacy thoughts, I wonder whether we'll get more scientific dilemma situations.
This also gives Raynor's existence on the show this season another resonance. He parallels early Michael in some ways, but in others he parallels pretending-to-be-Primeverse-Lorca (i.e. not Lorca's Mirrorverse self so much as the personality he let people see earlier that first season), and Tilly having by now the experience and the confidence to talk back and point out that bonding with the crew is different from analyzing the crew shows how much she's grown through five seasons. We've never met the real Primeverse Lorca, and can only guess what he's been like based on the fact it took the observant Kat Cornwell a while to twig something was seriously off, and it wasn't standard PTSD, but I wouldn't be surprised if the original pitch for Raynor's personality was "Primeverse Lorca, to bring things full circle for Michael and the crew of Discovery".
Lastly: as last week hinted heavily they would, Adira and Gray break up, deciding long distance romance does not work for them after all and also they've changed, but they still promise to be there for each other when needed. Given both of them are actually still teenagers (Adira was what, 15, 16 in season 3?), and access to past lives knowledge does not automatically make you grown up, you know - this actually works for me. Yes, they had the transcending life and death passion in s3, but again: teenagers. They're allowed to fall deeply in love and fall out of love more than once! And I suspect the writers weren't quite clear on how to write the two of them as a couple once Gray wasn't a ghost anymore.
Speaking of couples: I see we're still following Saru despite him having left the ship, which is good. As mentioned above, I'm not crazy about Vulcan purists still being a thing 900 years later, but Saru and T'Rina having their first argument because he'd been conned by her assistant into "protecting" her and she wasn't having it, and Saru learning that arguments (and reconciliations) are part of a long term relationship, it's never going to be sunshine all the time, that did work for me. As did Saru proving his ambassadorial worth by suggesting a good compromise to the representative of the smaller system. Also: T'Rina might just be my most favourite female Vulcan since Saavik.