Star Trek: Discovery it was always about one thing: in the end, the only thing that matters, the only thing that brings light into dark times and saves the day, is one Connection and understanding forged between people, regardless of who they are or what they have done. Sometimes reminding ourselves is more subtle than others. This week was definitely one of a kind.
“Jinaal” is quickly picking up steam after last week explosive two-episode premiere Michael and the crew entered TNG-Throwback mission to prevent the mysterious Moll and L’ok from getting their hands on the Progenitor technology – and cleverly exploit the duo to get to the Trill homeworld as quickly as possible in search of the next clue to the Progenitor -Puzzle. It turns out that, as much as they are the clue, they are actually looking for one person – the titular Jinaal, a host of the Bix symbiote who worked with the Romulan science team that discovered the technology’s existence eight centuries earlier Height of the Dominion War.
Bad news: Trill won’t live another 800 years and Jinaal is very, very dead. Good news: symbiotes are much longer-lived and it turns out that the Bix symbiote still lives with its host Kalzara. Better(?) News: After solving a very simple puzzle, Kalzara agrees to undergo a Trill ritual known as Zhian’tara – a process observed in DS9 And discovery This allows the consciousness of a Trill connected in the past to be brought into another body for a period of time. After Dr. When Culber readily agrees to be Jinaal’s bio-AirBnB, the transfer is complete and Michael and Book are on Culber-Jinaal’s trail to find the clue.
If this all sounds like it’s progressing at a worrying pace, it is, and it’s not. While “Jinaal” certainly gets going very quickly, there is not much else in the episode, but also a lot of breathing and pausing, because discovery prepares to lay down his thesis for eternity thick. All of this – everything, not just the main content of the episode, but also the parallel stories on board the discovery with new first officer Commander Rayner and back at Federation headquarters with current Ambassador Saru – serving people who are faced with something, have problems for a moment and then realize, “Oh, this is much easier to solve, when everyone is talking to each other and socializing. “Hooray!” And as I said, the episode not only slows down to make this point, it also makes it loud and clear repeated for the rest of the episode.
Look, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing – in fact, for the most part, it’s proven to be very beneficial discovery so that it takes on this idea, an intrinsic aspect of Star TrekHope for the future is the core of his identity. Star TrekHis ideal is that people of different species, origins, gender identities, linguistic barriers, contradictory pasts, even beyond the limits of understanding radically different forms of sentient life, come together in the face of evil and confront it as one. The merger around this idea resulted discovery Both a certainty and a confidence that he has sorely lacked in the most frustrating periods of recent seasons. But god, sometimes you just have to get over it when every character in every arc of an episode is telling this idea back and forth.
We see it at Trill when it turns out that Jinaal is leading Michael and Book into a nest of invisible, barbed-shooting giant creatures – a test to see if, when confronted with unintentional aggression, they will respond in turn or attempt to do so To find a peace solution so that each group gets what they want (guess what Michael does, thereby proving himself worthy of inheriting the next clue to the Progenitor technology). We’ll see it again discoverywhen the short-tempered Rayner, ordered by Michael to introduce himself to the senior crew in person, treats everyone so harshly that even Tilly has to snap at him and tell him to stop being an idiot trying to prove himself and actually Having success knowing the people he works with now (Rayner’s “This meeting will last until you say 20 words about yourself, Max” attitude) gives us at least some of that to say discovery(Although that’s an embarrassingly little-known character among the crew members, but that’s nice.) And we even see it at Federation headquarters, when Saru, on his first day as ambassador, has to deal with the political concerns of his engagement to T’Rina will affect her career or not after he learns of possible opposition to her husband Future Vulcan Purists.
In the end, all of these storylines end the same way: our heroes choose understanding and the search for connection over aggression and division, and realize that their problems can best be solved if everyone talks to each other. Michael and Book actually get the clue (though we learn at the end of the episode that Trill’s notoriously tight security consists of men in red robes saying, “I don’t know, man, I’m just here to ask you a riddle”) are not so strict, after Mol disguises himself as a guard to plant some sort of tracking device on Adira, after convincing the creatures and Jinaal alike that their intentions are peaceful. After a drink and Tilly’s further urging, Rayner finally comes clean that this is the only way he can gain the respect of others discovery Crew he had with his previous one on the Antares will come if he gives himself openly to them. And of course, the brief disagreement between Saru and T’Rina over how they want to protect each other is quickly resolved when they actually talk to each other and express their feelings clearly, rather than making assumptions and debating it internally.
So “Jinaal” is not one bad Consequence. It’s breezy, there are some funny moments, Wilson Cruz gets to lighten up a bit by taking over Jinaal’s consciousness for a while, and while the action here isn’t quite as big as the shootouts and chases of the premiere, it’s still real Fun (one of the best things ever discoveryJumping to the 32nd Century was all about how it plays with near-instantaneous, localized radiation, and it’s used a lot here. It’s just a decidedly unsubtle theme, in a way that the series has rarely addressed in the past. Nothing special is happening here, other than the team dealing with the next piece of the Progenitor puzzle and moving on. There’s no real character work, aside from little kernels that set up things to come, and that’s not the case discoveryThe often hammered home themes are particularly challenged here: they are just repeated very often. very Clearly, across several fronts.
Hopefully now that everyone is paying attention, the themes can be expressed a little more elegantly as the adventure continues.
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