Star Trek: Discovery warps ahead into season two with an all time classic for the franchise.
Wow, what an episode of Star Trek that was! Episode two “New Eden” dealt with the age-old argument of science vs. religion in an exciting and emotive way.
In “New Eden”, the Discovery locates a new red burst located deep within the Beta Quadrant. As it’s so far away, they need to use the spore drive to jump to its location. When they arrive, they discover a colony of humans who arrived on a planet 200 years ago, well before warp travel was invented.
This episode, as is common for Discovery now, was beautifully shot and directed. Jonathan Frakes was in the chair for this episode and the TNG-alumni knocked it out of the park with some stunning sweeping shots.
Burnham, Pike, and Owosekun (Oyin Oladejo) are our away team this week to investigate the planet. It’s great that we’re getting so much time with the other bridge crew, and in this episode, we discover that Owosekun grew up in a luddite collective. We don’t get any further details on this and it would’ve been interesting to develop this.
The colony down on the planet have created a new religion by combining all of earths major religions. Gene Roddenberry had normally shied away from that topic, with other series tackling it via alien races (think DS9 and the Bajorans). So it's interesting that Discovery is taking this step.
Up in orbit on the the Discovery, the crew has a crisis on their hands when radioactive debris is on a collision course with the planet. The set pieces in this part are fantastic, with a doughnut in space! Tilly again shines in this episode and has a strange encounter with a classmate from her past who had died a few years ago. Whether this is “red angel” related is unknown yet.
We also find out that Stamets can encounter his late partner Hugh in the mycelial network, which leaves him a little forlorn in this episode.
We get another flawless performance from Anson Mount who continue to portray his Captain Pike character as a cavalier and charming captain. When landing on the pre-warp planet, and keeping cover, he saves a local child from a phaser blast by jumping on it injuring himself. He also has an awesome interaction with the planets’ scientist Jacob who continually questions their true origins.
This is by far the best episode of Discovery so far, but the show needs more time to explore the ideas that it shows on screen. Sometimes scenes feel rushed or end abruptly. And Michael Burnham never really feels like the star of her own show at times. Pike got all the heroic moments on the planet, whilst Tilly handled the crisis up in space.
Overall, Discovery is continuing an upward trend by giving the show a sense of adventure and fun, whilst also raising discussions with interesting topics.
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