Michael Burnham Flames Discover Season 3

Episode Review – “That Hope Is You” – Discovery Season 3 Ep 1

After what seems like a whole lifetime ago, Star Trek: Discovery has finally landed into the future with its amazing, exhilarating, and hopeful third season-opening episode! And right on time too because this is an episode brimming with hope, positivity, and perseverance, something that we could all certainly use more of in this day and age.

Our story begins with a lonely man in an empty station. He wakes. He cleans. He waits. That is his daily routine, repeated over and over. We don’t know what he’s waiting for, but he has a box with a new Starfleet delta. What is inside remains mysterious at this time. But truly though, I think perhaps what we all really want to know is when will there be merchandise for the hologram bird clock? I could really use one!

Next, we find ourselves in the middle of a space chase. And here we meet our new main character Cleveland “Book” Booker (David Ajala). Book looks to have run afoul of a Betelgeusian by the name of Cosmo. Betelgeusians was last seen in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and it’s quite a joy to see them make a return with a new design. Though Book certainly doesn’t find his interactions with Cosmo to be very joyous as they argue over some stolen cargo and they trade fires with each other. And who should drop out of a wormhole at this exact moment? Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) of course.

Smacking right into Book’s ship and knocking both of them off course and careening towards a planet, Michael desperately tries to regain control so that she doesn’t splat onto the surface. She manages to do a full system reboot and brings up shields just in time before the impact. It still hurt though. She struggles to climb out of the dirt and back to her feet. The suit deactivates around her and she moves to immediately call for Discovery, except there is no answer. The suit does give her a few other answers though, she’s landed in the year 3188 and there are multiple life signs detected. Her scream/laugh mix full of jubilation is cathartic for us as it is for her. Everything they’d all been fighting for last season has finally paid off. They had taken such a risk and sacrifice to ensure a future where there is life, and life has endured. But that momentary jubilation fades as the wormhole closes above her, she sets the suit to send the last and seventh signal to Spock, Captain Pike, and the others and then commands the suit to self-destruct. The suit takes to the skies, taking with it the last bit of connection to all those people Michael (and audience) has left behind the past.

(CBS) Yessssssss! – “That Hope Is You” DSC 3.01

When Michael falls to her knees and cries, we mourn with her. She is alone. There is no going back.

Much like her full system reboot of the suit minutes before, the story of Star Trek: Discovery has now gotten its own reboot. A new world. A new era. A new start.

Like any good Starfleet officer when faced with the unknown and insurmountable odds, Michael Burnham gets back up. She repeats her name, rank, and serial number. She tells herself to stand up and walk. This moment, out of all the great moments in this episode, is what resonated with me to my very core. Sometimes in life’s harshest moments, when all feels lost, the only thing you can do is remind yourself of who you are and keep moving forward. Because you’ll never get to the next great moment if you don’t keep going.

As we fade to the updated opening credits, we see Michael walking bravely into the unknown, leading all of us out there to the new world with her.

Speaking of the opening credits, we got new graphics! The green time crystals have been replaced by red dilithium crystals, a foreshadowing of dilithium’s importance to this new world as we will learn. We have new Starfleet deltas. New logo. A look at Book’s ship, The Nautilus. New phaser designs. And perhaps the most important thing of all, an army of possibly updated DOTs, much like the ones we saw in the last season finale repairing the Enterprise. If this is true, then showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Michelle Paradise have heard my prayers for a DOT army and I’m very proud, and will also now need them to start making plushies immediately!

Back on the unknown planet that Michael has landed on, she’s followed the smokes to the location of Book’s ship. A ship that has cloaking technology, and a rather pissed off man who doesn’t want to make friends and is ready to defend whatever cargo that he’s got on his ship. Needless to say, Michael and Book got off on the wrong foot. They exchange blows both physical and verbal until a somewhat tentative truce is agreed upon. Numerous bits of information about the new world status come quickly in the barrages of Book’s dialogue. We learn that ripping holes through space is not cool, tritanium alloy hasn’t been around in years, Michael didn’t land on Terralysium but on Hima, and the Gorn destroyed two light-years’ worth of subspace. That last one made me facepalm and say, “Well thanks a lot for nothing, Gorns!”

Book uses 32nd century computer terminal
(CBS) 32nd Century Programmable matter – “That Hope Is You” DSC 3.01

On Book’s ship, we finally properly get a good look at the new ship technology of the 32nd Century. Programmable matter that rises up when you touch it and Michael is absolutely fascinated by it. However, we all know that the most fascinating thing on the ship that everyone has been eagerly waiting for is Grudge the cat. Named so by Book because “she’s heavy and all mine.” Glorious. Perfect. A true queen.

Because Book has no dilithium and no recrystallizer, and he’s got no benamite for quantum slipstream travel and tachyon solar sails are too slow, he’s gonna need to trade for the dilithium that will help him get his cargo to a location on time. Michael will be supplying him with her “antiques” to trade. On the way to the Mercantile, a trading location for couriers like Book, this is where the story slows down a little to catch us up on the last 930 years we missed. Most of the dilithium supply just one day went boom in an event called The Burn that happened about 100 to 120 years ago. The galaxy took a hard left and soon the Federation collapsed.

Michael is distraught at the thought of the institution that she devoted her life to being gone. But the poor thing hardly has much time to really deal with that emotional fallout because all sorts of shenanigans happen when they arrive at the Mercantile. Between finding out Orions and Andorians are now working together, to portable transporters, to Book betraying her and robbing her, to getting sprayed with some truth gas that sends her on quite the high, Michael has angrily decided that she is done being reflexively supportive, earning a “You go girl!” from an exuberant me. The whole sequence of Michael on space drugs is honestly a goldmine of hilarious quotes. Sonequa Martin-Green has always effortlessly carried the show with her amazing performances throughout the years, but this one is sure to end up in the history books as one of her best. There were so much range and so many face journeys.

Between Michael declaring that they cannot give this drug to Tilly to insulting Book’s flying skills for colliding into thousand-year-old women in space to deciphering that temperature-sensitive and valuable cargo clearly means ice cream, if you weren’t rolling on the ground laughing by the end, I question if you are truly a real boy.

Book, on the other hand, has run into Cosmo again, the alien he was playing a game of space chicken with earlier in the episode. But Cosmo was clearly doomed to die the moment he threatened to roast Grudge. Cats are sacred, how dare you!

(CBS) On The Run, Burnham & Booker Fight For Their Lives – “That Hope Is You” DSC 3.01

Michael shows up with the Andorian and Orion who were interrogating her, she and Book fight the others and make an escape for it. Michael’s joyous expressions as she’s drunkenly firing weapons is just utterly hilarious. Who knew in this grim future, Michael Burnham could find such joy in being hopped up on space drugs, smacking baddies, and stealing their stuff? She is truly living her best life.

As Book and Michael use the portable transporters to pop in and out all over the place to escape, Michael manages to get in a few punches at Book and at their pursuers before getting shoved off a cliff and landing in water. Finally getting a moment of respite on dry land, we discover that Book has some abilities to commune with nature, or in this case, space seaweed that spews goo that prevents infections! With a life or death situation behind them, Book seems to now trust Michael enough to reveal to her that he has tech that can let her try to contact the Discovery crew. And even more so, he might just be starting to believe that she is a time traveller and a “true believer” of the Federation. He also drops an interesting nugget of information that all time travel technology was outlawed after the Temporal Wars, a nod to the story arc from Star Trek: Enterprise.

Once they get back to Book’s ship though, they are back in danger again as their pursuers have caught up with them. Forcing Book to show the cargo, some of the pursuers soon found themselves eaten by a large Trance Worm with the rest transporting out in fright. Michael also gets gobbled up, but Book was able to communicate with the creature named Molly to let Michael go. Poor Michael, she’s having a really rough and weird day.

And what about Cosmo the doomed alien who threatened to eat Grudge? Well, he died for his insolence. As he should. Nobody threatens a feline queen.

Book and Michael, now finally free from danger, head off to where Book had meant to be going to drop off the Trance Worm at a sanctuary. We learn that what we had assumed was Book stealing other people’s stuff to selfishly smuggle and get profit for himself, he’s really a space animal activist, choosing to be different than his family who is poachers and killers. With the Federation gone, Book decided to step up and do his part for the galaxy. He might not be a true believer in the institution of the Federation, but he is guided by the same principles and values. And that good heart leads Book to take Michael to someone he thinks could help find her crew.

(CBS) Trance Worm Safe At Sanctuary 4 – “That Hope Is You” DSC 3.01

We find our way back to the station that this episode had opened with. The man waiting there greets Michael and is visibly moved when she says her name and rank. His name is Aditya Sahil, a man who we will soon learn is not yet a commissioned officer, but one of the true believers still left in the galaxy, waiting for the day hope would return again in the form of others who share in their ideals of the Federation. He has been monitoring his few sectors of space for 40 years as his father and grandfather have done before him, waiting for others like him. His duty and devotion are just as strong as Michael’s.

Michael asks if he can find the Discovery but there is no sign of the ship, meaning the crew either aren’t in this region of space or has not yet arrived in this time period. Michael will have to wait. But in the meantime, Michael can still keep hope alive, just as Sahil and his family have kept hope alive all these years. As Michael and Sahil shake hands and raise the Federation flag on the wall of the office. They speak about the power of hope and how it ensures our spirit remains undiminished by time and fate. If there are others out there, they will go find them.

It’s interesting to think that a show that was filmed last year, a show that could not have possibly predicted how this year of 2020 would turn out, has nonetheless hit on themes so topical to the here and now. Our world is damaged and hurt, our institutions are failing, what keeps us going is the hope and belief that things could still get better, that others who believe just like us will fight beside us against whatever the odds will bring. It is clear that this season of Discovery is intending to address the theme of hope even in the darkest times, in many ways though, that has always been Discovery’s theme from the very beginning too. But now it is more pronounced and explicit than ever before. Michael, Book, and Sahil all keep hope within them, they are all true believers in their own ways.

Beyond the genius that is Sonequa Martin-Green and her talent, this episode also brought us brilliant and heartfelt performances from new cast members David Ajala and Adil Hussain as Book and Sahil. Book is immediately charismatic and vibrant, and David Ajala has amazing chemistry with Sonequa Martin-Green. And Adil Hussain gives Sahil such earnestness that I wanted to hug him when he looked like he was about to cry, his character is the purest and best representation of a Star Trek fan within the narrative canon of the Star Trek Universe. Oh, and of course, Grudge the cat is just a scene-stealer.

(CBS) Michael Burnham & Aditya Sahil “That Hope Is You” DSC 3.01

The direction and cinematography are just breathtaking, you can really tell that they utilized to its fullest extent their Iceland on-location filming. The set design, make up, and props for this new world are equally astounding, it feels like a lived-in world that we just happened to have been dropped into and I can’t wait to explore more of its nooks and crannies. The visual effects are on-point as always, and I must commend them even more given the post-production of the show happened during the middle of the pandemic, it is truly remarkable what they achieved. Jeff Russo’s score continues to elevate every moment of every scene, you can’t even tell that the music was all done remotely without a full orchestra present in one place, my personal favorite bit was the orchestral score at the beginning of the episode as Sahil does his daily routine.

All of that though would be for nought if there wasn’t a strong story to hold it all together. The script by Michelle Paradise, Jenny Lumet, and Alex Kurtzman was absolutely solid. Was it the most original story there ever was? No. But there is nothing wrong with telling a simple and easily recognizable story, especially when this episode had to do the heavy lifting of setting up an entirely new time period of the Star Trek Universe and get Michael and the audience acquainted with it. Even so, the script still found ways to have fun and keep the momentum going. Very few shows rarely manage to pull off a mid-shown soft reboot, especially with a serialized show. Discovery took a huge risk in shaking up its entire premise and I have to say that it paid off so well.

For the first time since The Original Series, I found myself in the unknown. There is no road map to follow, no Federation acting as a safety blanket. The world is wide open, and anything is possible. The old rules no longer apply, and we are truly going where no one has gone before. Just like it was in the 60s, we the audience must now learn this new world along with our characters. This is more than just a soft reboot of Discovery, but a soft reboot of the Star Trek franchise. I am immensely thrilled that Discovery will lead the charge to tell these new stories and create new canon.

Whatever this season brings, I am ready for it. I am ready to explore new worlds and new civilizations, to see hope rise as our Discovery crew help heal a broken world with their optimism, empathy, love, and compassion. This is what Star Trek has always been about.

And with Discovery’s fourth season just officially announced and talks about many more stories in the years to come, it warms my heart that Star Trek is not going away any time soon. The world still needs Star Trek and the lessons it teaches us.

Be sure to tune into season 3 of Star Trek: Discovery  which airs Thursdays on CBS All Access in the USA, CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada and on Fridays internationally on Netflix

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