In the interest of time, I will be reviewing Star Trek: Discovery on a biweekly schedule, covering two episodes at a time. If there’s a particularly momentous episode that calls for a single review, I will break the schedule to cover it, but covering two episodes at a time will allow me to link together their continual themes rather than having to pick apart narrative elements – which I hope will make these reviews a touch more engaging than they have been in the past.
I’ve always been intrigued by the Trill as a Star Trek species. There’s so many cool and groundbreaking story arcs at your disposal when you are dealing with a person who has lived a number of past lives in multiple genders and has access to those memories. One of my biggest disappointments with Deep Space Nine (and if you watched the What We Left Behind documentary, you know it was also a regret of the DS9 writing staff) was that the series didn’t lean into how such a background would influence the understanding of gender and sexuality of Jadzia Dax, she show’s resident Trill. They briefly touched on some elements (with Jadzia running into a previous host’s female partner), but on the whole, it was a lost opportunity to explore some complex character beats that weren’t present on any shows back in the mid-90s. Which is why I was happy to see the Trill back on Discovery, and thrilled to see the series happily address some of the failings of past Trek series with their casting and story beats.
Prior to the start of season three, it was announced that Discovery would be adding two new supporting cast members to the series: Blu del Barrio as Adira Tal, a human symbiont host, and Ian Alexander as Gray Tal, Adira’s former boyfriend and the previous Trill symbiont host who died in an attack on their Federation ship. What made this announcement particularly newsworthy was that del Barrio would be the first non-binary actor on a Star Trek series, while Alexander would be the first transgender actor to appear on Trek. During their initial appearances in these two episodes, I will admit I was a bit worried that when we learned Gray was killed that Discovery was again falling into the Bury Your Gays trope; but when it was revealed that Gray continues to guide Adira as a ghostly manifestation of himself, I became intrigued to see where the series will go with this twist. After all, one of the key tenets of a Trill host is that they recall their past selves and lean on them when needed, but they are expected to avoid elements of their lives that bring too much of that former host to the surface (for example, new hosts are not supposed to interact with their previous hosts’ significant others, lest those emotions overtake the new host and influence their actions). Having Gray remaining a part of Adira’s life is something that could lead to some painful conversations down the line and some difficulties for Adira to adapt to her new reality if she keeps spending time with Tal, and I really hope the series is willing to play out those possible repercussions as they crop up.
Outside of our journey to Trill and our introduction to Adira and Gray, the crew of Discovery was forced to reckon with the emotional toll of traveling 900 years into the future. Again, Discovery has made overtures toward exploring the mental health issues that Starfleet officers can encounter, but it failed to fully pull the trigger and really dig into what could be an interesting story arc. I was happy that the series kept up with Keyla Detmer’s struggles following Discovery’s arrival 3189 – and I hope that she isn’t all better next episode because she took the step to ask for help from Culber. This is an important story to explore – mental health issues for those who have experienced major losses in combat remain a huge issues in our current world, and exploring this topic on a series like Discovery could go a long way to helping de-stigmatize the fear of asking for help when its needed. Plus, it would give us a chance to spend more time with Detmer (who likely has lingering PTSD issues from the injury in the series’s pilot), who is one of the most interesting characters on the series. And while Culber probably shouldn’t be her therapist (although, they are trapped 900 years in the future, so I guess some concessions need to happen), seeing him branch out from Sick Bay would also be a nice chance to get to know him outside of his relationship with Stamets.
Four episodes into season three of Star Trek: Discovery, and I’m amazed at how much I’m enjoying this season. Sometimes it takes a show awhile to get a feel for its cast and characters (and with the upheaval among the showrunners and writing staff of the series over the course of its initial two seasons, I’m willing to forgive the early growing pains), but I think Discovery has figured out its identity. With Sonequa Martin-Green continuing to be allowed to give Burnham a personality (seeing her get to laugh and smile, and just generally engage with those around her has been so nice), I think this ship has fully been righted. I can’t wait to see where things are headed next.
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