Star Trek: Discovery review, Episode 406, “Stormy Weather”

The Discovery explores a deep space rift created by the Anomaly in hopes of puzzling out the mystery of its existence. The rift itself turns into a puzzle from which escape may be impossible. It is a labyrinth in the void between stars and the Discovery is the mouse in the maze.

Overall, I think this is a pretty okay episode. One of the main players this week is Discovery’s on-board computer Zora. She has developed artificial emotions, which inspires mixed reactions from the crew. That’s justified, because Zora’s ability to feel fear becomes a liability for the mission and puts the crew in danger.

Zora spends time interacting with Gray, who is himself getting used to his new situation. They play games to bring Zora’s emotions under control. For the first half of the episode, this storyline is a calm alternative to the escalating danger in the A plot. It’s not too exciting, but that’s not the point. It plants a seed, once that bears fruit in the back half of the hour.

But I’m jumping a little ahead. For the main story, the Discovery is in the subspace rift looking for clues about the Anomaly, and things go south pretty quickly. First, the Discovery’s scanners don’t pick anything up. A DOT is sent out to investigate only to disintegrate. Fearing the Discovery may suffer the same fate, they extend shields. Then they decide it’s best to leave but find themselves unable to fly out or jump.

On paper this should be interesting, with a problem that keeps getting worse as the episode goes on. However, I find myself feeling déjà vu with just how many episodes this season have used this sort of structure. If I didn’t know any better I’d think the Discovery is under a space pirate’s curse, because every mission they go on, circumstances conspire quickly to kill them. And the pattern is alway kind of similar. “Let’s try this.” Oops, won’t work. “How about this?” Won’t work either, also we will all die soon. “Okay, what about this?”

It feels silly complaining about this, because after all, this is what stories are, right? The characters want something and problems stand in their way. I can’t sensibly accuse the show of bad writing (at least not this week), but the season as a whole is relying too much on these time-bomb plots. They work once or twice, but when they show up every episode, the crises start to feel less urgent. And (briefest of spoilers for this episode) killing a random crew member who I barely recognize isn’t a good way to reignite my interest.

Booker battles with himself on Star Trek: Discovery

I also want to touch on Booker’s internal conflict. From the start she is quite confident that the rift will yield evidence about the creators of the DMA, but Booker is not so sure. He would rather tackle this problem head-on by searching for the creators in non-Federation space. Then later, after a blast from an electric surge, Booker begins having visions of his father calling him a coward for not following his gut.

This conflict is fine, I guess, but for me it comes off as manufactured. This internal dilemma that Booker is feeling is because he feels that Michael and StarFleet are wasting time looking for clues in the rift. He wants to get to the creators of the DMA as quickly as possible, I get that. However, I’m not sure why he thinks going on a blind search would be faster than analyzing data that could help make that search easier. I can understand that Booker isn’t thinking straight due to rage, vengeance, etc, but his subplot still feels weak to me. That said, I did think the scene where Booker and Saru connect closed the arc quite nicely.

And that’s this week of Star Trek: Discovery. At this point I’d like to formally admit that, unless the detail that the DMA is from outside the galaxy turns out to be a red herring, it looks like my working theory about the Anomaly is false. However, I haven’t given up hope yet. We’ll see what next week brings.

God, is this how people become Trekkies? It’s a slow transformation, isn’t it?

Grade: C

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels