New Eden

 *** (3 stars out of 5)

Discovery is chasing down the Red Blue Blur... uh, Red Angel phenomenon observed by both Spock and his sister Michael. Seven to find. Gotta catch em all!

Spock’s been secretly but voluntarily committed to psychiatric unit in Starbase 5. Did season 1 drive him mad like it’s done me? Whatever the cause, we’re going to follow Spock’s nightmare journals and keep toying with Fun Guy Stamets’ mental health on the fungi high speed highway. 

Their first stop is Beta Quadrant, 150 years away at conventional warp, essentially impossible without the spore drive which we’ve sworn off now because it takes a horrible toll on the human interface. Who has just lost the love of his life and is talking disconcertingly about suicide. Just one more trip couldn’t hurt. 

Unless you count hurting Tilley who’s looking for a means to spare Stamets with more mad science. Concussion watch: 2. Tilley just about dies while getting her rocks off a dark matter asteroid with enough Metrion particles to slay the Talaxians. 

What luck! It’s another pre-warp human society subject to General Order 1. We can do some covert ops with the help of Joann Owosekun, raised in a Luddite collective which I still hope to hear anything about someday.

Pike put chairs in the ready room, the better to subtly promise that people will try to talk more. Pike says he’s from a confusing household because his father taught science and comparative religion. Michael inwardly, logically, says hold my Vulcan ale.

If you believe Pike, Clarke’s Third Law was garbled by churchies into basically “Any powerful spaceman is God.” I am very much on the side of Michael’s interpretation using Arthur Clarke’s original words. It makes me worry that the people Pike is talking about would still be worshipping the Vulcans. But Michael strikes me as admirably diplomatic here. 

“I’ll scan the text...” says Burnham, logically. “Or we could look at the pictures.” muses Pike. Do you want an illiterate populace like the Star Wars galaxy? Cause this is how you get an illiterate populace like the Star Wars galaxy. Of course, the pictures Pike is talking about are church windows, and I’m glad the ancient litany of G.I. Joe cartoons are still being taught and represented in stained glass. In 2053, a red angel saw a church, saw a steeple, opened a wormhole and carried off hundreds of panicked people. Away from the nuke-dropping jets of World War Three to planet Terralysium where they relied on a buffet-style combo religion more than ever. Oh, good! Religion never hurts anyone! 

The All-Mother of New Eden doesn’t appear bothered that nobody has managed to recreate the electric light for 200 years, or that as far as they know humanity is virtually extinct, she leaves those concerns to fringe science types like Jacob. Also, a kid immediately plays with a phaser forcing Pike to play Captain America. The jumping on the grenade part, not the plentiful guns lying around for everyone part.

Did Dr. Pollard save the Hiawatha survivors from last episode? I would dearly love to know if Jett Reno’s unconventional first aid had worked or was only there for the gross-out factor.

Tilley is seeing the ghost of her old school chum May Ahearn who has an in-joke about “Lunches like mini earthquakes. Bounce, bounce, bounce.” For some reason, May repeatedly calls her “Stilly”. Is it because she built a still? That would make your stomach bounce.

Apparently Earth had stun grenades in 2053 and they’re still good after 2 centuries in a dank basement, like the video records from a soldier’s helmet cam for which Pike breaks cover, trading Jacob a power cell to run the church lights.

Detmer’s had her pilot’s license since 12, and you’d think Saru might know that by now, but Lorca horsewhipped people for making small talk. Saru has learned 90 Federation languages to impress people at the parties he never attends. And I love it when they give him opportunities to be brave & kind.