Star Trek Discovery S02E02 & S02E03: Its very best and very worst episode!

One week later and…every wonderful step forward has been replaced by two steps back two-stepping out of an airlock to drift in deep space, soulless and hopeless forever.

I am shocked at much I hated…wait a minute I have to look up the episode title…

Point of Light? I don’t even know what that’s a reference to…

Anyway, I am shocked by how much I hated it, especially after last week.

One more time, last week was, in my opinion, the best episode of the show thus far. It was tight, fun, funny, contemplative. It was everything I want the show to be. This week was the show’s worst. It was meandering, boring, inconsequential. No one learned anything. No one grew. Nothing happened. Instead of a self-contained plot, there were three storylines happening but no singular theme to unite them, no grand lesson to learn, no growth by any characters. It is almost entirely skippable.

All you need to know is “Amanda is now looking for Spock” and “Ash/Voq is working with Section 31.” That’s it. One sentence of development on a 50-minute show that had nothing to say.

It was also, hands down, one of the worst directed hours of television I’ve seen maybe ever. It was shockingly bad. Actors were stiff, delivering their lines in a rushed, awkward way. The action was clunky as well, especially that Klingon fight scene. It happened so slowly (and not just when it was in actual slo-mo) it was like they filmed a practice run and just…used that instead. It was also a guessing game for me regarding character motivations. When Amanda left Michael to go find Spock was she…mad at her? determined to find Spock? I had no idea how to read her.

And the script was horrendous. Just line after line of exposition. No depth. No nuance. No problems to solve. No debates to be had. The worst part about it all was how un-Star Trek-like it felt, and I’ll give you two examples…

1. Tilly’s space ghost (coast to coast!) was extracted from her by a doodad that Stammets just happened to have lying around. He grabs it, points it at her, and sucks it out of her like Egon Spengler. Remember when Trek would have these crazy contraptions to do exactly what was needed, but it was okay because they took thirty seconds to explain what it was and why it worked? Remember that? Remember when the show tried to be brainy?
2. Did the Klingon Empire really change Chancellorships (briefly) on account of a signed contract? Is this Ferenginar? Someone please, anyone who has been a Star Trek fan for more than…let’s say, four years, defend that. Comment below, please. Explain to me how we went from Worf vs. Gowron in a duel to the death to decide who wins the throne to… “I’ma need your thumb-print here…initial there…thanks.” Even the Duras family—whose sole character trait was that they were basically Romulans—even THEY had more sport in them than “the guy with a contract.”

I’m absolutely stunned at how much I hated this episode, especially in light of how much I LOVED last week’s. I was lukewarm last season, unsatisfied after episode one this year, but all-in and on–board last week.

This week is in the bottom ten Star Trek episodes ever.

It wasn’t insulting in its badness, don’t get me wrong. That’s a distinction reserved for episodes like Turnabout Intruder, Code of Honor, Sub Rosa, Move Along Home, Threshold. It was just bad for how poorly made it was, how weak the script was, and how utterly inconsequential everything that happened was.

It’s indefensible and no amount of fan service like Kor’s daddy, the Albino from DS9 (I’m assuming that’s who the baby grows up to be), the old Klingon D7, or Section 31 can change the fact that it’s just a bad, bad hour of TV.

1/10 – A single point only because Pike had a funny line and Tilly’s DISCO shirt is awesome. I want one.