Star Trek is back! Not just as Star Trek: Discovery, but the sense of wonder, honour, and fun made a welcome return. Of course, our review of the episode “Brothers” contains full spoilers.
At times, “Brother” felt like a soft reboot of the series after introducing a new captain, a new mystery, and setting up a storyline between Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Spock (Ethan Peck).
The change of tone for season two is apparent almost straight away with an instantly likeable Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) demonstrating a night and day difference to the cold and calculating Gabriel Lorca (Jason Isaacs). Being set after “The Cage” from Star Trek: The Original Series, Pike is played slightly differently from the man in the pilot episode. But this character is just what the Discovery crew needed.
Ensign Tilly shines in this episode. Her infectious exuberance played beautifully by Mary Wiseman will put a smile on your face throughout the entire episode. The moment where Captain Pike officially takes over the Discovery sees Tilly need to change the way Pikes hand is positioned on the console. That moment sets the precedent for things to come.
Whilst heading towards the first “red burst”, the crew finds a wrecked Federation starship, the USS Hiawatha. Some fun action sequences which are common in Discovery sees the Captain, Burnham, Pikes’ Science Officer, and a red shirt must fly towards the ship in little pods. In an anti-trope of Star Trek, the red shirt is the character that actually survives!
Once they reach the ship, the meet Chief Engineer Reno (Tig Notaro) whose dry delivery and surly attitude is played wonderfully. She’s even been keeping people alive with strange, hacked together devices.
The crew all get little bits to shine, as each character gets a more fleshed out task and piece of dialogue. It’s only really Saru that we don’t see a lot of, but again, the threat ganglia appear with a funny bit of dialogue.
We also meet “baby Spock” who is cold with Burnham on their first meeting and lays down the groundwork for how their relationship is strained at this point. And we also don’t actually see “adult Spock” yet; we only hear him in voiceover.
Discovery is at its strongest when its running on its own two feet and the best moments of the episode are where Discovery is doing its own thing. Whether the show can leave behind references to previous series in the timeline is another matter, but we did only see the Enterprise briefly.
Overall, Discovery arrived back onto our screens with a sense of impetus, togetherness, and fun that we’d come to expect from Star Trek. Each character had their own moment to shine, and the episode sets up a fascinating mystery for the rest of the season.