Far from Home

This season's second episode of Star Trek Discovery, titled Far From Home, tells the other missing half of where the Discovery ended up after being separated from Michael Burnham through time travel. The crew crash land on an unknown planet and must repair the sustained damage and leave before a block of infectious ice eats through the hull.

Far From Home is an entertaining follow-up episode where you see the Discovery crew working together and it's like watching every little gear turn in an old watch. It's nice to see Doug Jones' Saru, who's consistently been my favourite part of the show, have the command and lead the crew. That feels right. Again, this reiterates my point that Michael Burnham acts so characteristically un-Star Trek over the last two seasons that the show instantly snaps back to being Star Trek in her absence. Again, my anticipation slowly boils for the upcoming Star Trek: Strange New Worlds with Captain Pike.

The subplots for the crew are also laid in. Anthony Rapp's Paul Stamets and Wilson Cruz's Hugh Culber story feels like it has ended. I wonder what new storyline they will get. I scratch my head at why the crew would keep a loose cannon like Michelle Yeoh's Phillipa Georgiou on this ship. She's always up to no good. The most intriguing storyline involves Lieutenant Keyla Detmer, the pilot of the Discovery with the striking cybernetic undercut hair, who is discombobulated after the crash. I am looking forward to seeing where her plotline leads to.

Tig Notaro is funny and a much-appreciated presence on this show but must the writers have her spouting zingers in every line of her dialogue? It's like they're churning her for every penny's worth. Sometimes it can just be nerdy technobabble, you know.

It's my wish that some of the female characters can be written without this modern sensibility that keeps pulling me out of the story. Often times, they feel and behave like modern women of 2020 and less like a person from the Star Trek universe. It feels as if whenever the camera is not on them, they will pull out their cell phone to tweet about their day. I understand the writers have done this to make the show more accessible to new viewers so they can very easily see themselves in the characters. There are exceptions though. Rebecca Romijn's Number One, Rachael Ancheril's Commander Nhan, and Emily Coutts' Lieutenant Keyla Detmer are great examples of female characters in the show that fit into the universe well. They're just good at their job and they do not exist to make a point. I just prefer it that way.

Far From Home played much more like a conventional Star Trek episode than the previous opening episode of the season, which played more like a Star Wars adventure. With the two new added characters Book and Sahil who are now with Burnham and will eventually meet the Star Trek Discovery crew, it feels like a case of "Star Wars versus Star Trek." It's odd of me to say this and I may regret this later, for where the show is story-wise currently, I am rooting for the Star Wars swashbuckling adventure side of it.

Damn, there goes my hope after 3x01, that the writers learned how develop interesting characters.

I don't know how they manage it, but somehow the complete crew of the Discovery is blessed with diverse character flaws, making it a challenge to like them and almost impossible to identify myself with them. This crew literally feels alien to me. And Georgiou as the antipode for the Federation in general, won't be enough to save the show.

That the plot is so very very generic certainly didn't help either.

I love that the side roles stand out. that's why I'm a 'Star Trek' fan. Anyone can be the lead at any time. Just like real life. Also, "Jake Weber" was a very pleasant surprise. These surprises from time to time increase the expectation. We already missed him so much.

For me, this episode came down to the genuine heart displayed by the characters. Discovery has a terrific cast, and when they're given good dialogue and their relationships aren't being squeezed with a heavy hand to wring out maximum drama, the whole crew really shines.

What struck me in this episode, though, was how perfectly Saru embodied the values of both the Federation in-universe and the franchise on a meta-level. He was, as each circumstance called for it, decisive, commanding, sensitive, pragmatic, smart, nurturing, and unwavering in his principles. Doug Jones knocked it out of the park with a performance that celebrated both Saru's restraint and his honesty. He's a complex character who has undergone plenty of growth throughout the series, and even though he's only "acting" captain at this point, he's established himself as a match for the upper echelons of Trek captains.

Plus, I could watch Reno and Stamets arguing all day long.

The production values are obviously high with some great scenery and effects which would not look out of place in a big budget movie.

Having seen Michael's arrival in the future last episode, we now get to see the rest of the crew's arrival. The story seems somewhat truncated and simplified for brevity, with what feels like chunks missing, but all the relevant and important stuff is there. It would probably have negatively impacted the pace to spin it out more.

The naysayers who are determined to rubbish Discovery no matter what will be out in force again, but at least now they can't call it the Michael Burnham show as she barely makes any appearance in this episode until the final scene. In fact we've skipped over a whole year of Michael Burnham's story, so unless any of that is shown in some flashbacks, that argument really holds no water anymore.

Great to see Michelle Yeoh back and on form as evil Georgiou; she's the real star of this episode!

Nine out of ten because I understand how some fans will not appreciate the longer story arc and judge the episode as boring on that basis. But really, for me it was great.