Star Trek 2.4-2.5 "Things are not always what they seem"

I think you could call the various story lines in episodes 4 and 5 as variations on the theme: “things are not always what they seem.”

*** Beware spoilers ahead ***

In these two episodes there are various situations where it appears one way at first and as the story unfolds, it turns out to be something else: the giant alien globe that snags the Discovery out of warp, Saru entering into the phase of death when Kelpiens either get culled by the aliens that dominate his home world or go mad, “May the ghost” that only Tilly can see, and the species May belongs to are fighting “a monster” that is wrecking the portion of the mycelial network they inhabit.

I think this message of “things are not always what they seem” is a good message as a life lesson. As for how well they work in the respective story threads that is more of a mixed bag. Certainly, the actors play it out extremely well and so as aways I’m a fan of how well they work things out even if sometimes the material they get to work with is a bit convoluted.

As I’ve mentioned before, I think Star Trek is at its best with “seek out new life and new civilizations” stories. The alien globe story line merges with Saru’s story line very nicely and I continue to view Doug Jones as clearly having the most interesting character to work with. We find out the alien globe is dying and wants to impart its knowledge to somebody - anybody - and in this case the computer banks of Discovery. Saru is dying and eventually he realizes it is because he is empathically linked to the death of the giant globe alien. Eventually, the penny drops in his mind and he makes the connection. He and Burnham scramble to the bridge to convince Pike to lower the shields and receive the message thus fulfilling the final wishes of the dying alien giant-thing-a-blob. As Michael helps Saru off the bridge to head to his death, the entire bridge crew silently stand in honor of their comrade, a truly beautiful moment.

No, they can’t write Saru out of the show!

Well, not to fear, after some more dramatic moments, Saru with Michael’s help discovers that by weathering the death syndrome, his threat ganglia fall off and he is restored to health minus the gripping fear that dominated his life! He also realizes that the whole natural order of his home world is a sham. Things are not as they appear to be!

The same thing happens in the other story lines. “May the ghost” is actually trying to get help to save her world and she knows Tilly can help her do so. Eventually, Tilly, Stamets, Burnham, and May figure out that the “monster” is Dr. Culber who was doing everything he could to survive in the mycelial network.

I wonder if the return of Dr. Culber was always in the plans from day one or a result of the uproar from fans when he was shockingly killed off in the middle of season one?

Anyway, this is science fiction and the scriptwriters brought him back through some convoluted intermix of Stamets and the mycelial network. It reminded me a bit of Star Trek III-TSFS when Spock's katra (soul) was download into Dr. McCoy’s mind and Spock’s body was reconfigured when it crashed on the Genesis planet and the his body and soul was reconnected by a Vulcan mystical process back on his home world. Thus, it would appear that TSFS held to “substance dualism.”

I’m not sure if ST-Disco’s Return of Dr. Culber falls into “substance dualism?”

Dr. Culber would up in mycelial network because Stamets had existence in both the ST-Disco world and the mycelial network concurrently. Somehow, he became the gateway for Dr. Culber (dead in the ST-Disco world) to be reanimated in the mycelial network world. However, for some reason, he doesn’t fully belong there, hence his scrambling about wrecking havoc in the mycelial network. And yet, when he tried to cross back into the ST-Disco world, he couldn’t cross over so he doesn’t really belong there either. But somehow, when “May the ghost” uses here pod transportation gadget he is fully restored. Did you get all that?

In terms of the acting, it is all well done but the whole concept is so confusing that it doesn’t really make sense within the “rules of the game” set up by the writers.

In ST-Disco, on three occasions they really pushed the “suspend disbelief” button so hard that it was annoying to me: the Tyler/Voq character, the concept of accessing the mycelial network and using it as a transportation highway, and now the return of Dr. Culber.

Suspending disbelief is part of any work of fiction and in particular science fiction so I grant it but if you push that button so hard that it starts cracking or breaking some viewers will throw up their hands and give up. Net-net though I still remain a viewer of ST-Disco. Perhaps, I’m just in too deep: I did go pay actual money to see Star Trek V - TFF, Star Trek - Insurrection, and Star Trek - Nemesis, in arguably the worst of the three movie versions of the Star Trek canon.

Final thought: they have been teasing the appearance of Spock since episode one and still nothing. I guess they are stringing us along as long as they can before he shows up!

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