Hit it! I must admit that I giggled when Captain Pike used those words to put his orders into action. There was a suspenseful moment where we weren't sure if he was about to say "engage," something new, or what. It was clever and funny. In fact, "Brother" had a lot of funny moments, mainly utilizing the awkwardness of Tilly to break the ice, but also even using Saru's threat ganglia for a laugh. They may have gone a little too far when a reptilian alien sneezed on a visitor. I'm ok with a little more humor, mostly, but there is much about this episode and in retrospect this entire series that I do have a problem with. Mainly, it feels like an action-packed superhero movie. No, scratch that....a cheesy action-packed superhero movie reboot. Some people love superhero movies. I do not. Nor do I particularly like action movies with their exhausting and improbable over-the-top sequences. I like science fiction. With Discovery, I'm picking up on much more of a nostalgic, character-driven, origin-story, action film focus that is directly at the expense of good science fiction writing.
Perhaps I'm more cynical towards this new dark Star Trek because I have been watching The Orville. The Orville clearly resides within the Star Trek universe, and although it basically is a quirky ripoff with few original ideas, it gets a lot of stuff right. It is not dark. It is bright and colorful, and produces the same feeling of an optimistic future where we are a better society that the original series and TNG did. Furthermore it uses clever science fiction stories as an allegory to highlight social and moral issues of our time and get us to consider other positions. Our new Trek series does not do any of that. Compared to Discovery, I will echo other's sentiments that The Orville is more Star Trek than Star Trek.
But I think my main annoyance goes back to the decision to base the series in a cramped timeline just prior to where TOS lives. I've gone over this before, but I think it warrants repeating here. The show is so boxed in that nearly anything new (spore drive, battle simulation training, new alien makeup) just seems out of place or even....wrong, based on what we already know of the universe. I would much have rather leaped forward to...well the next generation, where we could explore new things and not have to worry about destroying what already exists to do it. But "Brother" highlights even more reasons why this time period was a bad idea. That is, it firmly cements the premise of the show as nostalgia and familiarity, rather than further exploring the ideals of star trek within the contexts of damn good science fiction. I didn't care at all for the way that this episode messed with the viewer. Particularly Burnham's opening "Space, the final frontier..." that wasn't really a new opening, just... a monologue? I'm really not sure what it was, but the longer it went on the further out of place it felt. Then expecting to see Spock...but not being given Spock. Look, I didn't ask for Spock to be in this series, but if you're going to include him, quit messing with me and just do it already.
As for the story, insanely implausible action sequences aside, basically they get Pike as a semi-regular captain, and they chase some strange flashing lights. There is no Spock, but Burnham does get to snoop around in his underwear drawer and read his diary. Turns out he's off chasing those same lights. We can expect that this quest on both of their parts will make up the entire arc of the season. Meh.
Published January 18,2019
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