WHY WE LIKE IT: Star Trek does Arrival.
WHY WE DON'T: The pointless screaming session.
REVIEW: I really mean it. This is Arrival-style science-fiction, trying to communicate with aliens who are completely other, and I found it fascinating even on a second watch. We're taken step by step through first decoding the system of lights and hydrocarbons, then, using match as a universal language, finding ways to create meaning. Rather abstract at first, things quickly get explained so that even an English major gets it. Math can be used to draw shapes, indicate molecular weight and substance ratios, and then there's inflections create by the simple emotions carried by the hydrocarbons. It's neat, and of course, just as the crew gets a breakthrough, Tarka strikes and causes an incident, forcing another, more desperate episode, but that was expected. What's great is that the scientific mystery is exciting even by itself.
But it has help from Booker's ship. Tarka, as usual, is making modifications without permission, and though Book is often looking over his shoulder, he can't be everywhere, so it's through the captive Reno that he finds out what's going on. Too late, as it turns out, because fighting Tarka is like fighting Brainiac 5 (almost literally). The guys has contingency plans inside contingency plans and has rigged a violent personal force field that puts Book out of commission when he tries to stop him. Impatient Ndoye, taken in, is made to sabotage Discovery so its nacelle plasma burns through the orb; she's lied to as well. To her credit, Reno not only pushes Book's buttons throughout, but MacGyver's a communications device with black licorice (it sounds more preposterous than it is) to contact the ship at the end of the episode to deliver the stakes: Tarka's theft of the DMA power source will make the hyperfield implode, destroying Discovery and the Ten-C, as well as sending a toxic waste dump right at Earth through the DMA's wormhole. It couldn't get more apocalyptic. This is Jett Reno's best episode since her introduction.
And it's not like the stakes weren't already high. The hyperfield, on approach, was a massive structure that hid three identical (therefore, artificial) gas giants. The Ten-C's technology is incredible. Then the field grows tentacles and places the ship (and its parasite) in an "orb", draining its engines, but nothing else. (Of course Tarka finds a way out, but that's the move that breaks diplomatic contact, but even he doesn't counter the engine drain.) The orb is apparently brought to a gas giant where massive creatures initiate communications, a scene that takes place in the dramatic space of the shuttle bay, which seems dangerous (what if the screen fails?), but it's certainly more impressive the bridge's viewscreen. They send a "shuttle" that mimics the bridge of Disco perfectly - it's kind of amusing that despite the wall-to-wall effects, the show uses such an old-school cost-cutting measure - and are able to teleport the ambassadors away as soon as they are betrayed. We almost don't need Tarka to make things work. Even if they stop the mad scientist, the DMA will still start affecting Earth in 4 hours (the episode takes 11 hours to resolve itself) unless they convince the Ten-C they weren't the aggressors. It's a lot.
Despite the urgency, the show remains intent on giving each character their own moments. Some of it works, like Stamets, Adira, Culber and Zora trying to find Reno, though they make their discovery too late to do anything about Tarka's plan, so it's almost unnecessary to the plot. Reno and Book sharing stories is a mixed bag - I like hers and how she relates it to Book's misplaced empathy for Tarka, but finally getting the secret origin of Cleveland Booker's Earth name, while it seems to prefigure tragedy in Episode 13, is lame nonsense. He inherited it from other couriers? Uhm, okay. Seems like there was more to it, but they never figured out what. The moments that DON'T work for me are, first, Burnham's think tank, bringing in bridge officers to puzzle out the Ten-C's code and only left me asking "why them?". I mean, Lt. Christopher is a communications officer, but helmswoman Detmer? Adira, Stamets and even Culber should have been on this, but were required elsewhere. The most easily jettisonable scene, however, is Saru showing Burnham how to release stress by screaming. There's no real point, and let me tell you, there's no way Grudge the cat would have stuck around after Saru's demonstration. But these are surely minor grievances.
LESSON: 4 + 5 = 9 (the more you know)
REWATCHABILITY - High: Despite some of Discovery's usual padding, a very exciting penultimate episode in the grand tradition of the much-beloved Darmok.
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