The War Without, The War Within

*** (3 stars out of 5)

Guess who's coming to dinner? Michael brought the Evil Emperor Georgiou back with her. The Emperor quickly spills the beans to Saru that she & Michael have just eaten a Saru with beans. Awkweird!

Back from the Underneath, Discovery lands spore-lagged but close enough for jazz. However, in the 9 months they lost in transit the "Klingons" brought the Federation to its space knees. A third of their fleet is destroyed, planets we've never heard of were burned down, ALL their starbases ka-put. 20% of Federation space has been occupied, and 90% of the maps are coloured in red now!

Dr Pollard is still treating Ash. Like everyone else, she's uncertain what the "species reassignment surgery" has done to him. She says he hasn’t got more strength or aggression than a human now. I'll add that the medical staff should maybe switch to reinforced turtlenecks.

Saru blames Voq for Culber’s death, not Ash- and he believes in that distinction with more conviction than I've got at this point. Saru limits Ash’s privileges but won’t take his freedom. Stamets is enraged at the traitor but satisfied to know that Ash is human enough to suffer for his actions. Tilly & even DETMER welcome Ash back at lunch! It all seems wildly naive until I remember- THEY’RE KIND!!! I forgot what Starfleet being kind looked like!

Admiral Cornwell has Sarek mind-meld with Saru to confirm his identity & their "inconceivable ordeal" without all those pesky words and "last time on" recaps. Cornwell phaser blasts Lorca's fortune cookie bowl when she hears how unreasonable he was. She does nothing about the Evil Emperor except loan her a stateroom the size of Pike's entire engineering deck, but at least she does nothing about locking Michael back up forever, either. Cornwell also has a fruitless conversation with POW L'Rell. Starfleet Leadership is floundering even though Andorian Admiral Shukar ate a tiny computer to make his voice deeper.

Cornwell and Sarek are concerned that if this adventure becomes public knowledge a grieving Federation will play Fringe en masse and abandon universe for somewhere better. (I hear the Star Trek Continues dimension is pretty this time of year.) Discovery's records are classified and destroyed and recorded over with old episodes of The Expanse. Sorry, Captain Kirk, you'll have no forewarning of mirror universes! Sorry, Captain Janeway, no spore drive for you!

Sarek calls for the complete destruction of the enemy, then extolls the virtues of Michael's love for Ash in a public hallway- you know, like a Vulcan.

Stamets refuels with the high-speed terraforming of a moon in Veda with more magic mushrooms than Campbell’s. Michael drops some kind of strained metaphor on Ash about how, what with the murder attempt and all, her love would have to grow back with a lot more work and punishment than a moon of instant mushrooms. Or something. Basically, call it a break-up, probably?

Oh, and orders from Cornwell: a genocidal attack on Qo'noS commanded by the woman who's been there, done that in her dimension. The Emperor will be your guide and Captain. Oh, good. Something sensible at last. Dingy basement bridge forever!

Endgame

**** (4 stars out of 5)

Ever see "All Good Things..."? Well, then, this may seem a little familiar. Still, as I may have mentioned, I'm a sucker for time travel.

Janeway had a successful 23 year trip home, 10 years of relative peace and quiet since, and a snazzy hand-me-down turn-of-the-25th-century Vice Admiral uniform from that alternate future that's always about to happen yet never quite gets here. Despite it all, Kathryn Janeway has some regrets. And a time machine.

To be clear, it's no dystopia she's living in. Harry's a captain. Barclay's a commander. The EMH underwhelmed everyone by picking the name Joe and a human trophy wife. Tom has a receding hairline but he's written such holo-bestsellers as "I Broke The Warp 10 Barrier, Fathered Illegitimate Salamanders, and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt". B'Elanna has Worf's old job and her daughter Ensign Miral Paris is so loyal she'd erase this entire Next Next Generation at Janeway's slightest whim. (She erased it yesterday when Janeway burned a toaster strudel.)

Granted, Tuvok lost his marbles and 24 crew including Seven and her husband Chakotay didn't live to enjoy decades of nothing to talk about. But if you're already re-writing 26 years of time what's another 7? Go back a month earlier for poor Carey. Go back to 2371 and save beloved fan favourite Durst. Go back to Wolf 359 and head off the damn Dominion War while you're at it!

Still, why EARN things if you can just go back in time and hand yourself all the answers? And if you can sacrifice your wrinkly old butt to cripple the Borg in the process, then who cares how many Sabrina Wildmans you erase? There'll still be a Janeway left over. And a newborn baby Miral if you like. And heck, if you're selfishly breaking all the laws of time and space ANYWAY, a seven year journey makes for a compromise the admiralty will probably overlook at your Temporal Prime Directive Court Martial. And self-replicating anti-Borg ablative Batmobile armour to hand over might win you brownie points, too. Just not audience brownie points- for anyone who wondered what the future really held.

"Endgame" is visually brilliant and continues the tradition of turning the Star Trek concept into a snake eating its own tail. Yet I love it so, even when I find it hard to like. May you find the journey home to be as challenging as you can manage, and as rewarding as you would wish.

Year of Hell

**** (4 stars out of 5)

This is probably among the last things you'd want to see looming in the sky. It's no Death Star, but it's the next worst thing. It's an Unhappening Machine. It makes thing Unhappen.

Having put his fiendish mathematical mind into the construction of the temporal warship, Annorax of the Krenim has been warping the space-time continuum for over 200 years. Stepping on butterflies. Poisoning 50% of all cats in boxes. Dividing Planck's Constant by Infinity to keep milk from spilling, spoiling, or needing to be cried over.

Actually, it's mainly for genocide. Preventing enemies of the mighty Krenim Imperium from ever having existed.  Today, for example, they exterminate the perfectly nice Zahl race before the Zahl ever had the chance to affably say 'Hi There' to the Voyager. Or compliment them on their shiny new astrometrics lab (which Seven and Harry built in between chasing each other pantsless through the Jeffries Tubes).

So begins a series of explosive excerpts from 73 days in 2374: The Year in the Merde. We've caught up to an alternate version of the future Kes saw in 'Before and After', full of torpedoes, fire, and general hardship. No, strike that: General Hardship posed a threat to the Krenim and was erased from history decades ago.

After months of pummelling, the scorched and blackened little starship with the flickering lights is finally abandoned. Possibly because Captain Janeway doesn't need a full compliment to run the ship anymore somehow, or more likely because many dozens of tiny, unarmed warp-incapable escape pods somehow stand a better chance against the despicable Krenim hordes.

It's the previously untried "Incapacitate the Foe With Side-Splitting Pity Laughter" Maneuver.

"Year of Hell" asks the big questions. Is Kurtwood Smith's villain named for Professor Aronnax of '20,000 Leagues Under The Sea', or the U.K. term for a gaggle of otaku: Anoraks? Either way, he's a Big Bad I can get behind 100%, a name worthy to be spoken in the same breath as Khan Singh and Darth Sidious. It's as true now as it was before: Kurtwood Smith is the cat's ass.