Article contributed by Jasmina Demirovska
Fans have been waiting for season 3 of Star Trek: Discovery and it’s finally here! So what happened during the first episode?
At the end of season 2, we saw that Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and the crew of the USS Discovery had no chance but to spring forward in time to ensure a future for humanity by jumping through a wormhole, and prevent the AI defence system Control to destroy all life. Michael sends a signal into a wormhole and jumps into it, with her mother’s time-travelling suit and a time-travelling crystal they obtained earlier, while the Discovery is supposed to be right behind her. Upon arrival at the planet Terralysium 900 years later, Burnham is supposed to send another signal, so the Discovery can find her. At the end we can see that the USS Enterprise detects a signal and so season 2 ends.
The New Planet
Season 3 now begins with a yet unknown man who seemingly searches for such signals, but does not detect any. We can detect the Federation’s logo on a box he owns, but the scene cuts to another yet unknown man in a ship, who is being attacked. Suddenly, Burnham appears out of a wormhole and crashes into the man’s ship with only her time-travelling suit on.
She awakes on a planet and sends the suit through the wormhole before it closes, sending a signal through it like she promised to do. Before she sent the suit away, she asked if the planet is inhabited and because it is, she is ecstatic that humanity still exists. While walking on a beach, she encounters the crashed ship of the man and he attacks her, because he thinks she wants to steal his ship. After the well choreographed fight, she tries to explain herself, but the man does not want to hear her story. She does not let go and manages to tell him that she might have lost her crew and cannot go back, so he empathises with her and takes her with him. He explains that Burnham landed on a planet called Hima in the year 3188, so 920 years in the future.
Friend or Foe?
When they arrived at his home, he tells her that his name is Book (David Ajala), and reveals that he is a courier (even though it is revealed later that he actually stole the cargo he was transporting when they crashed). Also, Book owns a cat named Grudge — so he has to be a nice man right?
In order to transport his cargo, he needs to trade his things for dilithium, an element needed for warp. Michael goes with him to trade her now antic belongings, so she can contact her crew.
While travelling to the Mercantile, the only place they can trade at, Book explains that the Federation is gone, that is seems to have collapsed after ‘The Burn’ about 100 years ago, an incident where all the dilithium began to explode. And as dilithium is needed for ship with warp, many people died. However, Burnham does not lose hope and wants to find her crew.
At the very dystopian looking Mercantile, where Book wanted to show Michael a communication device, he instead betrays her and gets her arrested. He takes her belongings and leaves to sell them himself. All the while, Burnham gets drugged by other couriers who think she wanted to steal from them, and gets high. The drug is supposed to make people more truthful and Burnham, being high as a kite, tells them the that Book stole someone’s cargo, so they start searching for him with Burnham. They find him being threatened by the guy he stole the cargo from (he specifically threatens Grudge, the cat, and calls her a queen, which might be important later), and as the weapons are drawn towards Burnham and Book, a fight ensues. Burnham and Book steal the courier’s weapons and dilithium and flee. During these jumps through space, we get to see incredibly beautiful scenery until they pause at a lake to take a break and help Burnham with a wound on her arm.
Book, being the mysterious man he is, gets even more mysterious when he starts speaking, or chanting even, in an alien language and a plant grows out of the water. He then uses the magic plant to treat Michael’s injury. Book takes out his ‘jumping device’ and lets Michael attempt to contact her crew with it. Michael tries, but no one answers. She reveals to him that she travelled through time, to which Book responds that all time technology has been outlawed and destroyed years ago.
The Cargo
Throughout the whole episode, Book was very secretive about what he transports. But as they arrived at the ship, the couriers tracked them down and Book and Michael have to lay down their weapons. The courier orders Book to give them his access code to the cargo, and he obeys. The gate opens and out comes a transworm. The creature eats everyone but Book, because he seems to have tamed the beast in the past, and he orders it to spit out Michael.
While finally flying to the transworm’s destination it is revealed that Book actually just tries to save endangered species, as the Federation is now gone and no one else is doing it. The destination is of the transworm is a sanctuary. Book mentions that he had to leave his own planet behind, and wants to help Michael find her crew — this time he means it.
The Man Searching for Signals
He brings her to the man we saw in the starting sequence, the one who looked for signals. Aditya Sahil is apparently the only man still belonging to the Starfleet. He, too, attempts to find the Discovery, but as he can only detect ships in one sector, he also fails. Michael thinks that the Discovery may have landed on the planet already, but out of reach of their communication systems, or that they are not there yet — which means that they could arrive tomorrow or in a 1000 years.
Sahil watched this office for 40 years in hope that someone like Michael arrives — so Burnham and Sahil both become very hopeful, even though they cannot find the Discovery yet. They raise the Federation’s flag together and Sahil accepts Burnham’s commission to be Communications Chief and find the Discovery, and others.
Overall Thoughts?
Upon hearing the main theme of Star Trek: Discovery, I get catapulted back into my childhood when I first watched Star Trek with my dad, so my anticipation was great. This season of Star Trek: Discovery is as fun and meaningful to watch as ever. What makes it even more fun, is that the cast is so well-picked with Sonequa Martin-Green as Black female lead, David Ajala as what I think might become the new love interest, and Adil Hussain as new important member of the Federation. What captures my attention as well, is the beautiful scenery in this episode which makes it so worth to watch! I am very excited for the remaining episodes, which will be aired on CBS and uploaded weekly on Netflix.
