Saints of Imperfection

 ** (2 magic teardrops out of 5)

Because the audience hopes to see Spock on our Spock chase, we chase Spock's shuttle a little more and who should turn up inside it but Emperor Georgiou, now an agent of Section 31?! Pike knows what 31 is. Mike knows what 31 is. We all know what 31 is! More Covert than Covert, my rump.

Pike gets on the hologram with Leland, also an old chum from Section 31, like it's a an ordinary branch of Starfleet Intelligence that Archer or Sisko should've easily known about a century ago and a century from now, no biggie. And also here's a Section 31 liaison in the person of handsome Ash Tyler and this lovely Section 31 gift card redeemable nowhere because we surely don't exist.

Nhan is mentioned to be chief of security, so watch out- because on Discovery that's the Defense Against The Dark Arts post.

Speaking of space magic, Tilly was kidnapped by the Spore People into the Mushroom Kingdom through a cocoon, and her Spore buddy May has to convince the local Spores not to eat her alive in tiny painful bites because their natural approach to new things is eating them. They need her to fight a monster named Culber. A monster the Spores found awhile ago and chose to revive instead of just eating him. The monster has covered himself in poison bark to stop them eating him, which they want to do. Won't Tilly help them?

Culbers are friends, not food! Why did the jahSepp heal him just to start trying to eat him again? No time! 

Pike rides to Tilly's rescue, Stamets bringing the whole ship half in, half out of the mycelial network like a doorstop. Try to avoid getting a hundred people twisted into flesh and blood pretzels like the crew of the Glenn!

Tearful reunion of traumatized Stamets and Culber, which is always good, especially when the prevailing theory is that Stamets' mushroom soup tears transported Culber's energy into the mycelial network "like a lightning rod" where the locals gave him a body that can't leave their dimension.

"I need you to make it make sense," says Captain Pike, a tall order which no one fulfills. But on the bright side we still get Culber back, thanks to more cocoon shenanigans.

Admiral Cornwell pops in to tell us she knows about Section 31, and she condones its terrible, weirdly public, sly, sexy nastiness, so Pike should too, and maybe subscribe to any streaming service that gives us more of it someday.

 

Runaway

** (2 out of 5)

Tilly's step-monster (a faceless authoritarian caricature and anachronistic hologram that is now ST:Discovery's hallmark) reminds her that she's a heap of worthless garbage and should never aspire to anything. I'm paraphrasing slightly. Soon, demoralized Tilley is in a midnight food-fight with Leluminai Lekatariba Lamina-Tchai Ekbat De Sabat...'s feral cousin. Lurchingly atonal hilarity ensues.

The awkward cadet and the fierce stowaway get all sugared up and quietly tip-toe through the sleeping ship, off to Tilly's bedroom... for a verbal competition to see which is the nerdiest scofflaw, who's mom is the worst mom, and who has the most head-scratching back story. Then, all without telling any grown-ups, the two giggling girls exchange shiny jewelry and Tilly apparently beams her new pal out into the empty void! Where she... wove monofilament wings from her own sense of self worth and swam home? I guess?

Discovery desperately needs more laughs, so I really do applaud the effort at comedy here. I admire these enthusiastic performances, and the message of sisterhood, but... the writing and especially the Trek continuity is... awfully dodgy.

If Me Hani Ika Hali Ka Po built a translator as a child, WHY DID SHE NOT BRING IT ALONG? Why would she want to present herself to strangers as a hissing, intermittently spiky, food-throwing Tasmanian Devil? And what's her end game? Was she HOPING to get herself shot? Because that's what Lorca or Notorious Emperor G would've done if she'd snuck up behind THEM making weird cat noises- in a hot minute! Was she literally just in Predator cosplay? And... how did Po mess with the food slots and the computer screens? Is she a Magic Glitch Princess on top of everything?

Prime Universe matter transporters of this time period are limited to a planetary orbital range. So... if they were orbiting Po's planet why doesn't Tilly seem to know about it? Is this finally a direct admission that we're in the same universe as 'Into Darkness', where interplanetary beaming is even a thing?

And are the transporter rooms really TOTALLY UNATTENDED at night so any over-caffeinated ginger goofball can just pop in and beam strategically valuable Space Queens/Engineering Supergeniuses/Invisible Telekinetic Hedgehogs anywhere they please?

Thank you Super Anemic for the meme which I busted a gut over and swiped.

The Next Phase

***** (5 stars out of 5)

Beaming to the aid of a stricken Romulan ship, Geordi and Ro are lost in the transporter with a radioactive Romulan gizmo. They are pronounced dead. (Is it Contract Renegotiation Season already?!)

Unseen, the duo awaken in the ship's corridors and discover they cannot be heard or felt, either. Although they are solid to each other. (Some heavy hand-holding action ensues..!)

Ro believes she and Geordi are dead spirits. The Bajorans call them borhyas. Geordi can't wrap his head around that. "Are you saying I'm some blind ghost with clothes?"

She tries to make peace with her life, while Geordi tries to figure out the science. 

Ro's a little worried what Riker would say at her funeral. (Ever since she "Ro'd his boat".) 

The Romulan Captain was also cloaked and phased in the inverter accident. And he's tangibly dismayed to be intangible!

The baddie chases Ro through walls all across deck 17, until she's struggling for her life in the middle of somebody's dinner date. Geordi body-checks her attacker through a bulkhead into airless space. Sucks to be that guy!

The pair of ersatz borhyas crash their own memorial party in Ten-Forward. Desperately overloading their new disruptor, they get noticed by Data and finally de-phased.

So how did they keep breathing, seeing, hearing, and walking on the floors? Immaterial!  Ba-dum-bum!

Geordi says they didn't eat for two days. For the first time on this my, I dunno, 25th viewing, I wondered about ghost poops. Did they do their business, and, if so, is it still cloaked and phased somewhere? That takes care of my heebies, but I still gots the jeebies.

 "The Next Phase" had mind-blowing visual effects & sound for the period, and Ro gets to run a lot and kick some Romulan bottom. Endowed with the super-powers of Kitty Pryde, Ro and Geordi could've gone into the super-hero biz as Cloak & Dagger! (Unless that name's already taken.)

And forget the military applications: just think what a phasing cloak can do for the expanding field of voyeurism!