Star Trek: Discovery – The Hope Is You, Part Two Review

Remember everything I wrote about how I hoped Discovery‘s writers were planning a long and complex arc for Osyraa and the Emerald Chain? Yeah, definitely missed the mark on that. And I’m definitely pretty miffed at how Michelle Paradise (the co-showrunner and writer of the episode) opted to end season three – and how utterly unsatisfying everything about the structure of the episode’s final 15 minutes ended up being.

There are few things that annoy me more, both as a critic and as a viewer, than a film or television series opting to tie up an entire story simply by using voice over or, even worse, onscreen text, to tell us rather than show us how things ultimately wrapped up. If we’ve spent a significant amount of time – particularly in the realm of television – with a story and its characters, I don’t want someone to say, “Oh hey, this major character opted to leave and head home for awhile, while the bad guys seemingly insurmountable network fell apart now that its leading figurehead is dead!” I want the show to take the time to let us see that major character – in this case, Saru – make the choice to step back from his role aboard Discovery and head home. I want to see how and why the Emerald Chain fell apart without Osyraa there to lead it – from all that we knew about it (and boy, was that precious little in the end, another huge failure on the part of the writers that I got into in more depth in my previous review), it was a huge mercantile exchange with a series of directors that Osyraa needed to report to. She wasn’t the central figure in the Chain, she was just the most visible. Did the rest of the leaders decide the Federation was too dangerous with Discovery? Did they reach out for a new deal?

But nope, despite spending the time building up the Chain and Osyraa as huge roadblocks to reestablishing the Federation, the series simply wrote them away in a single fight sequence and with a bit of voice over. I’m not sure if that’s a function of, as I’ve discussed previously, the writers having too many mouths to feed from a character perspective (a solid chunk of the season was spent writing Georgiou off to her own spin-off), while also introducing new characters (both Adira and Book were granted their own introductory episodes), and engaging in a fair bit of world building, or if it was simply a case of the writers deciding they didn’t want to go the one villain/villainous organization (with some shades of gray) series arc route.

I’m very disappointed both with the narrative corner cutting that went on in the episode and the decision to cut a potentially interesting storyline off at the knees. From Osyraa going from 0 to 60 in terms of her quest for blood (the series presenting her as someone who truly wanted what was best for her people in one episode, then when she doesn’t like the deal offered – which was, frankly, the right response, Starfleet was hosing her – she decides she won’t trust anyone ever again and just wants to kill anyone who gets in her way), which robbed the character of any nuance the series had attempted to add to her and turned her into a soulless, mindless villain, to the removal of any hints that Starfleet might not be as altruistic as it wants to believe it is (which would have been a hell of an arc to dive deeper into), so much of that ending felt rushed, poorly thought out, and left a really bad taste in my mouth upon finishing the episode. I get if the writers want to turn the series into a more “space exploration/diplomacy focused” show in season four (especially if Section 31 gets off the ground and they take on the more action/spy/morally ambiguous angle), but there was so much left on the table story-wise at the close of this season that could have been explored.

But the thing that really bugged me the most was Admiral Vance’s speech to Burnham at the end of the episode. Not the part where he offers her the captaincy of Discovery; that was a long-time coming and far and away the correct move. But the part where is praised her out of the box thinking and said that he should have trusted her and her thought process sooner. Is he crazy? I guess hindsight is 20-20, but he absolutely shouldn’t have trusted her thought process sooner. In fact, if Burnham’s John McClane act hadn’t worked, well, he would have lost Discovery and a hell of a lot more. She got lucky. And by extension, he got lucky. And Burnham gets lucky a hell of a lot, something the series will ultimately need to address moving forward, since her rather cavalier approach to space travel should end with more major injuries and a higher body count when all is said and done. The writers have shown they are ready and willing to engage with darker and more complex concepts than your typical old school Trek (Detmer’s PTSD, Gray and Adira’s dual sense of loss, Georgiou and Burnham’s complicated relationship), so I’m hopeful season four shows us the growing pains that come with Burnham in command – from her tendency to do what she thinks is right damn her orders to lingering scars from her time spent away from her crew and her family prior to their arrival in the future. I’m sure there’s some Stamets/Burnham betrayal discussions coming our way, but I don’t want this change to be all sunshine and rainbows. This is a crew that has been through a hell of a lot in a short period of time, from their jump to the future, their discovery of all that has changed in the Federation, to their multiple command shake-ups. It’s ok for them not to be ok with everything. And we should get to see that.

All-in-all, I loved a lot about season three of Star Trek: Discovery. There were some great character moments, great additions to the cast, and that Mirror Universe two-parter was just incredible. But I really wish the writers had taken better stock of the pacing of their season arc and allowed it more time to breathe. Getting to the end of the race and finding a car waiting to zip you across the finish line cheapens the experience and makes me worried about just what season four will have in store. If Discovery wants to emerge as a great Trek series, it needs to take more risks and not be afraid to dig deeper into darker arcs and characters. It’s proven it’s willing to try for smaller, complex arcs – now it needs to create a full and complete season arc that doesn’t simply run out of gas at the end. Discovery has a strong cast, the deepest bench of supporting characters I’ve seen in a Trek series yet, and a blank canvass of the future to explore. Now it just needs to put all the pieces together.