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What are the Trill in Star Trek? Explained

In many ways, it’s easy to explain the Trill of Star Trek . They are a humanoid species from the planet Trill located in the Alpha Quadrant. They look just like Humans except for the cluster of dark spots running along the sides of their heads and – though it’s often unseen for censorship purposes – along their bodies. There’s an aspect of Trill culture that’s a little more difficult to explain, though, but I’ll give it a try anyway.

What is a Trill?

The Trill are as scientifically advanced as most alien races throughout the galaxy of Star Trek . They, too, love to put things under a microscope and study them in official research capacities. It’s potentially in their pursuit of knowledge that they discovered a long, long time ago that some of them had the ability to link with a Trill symbiont.

Related : The Best Star Trek TV Shows, Ranked

They undergo surgery during which a big worm is placed in their abdomen. This process forms an immediate connection between the host and the symbiont. The two then embark on a lifelong journey of sharing memories and life experiences after they are joined. It’s not such an easy concept to explain to anyone new to fandom.

The Trill were first introduced in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and have been a have since become staple of the franchise. We even got to see the ancient underground pools where Trill went to better understand, or sometimes heal, the symbiont within them.

Notable Trill in Star Trek

However, Deep Space Nine didn’t just introduce the Trill or their cultural practices. The series gave us the most famous Trill of all: Jadzia Dax. She was the First Officer and BFF of Captain Sisko. She was also the closest that many transgender Star Trek fans had ever gotten to complex representation in a popular sci-fi series.

As much as we love (and miss) her, though, Jadzia was not the only Trill to get into space shenanigans like time travel and facing one’s own insecurities. She came from a long line of Trill who’d joined with the Dax symbiont. Some of whom we met in Deep Space Nine , like the incorrigible Curzon or the emphasis Ezri.

Then, of course, there’s Barnes in Lower Decks and Gray Tal in Discovery . Technically, there’s also Adira Tal but that complicated history is for another time. Just know that explaining the Trill of Star Trek just got a little easier. You’re welcome!

Star Trek | Just Like a Trill: The Difference Between Symbionts and Parasites

Biologist Irene Garcia Newton explains the real science behind Star Trek’s Trill symbionts.

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Imagine you and I are Starfleet officers on shore leave. Rather than jet off to Risa (the ‘pleasure planet’) for the 20th time in a row, we make a quick 40-light-year trip to the planet Trill instead.

When we arrive, we bypass the popular Hoobishan Baths and head down into the depths of the planet to find the Caves of Mak’ala, a series of tunnels filled with glowing, interconnected pools of milky water.

We watch as worm-like creatures a little smaller than our forearms swim around the pools. It’s not long before a robed Guardian approaches, who (begrudgingly, we’re hanging out in a very sacred space, after all) explains these are Trill symbionts. He tells us that they can stay here in the pools or, if they want to get out, they can be ‘implanted’ into a Trill humanoid host.

A network of caves and worm-like creatures that need a human host. It sounds more body horror than a holiday, right? That’s no surprise. Sci-fi has taught us that symbiotic relationships don’t end well for the host.

Think of the Facehuggers in Alien (1979). They latch onto a host’s face, use their chest to incubate a baby Xenomorph, and leave them very dead when they burst out. The parasites from The Faculty (1998) burrow into a host’s brain through their ear and then take over their bodies. And there’s the ‘thing’ from The Thing (1982), a parasitic alien that infects and assimilates its hosts before imitating them.

A similar bug-like being also nearly led to the downfall of Starfleet and the murder of Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) in Star Trek: The Next Generation (‘Conspiracy’ – S1, Ep25) when an army of pink parasites took residence at the top of their hosts’ spines.

But don’t worry, that’s not how things work here on Trill. When we meet the ‘joined’ Trill Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell), one of the main characters in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , we learn that it’s a great honor for Trill humanoids to become hosts. They work hard, train hard, collect degrees like you collect Pokémon, and compete with others for the privilege of becoming a host. Even if we wanted a Trill symbiont implanted into our stomachs at this point, we wouldn’t stand a chance.

The Trill’s style of symbiont-host relationship certainly isn’t as typical in sci-fi as the chest-bursting, brain-controlling variety. However, science shows us many different types in the real world—some much closer to home than you might realize.

Symbiosis Explained

“Symbiosis was originally a term coined by Anton de Bary [a German botanist, microbiologist, and mycologist] to mean two organisms, differently named, living together,” says Irene Garcia Newton , an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at Indiana University Bloomington who specializes in microbial symbiosis. “It is a very broad definition meant to encompass negative and positive interactions, as long as they are long term associations.”

Newton says the key thing you need to know about symbiosis is: it’s everywhere. “Pretty much all animals and plants have microbial symbionts—sometimes bacteria, sometimes fungi, sometimes both,” she explains. “Everything has a symbiosis, even you.”

However, as we’ve learned from several of the sci-fi examples earlier, symbiosis can look drastically different on a case-by-case basis. This is why there are three types: commensalism, mutualism, and parasitism.

Commensalism; or, Don’t Mind Me

Commensalism is a type of symbiotic relationship where one living organism benefits and the other doesn’t benefit or suffer. They simply don’t get anything out of the deal.

There are many real-world examples of commensalism. Jackals separated from a pack have been spotted following tigers around and eating their leftovers. Hermit crabs use the shells of dead creatures to upgrade their homes. The remora fish is one of my favorites, which hitches a ride on the side of giant sea creatures for transport, protection, and to eat the bigger animal’s leftovers.

Out of the three, this is the type of symbiosis with the fewest examples in science fiction. I think that could be because there’s not much drama compared to mutualism and parasitism, which we’re about to encounter next.

However, in Star Trek: The Original Series (‘Wolf in the Fold’ – S2, Ep14), we do hear of (but, unfortunately, don’t meet) a species called the Drella that feed on love, which could be commensalism, but we never get to find out for sure.

Star Wars fans might also argue that the midichlorians, which Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) calls “a microscopic life form that resides within all living cells,” are an example of commensalism. It’s these life forms that channel the Force, allowing those sensitive to it to tap into its power. Then again, we don’t know enough about the fictional science of the midichlorians, and this could be mutualism instead.

Mutualism; or, Everybody Wins

Mutualism is a symbiotic relationship in which both living organisms benefit. We see this type of symbiosis loads in the real world. For starters, more than 80 percent of plant and tree species depend on mycorrhizal relationships with fungi. They give the fungi sugars, and the fungi provide them with water and other kinds of nutrients.

Many birds have this relationship with larger animals, like the oxpecker, which picks parasites off big mammals, like rhinos—a good meal for the oxpecker and better health for the rhino.

Anemones and clownfish (or anemonefish) have a similar close bond. Anemones have stinging tentacles that subdue prey, like crabs and fish. But clownfish are immune, so they hide from predators among the anemone, a win for the clownfish. But they also keep the anemones free from parasites, and provide them with nutrients from their feces, and their bright colors might even lure in prey, a win for the anemones, too.

There’s also mutualism inside your body. Your gut microbiota helps you digest food, and it gets a place to live and things to eat in return. It’s a similar story for the microbes that live on your skin, which help promote immunity and prevent infection.

The Babel Fish in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1978) might be my favorite sci-fi reference. Pop one of these tiny yellow fish in your ear, and it’ll feed on the brain waves of everyone you encounter while also serving as a universal translator. It’s “possibly the oddest thing in the universe”, according to The Guide, but mighty handy, too. There’s also a Futurama episode called ‘Parasites Lost’ (S3, Ep2) in which Fry gets infected with worms that make him stronger and more intelligent.

Parasitism; or, Used and Abused

Parasitism is when one organism benefits and the other suffers. There are many instances in which you might play the role of the host. Think head lice, ticks, the tiny mites that cause scabies, and a whole bunch of tapeworms, roundworms, and other shaped worms that make you very ill.

Several examples of parasitism in nature sound so grim I’m a little hesitant to share them. Like the female hawk wasp, which stings and paralyzes a spider, lays her eggs in its body, and when the baby wasps hatch, they climb out, and their first meal is the spider—which is, horrifyingly, still alive throughout this whole process. If that hasn’t provided you with enough nightmare fuel, Google “zombie ant fungus”. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

With these kinds of Cronenberg-esque scenes occurring in real life regularly, it’s no surprise sci-fi creators have dreamed up all manner of monstrous parasites of their own. We’ve already covered a few of these, like the parasitoid Alien Facehuggers that use a host’s body to grow a Chestburster, but there are plenty more.

In the very- The-Thing -like episode of The X-Files called ‘Ice’ (S1, Ep8), worms feast on a host’s brain and make them extremely violent. The Goa’uld species in Stargate SG-1 reside in a host’s neck and subsume their personality, transforming them into an absolute drama queen.

In Star Trek: The Original Series, there are several parasitic stories. The flying jellyfish-like parasites on the Deneva colony cause “a pattern of mass insanity” (‘Operation – Annihilate!’ – S1, Ep29). There’s also the Redjac, a noncorporeal parasite that possesses its host, turns it into a serial killer, and then feeds on fear—this is how Trek explains Jack the Ripper (‘Catspaw’ – S2, Ep7).

Symbiosis, Not So Simply

Although classifying symbiosis enables us to understand their differences and spot them the next time we watch a nature documentary or a sci-fi TV show—parasitic! mutual!—Newton warns this is a bit simplistic.

“The word ‘symbiosis’ in common usage has become synonymous with ‘mutualism’. This clouds our understanding of interactions,” she tells me. “The mechanisms and dynamics of mutualisms and parasitisms are very similar and also, mutualisms can break down and become parasitisms.”

We can see this in science fiction, too. For example, I’d class the artificially intelligent machines in The Matrix (1999) as having a parasitic relationship with humans. Humans scorched the sky in Operation Darkstorm, so the machines could no longer use the power of the sun. This wasn’t a problem for long, as the machines then used humans as an alternative power source instead. It certainly sounds parasitic, right? But maybe if you prefer the “juicy and delicious” steak in the Matrix compared to “the same goddamn goop every day” you get on the outside as Cypher (Joe Pantoliano) does, then it could be mutualism?

Let’s also consider the Goa’uld in Stargate SG-1 , which might take over a host’s body, but give the host benefits, like an extended lifespan and boosted strength. Is that maybe a little bit of mutualism? The Tok’ra, a faction of the Goa’uld, also believes in the body’s equal sharing between symbiont and host, so not all are necessarily parasitic. (I’d still like them to stay as far away from my neck as possible, though, thanks).

What’s more, the Venom symbiote, which has a long history throughout Marvel canon, doesn’t fully take over its host’s body but often does force them to do pretty dangerous or violent things. Where does that sit on the scale between mutualism and parasitism?

Introducing the Trill in The Next Generation

If we had to categorize the Trill relationship, we’d be looking at mutualism. That’s because the Trill symbionts get to live their lives outside of the pools. And, because the symbionts can live for centuries, the Trill hosts get their accumulated skills, knowledge, and experience.

The symbiont’s personality, memories, and impulses then exist alongside the host’s. Being ‘joined’ also comes with an elevated social status in Trill society, which benefits them both.

But it wasn’t always this way. We learn the most about the Trill from Jadzia Dax, a Trill and principal character in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. But two years earlier, when we first met a ‘joined’ member of the Trill in Star Trek: The Next Generation (‘The Host’ – S4, Ep23), they not only looked different but had a relationship that leaned more toward parasitism than mutualism.

Trill ambassador Odan (Frank Luz) had a ridged forehead, typical in Star Trek: The Next Generation’s ‘alien of the week’ style storytelling. But fast-forward to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Jadzia Dax has a human forehead and, instead, a series of spots and marks down each side of her face, neck, and body. Some fans have explained this away by saying that they were, perhaps, from different parts of Trill. But, allegedly, the show’s creators simply didn’t want to cover up Terry Farrell’s face.

The ‘joining’ of the Trill changes from Star Trek: The Next Generation to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , too. In TNG , the Trill symbiont solely determines the personality, needs, and experiences, whereas the host takes a back seat. In DS9 , the symbiont and host have equal footing after they join and then live together as one. When asked to explain how the symbiont and host brains work in tandem, Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) describes them “like two computers linked together” (‘The Passenger’ – S1, Ep8).

Trill as Queer Representation

I couldn’t find an official explanation for what prompted the change in the Trill between Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . Sure, it could have been a continuity error, but I think that presenting the relationship between Trill host and Trill symbiont as mutual opened doors to many opportunities.

The most obvious is the storytelling potential and character development of a species built on mutualism rather than parasitism. Choose parasitism, and the creators may always have to tell an uncomfortable story that errs a little too much on the side of horror. Choose mutualism, and they can explore all kinds of themes that might arise when you put two lifeforms in the same body, like those centered on identity, sexuality, responsibility, and morality.

I believe it’s how heavily the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine creators leaned into these themes that made the Trill an interesting species to explore – an interest that endures amongst fans today. I was delighted to find that there’s still so much love online for the Trill. Many fans write about how fascinating they continue to find Trill-centred stories, and some also express how transformative Trill characters were to their own development, understanding, and acceptance.

In the online magazine Lady Science , Rebecca Ortenberg writes about the episode (‘Rejoined’ – S4, Ep6) when Jadzia Dax kisses Lenara Khan (Susanna Thompson) —whose symbionts were married to one another when they had different hosts:

“I think what I saw in Dax was less about representing someone who sometimes kissed the people that I grew up wanting to kiss but instead about something deeper, something queer in a more existential way. At that age, I didn’t think of myself as liking girls. I didn’t think of myself as liking anyone. But I felt a decided “otherness” and uncertainty with my sense of self that I saw reflected on the small screen.”

Similarly, Redditor Hylaia wrote: “When I was a teenager watching DS9 , the Trill characters were the first time I ever recall being forced to think about and challenge my conception of the gender binary. It’s probably true for many others too. For DS9 to do that in the mid-90s was such a cool thing and a smart and thoughtful way to push the envelope.”

Many have explicitly read Jadzia and – from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Season 7 – Ezri (Nicole de Boer)’s stories as transgender allegories. They point to parallels between the trans experience and Ezri’s dysphoria, as well as the problems that her joining with Dax had on her personal life. There are also times when both Jadzia and Ezri correct other characters when they use their old host’s name or outdated pronouns. A great example is when Kor, a Klingon, greets Jadzia by saying: “Curzon, my beloved old friend!” Jadzia replies with, “I’m Jadzia now,” and Kor (rather than kicking up a fuss) simply smiles and says, “Well, Jadzia, my beloved old friend!” (‘Blood Oath’ – S2, Ep19)

Women at Warp writer Elissa Harris shares: “Dax, the symbiont who has lived numerous lives in various humanoid bodies… is trans. She may not be explicitly trans, but in terms of the stories that get told through her—about gender, personal change, social discomfort and assumptions based on appearances… she is very much trans […] Whether or not they intended to, the writers and performers on that show made my life better and easier in a very specific way.”

The stories told on-screen make a difference, which is why the ways creators tell them matter, too. That’s why it was so positive to see that the creators of Star Trek: Discovery cast non-binary actor Blu del Barrio and trans actor Ian Alexander in Trill roles as Adira and Grey Tal. Not only might some fans see themselves and their experiences mirrored in the Trill, but in the actors chosen to play them, too.

I rewatched an episode of Star Trek: Discovery (‘Forget Me Not’ – S3, Ep4) about the Trill when I was writing this article. There’s a beautiful scene where all of the past Tal hosts greet Adira Tal and say, “welcome to the circle”. Adira Tal now feels connected to the Tal symbiont and all of the hosts before them. This struck me as incredibly powerful, and I read it as not only a reconciling of past Trill hosts but our own reconciling of our past selves and our ancestors. I like that in each Trill, as in each of us, there can be a sense of belonging. Or, as Admiral Senna Tal says to Adira Tal: “Joining made us more than we could ever be alone.”

I don’t believe we all have to come away from every Trill episode having had a profound moment of realization or affirmation. But I do think the Trill are a special species. After their experience, Adira Tal describes the symbionts as “a gift for everyone” (S3, Ep4), and I can’t help but think they aren’t solely a gift for those in the Star Trek universe but for all of us in ours, too.

Stories of the Trill enable us to cultivate more understanding, compassion, and appreciation of difference, both in ourselves and others, rather than fear it. And this is incredibly important because no one exists in isolation. We are all living in symbiosis with each other.

This article was originally published on February 16th, 2022 on the first Companion website.

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The Trill (or Trills) were a humanoid species native to the planet Trill. They appeared almost identical to Humans, but for rows of spots running down the sides of their bodies, from head to toe. However, this superficial similarity concealed a considerable difference — the Trill were capable of bonding with a symbiotic organism known as a symbiont, creating a distinct being from the two individual creatures. The symbionts could live for many centuries, and were placed with successive hosts, carrying the memories and knowledge of previous hosts into a new joining with each new generation. This fact wasn’t widely known outside the Trill themselves, but it wasn’t a secret — it simply wasn’t widely discussed, and the number of joined Trill was relatively small. The Trill had been part of the Federation for well over a century as of 2381, with several renowned Trill serving important roles in shaping the Federation . The Trill, as a culture, tended to be focused on intellectual pursuits first and foremost, as learning and wisdom were prized by the symbionts in their hosts.

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• 1.1 Biology
• 1.2.1 Rituals
• 1.3.1 Civilization
• 1.3.2 Alternate timelines
• 2.1 Notable Trill
• 3.1 Appearances
• 3.2 External link

History and specifics [ ]

Biology [ ].

Trill Internal Anatomy

Trill were marsupials , and as such, had abdominal pouches with which to provide incubation for their newborns. Both males and females had pouches, and both sexes were capable of incubation. The pouch was also used as a conduit for medications to quickly enter the body, as well as the joining point between host and Trill symbiont .

Tens of thousands of years ago , the bipedal Trill humanoid was covered in sleek fur and had a steeply ridged brow. It was at this stage of their evolution that the first joining occurred. ( DS9 - Worlds of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novel : Trill: Unjoined )

An important neurotransmitter in the Trill brain is isoboramine . ( DS9 episode : " Equilibrium ", DSC episode : " Forget Me Not ")

Culture [ ]

The Trill mathematical system is noted for containing ethical modes. ( TNG novel : Intellivore )

The Trill ruling council was divided into junior and senior members. Senior members, whose symbionts had lived more than one lifetime, were allowed to call general meetings. Junior members, whose symbionts had lived only one, were not. Membership was restricted to joined men until the 21st century. ( DS9 short story : " First Steps ")

While Trill society was sharply gendered for generations, the custom of symbionts swapping between successive male and female hosts made for an androgynous subculture. ( DS9 short story : " First Steps ")

Rituals [ ]

• rite of emergence

History [ ]

Around 23,000 BC , a Trill symbiont named Sef enticed a walker to the Pool in which it lived and entered its pouch becoming the first joined Trill. ( DS9 - Worlds of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novel : Trill: Unjoined )

Two major factors contributed to the rise of Trill technology: the memories of symbionts, and easy access to ores and heavy metals. The symbionts could communicate with the humanoid Trills through joining, although the ways and means of the first jining remain shrouded in secrecy by the Trill Symbiosis Commission . Symbionts passed from host to host but retained their memories and friendships, and kept Trill society centered on a long-term view. Geologically, the planet Trill 's heavy tectonic activity led to the formation of quakecaverns and eroded tunnels, through which the Trill could easily gain access to deposits of iron, aluminum, and other useful metals. The combination of the two factors led to the rapid rise of technology. ( Decipher RPG module : Worlds )

As Trill society grew, their governments adopted a system influenced by the symbionts. The symbiont populations grew much more slowly than the humanoid Trill populations, so many Trills competed to have the right qualifications to be selected as a host. This general competitiveness showed through academic achievement and philosophical development—the symbionts made it clear that they would reject violent individuals who tried to become hosts by force. As a result, all Trill civilization stressed a high level of education and ethical personal responsibility. By the time they had covered all of their planet's landmasses, the Trill already had a unified world government, a meritocracy run through systems of examinations and scientific appointments. This system was well in place by the time the Trill met the Federation , but matters were still cool between the two powers. Trills valued their independence and their position as a neutral party. Over the exchange of several decades, it became clear that the Federation stood for the same high values that Trill society encouraged—and that the members of the Federation had embraced those values, due to long years of struggle and learning, having worked hard to establish what came naturally to Trill culture. Eventually, the Trill applied for and received Federation membership in one of the fastest turnaround times from application to completion. ( Decipher RPG module : Worlds )

Civilization [ ]

Trills have a civilization marked by a decided lack of conflict. The combination of environment taking off population pressures, crossed with the stabilizing influence of the peaceful symbionts, helped to make the Trill into intellectuals instead of warriors. Their war was not to subdue other cultures for resources, but rather to tame the environment. ( Decipher RPG module : Worlds )

The Vulcans made first contact with Trill circa 2055, during the youth of Lela Dax . The highly divisive first contact "crisis" engendered many policy changes regarding the symbionts, including putting the symbiont pools under guard. The Trill government adopted a xenophobic stance, repulsing any contact with other alien species. Messages were sent to alien ships asking them to bypass the Trill system. This policy continued until the L'Dira incident in 2075. ( DS9 short story : " First Steps ")

By the 22nd century , Trills had largely tamed their world, and engaged in rudimentary space travel and contacts with other cultures through subspace radio . The close of the 22nd century saw the Trill invention of warp drive . By the 23rd century , Trill warp engines were on par with most Starfleet designs; Trill travelers became a common sight throughout the Alpha Quadrant , although their symbionts remained secret and the Trill had little desire to colonize or conquer other worlds. ( Decipher RPG module : Worlds )

The Burn , an apocalyptic event which took place in the 31st century , greatly affected Trill. The population was decimated, and the survivors withdrew from the Federation. ( DSC episode : " Forget Me Not ")

Alternate timelines [ ]

In the Kelvin timeline , Doctor Leonard McCoy had a nightmare in 2255 where he had to treat streams of patients, including Trill, all by himself. ( TOS - Starfleet Academy novel : The Assassination Game )

In another alternate timeline , the Trill scientist Jadzia Dax subscribed to the Bajoran religion . ( SCE eBook : Lost Time )

In one permutation of the mirror universe , the Terran Empire made contact with the Trill homeworld in the 23rd century . Spock , Emperor of the Terran Empire , had all Trill symbionts in the Caves of Mak'ala killed by Captain Saavik of the ISS Enterprise , and organised the assassination of every joined Trill except for Curzon Dax . ( ST - Mirror Universe novel : The Sorrows of Empire )

Known Individuals [ ]

Notable trill [ ].

• Lenara Kahn
• Bejal Otner

Appendices [ ]

Appearances [ ], external link [ ].

• Trill article at Memory Alpha , the wiki for canon Star Trek .
• 1 Ferengi Rules of Acquisition
• 2 The Chase
• 3 Preserver (race)

• View history

Spot pattern on a cat

Spots on the face of a Trill

Spots were small, roundish markings on an object, or on a lifeform 's skin or fur .

Several humanoids had spots as a prominent features of their species . Trills had their spotting on the sides of their bodies from their temples down to their heels, Taresians had theirs on various parts of the face , and Talaxians had theirs all over their bodies, with the exception of the fronts of their faces.

Patches had orange, brown and black spots on his fur. ( TNG : " The Bonding ")

Porthos also had some black spots in his fur. ( ENT : " Broken Bow ")

When Jadzia Dax and Deral briefly dated on Meridian , Deral found her spots attractive and asked how far down they went and she replied, "All the way." Later, she suggested to Deral that they count each other's spots as a sexual innuendo, the joke being that they would have to be naked to do that. ( DS9 : " Meridian ")

During Dax's Zhian'tara , Odo chose to manifest as Curzon Dax , which led to him growing spots on his sides for the duration of being Curzon. ( DS9 : " Facets ")

When Harry Kim was a child, he became afflicted with Mendakan pox , which made him break out in spots. As an adult , he had a dream about that incident and woke up with similar spots. He wondered if he was getting Mendakan pox again, but The Doctor discovered that it was, in fact, not. As it turned out, he was in fact implanted with Taresian DNA , which caused the spots among other symptoms. ( VOY : " Favorite Son ")

Species with spotting [ ]

• Allos' species
• Galardonian
• Keyla 's apparent species
• Tash's species

See also [ ]

• Skin pigmentation
• 3 ISS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

Star Trek: Discovery Writer Teases Significant Consequences Following Dr. Culber's Season 5 Trill Transformation

• Dr. Culber faces severe consequences after a Trill scientist takes over his body and mind in season 5 of Star Trek: Discovery.
• Writer Kyle Jarrow hints at Culber's ongoing struggles and character ramifications following the intense Trill takeover in the series.
• Culber's transformation and challenges will be explored further, showcasing the actor's range in upcoming episodes of Star Trek: Discovery season 5.

Star Trek: Discover y writer hints at Dr. Hugh Culber facing severe consequences after Trill scientist Jinaal took over his mind and body in Season 5 of the highly popular series.

In episode three of Star Trek : Discover y season 5, viewers see the USS Discovery embarking on a thrilling journey to find the Progenitors’ treasure. However, the hunt leads them to Jinaal, a 24th-century Trill scientist, who holds a piece of crucial information about the treasure’s location. But things go downhill for Dr. Hugh Culber when Jinaal manages to assume control of Culber’s body and mind. Now, in a new interview, co-writer Kyle Jarrow has made it clear that Culber would struggle with the aforementioned experience.

Star Trek: Discovery Actor Names One Character Whose Backstory Would Be Explored In Season 5

While making an appearance on The 7th Rule podcast , Jarrow opened up about what might happen with Dr. Culber after Jinaal’s takeover. The writer also mentioned that the Trill takeover will have a long-lasting effect in the ongoing edition of Star Trek: Discovery. During the conversation, he also dropped an exciting hint about the intense encounter and noted that things won’t get easier for Culber throughout the season. Jarrow said, “I won’t give anything away about where the season is going, but I will say that the experience of this for Culber is gonna continue to resonate. Towards the end of the episode, there’s that scene where he’s talking to Michael, and he’s talking about the experience, and having this other consciousness inside him, and he’s sort of trying to work through it. So that’s gonna play forward, and actually, there’s gonna be some ramifications for him… character-wise.”

For the uninitiated, in episode three of Star Trek: Discovery season 5 , Dr. Culber volunteers for the intense Trill ritual named Zhian’tara. During the ritual, Jinaal takes over Culber’s body and mind, leaving Culber as a mere onlooker in his own vessel. It would be interesting to see Culber’s transformation in the upcoming episodes. Culber’s journey in the Star Trek universe has been pretty harrowing. Throughout the series, fans have seen him grappling with the aftermath of his death and resurrection in Seasons 1 and 2 of Star Trek: Discovery . So, it doesn’t come as a shock that he has endured a lot of trauma since getting murdered by Ash Tyler. In the past episode, viewers saw how his resurrection gave a unique look at someone experiencing PTSD. Things are only going to get tougher for him after his encounter with Jinaal, and it might turn out to be lethal for him.

Interestingly, the takeover by Jinaal also gives Cruz to show his range as an actor. He would have to play an entirely different character in the upcoming episodes and show viewers that he can play any role. It would be exciting to see how the makers choose to continue with his story while delving into his past traumas and navigating new challenges ahead. The next episode of Star Trek: Discovery season five will see the USS Discovery getting vandalized by a peculiar weapon.

Star Trek: Discovery is available for streaming on Paramount Plus.

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Source: The 7th Rule

'Star Trek: Discovery' season 5 episode 3 'Jinaal' is a slow but steady affair

Humans have evidently evolved beyond the need for stairs in the 32nd century as teleportation has replaced the simple act of actually walking to places

Warning: Spoilers ahead for "Star Trek: Discovery" season 5, episode 3

The latest installment of "Star Trek: Discovery" season 5 on Paramount Plus adds a little water – and possibly some fertilizer – to the various different story seeds sewn last week. 

Entitled "Jinaal," the primary plot revolves around a revisit to the planet Trill and as you may recall, the last time we spent any length of time here was the episode " Forget Me Not " (S03, E04), which was not terrible. In fact, it was undeniable highlight of the third season, which itself had some of the best we've seen from "Discovery." Incidentally, that was first look at the Trill homeworld since " Star Trek: Deep Space Nine " episode "Equilibrium" (bizarrely, also S03, E04). (If you need a recap on how to watch Star Trek: Discovery, check out our Star Trek streaming guide for Paramount Plus .)

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Curiously, in that episode "Forget Me Not," Dr. Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz) was given a rare and welcome chance to shine and he does so once again in this episode as well. To briefly recap, Adira (Blu del Barrio) and her lover, a Trill named Gray (Ian Alexander), were aboard a generation ship way back when. They were both orphans, very much in love, and Gray had just received his symbiote when the ship was struck by an asteroid and everyone was ordered to evacuate. Unfortunately, Gray was fatally injured and the only way to save the symbiote was for Adira to join with it. And that's how it was for all of season three right up until the fourth season episode " Choose To Live " (S04, E03). 

Then, after all of that, Gray Tal has his consciousness transferred out of Adira and into an artificial synth golem before heading back to Trill to complete all that monk-style studying. And now you're all caught up. 

While a trip back to Trill is nice, you can't help but start to wonder if this fifth and final season will end up a 10-episode long epilogue as it ties up all its loose ends, almost like season five of " Babylon 5 ."  Commander Jett Reno (Tig Notaro) pops up in this episode at last, which more or less just leaves Commander Nhan (Rachael Ancheril), whom we last saw in the episode " Rubicon " S04, E09, to make an appearance. Although Ancheril's IMDb page does currently say, "Coming up in 2024, Rachael will be seen again in 'Chucky' season three [and] 'Star Trek Discovery' for its final season," so who knows. 

The big highlight this week was, as we alluded to above, Cruz's chance to stretch his acting chops just a little bit and he does not disappoint. The two biggest grumbles however, are the dialogue written by a writer who just saw "Lethal Weapon II" for the very first time and that the notion of teleporting around the place instead of just walking, has been taken to ludicrous extremes. 

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"Star Trek: Discovery" seems to be at peace with lifting from other IPs, sci-fi or otherwise. We've seen a nice " Close Encounters of the Third Kind " reference with mashed potato and we've even seen a fun nod to "Scooby-Doo," but these were all subtle. Then there was the extremely unsubtle " Die Hard " thing and then in " Scavengers " (S03, E06) the writers went  way  beyond homage and practically lifted a set piece directly from the 1987 movie "The Running Man." The premise was the same, the effect was the same and even the setting was practically identical.

This week's insight into what classic movie the Gen-Z writers of "Discovery" have recently discovered comes from a legendary scene with equally legendary dialogue between Sgt. Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) and Sgt. Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) during a rescue attempt after the latter learns that the toilet he's been sitting on has been rigged with a bomb in the first "Lethal Weapon" sequel. Lest we forget, this underrated action extravaganza also gave us Leo Getz and immortalized phrases like "diplomatik immunitee." and "but, but...you're blick."

Still, at least it was just a line or two of dialogue this time and not an entire set piece. My other main grumble with this episode as we mentioned above is the carefree abandon with which transporters are used. And I've touched upon this before. Despite beaming becoming a very common part of everyday life of the 32nd century, to the extent that folk use transporters instead of stairs and even to just change outfits, like we saw in the season four premiere episode — but the thing is, transporters kill you .

The creators of " Star Trek " have never officially confirmed that transporters kill you. However, solely based on the science, transporters do kill you. In simple terms, these teleportation devices scan every molecule in your body and briefly store them in the pattern buffer, while at the same time, the original body is to all intents and purposes, disintegrated. The transporter then converts the scanned copy into energy and beams the data stream to the desired location, where the body is rebuilt, from a sub-atomic level, using technology similar to a replicator. It's comparable in principle to a fax, except this fax machine destroys the original, to prevent duplication, although that has been known to happen.

The issue is essentially an existential one. Since our bodies are made up of identifiable matter, why won't transference of consciousness occur? What makes our consciousness so unique? What's the difference between an identical copy and you? If you were to put your copy into a different room that you hadn't been into, would you be able to see it? No. It's a perfect copy, but it's not you. There is a good article on Ars Technica that really goes into detail on this.

Still, all of this banter aside, this episode is not ... terrible. It is very evenly paced and that, despite the not-exactly edge-of-seat storyline, makes it bearable. Every sub-story seems to be given equal time and brief-but-enjoyable interplay between Lt. Tilly (Mary Wiseman) and Captain Rayner (Callum Keith Rennie) is fun. Plus, of course, we get to see the Trill homeworld again, which is nice. 

In other "Star Trek" news, " Strange New Worlds " has been renewed for a fourth season, while " Lower Decks " will end with its previously announced upcoming fifth season, expected to air sometime this year. Creator Mike McMahan and executive producer Alex Kurtzman posted a statement on the Star Trek website: “While five seasons of any series these days seems like a miracle, it’s no exaggeration to say that every second we've spent making this show has been a dream come true. Our incredible cast, crew and artists have given you everything they have because they love the characters they play, they love the world we've built, and more than anything we all love, love, love Star Trek."

Meanwhile, "Strange New Worlds" is currently in production on its third season, which is set to debut in 2025. It seems that all of this combined with the fact that "Section 31" ended up as a movie , casts doubt over the future of the Starfleet Academy spin-off and hopefully signals the end of the idiotic idea of "Star Trek: Legacy." Perhaps Paramount should look to cancel other ludicrous endeavors like the proposed Picard movie instead of cancelling decent shows in their efforts to tighten purse strings. 

The fifth and final season of "Star Trek: Discovery" and every episode of every "Star Trek" show — with the exception of "Star Trek: Prodigy" — currently streams exclusively on Paramount Plus in the US while "Prodigy" has found a new home o n Netflix.  

Internationally, the shows are available on  Paramount Plus  in Australia, Latin America, the UK and South Korea, as well as on Pluto TV in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland on the Pluto TV Sci-Fi channel. They also stream on  Paramount Plus  in Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria. In Canada, they air on Bell Media's CTV Sci-Fi Channel and stream on Crave.

 —   Watch the bittersweet trailer for 'Star Trek: Discovery's final season (video)

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—  Star Trek's Seven of Nine returns in new novel 'Picard: Firewall' (exclusive)

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When Scott's application to the NASA astronaut training program was turned down, he was naturally upset...as any 6-year-old boy would be. He chose instead to write as much as he possibly could about science, technology and space exploration. He graduated from The University of Coventry and received his training on Fleet Street in London. He still hopes to be the first journalist in space.

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• April 25, 2024 | Recap/Review: ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Reflects On Its Choices In “Mirrors”

Recap/Review: ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Reflects On Its Choices In “Mirrors”

| April 25, 2024 | By: Anthony Pascale 105 comments so far

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5, Episode 5 – Debuted Thursday, April 25, 2024 Written by Johanna Lee & Carlos Cisco Directed by Jen McGowan

A solid episode with plenty of lore and character development gets weighed down with a bit too much exposition.

No, I didn’t kiss you in the past last week, what makes you say that?

WARNING: Spoilers below!

“Maybe we’re not so different.”

As the crew regroups following the time bug incident that lost them 6 hours, they try to trace the trail of their main rivals in the search for the Progenitor tech. Book takes this time to reflect on the choices he has made in life and how it isn’t too late for Moll; perhaps he can redeem the daughter of his mentor and namesake Cleveland Booker. Stamets and Tilly figure out the trail didn’t disappear into nowhere: Moll and L’ak went through a wormhole. The aperture isn’t big enough for the Disco, so the captain assigns herself to shuttle duty—over the objections of her new XO, who is still struggling a bit. After a little bonding over old Kellerun poetry, she leaves him with “I know you can lead this crew” and heads off with her ex. Returning to their old banter, including some teasing about what happened during her time tour last episode, Book and Michael head through the wormhole. Things get really choppy as they fly through exotic matter “deaf and blind,” losing comms with the Disco, and dodging debris. Skilled piloting and good ol’ Starfleet engineering saves them, but things aren’t so hot for Moll and L’ak, whose ship is spotted cut in half. Their only hope for survival is another relatively intact ship that looks familiar. A 24 th -century scientist hiding a clue in this pocket dimension on a shipwreck from another universe makes as much sense as anything.  It’s the ISS Enterprise—and that’s no typo. If the “Mirrors” title wasn’t clue enough, the ISS does it: Things are about to get Terran, again.

After docking, Michael and Book make their way through the mess of a ship to the bridge with more playful banter. The warp drive has been bricked and all shuttles and escape pods are gone, very out of character for ruthless Terrans. They track three quantum signatures in sickbay, but start with a trace in the transporter room, which looks more like a makeshift refugee camp. A chronicle reveals the crew mutinied after the Terran High Chancellor (aka Mirror Spock) was killed for making reforms. A certain Kelpien rebel leader (aka Mirror Action Saru) led refugees to the Prime Universe, where they abandoned ship. While Book expositions, Michael puts a piece of her badge (and its important Prime Universe quantum signature) in a locket she finds. Pay attention BTW, or you will be confused later. In sickbay, they find Moll and L’ak, Moll and L’ak, and Moll and L’ak—until they take out the holo-emitters so the four former couriers can face off for real. Book tries the “I knew your father” gambit and is immediately rebuffed by Moll’s serious daddy issues. The baddies figure they have the clue so they have all the leverage, but Michael uses that locket as a bluff, claiming she has the real clue. Still, no deal with the Federation is good enough because they need the Progenitor tech to get rid of an Erigah… a Breen blood bounty. That’s right, L’ak is Breen. Holy refrigeration helmet , Batman.

Mirror McCoy was a bit of an evil pack rat.

“You both still have choices .”

Cut to a series of Burn-era flashbacks when Moll was delivering dilithium to the Breen Imperium. The “bucket heads”  are not amused by the wisecracking courier who gets into a fight with one of them, but she turns the tables, revealing she knows he’s a disgraced member of the royal family—and she even knows his name. It’s L’ak, of course. He is intrigued by her plan to skim more latinum, getting payback for being humiliated for this cargo duty demotion. Soon enough, this unlikely pair is hooking up between cargo containers and he even takes off his helmet to show her his face, as well as his “other face.” It turns out the Breen have two: the one we have been seeing with L’ak and a glowing eyed translucent one.  Later, the star-crossed romance is threatened when Moll is drawn to the lure of even more latinum by delivering to the Emerald Chain. Before they can sort out if he should join her, Uncle A-hole shows up, not happy about his nephew’s little interspecies exchange program. He’s also not cool with L’ak using that old face and not the “evolved” glowy face. L’ak is given one chance at redemption: Kill Moll. He picks door number 2, killing some guards but sparing Primarch Ruhn, who declares the Erigah. L’ak knows this means they will never stop hunting him, but Moll is all-in on being a fugitive, so they escape together. Ah, true love.

Back on Mirror Enterprise, the standoff devolves into another quick firefight as the Breen/Human duo chooses not to take the offered off-ramp before going too far down the bad guy road. Moll and Book end up outside force fields that pop up around sickbay, so she reluctantly agrees to a ceasefire. The current Cleveland Booker tries again to connect, but Moll only has bad memories of a brutal childhood of abandonment after her Cleveland left her on her own at age 14. L’ak is all she has. L’ak feels the same about Moll, telling Michael that he would die before being separated, but seems open to the idea of them sharing a cell in the Federation pen. On the bridge, Book pivots to use his relationship with Michael to connect, but Moll’s need to get back to L’ak means no waiting for computer hacking, so she starts yanking out wires. The resulting short does lower the forcefield, but now the ship is out of control. Their shuttle is flung off with the jolt and there’s only eight minutes until the Big E is squished in the little wormhole. Book takes his final shot, handing over his phaser and telling Moll she is the only family he has left. She finally relents and they head to sickbay, where Michael and L’ak have resumed fighting. The captain gets the upper hand and ends up with the clue L’ak was holding and the Breen is left with a knife in his side, but impressed by the locket bluff. Moll arrives and is super pissed, so the Disco duo makes a quick exit before things escalate into yet another phaser fight. This former courier couple’s double date is over.

Uh, can you go back to the other face now?

“Maybe we can shape our own futures too.”

As Moll tries to patch up her boyfriend, Michael and Book work through the problem on the bridge, deciding that the tractor beam as their only hope. Over on the Disco, they detect an oscillating pattern, 3-4-1-4, which means something to Rayner. He now wants the nerds to figure out how to open the wormhole aperture big enough for a ship, offering kegs of Kellerun booze for the best idea. Adira sparks a team effort and Rayner rallies around the crowdsourced solution involving a hexagon of photon torpedoes. “We are only going to get one shot at this. I trust you will all make it count, red alert.” That’s the stuff. With what may be the last seconds of her life, Michael lets Book know she shared a “happy” moment with his past self during the whole time bug incident. Discovery fires the torpedoes and the crew is surprised to see the ISS Enterprise emerge at the last minute from the permanently collapsing wormhole. Everyone releases their tension as the captain informs her crew they saved her… but why is the Enterprise about to fire? A warp pod is launched! It’s Moll and L’ak. Before you can say “plot armor,” they escape to another episode. The captain returns to the Disco to tell Rayner she’s impressed with how he handled the crew during her time away, and he tells her how impressed he was with her subtle “3-4-1-4” message using the Kellerun “Ballad of Krull.” Alien poetry FTW!

In the background of the episode, Tilly has been noticing that Dr. Culber seems out of sorts. Everyone else leans on him, so she offers to be a friendly ear. As things wrap, Hugh takes her up on her offer over drinks at Red’s, admitting that ever since he was possessed by a Trill a few episodes back, he has been feeling a bit off, and he’s beening having some trouble coming to grips with the quest they are on with questions “so big and impossible to grasp.” He is not sure his matter-of-fact husband will understand what Tilly points out is a sort of spiritual awakening. This thread is left unresolved, unlike Adira’s mini-crisis of confidence: They were losing their science mojo due to guilt over the time bug, but got it back through Rayner’s tough love and being the one to come up with the hexagon of torpedoes solution. Things wrap up with Michael and Book looking over their prize, the latest piece of the map and a mysterious vial of liquid hidden inside, ready to set up the next episode once Stamets unlocks its secret. Burnham is starting to see a pattern with these clues and how the scientists who left them were trying to teach lessons along the way to the successful questers. The clue hidden in the ISS Enterprise came from Dr. Cho, a former Terran junior officer who later became a Starfleet Admiral. This happy ending for her and the others from Saru’s band of Mirror refugees fills them with hope as they can’t wait to find out what they will learn when they put the map together. There are just 2 more map pieces and 5 more episodes to go.

I think I have a thing for being possessed—no judgment.

Love stories

This halfway point episode is a bit of a mixed bag. Strong performances were a highlight, bringing extra life to welcome character development for both heroes and villains. But valiant attempts to expand upon franchise lore got weighed down in overly complicated exposition. And for an episode with a strong (and yes, often repeated) theme about choices, some of the directorial choices just didn’t work, potentially leaving some audience members confused or requiring a second viewing to follow the narrative. On the other hand, the episode carried on the season’s reflection on Discovery’s own lore and the evolution of its characters. David Ajala stands out as the episode MVP as he shows Book’s struggle to navigate the emotional complexities of his own choices and those of Moll while desperately trying to forge a new family connection. While some of the action scenes in this episode felt a bit perfunctory, the show is still getting better (for the most part) in finding moments for those character sidebars to talk about their emotional journeys and relationships. That was especially important in this episode, which took a closer look at how the events of the season are impacting some of the key romantic pairings of Book and Michael, Paul and Hugh, and Moll and L’ak.

Eve Harlow—and especially Elias Toufexis—stepped up to add layers and nuance to Moll and L’ak, with Discovery finally embracing how fleshing out adversaries and their motivations goes a long way towards making your plot hold together. The nicely drawn-out reflection of their love story with the rekindling one between Michael and Book adds another layer to the more obvious meaning behind the episode title “Mirrors.” Moll’s single-minded anger and L’ak’s desire for safety now all make sense, as does their unshakable bond. The episode also did a good job weaving in a handful of substories, including Rayner’s growing connection with the crew, with a nice sprinkling of Kellerun lore-building — adding some color to his character. Callum Keith Rennie continues to be a stand-out addition for the season, although Doug Jones is sorely missed, presumably not appearing in two episodes in a row for some scheduling reasons. Culber’s spiritual journey also gets just enough time, as it and these other substories all feel like they are heading somewhere without distracting or spinning their wheels, something that often weighed down mid-season Discovery episodes in past seasons.

Okay, let’s just agree we both have daddy issues.

Under the mask

The reveal that L’ak is a Breen was a surprise, but also nicely teased through the previous episodes. Fans of Deep Space Nine should relish finally getting some answers about this enigmatic race and finally having a first look under those helmets. “Mirrors” picked up on many elements from DS9, including the Breen language, refrigeration suits, neural truncheons, and the position of Thot , while adding lots to the lore, including some worldbuilding behind this new Breen Imperium and its “faction wars.”

Setting the Breen up as what appears to be the real big bads for the season involved a lot of data dump exposition here, surely keeping the editors of Memory Alpha busy for the next week. The notion that Breen have two forms with their signature suits and helmets allowing them to hold the more “evolved” form and face makes sense. If one were to get nitpicky, the Breen aren’t supposed to bleed, but perhaps that was a function of his suit; fill in your own headcanon. L’ak’s desire to hold the other, less evolved form making him a pariah in Breen society has echoes of allegorical episodes such as TNG’s “The Outcast.” That being said, the nuances are still not entirely clear, and fans who like the lore shouldn’t have to rewatch scenes to pick up the details. It feels like some details were cut, perhaps because this episode was already trying to cram in too much exposition with the Breen, Kelleruns (they boil cakes?), and the Mirror Universe.

Like the previous time travel adventure, this was a mid-season bottle show, this time using the conveniently located Strange New Worlds sets. Bringing back the ISS Enterprise was clever and fun, with the twist of how this time the Mirror Universe came to us. If you follow closely, “Mirrors” did a nice job of filling in some lore gaps and tying together the MU storylines from the first visit in “Mirror, Mirror” to follow-ups in Deep Space Nine , Enterprise , and Discovery . There is now a nice throughline from Emperor Georgiou saving Mirror Saru through to Mirror Spock, killed for the reforms he instituted after being inspired by Kirk. However, the redress of the Enterprise sets was not very inspired, with only a smattering of Terran wall sconces and some repainting, instead of demonstrating the brutality of the Empire with elements like agony booths. But what was even more missed was the promise of any character crossovers. There was a lot of talk about Mirror characters like Spock, Saru, Dr. Cho, and others, but we don’t get to see any, one of the many examples of how this episode broke the golden rule to show not tell. There were plenty of opportunities for a flashback or holo recording. Burnham longingly gazing at her brother’s science station is no substitute for Ethan Peck with a goatee.

We’re back!

Final thoughts

“Mirrors” is a decent episode, but it could have been much better with a few tweaks here and there. While not falling into the pointless plate-spinning trap of past mid-season Disco outings, it still dragged a bit for something so jam-packed with lore and revelations. Still, it provided a nice hour of entertainment, and possibly more with rewatches to catch up on the little details. The episode also continues the season’s welcome trend of weaving in the show’s own past, which makes it work better as a final season, even if they didn’t know that when they crafted it. Season 5 hits the halfway mark, and it’s still the best season yet, and hopefully the second half of the season will nail the landing.

Wait, we’re in this episode too? Anyone remember their lines?

• Like the previous episode, “Mirrors” began with a warning for flashing images.
• The episode is dedicated “to the loving memory of our friend Allan ‘Red’ Marceta ,” the lead set dresser who died in a motorcycle accident in 2022.  Presumably the USS Discovery bar “Red’s” was named in his honor.
• This is the first episode where Book’s personal log starts it off.
• Stardate: 866280.9
• Booker examined wanted notices for Moll from the Federation, Orion/Emerald Chain (who have a new logo), and the Andorian Empire.
• Tilly was able to reveal the wormhole by compensating for the “Lorentzian Coefficient,” referencing the real Lorentz Factor used in special relativity equations.
• A new ensign on the Discovery keeps a Cardassian vole as a pet.
• The ISS Enterprise was built at Tartarus Base, possibly referencing Tartarus Prime , from the TOS novel The Rings of Time .
• Moll refers to Breens as “bucketheads” (just as Reno did to Emerald Chain Regulators last episode). This could be a nod to the use of “ bucketheads ” in Star Wars as a derogatory term for stormtroopers.
• Moll’s mother died on Callor V in a mine for Rubindium , a substance first mentioned in TOS “Patterns of Force.”
• Linus can play the piano.
• Breen Primarchs may be a nod to the genetically engineered Primarchs from Warhammer 40,000 .
• How does Book know that Pike’s catchphrase is “Hit it”?
• This is the third (of five) season 5 episodes in which Oyin Oladejo and Emily Coutts do not appear, but their characters, Detmer and Owosekun, are mentioned when they get the honor of escorting the ISS Enterprise back to Starfleet HQ.
• Even though we didn’t see it warp away, presumably the missing intermix chamber was replaced, otherwise Owo and Detmer’s trip is going to take a very long time.
• Tilly says her long day makes her feel like she has been through a Gormangander’s digestive tract.

Remember when Mudd hid inside a Gormagander? Gross.

More to come

Every Friday, the TrekMovie.com All Access Star Trek Podcast  covers the latest news in the Star Trek Universe and discusses the latest episode. The podcast is available on Apple Podcasts ,  Spotify ,  Pocket Casts ,  Stitcher and is part of the TrekMovie Podcast Network.

The fifth and final season of  Discovery debuted with two episodes on Thursday, April 4 exclusively on Paramount+  in the U.S., the UK, Switzerland, South Korea, Latin America, Germany, France, Italy, Australia, and Austria.  Discovery  will also premiere on April 4 on Paramount+ in Canada and will be broadcast on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada. The rest of the 10-episode final season will be available to stream weekly on Thursdays. Season 5 debuts on SkyShowtime in select European countries on April 5.

Keep up with news about the  Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com .

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waste of ISS Enterprise

While I enjoyed the episode overall, the ISS Enterprise was a huge letdown and not even worth being an easter egg with what little they did with it. They should have just made it a generic constitution class ship from the mirror universe.

It felt like it was nothing more than a budget saver. Use existing sets from the other show. Which is weird because one of the arguments in favor of mini seasons is it allows more money to be spent.

That’s exactly what it felt like. Along with the missing, yet again, Detmer and Owosekun.

There must have been some deep budget cuts for the season.

Detmer and Owosekun were replaced by other characters so I don’t think they are missing for budget reasons. It’s more likely that the actresses were unavailable.

I get the budget issues considering what’s going on with the studio. But the end result was it showed that there isn’t much difference at all in the 900 years between the SNW Enterprise and the aesthetic of Star Trek Discovery. They both look as if they were set in the exact same era.

And there really shouldn’t be much. Discovery is from the same era, as the Enterprise. While the ship gets a technological upgrade, why would it get an interior design makeover?

Since it was deemed important (Stamets certainly makes since) that the crew stay on the Discovery, I would certainly think that psychologically having its design aesthetics stay similar to what it was would help give the crew a little bit of their past to hold on to, versus having all physical interactions be with a timeline that they aren’t native to.

Now where we should see it is in native places in this time. And we have seen some differences in design from standard Starfleet settings, versus Starfleet settings on this time (I actually wish we got more).

I did wish for a little more of self reflection from Burnham’s point of view as the ISS Enterprise should of course remind her of Spock (the Enterprise tie in), but also Georgiou (the ISS tie in). We get a small brief nod to Spock, but nothing to Georgiou (and while I still question the use of the character, there is no question that Burnham did have a connection with her, even if its primarily transference from her former Captain, not the mirror Universe Empress.

That’s always been my issue with Discovery.

Agreed. The last two episodes just felt very budgeted and basically bottle episodes. And this just felt like a twofer, a way to use an existing set and add a little fan service but that’s all it was. I thought the Enterprise itself was going to be a viral part of not just the episode but the story overall.

Instead it was just a backdrop. And yeah it’s obvious they cut the budget for this season but all the live action shows have felt this way starting with Picard season 3 and SNW season 2. That all felt pretty bare a lot of the times. I guess this was all during Paramount+ belt tightening and probably not a shock why the show was cancelled.

And maybe the I.S.S. Enterprise should have been the refit or maybe the Phase II Enterprise? That would have been a lot of fun but combine a lack of vision with a reduced budget and this is what you get.

Looking back on “In a Mirror: Darkly”, season 4 of Enterprise was dealing with a reduced budget but managed to recreate sets from TOS, introduced a few new set pieces and did a lot of great effects work.

This was a missed opportunity.

Which was added by stretching that story over two episodes, so that they had the budget to recreate the sets they used. Having half the episode count, doesn’t really help avail yourself to planning out a two parter for a way to save costs.

If Picard could pull off recreating the bridge of the Enterprise D for three days of shooting with barely half the budget of Discovery season 5, they could have done something equally as fun for Discovery on the cheap without actually having to building anything new and using the Enterprise as a crutch. They could have come across Deep Space Station K-7, where the exterior would have been immediately familiar and with interiors served by redressed sets from virtually anything available from Discovery or SNW.

I thought Discovery is basically the PII Enterprise?

The Phase II Enterprise looks like a slickly modified version of the Enterprise from TOS, falling squarely between the Enterprise from TOS and the refit. The “Star Trek: Phase II” fan series did a great job bringing it to screen.

No, Discovery resembles the Enterprise concept for the Planet of the Titans movie.

I don’t get that. I never assumed that the Enterprise (or its mIrror Universe history) was going to feature in significant manner (certainly the producers and promotional department didn’t make a significant deal about it). Perhaps it’s the time difference. But I literally assumed it would be as significant as the Defiant going in and out of phase like TOS “Tholian Web” the time difference. And that was primarily set dressing. That’s not a bad thing. I mean Tholian Web is considered one of the better third season episodes.

And the only reason I assumed it was the Enterprise versus another Connie, is simple to give Burnham a moment to reflect on Spock. Now I do freely admit that I wish this was a slightly larger moment. But I never expected it to be anything but a small moment. Roughly my preconceived notion would be something like Spock’s Mind Meld scene with La’an in SNW where she is able to get a peak into Spock thinking about his sister and the emotion that comes with it. It’s a very brief scene, but I thought SNW did a good job in conveying the emotional aspect, especially from a half Vulcan/ Half Human.

Ok fair enough. This is probably more my hang up and to be fair since they never really promoted the the Enterprise being back then clearly they weren’t trying to make it that big of a deal.

But same time a lot of people do feel there could’ve been more done. The main problem is it just feels like a ridiculous stretch this ship itself is even there. It’s a ship from 900 years ago from a DIFFERENT UNIVERSE that conveniently happens to be the ship that gives them their next clue. I know it’s Star Trek so whatever lol. But when you go through the effort to present it I think it would’ve nice to build a bigger story around it. It could’ve just been any ship.

When you feel like the Mirror Universe has been nothing but a let down after the initial TOS episode, It’s really not a surprise. There’s really nowhere to go with it, but I did find that the fulfilling of the promise that Prime Kirk spoke to Mirror Spock about from the original TOS episode quite satisfying. The ship’s inhabitants embraced the benevolence of the prime universe, and I thought that was great.

I felt the idea that the MU people just easily adapted was pretty ridiculous. But then, they admitted SNW was an alternate timeline. It’s not a stretch that alternate extends to all the Secret Hideout productions.

I’m not sure I would feel the same about Picard given it depicts the Prime events of ST:2009. The others tho yeah I think of it that way too. Although The Chase does make that harder to swallow about DISCO

I liked the MU in DS9. It was fun to revisit and a great reminder of the Prime Directive. But… after that it got tiresome.

It was pretty benign there, but the problem with it, is finding it plausible. It was a fun idea in the 1960’s, and it had a good message. After that, it an indulgence. The notion that that the same people would even exist in the same fundamental places, and that the same ships would exist with virtually the same crew just seems like too much of a stretch even for modern Star Trek.

That’s my only complaint about this episode. Seeing the tantalus field show up would have been really cool. When Michael talked about how she was sure that Mirror Spock was a savage just like the other Terrans, I was sure that we would see a recording or something of Ethan Peck in a goatee to prove her wrong. Or flashbacks with Ethan Peck and Paul Wesley as their mirror counterparts would have also been cool.

All the stuff with the Breen and Mol and Lak was really cool though.

“ waste of ISS Enterprise” should be the official episode description.

waste of series

They ate Mirror Saru in season one…

Was that Saru or another Kelpian? It’s been a while since I watched Season 1, but I recall Mirror Saru saving Burnham from Tyler just as Voq’s personality re-emerged. I know Mirror Georgiou served Burnham some Kelpian, I just didn’t remember it being Mirror Saru.

Mirror Saru saved Michael from Tyler in The Wolf Inside, which was the episode that preceded the one in which they ate the food made from a Kelpien (Vaulting Ambition).

Looking at Memory Alpha now, it says that the chosen Kelpien ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVQSipQlJR8 ) was played by someone other than Doug Jones, but they look so much alike that I thought for sure she had chosen Mirror Saru.

As per Memory Alpha, we never saw him again after The Wolf Inside until season three, but that was in the alternate timeline Carl sent Georgiu to, so it wasn’t the same Mirror Saru.

Nope, that was another Kelpien.

“They ate Mirror Saru in season one…”

They didn’t.

Wasn’t Mirror Saru established as having survived in Season 3 (can’t remember the episode name).

A s per Memory Alpha, we never saw Mirror Saru again after The Wolf Inside until season three, but that was in the alternate timeline Carl sent Georgiu to, so it wasn’t the same Mirror Saru.

Loved this episode. I liked seeing the I.S.S Enterprise though i would of loved to of seen maybe a video log of Mirror Spock.

As a big fan of DS9 I’m glad we finally get to see what a breen looks like and the 32nd century breen outfits look great.

I enjoyed seeing Book/Burnham trying to get through to Moll/L’ak and i hope they can eventually get through to them. With this season about connections and 2nd chances i can see Book and Burnham talking both of them down before they do something that they can’t come back from.

The shot of the I.S.S Enterprise coming out of the ‘wormhole’ is probably one of my favorite CGI scene in all of Trek.

I’m glad they didn’t. I think the conceit of using the I.S.S. Enterprise was not much more than a budgetary decision to be able to use the sets. Could have made it a different constitution class, but then they don’t get to tell the story of the crew’s transformation into our society. Just don’t think about it too much.. because that universe is just pushing out its own doppelgängers into our universe.. which seems problematic. lol.

As a big fan of DS9 I’m glad we finally get to see what a breen looks like and the 32nd century breen outfits look great.

Any kind of big reveal was bound to be disappointing, I suppose. Still, the idea that they were just another latex alien was a letdown. I had always hoped that the Breen were gaseous or plasma creatures.

Ethan Peck with a goatee would have been EPIC

“This is the way.” 😉

But seriously that was a pretty good episode. I’d like to see a 31st century restored Terran empire that never went through “the burn.”

“ The reveal that L’ak is a Breen was a surprise ”

It really wasn’t, though. That was many viewers’ guess since the beginning of the season, and it’s been a common discussion on many websites. The surprise would have been if he HADN’T been a Breen.

I am on a lot of other sites and I haven’t heard anyone thinking he was Breen. And I don’t believe anyone voiced that in Trekmovie either.

LOL. It’s been a common theory.

Obviously not THAT common. LOL

I’ve seen the theory mentioned in the comments here on TrekMovie.

Yes, quite common from what I’ve been reading. I just commented on this very site a couple weeks back that I liked the idea, when somebody else theorized it (forget who it was)!

I guess it’s just where you go for these discussions but yeah the first YouTube review of episode one I saw theorized Lak was a Breen in the first scene he was in when he took off his helmet. And this was obviously before the species was mentioned on the show.

So yeah some people caught on the first episode the way others theorized Tyler was Voq the first time he showed up. Others needed more convincing.

I never saw it but I certainly don’t read the majority of comments. And almost never watch video reviews. Now Voq, was something I remember seeing in many places. Though in fairness, the amount of conjecture done about any Trek series for its Pilot and early couple episodes has been in my experience far more than what you see for most regular episodes. So that shouldn’t;t surprise me.

It was a surprise to me.

The Breen being so ordinary looking was a bit of a surprise.

Well, one of their forms are. It explains the frozen wasteland/tropical paradise. Their “evovled” form needs cryo suits, their “normal form” doesn’t

Was a surprise to me. Then again, I don’t run around the internet and over analyze the show.

This season started out so well. What happened? It’s falling apart.

I hate to a agree. But its once again a long slow burn (pardon the bun) that I fear is going to lead to another whimper of a conclusion. I feel like the season could have been a movie instead. Where is Chapel?!

Wrong show. Chapel is on SNW. The ending was rewritten and new scenes were shot to make it a series finale. They had already started shooting when they got the word that it was ending after season 5.

presumably on Her show, SNW?

“pardon the bun” …🍔⁉️

What’d that poor bun do for it to be in need of a pardon? 😋

This is what happens in every single season of Discovery. Two lovers who want to destroy the galaxy so they can get to paradise was the plot of season four, and now they are recycling the exact same plot for this season.

Did you watch the show. In no seasons has two lovers wanted to destroy the galaxy….Period. L’ak and Moll want to pay off their bounty. Nothing about what they are doing is about wanting to destroy the galaxy.

Outside of the destruction caused by the aliens referred to as 10-C, did any character want to destroy the galaxy let alone a couple. The only couple we had, was one person wanting peaceful means of communication to prevent destruction, while the other wanted to use force to ensure the destruction doesn’t occur. In no case does that equal people wanting to destroy a galaxy.

I can understand not liking the show, but to have such a misconstrued concept of the plot of the seasons shows a shocking lack of basic understanding of what the plot and motivations of the characters are.

I mean the show has plenty that one can find legitimate issues with. Thats not one of them.

They want to pay their bounty by giving a weapon of potential mass destruction to the Breen, thus destroying the galaxy, as seen in the time jumps last episode. They want to do that so they can escape to the Gamma Quadrant while the Breen take apart the Alpha Quadrant.

Last season the scientist wanted to let the 10-C species bulldoze the Alpha Quadrant so he could get across the galactic barrier to meet his lover in paradise, without caring what happened to trillions of other lives.

It is the same basic plot point. Your analysis is incorrect, Wood.

I think you’re overreacting a little. As always.

This episode was disappointing and fell flat. The return of the ISS Enterprise from the mirror universe was of no interest. I had hoped to possibility see a video log from Kirk, Spock, or another familiar character. Why not explore other Constitution Class Starships like the ISS Lexington, Hood, or Potemkin? Enterprise, Enterprise, Enterprise. (Sigh)

Maybe cause the enterprise is the trek ship pretty much everyone knows even if they are a new trek fan or a casual trek fan or not even a trek fan it is so engrained and intertwined with the name Star Trek that is why they chose to make it the iss enterprise instead of one of the others you mentioned

Because exploring a random ship isn’t the plot of the episode. It’s basically set dressing. Having it be the Enterprise versus a different Connie, gives it a tie to the lead character and part of her family she left behind. That it sorry wise. Another ship wouldn’t have any emotion aspect to the characters. Now production wise its to save a ton of money, as creating a random ship with multiple settings to take use of takes money (if your trying to give it the same level of production that you see for the primary ship). Now of course they could have just created a redress of an existing set to be random alien ship of the week. Those usually aren’t done to the same level of using the existing bridge set of another show. So it serves a small story purpose (ie a setting), it serves a small character purpose *reflection for Burnham, and it serves a production purpose (having high quality set pieces without having to build or do a serious redress and thus saving some money).

Seems rather obvious, to me.

I’m annoyed by what they seem to be doing with Owosekun and Detmer this season. I assume that the actors are absent because Paramount wanted to pay them less, and that’s poor treatment for characters who have been around since practically the beginning of the series.

“ I’m annoyed by what they seem to be doing with Owosekun and Detmer this season. ”

…as opposed to the previous four seasons, when all they did was sit in chairs and look meaningfully at each other?

Which is all Sulu and Chekov do in the average TOS episode. So yes, it’s aggravating for them to be replaced by other actors who are doing the same thing.

I doubt they are paid exorbitantly as recurring guests. It could be similar to what happened in season 4 and Bryce Ronnie Rowe Jr’s absences – he had another gig.

I have a theory that before it was decided that Disco would be cancelled, they were going to replace some of the characters. I think Owosekun and Detmer were going to be replaced, and also that Rayner would become captain and Burnham would go away to do something else. But then that didn’t work out, and so to us it just makes no sense why those two main characters are suddenly missing.

You might be right — I hadn’t considered that revamps due to cancellation might be involved.

Well… It is what it is . This was easily the worst episode of the 5. Tropes galore and really bad plot contrivances.

It feels like the reshoots for when they got the cancelation news are getting dropped in throughout the season. A lot of scenes appear grossly out of place. It feels like they just aren’t even trying anymore to be honest. As flawed as the show has been one thing that never came across among the other problems was a lack of trying.

I am loving the addition of Rayner and the professional Starfleet officer energy he is bringing to the ship. I also liked when he told Burnham the mission was too dangerous for the captain to go on. He is turning out to be a nice counterbalance to the unusual way Discovery has been run as a Starfleet ship after season 2.

I hope he doesn’t get killed off.

Sorry but this was another big fat ‘meh’ for me. This was very very disappointing. Nothing of consequence happened. We learn Mol and Lak backstory basically and it is cool we learn that Lak is a Breen which has been the leading theory since he showed up but it just felt sooo bare overall. Like another Discovery infamous spinning wheel episode where they do the bare minimum to move the plot along but just through a lot of action scenes and inconsequential dialogue to feel like we were getting any real development.

And the biggest elephant in the room (or dimensional wormhole) was the ISS Enterprise. Such a let down. It almost felt like a gimmick or just shoehorned fan service. There was no real reason it needed to be there other than HEY THE ENTERPRISE IS BACK!

Again one of the problems with this show, no real development just there for another connection. Think about what they did with In a Mirror Darkly on Enterprise. They brought in the Defiant as obvious fan service from TOS but the ship had a very vital part to the story. It helped changed the dynamics of the MU. It wasn’t there just for show like this was. And Anthony made a great point the redress felt like a joke. It just felt like an excuse to use the set but little else.

Here it was nothing more than just a backdrop and a really forced one at that. And the whole Saru thing just felt very contrived.

I did like all the Breen stuff though and hopefully they will be the big bad the rest of the season. I still think they should’ve used the Breen as the main villain for SNW instead of the Gorn but I digress.

But yeah this is probably the weakest one for me which is disappointing since last week is my favorite so far. I’m getting a little nervous now. It’s usually the second half of the season this show begins to falls apart but still open minded. Still enjoying it overall but please don’t end up a tedious bore like last season felt once it got to its mid season.

You have one last chance Discovery, make it count!

I never considered the Breen in SNW before, but that’s a cool idea. Yeah, I would’ve liked that much more than the Gorn.

For me it was literally the first Gorn episode I thought the Breen would’ve been a better idea. You get the same type of stories and it doesn’t feel like it’s breaking any canon like the Gorn obviously does. I ranted enough about it but nothing about their appearance on SNW feels remotely canon anymore.

But the Breen could’ve been a great substitute if they wanted a known species not named Klingons and zero canon issues.

Agreed. I always enjoyed the mysterious quality of the Breen. Seems ripe for exploration.

This season is largely working for me. Not as good as last week, but the chase is enjoyable. I have a little trouble buying that Mol and L’ak fell in love so fast. I would have liked to have seen that handled better.. but the slow burn of the plot works because of what they do to sustain individual episodes. Only episode I thought was kind of wasteful was the one on Trill.

That is a big part of the problem, yes. The characters have little chemistry.

The flashbacks took [place over an extended period of time, it wasnt THAT fast

They both felt like outcasts in their family/society, fusing them together like lightning. I had no problem with that as it gave me a Bonnie & Clyde-vibe which is historical.

It’s fine, but the romance piece just isn’t clicking for me.

Tarka was a similar situation last season with the reveal of his motivation not really moving me, but I’m also not the biggest fan of waiting several episodes to fill in a lot of backstory in a flashback. It’s not easy to pull off, and Discovery hasn’t really perfected it.

It’s a wonder I stuck with Lost as long as I did, now that I think about it.

“ it’s still the best season yet ”

Well, it was for the first two episodes, but the three since then have been a downward spiral. Seasons one and two were much better than this week’s episode and last week’s.

I’ve enjoyed it all except for the Trill episode. I think it’s been fun with a faster pace.. which has helped with a lot of issues that haven’t gone away. Raynor has been a very welcome addition to the cast.

Overall, very entertaining!

For complaints: any other constitution ship would be cool – but I also feel like we don’t know what happens next – there could be some Prime Mirror Universe people out there. & the “hit it!” joke felt like Dad was in the writer’s room.

Otherwise, I the pairings felt very TOS. Rayner is a little bit Serious Scotty when performing a captain’s role. And he took pride in rescuing her – which is feels good.

For me, this season has been 5/5.

Personal Log. Stardate: Today.

Week 4 of not-watching Discovery continues without incident. Opinions gleaned from critics on the latest episode seem to confirm that ‘mid-season malaise’ has been reached right on schedule.

Based on the collective opinion of commentators, there have been a grand total of one episode out of five that qualifies as “actually good”.

In conclusion, it appears the decision to not-watch until the penultimate episode has been vindicated. The plot points I am privy to following the one episode I watched are:

– There is a chase (or ‘The Chase 2.0’) for the Holy Grail / the technological marvel Salmone Jens left behind.

– The Cylon is now the First Officer.

– The Trill and the Robot are no longer together.

All in all, I remain confident that the recap at the beginning of the penultimate episode should be sufficient to fill in all the key points required.

Again, my thanks go out to the resolute souls who manage to endure what I could not.

these threads are for people to talk about the episodes they have seen. CLOSED.

Am I wrong or did the DS9 episode Through the Looking Glass make a reference to the Mirror Spock being on Romulus? Also given all the DS9 cross overs with the Mirror Universe you would think Burnham would have known something more about her brother’s counterpart.

Spock was not mentioned in Through the Looking Glass. We know between Crossover and the new dedication plaque of the ISS Enterprise that he reformed the Terran Empire and was killed for it. Burnham has clearly boned up on a lot of info since coming to this century, but easy to assume the future history of the mirror universe wasn’t part of that. Also, that info could have been lost or been classified.

Wow! The Breen. From CGI to burn victim.

Does anybody think the Commander Rainer is gonna become the Commandant of Starfleet Academy?

Everything involving Book is incredibly tedious. They brought back the ISS Enterprise as a way to resurrect the OG Enterprise in continuity. Perhaps it ends up as the Enterprise Q or whatever, if Saru is in command then ok. Burnham insisting on going on the away mission is diametrically opposed to how TNG dealt with this – e.g., when Riker as captain insisted on boarding the Borg cube in Best of Both Worlds, and his senior officers reminded him his place was on the bridge. I guess everyone got much dumber in the 32nd century, but “dumber” is Discovery’s whole concept.

This post missed an important Easter egg towards the end: Morn was at the bar “Red’s” just like he did on Quark’s on DS9.

We don’t call out or find every little egg, but when the bar was introduced last season we noted the Lurian (Morn’s species), who has been there ever since. We don’t usually do repeated easter egg bits for each episode

Yay! Good seeing the Breen again and their evolved design in the 32nd Century is great.

Boo! Pretty much everything else except Rayner who is the best character in the show.

Imagine they used the Star Trek: Tour set in Trekonderoga for the ISS Enterprise? What a cool surprise that would have been. But nope, we got the generic canon-breaking Discoprise. Not surprised.

I swear if they make the new Enterprise in the 3190s a refitted Constitution, I will facepalm. Just a stupid idea, when you have far superior tech and designs in the future time period. Please don’t, Disco-writers. Bad enough they did it with the Ent-G (one of my few criticisms of the great PIC S3).

Would it have been too much if Dr. Cho was instead Marlena Moreau? Just saying. Kind of like Dax in Jinaal… I feel like they are making all of these deep cuts, why not make them count a bit more to the overall lore, instead of just throwing the ISS Enterprise in with no good reason. Making these deep cuts actually count towards the overall lore might make the obvious (potential) budget cuts, set reuses, etc. be a bit more forgiving. Giving loved characters some finality that affect the course of this in our face galactic scale quest… might make it hit harder? Maybe I’m wrong, I’m sure someone here will think so lol

Overall the episode was okay. I do understand using the ISS Enterprise since this is supposed to be the final season of Discovery it was a nostalgia play and kind of wrap up the history of that ship in regards to the series. But overall it just seems kind of mashed together. Have to see how it ties in with the rest of the season.

I would say this episode along with the one before it were definitely the weakest of the season. They started out with a bang on the first few, and while I know that they tend to slow down in the middle of the season before ramping up the action for the final few, this episode dragged. There were also a few things with the Breen and the Enterprise that seemed a bit confusing:

– The Breen have 2 faces…great! Awesome twist to the species and fantastic to finally be able to see them after all the mystery around them in DS9. If the second face is supposed to be the more evolved one though, why do they need the masks and the suits? Can the more evolved face not breathe in a standard atmosphere? When L’ak and his uncle opened up their masks, they seemed fine, so there’s still quite a bit we don’t know about why they use that whole setup, especially when they’re around their own people

– Does the more evolved form extend past the face?

ISS Enterprise

– The stardate on the commemorative plaque is 32336.6. Popping that number into a couple of online stardate calculators puts that around mid-2355, which would be a few years before the prime universe Enterprise-D was commissioned in 2363. They mentioned that Dr. Cho came back to the Enterprise to hide the clue, so the assumption is that she also placed the plaque there at the same time. The timing doesn’t quite add up though because The Chase took place in 2369. Nobody would have known about The Progenitors or their technology before that, so they were at least 14 years off with the plaque

– If this Enterprise has been caught in extradimensional space since at least 2355, that means it’s been there for over 800 years by the time it’s discovered. How does it still have power?

– It’s been discussed by the Disco production team that the Discovery-era Enterprise was designed so that it could eventually be refit into the TOS Enterprise. The ISS Enterprise was contemporary with Kirk’s version and was seen on screen in TOS in that configuration. Why is the version in this episode the Discovery one? I know the real-world explanation is that it was easier to just re-use that model to align with the sets, but we saw a TOS-era Constitution class USS New Jersey at the Fleet Museum in Picard, so they had that model available to use. Just a bit sloppy

– How did Stamets immediately know that the ship exiting the wormhole was the ISS Enterprise and not a different prime Constitution class ship?

Photon Torpedo

– The solution to hold the wormhole open for the Enterprise to escape was to remove the payload from the torpedoes and replace them with antimatter. Photon torpedoes are matter/antimatter weapons, so this is a little confusing. Are they taking out the matter and just loading them with more antimatter?

I don’t know that it’s been there for 855 years.. not sure if it’s kind of like the Nexus or the black hole in Trek 09, where time does things differently. My guess is, that’s how the people on board were able to integrate into society. Their doppelgängers were long deceased.

Here’s the other thing… if the idea of revolution started with Mirror Spock, and the crew of the Enterprise more or less went along with him.. this is a way of explaining how they didn’t spread the idea to teh rest of the Empire.. they were lost in space and didn’t have much, if any, influence off of their own ship.

But they did spread the idea enough to weaken the empire to the point where it could be conquered.

Yeah I was wondering that also. It’s possible since it was extradimensional space that it didn’t put them in exactly the same time that they left. Also odd that they said Dr. Cho went BACK to the Enterprise to hide the clue. That’s a pretty risky trip unless the wormhole was more stable back in the 24th century.

I feel like I’m seeing the same episode over and over, what a waste this series is became.

Great episode! This season has really been fantastic so far. The writing has been consistent, the acting of the principals is fantastic, and the pacing has been great.

I really loved the scenes with Rayner in command. That worked so well!

Loved getting the backstory about Moll and L’ak – it really did add layers to their characters and their story. And the reveal that L’ak was a Breen! I never saw that coming! Was great to know more about the most underdeveloped and mysterious alien race in Trek history.

Seeing the ISS Entreprise was a treat! I am guessing it was lost quite some time after mirror Spock took over from mirror Kirk. Nice Easter Egg… better than having some unknown ship in there.

Looking forward to the remaining episodes.

Did anyone else see “Morn” (or one of his species) sitting at the bar in Red’s?

Yes, I did catch that. It was a fun detail.

Seriously, an episode doesn’t go by without at least one eye roll over the touchy feely huggy share my feeling vibe that is shoe-horned into worst places. I wonder what this series would be like if Bryan Fuller had stayed on…

It would had been .. a Star Trek show, not this happy sad feeling sharing at all costs every single time somebody speaks.

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Published Apr 19, 2024

RECAP | Star Trek: Discovery 504 - 'Face the Strange'

Don't bury your mind in the abstract for too long, you'll turn into a Rothko painting.

SPOILER WARNING: This article contains story details and plot points for Star Trek: Discovery.

StarTrek.com

Previously, in " Red Directive ," Captain Burnham admits to Book she doesn't know how to be around him anymore, while the ex-courier wonders if some things are hard to move past, for both of them. While on an away mission in " Jinaal ," Burnham tasks with new first officer Rayner to familiarize himself with the crew with one-on-ones as connection is a choice; not a skill.

Meanwhile, while on Trill, after meeting with Jinaal Bix, inhabiting Dr. Culber's body, offers the captain the next clue to locating the Progenitors' tech. Unfortunately, any gains they achieved is sabotaged as Moll manages to slip a piece of tech onto Adira's uniform without their knowledge.

In Episode 4 of Star Trek: Discovery , " Face the Strange ," on the way to the next clue, the U.S.S. Discovery is sabotaged by a mysterious weapon, leaving Captain Burnham, Rayner, and Stamets as the only crew members who can possibly save the ship in time.

• Moll (Malinne)
• Michael Burnham
• Keyla Detmer
• Joann Owosekun
• William Christopher
• Sylvia Tilly
• Paul Stamets
• Dr. Hugh Culber
• Cleveland "Book" Booker

• Salata Major Beach
• U.S.S. Discovery

Fifteen hours earlier, Moll and L'ak are seen rendezvousing with a broker on a moonlit shore. They hand him a bag of latinum as payment for an item, but he insists that the price has gone up. The weapons dealer begins to cough and experience psychedelic effects, and Moll divulges that she had anticipated his betrayal and soaked the latinum in Fop'yano poison — the same toxin that the broker had sold to the Emerald Chain to use on people like her. As his mouth foams and he collapses, Moll retrieves an item from his pocket. While her spirits are buoyed by the prospect of having an edge over the U.S.S. Discovery -A's pursuit of the Progenitors' tech, L'ak second guesses their situation — he feels as if the walls are closing in. Moll reassures him that their success will mean no more bounties on their heads, looking over their shoulders, or running. They kiss, Moll extending her hand to reveal that the item is…

…the spider-like device which Moll placed on Ensign Adira Tal's sleeve. Back in the present, the mechanical menace scurries through Adira's quarters as they make plans to meet with Gray when he graduates to the next level of training in a few months. Adira hears its metallic steps, but Commander Paul Stamets' request for assistance draws them away, and the creature melts into the bulkhead.

"Face the Strange"

Discovery arrives at the coordinates supplied to them by Jinaal Bix, but scans do not detect anything of note. On the Bridge, Captain Michael Burnham refuses to give up, tasking Lieutenant Linus with sending DOT-23s to conduct a more in-depth scan of the area. Lieutenant Christopher reports that Trill has found no sign of Moll and L'ak, a fact which irritates Commander Rayner. The first officer insists the thieves should have been there hours ago when the captain was on the planet. Unbeknownst to the crew, Moll's device emerges from a nearby wall. Lieutenant Commander Gen Rhys advises that the couriers are likely to wait for Discovery to lead them to the next clue. The arachnid-like spy blends back into the bulkhead as Rayner dismisses Rhys' observation as a guess. Angered by the interaction, Burnham turns to the commander and asks him to join her in the Ready Room.

The two senior officers beam to the privacy of the conference area, and Burnham bluntly pronounces Rayner's behavior to be unacceptable — that’s not how they do things on Discovery . The captain values having the crew engaged, involved, and encouraged to speak freely, prompting Rayner to 'freely' express his opinion that such a policy is a mistake. Red Directives require decisiveness and discipline — not collaboration. Burnham takes offense to the idea that her crew lacks discipline, but Rayner believes that the ship's personnel are too comfortable with one another. Burnham counters that their familiarity saved the Federation, the galaxy, and Rayner himself.

Rayner's argument intensifies into an outburst, but the commander takes a moment to pace and reevaluate his position. Rayner acknowledges that his criticism was over the line and apologizes. Burnham presses on, matter-of-factly stating that the Burn is over and Rayner is on her ship — she expects him to do things her way. Rayner lifts his chin, challenging the captain with the query, "And if my way is better?"

Meanwhile, in Engineering, Stamets spots Moll's device bustling across the wall, following it until it melts into a panel. Burnham and Rayner continue their face-off in the Ready Room, when the lights suddenly flicker and Lieutenant Commander Joann Owosekun transmits an update from the Bridge — odd energy fluctuations have been detected and an unauthorized signal was just broadcast from the ship. Burnham and Rayner attempt to beam to Discovery ’s command center, but their personal transporters convulse.

The Ready Room is suddenly transformed, now awash in sparks and debris with stars speeding past the rear viewport. Transporters and comms appear to be inoperative, so Burnham and Rayner rush to the turbolift. As the doors open, they confront an unsettling sight on the Bridge — Saru and the command crew are unconscious on the floor, and all wear mid-23rd Century Starfleet uniforms. The viewscreen displays a voyage through a wormhole, and Discovery rides in the wake of what Rayner refers to as a "red thing." Shock covers the captain's expression. The question isn’t where they are, but when . Nodding to the figure in the distance, Burnham states, "That’s the Red Angel. That was me."

Captain Burnham processes the stunning scene, registering that this is the day they traveled to the 32nd Century. Rayner notes the absurdity of going back in time to the moment Discovery went into the future. The crew begins to stir, and Burnham hurries Rayner out of the room; the time travelers aren’t supposed to be there, so they must avoid being seen. They regroup in the Ready Room, and the captain theorizes that Jinaal's coordinates weren’t as empty as they had thought. Commander Saru's voice can be heard ordering everyone to brace for impact. Aware of how history transpires, Burnham is certain they will survive the crash landing, but Rayner is not particularly enthused by the prospect.

The lights flash again. Burnham and Rayner remain in the Ready Room, but their surroundings have changed once more. The room is open to the atmosphere, its incomplete rear bulkhead now displaying a lovely view of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge on Earth. The captain nervously gestures to the commander, who turns to find a construction worker wearing a hardhat and enjoying some music. Confused by the unexpected visit, the man assumes this is a surprise inspection. Burnham and Rayner immediately adapt to the situation. And, as the worker walks off to inform his foreman; the commander offers him advice — fail to prepare, prepare to fail. Once the man departs, Rayner sheepishly confesses that he hates that saying.

Captain Burnham exhales, proclaiming that they are in drydock when Discovery was first being built. They haven’t just traveled back in time, they are jumping through it. While the people they come across on their journey still live in the moment, Burnham and Rayner's awareness are not being affected by the shifts. The 32nd Century officers trace their steps, remembering that the ordeal began when energy fluctuations prompted them to try beaming to the Bridge. Whatever is influencing the ship must have hit it at the exact moment they were beaming!

The lights shudder and the environment morphs, the completed starship is now taking weapons fire in the midst of a massive space battle. Although the year oscillates, Burnham and Rayner are returned to their original positions in the Ready Room every time. Explosions rock Discovery , and the chronometer reads Stardate 1051.8 — the Battle with Control. They deduce that this can’t be a time eddy or a neural attack, and the truth suddenly dawns on Rayner — it’s a "time bug," a Krenim chronophage left over from the Temporal War.* They are designed to paralyze an enemy vessel by randomly cycling through time, lasting weeks or months until the "little suckers" run out of juice. Curious as to how Moll and L'ak got the device aboard Discovery , they assume the unauthorized broadcast was a notification beacon intended to alert the couriers to their position.

Captain Burnham resolves to prohibit Moll and L'ak from obtaining the Progenitors' tech, and she activates her tricom badge in order to calculate a pattern to the time cycle intervals. She proposes they find Stamets, as the scientist lives outside of time because of his tardigrade DNA. Rayner's face conveys befuddlement, but the captain thinks that — while Stamets will be trapped within the time bug's trap like everyone else — he will be as aware of the situation as she and Rayner.

Chaos reigns in Sickbay, with those wounded during the fight against Control filling the biobeds. Dr. Hugh Culber treats Stamets for a shrapnel wound to his chest. The astromycologist tries to warn his partner about a "scary bug," but Culber attributes the calls for a "Zora" to delirium and induces a coma. Space warps around them, and the moment snaps back to the Ready Room, where Burnham and Rayner see that Discovery is now under a Cloak Alert. Burnham's badge shows that the last cycle sustained itself for twice as long as the one prior to it. She checks the stardate and predicts Stamets will be in Engineering. They take a turbolift — Burnham programs a direct route to storage on Deck 13 via service shaft epsilon so as to uphold the Temporal Prime Directive** — and the captain inputs an override code to mask their biometric readings.

The ship goes to Black Alert, and a bleak revelation occurs to Burnham — this is the day Osyraa attacks Discovery . The turbolift doors slide open, and they are greeted by one of the Emerald Chain's heavily armed regulators. Burnham and Rayner spring into action, ducking weapons fire and dispatching the helmeted guard. Osyraa's reinforcements storm the corridor, but the duo fend them off in ferocious hand-to-hand combat. A regulator nearly gets the drop on Rayner, but Commander Jett Reno delivers a blast to the foe's head and remarks, "Get a better helmet." Reno doesn’t recognize Rayner, and the time traveler poses as an officer named Commander Lock who is on temporary assignment. He's grateful for the save, and Reno says he can repay her with a drink at Red’s. The engineer advises him to steer clear of the "bucketheads," and the time shift crescendos once again.

Back in the Ready Room, Burnham and Rayner perceive several differences — accumulated debris clouds the viewport, the power systems blink unsteadily, and it seems as if no one has been there for years. Musical tones lure them to the Bridge, and they enter to the sounds of "Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)." The viewscreen doors are sealed, and Zora welcomes them by asking if they are real or if this is another dream. Discovery 's A.I. relays that Captain Burnham and the crew died decades ago, and it is now 3218 — almost 30 years in the future. Zora's memory is unreliable, but she explains that the Progenitors' technology fell into the wrong hands. Burnham orders her to open the viewscreen doors, an act which unveils a horrific scene. Federation Headquarters has been torn apart, its interior superstructure exposed to space.

Zora provides further details — by the time Starfleet found Discovery and deactivated the Krenim chronophage, Moll and L'ak were too far ahead to catch. Burnham spots a Breen ship among the starbase's debris, and Zora confirms that the Breen somehow acquired the Progenitors' secrets and launched a devastating attack. The captain slowly advances toward her captain's chair, wiping dust from its surface and reminiscing about needing all of her strength to prevent herself from running away the first time she walked onto this Bridge. She respected Starfleet too much to believe she deserved to be there after mutinying on the U.S.S. Shenzhou , yet Rayner points out that she must be the first person in Starfleet history to captain a ship that they originally boarded as a prisoner.

Grinning, Burnham admits that she never gave up and refocuses her efforts on solving the current crisis. Tracking the time cycles isn't enough, so Zora recommends other variables — the ship's location, distance, and speed. The captain latches onto the final factor, determining that their speed is a vital part of the equation. When Zora maps the intervals to a spacetime diagram and expands them to higher dimensions, the resulting pattern is a conical wave that tells them how long they'll have between time jumps. The holographic illustration accurately predicts the next shift, and Zora pleads for them to set things right.

On this occasion, Stamets materializes from the time jump and finds himself in Engineering with Reno. She tells "Doctor Truffles" that she is waiting for the reference calculations for the injector coil, and Stamets feigns recognition until he reasons she requires the information for the O.B.D. diagnostic. The scientist asks his colleague about a "theoretical predicament," wondering if — hypothetically — calibrating a chroniton stabilizer to partition world lines per Scaravelli's Constant would nullify any temporal unpleasantness that might hit the ship. Reno concurs, so long as he factors dimensional variations, and elicits an awkward denial when she asks if Stamets is stuck in a time loop. She playfully jabs his shoulder, cautioning that burying his mind in the abstract for too long will turn him into a Rothko painting.

As Reno departs, Captain Burnham pokes her head up from a maintenance shaft and softly whispers for Stamets' attention. The astromycologist moves quickly, commanding the rest of his staff to evacuate due to a spore breach or risk having mushrooms grow on their lungs. Burnham and Rayner crawl from their hiding place and fill Stamets in on everything they've learned to this point. Repeating events has stressed the scientist, though he took solace in reliving the time Lieutenant Linus got stuck in the replicator. Stamets escorts them to the panel where the "time bug" embedded itself in the power distribution subsystem, but improperly removing it might cause incalculable timelines to converge and repeatedly rip every molecule into infinite directions for eternity. "Sounds bad," according to Rayner.

In order to disconnect the time bug from Discovery 's inner workings, they must nullify its effects with near-perfect precision based on the shifting intervals. Fortunately for Stamets, the captain can supply him with that intel. The scientist transfers the data to his PADD, sharing that he’ll need help gathering parts to build a chroniton stabilizer. As their current cycle winds down, the three officers agree to meet on Deck 13 after each reset. The jump occurs and they make their scheduled rendezvous, but the only place to find the field disruptor fluid Stamets requests is in the holodeck that — at this time — has just been installed in the captain's quarters, which is bio-metrically secured.

Burnham volunteers for the assignment and discreetly steps foot in her room, finding Grudge relaxing on the bed. The captain opens a panel and removes vials of the liquid, but Cleveland "Book" Booker returns from the gym before she can exit. The Kwejian throws Burnham further off balance when he removes his shirt, and he draws her close to underscore his confidence in her "new" captaincy. He implores her to trust her instincts and says she is made for this. Book agrees that change can be hard, but that's the only way anything meaningful can happen. He steps forward for a passionate kiss, and they exchange "I love yous" on Burnham’s way out the door.

Burnham reunites with Rayner and Stamets in Engineering, where the astromycologist is disturbed that his subordinates don't realize that a "spore breach" isn’t a real thing. He adds the field disruptor fluid to his freshly constructed chroniton stabilizer, but the "time bug" has a defense mechanism — a purple-hued temporal shield that disintegrates a spanner in mere seconds. Another reset occurs, and they gather on Deck 13. Stamets explains that time within the shield is moving at an ultra-accelerated rate, so anything — including humanoids — will age to dust before it reaches the bug itself. However, they can mitigate the effects by taking the ship to maximum warp and breaking the warp bubble, which is what protects the vessel from the effects of relativity. Dropping out of warp at that speed will impede the time inside the shield from being able to keep up.

Rayner voices the prospect of deadly whiplash or breaking the Discovery into a million pieces, but Stamets replies that the inertial dampeners should prevent that — hopefully . He also details that their actions won't affect the future, as changes to the period they're in don't become permanent until after the bug resets. Breaking the bubble and deactivating the time bug within the same cycle will cause everything to revert to the way it was before. They have 14 minutes to pull off the risky endeavor, but — at the current time — Captain Gabriel Lorca still commands Discovery . Luckily, the Mirror Universe menace is on an away mission with Saru and Ellen Landry, but a somberness settles in when Stamets and Burnham find out that their friend, the late Lieutenant Commander Airiam, is on duty on the Bridge.

The three officers set their strategy — Burnham will need to convince the crew, who still believe she's a mutineer, to follow her instructions; Stamets will modulate the inertial dampeners; and Rayner will be the one to stick his hand in the "spider’s nest." They split up, but the captain's turbolift ride is interrupted by a stop to pick up Lieutenant Linus, who seems perplexed by Burnham's 32nd Century Command uniform. The Saurian hesitates to comment, eventually composing himself enough to tell her that red is definitely her color. Burnham's smile of relief is fleeting, because — once Linus leaves — the current timeline's Michael Burnham shows up at the door.

The captain pulls her past self into the turbolift, intent on outlining how she is from the future and has found herself stuck cycling through time. Past Burnham perceives the explanation as a ruse, uncertain as to whether Captain Burnham is a shapeshifter. Referring to the captain's rank and uniform, her younger self can't imagine how she could possibly wind up receiving captain's pips after having been convicted of mutiny. Past Burnham squares off with the captain, and the two Michaels prove themselves to be relatively evenly matched at fisticuffs, at least until the captain incapacitates her counterpart with a Vulcan nerve pinch. Out of breath, Captain Burnham comforts the unconscious woman, as — while it's hard to see a path to the captaincy from where she is — she can overcome the long road by not giving up.

Stamets glides into Engineering, barking that he is "very grumpy" as a way to clear the room. Rayner climbs in through a shaft, noting that this worked better than the scientist's spore drive excuse. Acknowledging he was a tad more surly "pre-tardigrade DNA," Stamets wrestles with mixing up the 23rd Century inertial dampener procedure with the modern 32nd Century systems that also occupy his mind. Rayner's declaration that Stamets must "unmuddy" those thoughts irritates the astromycologist, and he critiques the commander's "gruff candor" routine. Stamets feels the weight of the moment, but his diatribe makes it clear that he is also bearing the intense pressure of dealing with the Progenitors' unprecedented technology. Rayner reflects, assuring him that he's not in this alone, and impresses Stamets by helping him prepare for their gambit at another console. The first officer uncharacteristically refers to him by his first name, inspiring Paul to laugh with his declaration, "Let’s show’em how a couple of old dogs still know the best tricks."

Captain Burnham arrives on the Bridge with her hands raised in a peaceful gesture, and — seated in the captain's chair — the mechanically-augmented Airiam states that she is not authorized to be here. Lieutenant Bryce and Cadet Tilly question the style of Burnham's uniform and hair, but Airiam calls for security once the captain starts to clarify her predicament. Burnham simplifies her story to guard her crew from too many details, though her intimate knowledge about Lieutenant Joann Owosekun's right cross and the sensors’ report that two Michaels exist on the ship aid her cause.

The captain resumes displaying her familiarity with the crew — Lieutenant Keyla Detmer sits at a window on Deck 6 when she's having a bad day; Owosekun joined Starfleet because she wasn't able to save her friend when she was 15; Bryce loves Comms because he used to listen to old radio emissions in space with his grandmother; and Tilly is frightened her mutinous roommate will knife her in her sleep because of her snoring. Burnham stuns the room when she proclaims that she's not just a future Starfleet captain, she's Discovery 's captain. Certain that this is all difficult to process, she asserts that Airiam will trust her account because — Burnham contains her sadness — she has seen how Airiam dies.

Tilly plugs her ears to dodge any additional temporal insights, while Bryce reacts by demanding Burnham be removed from the Bridge. The captain hurries to offer specifics as the comms officer draws his phaser. Airiam perishes 396 days from this moment when an A.I. program infects her augmentation, prompting her to sacrifice everything for Discovery . The crew denies Airiam would ever give up, but her own metallic voice declares that she would if it meant saving her friends. The tension is relieved and the officers stand down, allowing Airiam to ask what Burnham needs of them. Airiam's order for the ship to prepare for maximum warp rings out over the comm in Engineering, assuring Stamets and Rayner that Burnham had succeeded. All seems right with three minutes to go, but "past" Burnham startles them by storming in with Lieutenant Rhys and aiming a phaser at the two time travelers.

Discovery achieves maximum warp, giving Captain Burnham a moment to confide in Airiam on the Bridge. Airiam is astonishingly serene about her fate and adds that she won't retain her memories from this time cycle anyway. A status check on Engineering reveals Rayner and Stamets' captive quandary, but the captain encourages her first officer to handle the situation. Rayner speaks to Rhys, insisting that he knows him in a future time when he has been promoted to Lieutenant Commander. The tactical officer's incredulity endures until Rayner recounts Rhys' love for the curves of the 23rd Century Constitution -class. The lieutenant's grip on his weapon wavers.

Past Burnham intercedes — even if Rayner is from the future, it's too dangerous — and wields her phaser in Stamets' direction. Harkening back to a memory that Captain Burnham had shared earlier, Rayner confronts her younger counterpart with the fact that — on her first day on Discovery — she didn't feel she deserved to be there. Rayner steps forward until her phaser rests on his chest, pronouncing that past Burnham does deserve to be here. She’s doing a "damned good job" in all the shit she’s going through, and it's going to make her one hell of a captain. Rayner also lost his family in his youth, and he learned that the only thing left you can trust is the voice in your head. He implores her to trust her instincts, watching as past Burnham lowers her phaser.

Stamets hails Captain Burnham, who orders Detmer to exit the warp bubble, an act that sends blue static crackling across the viewscreen. Rayner simultaneously engulfs the time bug in the chroniton stabilizer, straining as his hand fends off the time differential. The illumination in Engineering flickers rapidly, the fluctuation accelerating until Burnham and Rayner suddenly land back in the Ready Room once more. The computer confirms they're back in the present, having only lost six hours to the disturbance. The past hasn't been altered in any way, though the commander is nursing his injured hand.

Rayner contemplates their trial, crediting Burnham's success to her relationship with her crew. He accepts that he can be stubborn, a trait he also saw in "past" Burnham. The captain muses that the experience reminded her of life's constant changes, a lesson which helps her understand how arduous it is for Rayner to adjust to his new role. The duo see eye-to-eye on another truth — they made a good team. The commander wonders how they'll explain this to the crew, but Burnham jokes that they'll get it as soon as they say "time bug."

Stamets stares into the panel which said time bug inhabited, pulling out its charred remains and wishing he had been able to squish it. Adira notices the mechanical arachnid and wonders if it had anything to do with six hours passing in the blink of an eye. The Bridge crew embrace the information in a similar fashion, and Gen Rhys is particularly happy that he didn't shoot the captain during the standoff.

Commander Rayner, his hand now healed, enters in time to hear Captain Burnham impart her own appreciation for the way everyone came together. She requests an update from the DOTs who have been scanning nearby space, and Linus communicates that a warp signature matching Moll and L'ak's ship was detected. Rayner praises Rhys for his earlier assertion, earning a nod from the tactical officer. Moll and L'ak's trail vanishes, but the captain is confident that her crew can solve the mystery of the next clue's location. As the officers set to work, Captain Burnham settles into the captain's chair, the joy palpable on her face.

* " Year of Hell " — Introduced in this Star Trek: Voygar two-parter, the U.S.S. Voyager encountered the technologically-advanced Krenim, which once dominated the Zahl territory with their deadly temporal weapons.

** " Relativity " — Lt. Duncane reminds Captain Janeway about the Temporal Prime Directive, a fundamental Starfleet principle, to not discuss her experiences with time travel with anyone as to not disrupt the timeline, alter history, or create paradoxes.

• Written by Sean Cochran
• Directed by Lee Rose

• "Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)" — Doris Day

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Jay Stobie (he/him) is a freelance writer, author, and consultant who has contributed articles to StarTrek.com, Star Trek Explorer, and Star Trek Magazine, as well as to Star Wars Insider and StarWars.com. Learn more about Jay by visiting JayStobie.com or finding him on Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms at @StobiesGalaxy.

Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-4 are streaming exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., the UK, Canada, Switzerland, South Korea, Latin America, Germany, France, Italy, Australia and Austria. Seasons 2 and 3 also are available on the Pluto TV “Star Trek” channel in Switzerland, Germany and Austria. The series streams on Super Drama in Japan, TVNZ in New Zealand, and SkyShowtime in Spain, Portugal, Poland, The Nordics, The Netherlands, and Central and Eastern Europe and also airs on Cosmote TV in Greece. The series is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution.

Screen Rant

Star trek: discovery season 5, episode 5 ending explained.

Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 5 contains two major reveals about the Mirror Universe and the Breen. We break down what the ending means.

Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Discovery Season 5, Episode 5 - "Mirrors"

• Star Trek: Discovery's next clue is hidden aboard the Mirror Universe's ISS Enterprise trapped in interdimensional space.
• L'ak is a Breen with a blood bounty on his head, and his backstory with Moll is revealed.
• The USS Discovery crew, led by Commander Rayner, helps save Burnham and Book and bring the ISS Enterprise into the Prime Universe, but Moll and L'ak escape.

Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 5, "Mirrors," ends with Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and the USS Discovery's crew grappling with jaw-dropping reveals about the Mirror Universe's ISS Enterprise, L'ak's (Elias Toufexis) species, and the next clue in the hunt for the Progenitors' treasure. Written by Johanna Lee and Carlos Cisco and directed by Jen McGowan, the thrilling "Mirrors" sends Burnham and Cleveland Booker (David Ajala) into interdimensional space after Moll (Eve Harlow) and L'ak and the third Progenitors' clue , but they found a lot more than they bargained for.

In Star Trek: Discovery s eason 5, episode 5, Captain Burnham, Cleveland Booker, Moll, and L'ak are all trapped aboard the derelict ISS Enterprise after Burnham's shuttle and L'ak's ship are destroyed by interdimensional space, a dangerous region between Star Trek 's Prime and Mirror Universes . Michael ingeniously uses the Enterprise's tractor beam to send a distress signal to the USS Discovery, where Commander Rayner (Callum Keith Rennie) and the bridge crew find a way to keep the aperture of the interdimensional space wormhole open to fly the ISS Enterprise through. However, L'ak and Moll make their escape, leaving Burnham, Book, and the Starfleet heroes to grapple with the third clue to the Progenitors' treasure, and what they learned and found in the wormhole.

The ISS Enterprise's first and only previous appearance was in Star Trek: The Original Series season 2's "Mirror, Mirror", which introduced the Mirror Universe.

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 Returning Cast & New Character Guide

Captain kirk's mirror universe iss enterprise now belongs to 32nd century starfleet, it's been a long road for the iss enterprise.

The Mirror Universe's ISS Enterprise becomes the property of the 32nd century's Starfleet and United Federation of Planets at the end of Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 5, "Mirrors." Captain Burnham assigned Lt. Commanders Kayla Detmer (Emily Coutts) and Joann Owosekun (Oyin Oladejo) - who don't actually appear in the episode - to fly the ISS Enterprise back to Federation HQ to be put into "storage". However, the acquisition of a major historical find like a 23rd-century Constitution Class starship filled with Terran Empire technology from the Mirror Universe is bound to be of interest to Dr. Kovich (David Cronenberg).

After the Temporal Wars, crossing over between the Mirror Universe and Star Trek 's Prime universe is now impossible, but the ISS Enteprise was trapped in interdimensional space for centuries, which crossing over could still happen.

Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 5's ISS Enterprise scenes were filmed on the USS Enterprise sets of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds . Discovery season 5's production took place at the end of 2022, after Strange New Worlds season 2 had wrapped in June and long before Strange New Worlds season 3 filming started in December 2023. The USS Enterprise's bridge, medical bay, transporter room, and hallways were redressed to turn the starship into its Mirror Universe counterpart.

Commander Michael Burnham previously came aboard Captain Christopher Pike's (Anson Mount) USS Enterprise in Star Trek: Discovery season 2.

Star Trek: Discovery's Mirror Universe Revelations

We found out what happened to mirror spock and mirror saru.

Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 5's ISS Enterprise appearance answered some big questions about the events of the Mirror Universe after Star Trek: The Original Series ' "Mirror, Mirror." Cleveland Booker learned from the plaque where the Enterprise's missing crew left their story behind that the Terran High Chancellor was assassinated after making reforms. This refers to the Mirror Universe's Spock (Leonard Nimoy), who was urged by the Prime Universe's Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) to make reforms to prevent the inevitable collapse of the Terran Empire, which happened anyway.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's Mirror Universe episodes revealed that the Terran Empire, weakened by Spock's reforms, was conquered by the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance.

Refugees led by a Kelpien slave-turned-rebel leader - Saru (Doug Jones) - used the ISS Enterprise to flee the Mirror Universe for the Prime Universe in the 23rd century, but the starship was trapped in interdimensional space. The Enterprise's crew eventually used the ship's shuttles and escape pods to abandon the starship in an effort to make it to the Prime Universe. Some did make it through, including the ISS Enterprise's junior science officer, Dr. Cho , who later joined Starfleet and became a branch Admiral in the 24th century.

Jinaal Bix redacted the names of the scientists who found the Progenitors' technology, including Dr. Cho.

Moll & L'ak Escaped Discovery With A Breen Bounty On Their Heads

L'ak is the nephew of the breen primarch.

Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 5 revealed the backstory of Moll and L'ak, including the revelation that L'ak is Breen . Years before Star Trek: Discovery season 5, Moll was a courier who sold latinum to the Breen Imperium, where she met L'ak, the nephew of the Breen's Primarch Ruhn (Tony Nappo), who had fallen out of favor and was working in the shuttle bay. Moll and L'ak fell in love , and L'ak committed a crime against the Breen by consorting with "a lesser being" and removing his helmet to show Moll his true face. Confronted by his uncle, L'ak shot the Primarch and fled with Moll.

Moll and L'ak used one of the ISS Enterprise's remaining warp pods to flee capture.

Moll and L'ak both have an Erigah, a Breen blood bounty, on their heads, and they hope that finding the Progenitors' treasure and selling it to the Breen will buy their freedom. Neither Moll and L'ak want the Federation's help offered by Captain Burnham, and they would "rather die" than be separated in a Federation prison. L'ak was injured in a brawl with Burnham, but instead of seeking medical attention from the USS Discovery, Moll and L'ak used one of the ISS Enterprise's remaining warp pods to flee capture. However, this time, Moll and L'ak left behind a warp trail Discovery can follow.

Cleveland Booker Tries To Connect With Moll

Booker's mentor was moll's absentee father.

Cleveland Booker has personal reasons to connect with and save Moll. Moll's real name is Malinne Booker, and she is the daughter of Book's late mentor, Cleveland Booker IV . Moll's father abandoned her and her mother to become a courier and raise the funds needed to move his family to a new home in the Gamma Quadrant. However, Booker IV's dangerous life as a courier and dealings with criminal organizations like the Emerald Chain made him keep his distance from Malinne, who blamed him for leaving her behind.

Moll doesn't want Cleveland Booker in her life.

Moll became a courier like her father to do what he didn't and earn enough latinum to move to the Gamma Quadrant, but Moll's entire world shifted when she fell in love with L'ak and the Breen placed a blood bounty on their head s. Moll doesn't want Cleveland Booker in her life , but she relents when she has the chance to kill the man who took her father's name. Whether Moll will ever come to see Book as the "only family" she has left, the way Book sees her, remains to be seen.

Commander Rayner Got The Best Out Of USS Discovery's Crew

Citrus mash for everyone.

Captain Burnham left Commander Rayner at the conn of the USS Discovery while she and Book went on their away mission, despite Rayner's reservations about leading Burnham's crew. However, Rayner was impressed that Burnhum learned Kellerun literature to connect with her new First Officer. This knowledge was the key to Rayner saving Burnham from interdimensional space. Burnham used the ISS Enterprise's tractor beam to send a signal the Kellerun commander would understand.

Rayner gained a new appreciation for Discovery's crew and how to work with them as his own crew.

Commander Rayner placed his trust in the USS Discovery's crew to "science" a way to open the wormhole's aperture and pull the ISS Enterprise into the Prime Universe. Commander Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp). Lt. Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman), Ensign Adira Tal (Blu del Barrio), Lt. Commander Gen Rhys (Patrick Kwok-Choon), Lt. Christopher (Orville Cummings), Lt. Linus (David Benjamin Tomlinson), Lt. Naya (Victoria Sawal), Lt. Commander Asha (Christina Dixon), and Lt. Gallo (Natalie Liconti) all rose to the occasion and found a way to save Burnham and Book. In turn, Rayner gained a new appreciation for Discovery's crew and how to work with them as his own crew.

Dr. Culber Reaches Out To Tilly

Culber has questions science can't answer.

The USS Discovery's counselor, Dr. Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz), needs a counselor of his own. Culber continues to deal with the unimaginable experience of Trill scientist Jinaal Bix occupying his mind and body in Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 3, "Jinaal." Being taken over by a Trill has left Culber with existential questions, and he hopes finding the Progenitors' technology will provide him with the answers he seeks.

Hugh finds a sympathetic ear in Lt. Sylvia Tilly.

Unfortunately for Hugh, he doesn't believe he can share his feelings with his husband, Commander Paul Stamets because Paul is a man of science, and Culber's questions are ineffable. Hugh finds a sympathetic ear in Lt. Sylvia Tilly, but the answers Dr. Culber seeks are tied to what the USS Discovery finds when they locate the Progenitors' treasure - or so Hugh hopes. Culber, who has already died and been resurrected, may find himself in a new scenario that has pivotal life-or-death decisions in Star Trek: Discovery season 5.

Dr. Hugh Culber's dilemma in Star Trek: Discovery season 5 is a rare attempt by Star Trek to address spiritual questions.

Where Star Trek: Discovery's Next Progenitors' Treasure Clue Leads

The next clue involves water.

Captain Burnham acquired the third clue from Moll and L'ak, which is a vial of water contained within a piece of the Progenitors' treasure map. Burnham is waiting for Commander Stamets to conduct a chemical analysis of the water, which will reveal where the USS Discovery must go next for the 4th clue . However, Michael told Book that Dr. Cho, the former Terran scientist who became a Starfleet Admiral, went back to the ISS Enterprise in interdimensional space and hid her clue to the Progenitors' technology there.

Michael also told Book she saw him in the past during Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 4, "Face the Strange's" time loops, and that they were happy back then.

Burnham and Book mused over the lessons attached to each clue. On Trill, finding Jinaal's clue was dependent on Burnham and Booker proving they value lifeforms other than their own. On Lyrek for the first clue, the lesson was the importance of cultural context. Michael surmised that the lesson Dr. Cho left behind with her clue on the ISS Enterprise was to have the hope to shape your own future in Star Trek: Discovery season 5 as the search for the Progenitors' treasure and the answers to life, itself, continues.

New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery season 5 stream Thursdays on Paramount+