Star Trek: Discovery Heads Out Into the Black to Find a Startling New Crewmate

Remember just a few weeks in the past after I mentioned it was good the crew of the Discovery was getting some much-needed remedy? Yeah, it seems that ought to’ve included the starship itself.

“Stormy Weather,” like a lot of Discovery’s fourth season to this point, gives a quintessentially trendy Trek twist on a traditional Star Trek premise once more—this time even actually referencing the occasions that got here earlier than it, because the Discovery heads right into a tear in subspace left behind by the Dark Matter Anomaly, solely to discover a full void of nothingness. Star Trek loves itself a void of nothingness—The Animated Series had “The Time Trap,” which had an analogous concept of the Enterprise being trapped in a dimension it might seemingly not get out of, The Next Generation had “Where Silence Has Lease.” Hell, Voyager, additionally name-checked right here, beloved voids of nothingness a lot it acquired trapped in two of them!

Which means we discover ourselves in one thing of a bottle episode—we virtually expertise the complete episode on the bridge and in Discovery’s lounge, a rarity for a present that loves displaying off lavish areas, and a state of affairs not likely explored since season 1’s glorious Harry Mudd time loop episode. Naturally, nobody on the Discovery desires to go exterior in a void of nothingness, particularly after they ship a Dot drone out into it and it promptly will get disintegrated by no matter primal unknown forces are on the market within the black. The countdown begins, because it has a number of instances this season: Discovery’s crew has to search out the information on the DMA they want from the void earlier than its forces encroach any additional in previous its shielding and rips the ship aside.

All that is very intense and excessive stakes, in fact, and it’s truly a pleasure to see the uncommon sight of Discovery’s still-under-utilized Bridge officer crew put their considering caps on as they, Burnham, and Saru all strive to determine methods to maintain themselves alive and try to probe the void’s mysteries. It’s action-packed, for essentially the most half, in that old-school Trek model: No whizzbang combative phaser fights, however probes, experiments, hail mary methods scans—it’s Star Trek sciencing in a method that Discovery hasn’t actually had the time to do except its forged can also be being thrown concerning the place and buffeted by explosions. It’s a welcome mirror to the present’s extra cinematic strategy to raised stakes, nonetheless simply as tense and riveting to get by way of however not essentially so loud.

But that is Discovery, which implies that it’s additionally a little bit of an emotional wringer for everybody concerned. The first is Ian Alexander’s Gray, who finds himself by his lonesome within the Discovery lounge when Captain Burnham orders all the Starfleet crew—Adira included—to their responsibility stations to assist remedy the void’s mysteries. Already feeling listless about discovering a spot on the ship now he has bodily kind, isolating Gray instantly leaves him susceptible. Frustrated that his standing aboard the ship as a civilian means he can’t assist in the way in which he desires to, even when he’s coaching to take action as a Trill Guardian. And so Gray strikes up an instantaneous connection to the opposite main character of “Stormy Weather”: Zora (voiced by Annabelle Wallis), the Discovery’s evolving ship Computer. Discovery’s fourth season has sown the seeds that one thing has occurred to the pc since integrating the sphere information it inherited all the way in which again in season 2: Not solely has it chosen a reputation, however the AI has develop into extra emotive, extra caring of the crew that appeared to safeguard the knowledge it housed throughout the Discovery’s methods. Seeing Gray in want when he reaches out to her, Zora responds in type… and even opens up concerning the emotional turmoil she finds herself in, a ship confronted with sensor readings that make no sense, a pocket of actuality that she can’t perceive.

What follows is the crucible for Zora to develop into greater than only a significantly chatty Star Trek ship laptop. As issues begin getting an increasing number of harmful for the crew because the void closes in on the ship—seemingly reducing them off from a path again out of it—it’s not simply Michael and the bridge crew that come underneath pressure, however Zora herself, all however revealing that the Discovery has develop into one thing of a sentient being in secret. She will get pissed off, anxious, overwhelmed because the extra issues begin occurring and the extra stress time weighs down upon the ship and the crew: all issues {that a} starship laptop, as least as we’ve recognized them to this point, actually shouldn’t be. But being one thing of an emotional wreck is what Discovery has settled on as one thing of its personal Star Trek promoting level now: a reminder that, beneath the veneer of a Starfleet officer, there’s a individual, and that individual will be flawed, can have good days and dangerous days; they are often compromised by their emotions. It’s now come time for Zora and the ship itself to mirror that too, making her as very important a crewmate as anybody else aboard the ship.

Which occurs simply in time, contemplating Burnham must lean on Zora to get everybody else out alive. When it turns into clear that the trail the crew has found out for itself to flee the void gained’t get them out in time earlier than the ship is rendered inhospitable at finest, in tiny little bits at worst, the Captain makes the dangerous, and but very Burnham household choice to place herself in danger to maintain everybody else out of hurt’s method. Getting Zora to beam everybody into the transporter sample buffer—suspending them in limbo so they’re shielded from the extreme warmth generated as Discovery rams its method out of the rift—Michael has to single-handedly information the ship to security, at the same time as she begins succumbing to the pressure, emotional or literal. And so, Zora steps up as any good Star Trek officer would, to assist their Captain: She overcomes her personal concern to maintain Michael targeted, whereas as actually the ship itself, additionally guiding her out of hurt’s method, singing the titular Ethel Waters traditional to calm the pair of them down within the face of oblivion.

Is it a bit overtly sentimental? Yes, however truthfully that’s simply the type of present Discovery is at this level. It’s deeply within the emotionality of its stars, and reflecting on the truth that regardless of how a lot they attempt to be minimize from the identical fabric because the icons of Starfleet that got here earlier than them, this crew has been by way of so a lot, and that’s left them susceptible and deeply human (and… properly, you recognize what we imply, different Trek species can be found). It is sensible that now even the ship itself is on board with that concept too, and each bit as essential a personality within the ensemble because the beings aboard it. In forging that new concept out of a traditional Trek premise, Discovery as soon as once more reminds us that it’s fairly completely able to being its personal spin on Star Trek as we all know it—and positive factors a “new” crewmate in Zora that is filled with potential to discover because the season progresses.

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