Star Trek: Discovery Slammed Finale Stakes Into an Incredible Premise

About 80% of this week’s Star Trek: Discovery was maybe some of the considerate and fascinating episodes the collection has ever performed—maybe even one in all its most splendidly Star Trek-y tales. The different 20% noticed the dread inevitability that subsequent week is a large bang season finale and determined it actually wanted to undermine that unimaginable work just a little.

That sounds maybe just a little harsh, however “Species Ten-C,” the twelfth and penultimate episode of Discovery’s fourth season, matched a few of the boldest sci-fi storytelling the present has ever performed with a subplot that has more and more turn out to be a thorn within the aspect of the again half of the season: the cycle of lies and betrayals that has turn out to be Tarka and Book’s uneasy “friendship.” A friendship, in fact, that has been clearly set as much as break up aside virtually since Tarka first met Book, and now has had to take action with explosive penalties to arrange suitably dire stakes for subsequent week’s finale.

But let’s get to what works with “Species Ten-C,” which actually is for probably the most half a really sizeable chunk of the episode. Last week noticed Michael and her staff discover the remnants of the titular species’ homeworld, uncovering an unconventional emotional-biological approach they may talk with the mysterious, extremely superior species threatening to inadvertently tear Ni’Var and Earth aside. “Species Ten-C” largely focuses on the science and diplomatic instruments Discovery can use to place that revelation into motion. It’s genuinely fascinating stuff, as a result of for all of the whizz-bang motion Discovery usually excels at, it’s so hardly ever had the possibility over its 4 seasons to dedicate prolonged durations of time to only a purely investigative, theoretical, and science-y as hell premise.

Sure they’re not sitting round a desk in a captain’s prepared room for probably the most half, nevertheless it’s folks! Talking to one another! Experimenting! Offering theories! Trying to determine a puzzle that they relish as a result of they’re extremely good Starfleet officers! Yes, the Ten-C’s extremely superior society may make lots of that science extra rooted in fantastical components that depend on technobabble and Discovery’s standard sturdy performances to hold it via the small print, however there may be sufficient meat there that it genuinely feels such as you’re watching Burnham, President Rillak, Saru, the bridge crew, and the remainder of the Federation’s diplomatic staff work via this scientific downside. It’s extremely traditional Star Trek, and it actually works in a refreshing change of tempo and scale for the collection.

It additionally works as a result of, for probably the most half, that scientific headspace continues to be related to the very human coronary heart of Discovery, and this season’s working commentary on the facility of connection, communication, and shared understanding brings folks collectively on scales private and metaphysical. After all, the scientific downside the emotional hydrocarbons the Ten-C begin utilizing to type fundamental communications with the Discovery crew are all about feeling of their purest type—conveying pleasure, concern, disappointment, and hesitance as both sides pokes and prods at a First Contact state of affairs not like something Star Trek has seen on this scale earlier than. Being in tune with these feelings, and understanding when to confide them within the folks round you, has been one thing Discovery has at all times been about, and we see it all through this episode as properly. Michael and Saru sharing a de-stressing scream session collectively earlier than braving the unknown, Zora opening up about her personal uneasy emotions to Stamets and Dr. Culber, even Book and Tarka’s degrading alliance (we’ll get to all… that in a bit), or the nonetheless fleeting sparks of romance between T’Rina and Saru—in large methods and small, “Species Ten-C” is all concerning the vitality of having the ability to share these most elementary instincts to really feel, in order that we are able to all higher perceive one another. And it comes so near triumphantly celebrating that, after Michael’s staff figures out a approach to make use of a mathematical bridge language to speak to the Ten-C, and clarify to them that the DMA is one thing doing horrifying injury again in our galaxy.

But the whole lot has to go fallacious, as a result of this isn’t the season finale, however the precursor to at least one. All that onerous work, all that great science-y exploration, all of it has to exit the window and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, since you want the Ten-C to be at odds with Discovery’s crew, to have dire stakes for the finale. This is created, in fact, by the truth that Book and Tarka lastly make a transfer to forcefully disable the DMA, having been sneakily cloaked and connected to Discovery’s hull for the final two episodes. Or it’s extra actually Tarka, who, at this level has shockingly turned on Book to ahead his personal objectives. Who may’ve presumably foreseen that Tarka would deceive Book concerning the menace his plan actually has if it doesn’t work? Who may’ve foreseen that it won’t work within the first place? Who may’ve presumably foreseen that every one this may finish with Book realizing what an enormous mistake he’s made siding with the rogue scientist?

The reply is actually everybody besides Book apparently, whether or not it’s us, whether or not it’s Michael’s crew, whether or not it’s the captive Reno (talking for all of us actually each time she brings Book over to her impromptu holding cell on his ship to go “hey this guy’s going to like, get everyone killed? Are you… seeing this?”), whether or not it’s Tarka himself. Their complete journey collectively has been about Book making an enormous present of how a lot he trusts Tarka, just for Tarka to nearly instantly abuse that belief to do one thing aggressive, egocentric, or most of the time just a little mixture of each—and, equally most of the time, it’s did not work out for him. He was fallacious concerning the DMA’s energy supply, he’s been using off Discovery’s passage to the Ten-C quite than figuring it out himself. And now the grand plan that he desires Book to be pressured into trusting—tearing a approach out of the Ten-C’s native “hyperfield” with a violent explosion, within the hopes he can sneakily deactivate the DMA’s energy supply alongside the way in which—is what kicks off on the worst doable time for Michael and Saru’s negotiations with the Ten-C, placing the species on a hostile stance proper for the time being of potential peace.

If all this wasn’t so inevitable (Discovery has mainly been screaming that Tarka is as much as no good because the first second he slinked on display screen), it may need been rather less infuriating to look at the collection arrange one other large stakes finale like this. But the truth that the present needed to pull this ripcord now, after an in any other case incredible episode that performed to the collection’ emotional and cerebral strengths, undermines the whole lot that got here earlier than it. The stage is ready for one more one in all Discovery’s trademark explosive finales, penalties be damned—however a minimum of we solely have to attend per week to see if it was value this penultimate stumbling block.

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