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Published Sep 23, 2017

A Discovery Premiere Primer

Your primer for Season One of Star Trek: Discovery

Just starting season one of Star Trek: Discovery ? We've got you covered with a premiere primer to thoroughly prep you for the experience.

The Setting

Discovery unfolds about a decade before the time in which Kirk and Spock from Star Trek: The Original Series did their thing aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise . So, we’re talking roughly the 2250’s. That puts the show in the Prime timeline, during which everything from Enterprise, The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager , as well as the TOS and TNG features occurred.

Discovery follows characters aboard two ships, the U.S.S. Shenzhou , captained by Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh), and the U.S.S. Discovery , led by Gabriel Lorca (Jason Isaacs). Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) – a human raised since childhood as the ward of the Vulcan, Sarek -- is the series’ protagonist, a real first for Trek , as the tale will be told through the eyes of someone who is not the captain.

Add into the mix, the Klingons, who serve as the antagonists, but will not necessarily be demonized.

Starfleet Characters

Viewers will meet a wide variety of Starfleet characters over the course of Discovery ’s 15 first-season episodes. Here’s a quick look at several of the Starfleet figures:

First Officer Michael Burnham Is A Woman Of Two Worlds On Star Trek: Discovery

Michael Burnham is First Officer on the U.S.S. Shenzhou . Through her Vulcan upbringing, she has cultivated a razor-sharp logic and intellect. Discussing the character with StarTrek.com, Sonequa Martin-Green said, “You are entering this world through the eyes of a first officer who has this aspiration to be greater, and to be more, and to be captain, of course. And so, you get to see me on that journey, but you get to see all of the pitfalls, and you get to see the turmoil, and you get to see the failures. You get to see the mistakes. You get to see the triumphs. I think that it is an incredible.”

Captain Philippa Georgiou of the U.S.S. Shenzhou is a strong, seasoned leader. Unpretentious and charismatic, you'd follow her anywhere. “Georgiou, she is a war veteran,” Michelle Yeoh told StarTrek.com. “She has seen the horrors of war. But she is a very compassionate person. As I look into her, she, by heart, is an explorer. She loved the universe. She loved the ability and possibility of seeing new stars, new novae being born. She's always awed by that. That's what I love about this character. She's not cynical. She's not jaded by all the things. She firmly believes in the hope and the goodness of humanity.”

Captain Gabriel Lorca , The captain of the U.S.S. Discover is a formitable leader with a decisive charisma that hides many secrets. "This is a very interesting, messed-up guy with a bunch of things going on inside," Jason Isaacs confirmed to StarTrek.com. "And it's not apparent when you first meet him. He's got all kinds of agendas that are involved. You just look for meat and potatoes, something to act. If I thought, 'Oh, do I want to be Bill Shatner or Patrick Stewart?'... I would have run crying and hidden in a cupboard.

Lt. Saru , a Starfleet Science Officer and Lieutenant Commander on the U.S.S. Shenzhou , is Kelpien, an alien prey species that have biologically fostered the ability to sense threats. “Lt. Saru is a species of alien you've never seen in any Trek canon before,” Doug Jones explained to StarTrek.com. “That's the exciting part, that I get to help develop him. I would’ve been terrified to take on a species that had already been established because the fans are watching every move, jot, and thing you do. It's also daunting because I want to get this right, so that he becomes one of those characters that can be beloved and appreciated and can be emulated in later incarnations down the road through someone else.”

Cadet Sylvia Tilly , A Starfleet Academy cadet in her final year of study, Tilly is assigned to the U.S.S. Discovery and becomes roommates with Michael Burnham. "I get to live so close to my own experience,” Wiseman said, referring to the fact that she, like Tilly is a rookie. "That makes it really easy. Some crazy sci-fi thing happens and I’m like, ‘Oh, my God! That’s so cool!’ And that ‘s how it feels. Plus, I have really warm, wonderful, capable people around me, which makes that even better.”

Sarek , a formidable Vulcan, is a beloved character who has appeared often throughout the Star Trek franchise. He is also, of course, Spock’s father. “It seems really interesting, the whole Vulcan ideal, where (Vulcans) basically come to the conclusion that emotion, all emotion, is a problem,” James Frain noted to StarTrek.com. ““And that is just so alien to us. Ultimately, is it really achievable? And who is this guy who is like a U.N. Ambassador who marries a human being? I mean, how did that happen? Who is this guy? That's what I feel like I'm doing every day when I come to work.”

The Klingons

The Klingons, as noted earlier, really get their due in Discovery . There’s an effort to unite the two dozen long-divided Klingon houses, and rapprochement doesn’t come easy, even with a common enemy.

"The show is often told from both points of view,” writer-producer-director Akiva Goldsman said at San Diego Comic-Con, referring to the Klingons and Federation. “It is certainly about the Federation but there are significant sections of the narrative that are purely from the Klingon point of view – and in Klingon. It's a real piece of the show. It will allow the audience to participate in who is right and who is wrong."

"It's been super-fun to take a species that feels well-established,” writer Kirsten Beyer noted at Comic-Con, “and to imagine what a certain period in their history may have produced. It has given us all kind of new ways to talk about and experience Klingons."

L’Rell is a Klingon and the battle deck commander of T’Kuvma 's Klingon ship. Speaking about the character during an interview with StarTrek.com, actress Mary Chieffo enthused that, “This exploration of ‘the other’ is exciting, and I think we really are going to get a great window into both sides. I'm speaking to this because it really did strike me that how the Federation perceives me, L'Rell, is very different from how, say, Kol perceives me within the Klingon world. Who I am, to him, is very different. That’s something we haven’t seen.”

Kol is a Klingon warrior from the House of Kor. “He’s… the leader,” Kenneth Mitchell revealed to StarTrek.com. “You first meet him in holograph form, and he's an alpha Klingon amongst the house leaders, amongst the 24 house leaders. He has these disagreements and conflicts with T'Kuvma and his house, and it launches that relationship throughout the rest of the season. Kol is on a bit of a path to power, and he also wants to protect his people, not only amongst the Klingon houses, but also amongst the Federation.

In a cool, bold move, the Klingons speak Klingon. As such, viewers at home will mostly hear Klingon and see their dialogue translated into English. “I love it,” Mary Chieffo said, detailing how the Klingon actors pull it off on set. “I've reached the point now where I can read and write it pretty well. I’m still not fluent, because the syntax is opposite of anything I know, but it's a really ultimately liberating process. Often in film and TV, it’s, “OK, we're going to show up on the day, and we're just going to find it and capture that lightning in a bottle." We can’t do that because we have to memorize the meaning of each word and the structure of each sentence, and make sure you really understand it logically, so that you can then inhabit it emotionally. I spend a lot of time with our dialect coach, Rea. We have these two-hour sessions where we go through and she helps me refine the sounds.”

U.S.S. Discovery NCC-1031: Traverses the galaxy under the command of Gabriel Lorca, a man who rarely settles into his captain’s chair, as he prefers to be in the heart of the action at all times. The ship boasts a viewscreen, but holographic projections are the preferred method of communicating. StarTrek.com was on the set recently and reported that the bridge is sleek and colorful, and more modern-looking to the eye than the TOS or Enterprise bridges. That said, there were actual buttons and knobs on the assorted consoles. Conversely, the transparent screens at the crew stations are uber-high-tech.

U.S.S. Shenzhou NCC-1227: A Walker Class ship captained by Philippa Georgiou.

Klingon Sarcophagus Ship: According to writer Ted Sullivan, per an interview with SFX Magazine , it “is a 200-year-old ship. In the past, Klingons have not really cared about their dead – they’re not like marines. But these Klingons are. The outside of the ship is covered in thousands of coffins. Some are 300 years old, some are just two days old. Downstairs is the death room, where they prepare their dead; then the coffins get raised up and put on the outside.”

Get Updates By Email

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.

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Star Trek: Discovery

Where to watch.

Watch Star Trek: Discovery with a subscription on Paramount+, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

Cast & Crew

Bryan Fuller

Alex Kurtzman

Sonequa Martin-Green

Captain Michael Burnham

Anthony Rapp

Paul Stamets

Mary Wiseman

Sylvia Tilly

Episode list

Star trek: discovery.

S1.E1 ∙ The Vulcan Hello

Michelle Yeoh in Star Trek: Discovery (2017)

S1.E2 ∙ Battle at the Binary Stars

Mary Wiseman in Star Trek: Discovery (2017)

S1.E3 ∙ Context Is for Kings

Doug Jones and Sonequa Martin-Green in Star Trek: Discovery (2017)

S1.E4 ∙ The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry

Rainn Wilson in Star Trek: Discovery (2017)

S1.E5 ∙ Choose Your Pain

Jason Isaacs in Star Trek: Discovery (2017)

S1.E6 ∙ Lethe

S1.E7 ∙ Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad

Doug Jones, Sonequa Martin-Green, and Shazad Latif in Star Trek: Discovery (2017)

S1.E8 ∙ Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum

Kenneth Mitchell in Star Trek: Discovery (2017)

S1.E9 ∙ Into the Forest I Go

Mary Chieffo and Shazad Latif in Star Trek: Discovery (2017)

S1.E10 ∙ Despite Yourself

Doug Jones, Anthony Rapp, and Mary Wiseman in Star Trek: Discovery (2017)

S1.E11 ∙ The Wolf Inside

S1.E12 ∙ Vaulting Ambition

S1.E13 ∙ What's Past Is Prologue

James Frain in Star Trek: Discovery (2017)

S1.E14 ∙ The War Without, the War Within

Sonequa Martin-Green in Star Trek: Discovery (2017)

S1.E15 ∙ Will You Take My Hand?

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

| April 25, 2024 | By: Anthony Pascale 119 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.

It’s not just the ship. It’s everything. Everything else looks like it matches the ship’s aesthetic. As if 900 year old retro is the current fad in design.

That’s always been my issue with Discovery.

To me that is part of the downfall of going so very far into the future. What aesthetic you make should be radically different. Not just shinier.

This is a VERY common trope in Trek, historically. Using redressed older sets, even ones from distant eras, to save money. It’s just downright foolish to think that a big budget series with fewer episodes to get better production value would simply have no limits at all. Discovery is one of the most expensive-looking sci-fi shows out there for a reason: a lot of money is being spent. On sets, effects, and even the cast. Oded Feherer, Callum Kieth Rennie, Michelle Yeoh, Jason Isaacs, Sonequa, David Cronenberg, Tig Notaro, and plenty of others during its run — its cast is broad and extremely strong, with well-known, talented actors, not to mention some of the best TV directors, set decorators, costumers, etc in the business.

Now, sure I think it’s fair to be let down by a budget-saving measure, particularly because of how much money IS being spent, so I get the logic here, but it’s sorely misplaced. The fact is, Trek has done this for decades, and often not nearly as well. Let it go — just try to enjoy the show and not worry about that kind of thing. But that’s the thing I struggle with, with you on this board: you seem to be looking for reasons NOT to like this show because you find more enjoyment in watching and hating it than anything else. Go watch a show you actually like, it’s been five years and it’s ending now. It’s time to let it go, my good friend.

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.

Exactly! The ship could have been any ship. The fact that with such an enormous universe(s) they would happen to find the next clue on a Mirror Universe ship and the ISS Enterprise no less–it’s such “Small Universe Syndrome”.

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).

here are 6 points for a reply to each of your issues with snw and dsc as a whole and this episode in particular

1.there is already a constitution class in the 32nd century it’s design was also used pre burn in the late 31st century so i dought they would refit iss enterprise like they did with the discovery plus they did say the ship was being taken to a federation storage facility

2.as for why they used the snw sets and cg assets well two reasons for one location/budget convenience as snw is shot in toronto at the same studio as dsc is and two they have said from the start they visually updated the 23rd century to fit visually better between ent era and tmp era mainly star trek 5/6

3.and there is nothing canon breaking about any of the new shows as they give explanations that tie back to enteprise and first contact since enterprise tied into that movie for the reasons of in unverse changes to the prime timeline universe and that is time travel to fix the past either on it’s own or part of the temporal cold war

4.and the temporal Cold War which later turned into the temporal wars is the reason the discovery was refited and givin the -A at the end of the registry is to hide the fact the ship and crew time traveled and broke the law agaisnt any form of time travel that was put into place after the temporal wars and a smaller part to protect starfleets butt

5.and if you have to don’t look at seasons 1 and 2 of dsc and snw as prequels to tos but as sequels to ent and then veiw ent as a sequal to first contact as i hear it makes it easier for some tos fans to enjoy these trek shows

6.or use the in universe reasons for the changes mentioned above in point 3 to be able to enjoy watching new trek shows mentioned above in point 5

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.

It is strongly implied, if not explicitly stated, that the wormhole’s instability was caused by the Burn. So, it had to be more stable in the 24th century.

they never said that the ship would be refited into the tos version as they said those 60’s sets and ship model design would not look good or belivable as from our future with modern filming cameras they said from the start they visually updated the mid 23rd century to fit better visually between ent era designs and tmp era designs mainly using Star Trek 5/6 as the basis for the tmp era side of the designs

as for the new jersey that was just a pandering memberberry easter egg for the fans that hate the visual updates and even blass has said he objected to using the 60’s design for the ship and pointed out that it should have used the snw model for it and that it was all on terry who was more interested in filling episodes with those easter eggs and memberberries like all the stuff on daystrom station and for having data come back instead of having a brand new soong type android that was exactly as alton soong designed it to be a amalgamation of data lore lal and himself

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.

I have a question because I’m really confused:

So discovery originally was set less than a decade before ToS. (And then they ended up far in the future)

The ISS enterprise is a reference to the ToS episode about the mirror universe. So that means the ISS enterprise is a contemporary with ToS and the USS enterprise, which means Dr Cho (who was expressly stated to be Terran) was about back in Kirk’s day.

However the progenitor technology and science in general was only discovered in TNG under Picard and i think it was expressly stated that the scientists that hid this research were originally asked to research it after the discovery by Picard in the first place.

TNG is set in the 24th century but ToS is set in the 23rd century – theirs about a hundred years between them.

So I’m trying to understand the timeline here because at the moment, from what I understand, it’s a human from the 23rd century somehow became a scientist on a study in the late 24th century and then stole the research and helped hide it with her 4 pals.

No the iss enterprise entered that anomaly in the mid 24th century sometime after 2355 going by the stardate on that plaque and the ship got unstuck in time via the anomaly and the refugees and survivors of mirror Saru’s revolt ended up in the late 31st century prime verse timeline sometime prior to the burn happening and then doctor Cho who was one of those survivors returned later to the ship to hide the clue there before leaving again and never returning and wiping all references to the ship from records so that it would not easily be found

I thought for sure the Real Captain Lorca would be found in the transporters.

What a waste of an episode… filler and feelings…. Rinse and repeat

What an empty, disappointing episode. Discovery feels smaller and smaller every season.

the basic idea of the episode was already good. and it would have been really great to connect the MU and the 32nd century. in the end, however, the solution and especially the writing was weak. there could have been so much more …

what really annoys me is how owo and bryce are said goodbye with a side sentence, “so long …” and so on. the way DISCO treats secondary characters is really sad at times. there should have been much more space for a bridge member like owo … sad. again and again we are given hints of interesting background stories, but then nothing else happens. that’s really lousy. compare that to the way supporting characters in earlier series were built up into really multi-faceted carriers of stories …!!

This episode was the perfect opportunity for the series to bring back Prime Universe Lorca.

Instead of having Mirror Saru be the one that brings the ISS Enterprise from the Mirror Universe to the Prime Universe, it should have been Lorca that does it.

Additionally, they could have revealed that Lorca was STILL onboard the ship, trapped in the transporter buffer like Scotty was in Relics.

The Entire Star Trek: Discovery Timeline Explained

For a series ostensibly about exploring the galaxy and meeting new lifeforms in the hopes of sharing knowledge and resources, there sure is a lot of time travel in "Star Trek." It's been present from the very beginning, as even Kirk and crew visited the past multiple times . Two of those adventures resulted in the iconic episode "The City on the Edge of Forever" and "Star Trek 4: The Adventure Home."

Modern "Star Trek" adventures have embraced this aspect of the universe, as time travel was also the direct cause of the Kelvin Timeline featured in the 2009 "Star Trek" film and its sequels. When the Romulan Nero traveled back in time and destroyed the USS Kelvin, killing James Kirk's father, he accidentally contributed to the creation of a new universe running parallel to the prime timeline. Ultimately, time travel has become every bit as important to "Star Trek" as exploration.

"Star Trek: Discovery" is no exception to this. Initially a prequel series set ten years before the original series, it soon became a sequel set further into the future than any other "Star Trek" installment. Time travel tends to muddy the narrative progression of a story, so we will be looking at where "Star Trek: Discovery" started to shed some light on where it ended up. Here is the entire "Star Trek: Discovery" timeline explained.

A visit to Talos

"Star Trek: Discovery" is set ten years before what is now referred to as "Star Trek: The Original Series." However, one episode of "The Original Series" actually occurs before "Discovery." In many ways, it is the beginning of the entire "Star Trek" franchise. While most viewers back in the late '60s probably remember it as the story told in the exciting two-parter "The Menagerie," which reuses the footage captured for the original "Star Trek" pilot called "The Cage."

We have to begin here because these events play a crucial role in "Star Trek: Discovery" Season 2. "The Cage" sees the Enterprise crew, led by Captain Christopher Pike, visiting Talos IV, encountering a strange alien race. These are the Talosians, telepaths who experience life by manipulating beings they keep in their menagerie. By forcing Captain Pike to endure multiple illusions of their creations, they hope to understand love, anger, fear, excitement, and other emotions they forfeited by choosing to further develop their mental abilities.

Years later, after Captain Pike temporarily assumes command of the USS Discovery, he is forced to revisit Talos IV to cure Spock of his current mental disorder. Not only is it a chance to save Spock's life, but it also allows Pike to seek out closure regarding his past experiences on the planet.

The Battle at the Binary Stars

"Star Trek: Discovery" officially begins with a huge two-part story called "The Vulcan Hello" and "The Battle at the Binary Stars." This is where we meet the star of the show, Commander Michael Burnham, the first officer of the USS Shenzhou. While most "Star Trek" shows tend to be ensemble pieces, "Discovery" belongs to Burnham and it is her arc that we follow.

This opening episode sees Starfleet encountering Klingons for the first time in about a century. An extremist group of Klingons led by the xenophobic T'Kuvma engaged in a devastating battle with the USS Shenzhou after an altercation with Burnham resulted in the death of one of their own. This opening battle becomes a war between the Federation and the Klingons, the effects of which are still being felt during "The Original Series" and the six original "Star Trek" movies .

Following this battle, Michael Burnham is stripped of her rank and sentenced to life in prison — which leads to the true beginning of the show.

Six months later

Following Michael's sentencing, the show jumps ahead six months. While being transferred to a new prison, there's an emergency and the Discovery arrives to save her. While on the ship she meets its captain, a dark and elusive man named Gabriel Lorca, and its crew. She also reunites with her old friend from the Shenzhou, Commander Saru. Healing their relationship following her mutiny is a major part of the first two seasons of "Star Trek: Discovery."

Lorca believes that Michael's knowledge and experience could be of some use to them on the Discovery, so he invites her to unofficially join them as a specialist. The reasons behind Lorca's decision to go out of his way to save her, and why he wants her working with him on the Discovery, is another major element to the first season. His character comes off as a little strange right away, as Starfleet captains tend to be fairly approachable and diplomatic. However, Lorca is intimidating, conniving, and a little too adept at war to fit the typical captain archetype.

Taking Control

To correctly understand the timeline of "Star Trek: Discovery," we next need to dive into some events that are revealed during Season 2 but take place in Season 1.

Section 31 is the secret Black Ops division of the United Federation of Planets . They operate in the shadows, carrying out missions the Federation doesn't want to be made public. They feature heavily in "Star Trek: Discovery" and its second season. Following the events of "The Battle at the Binary Stars," Section 31 starts using a threat assessment artificial intelligence called Control in the hopes of preventing wars.

The idea is the Federation would give Control information regarding potential threats, and Control would then provide suggestions on how to proceed. As often happens in science fiction when artificial intelligence is involved, things go haywire when Control decides it no longer needs human beings to implement its suggestions. Instead, it assumes "control" of human beings to enact its agenda. This leads to the massive time jump the USS Discovery would take into the future during the end of Season 2.

Into the Mirror Universe

The USS Discovery has an experimental new system called a spore drive. It allows the Discovery to travel along a microscopic network spread throughout the universe, effectively making instant travel possible. It's an incredibly complex system, one that Forbes notes was inspired by a real-life mycologist, which can be used to break the barriers between realities.

The idea is proposed to astromycologist Commander Paul Stamets by Captain Gabriel Lorca. Stamets is considering leaving Starfleet, but Lorca convinces him to stay on to try one final experiment to see if it truly is possible to visit alternate realities. The experiment works, and the entire crew of the USS Discovery is transported into the classic evil dimension of the "Star Trek" universe — the Mirror Universe .

In the "Star Trek" Mirror Universe the heroes are villains and the villains are heroes, and it is soon revealed that this is where Lorca is from. He arrived in the prime timeline, took over the original Gabriel Lorca's life, and orchestrated events to unite with Michael Burnham — who was his lover in the mirror universe — and use the spore drive to return to his universe and overthrow Emperor Georgiou.

While the time the crew spends in the mirror universe might seem brief, it turns out that nine months pass during that time.

Nine months later

When Gabriel Lorca dies in the mirror universe, the crew of the USS Discovery returns to their native universe — but they've brought the emperor with them.

One of Michael Burnham's defining character traits is parental issues. She lost her human parents at a very young age. She was then adopted by the Vulcan Sarek and his human wife, Amanda. They raised her on Vulcan with their son Spock, effectively making her Spock's human step-sister .

Although she tried to live like a Vulcan, her human emotions were far too powerful. As a result, when she joined Starfleet and was assigned to serve on the USS Shenzhou, she gravitated to its human captain Phillipa Georgiou, seeing her as a maternal figure. Tragically, Georgiou died in the Battle of the Binary Stars, and the guilt of her loss has tortured Burnham ever since. Upon arriving in the mirror universe and finding another Georgiou, she can't help but try and bring her back to the prime timeline, hoping to correct her biggest regret.

Back in the prime timeline, they discover that nine months have passed and the war has not been going well. Discovery is boarded by Sarek and Admiral Cornwell, who informs the recently-returned crew that the Klingons have almost won the war.

The mystery of the Red Angel

By the end of Season One, the Klingon War is over, and there is an uneasy peace between the two sides. However, the crew of the Discovery doesn't have long to reflect on these events, as they soon encounter the Enterprise and are boarded by Captain Christopher Pike. Pike has been directed to temporarily assume command of the Discovery to research red burst anomalies that have been popping up all over the galaxy.

The red bursts are caused by an entity referred to as the Red Angel. The identity of this entity and the reasons for its actions are complex but intimately related to Michael. It turns out that there are two Red Angels — one is Michael Burnham's mother, Gabrielle, and the other is Michael herself. The form of the angel is actually a suit capable of traveling through time developed by Michael's parents as a project for Section 31.

At some point, Gabrielle decides to use the suit to escape an attack from Klingons but winds up in the distant future. She sees that the AI system Control has taken over the galaxy, so she uses her suit to jump around in time in the hopes of preventing Control from evolving and spreading across the galaxy. Michael then uses the suit to send signals that appear as red bursts for the crew of the Discovery to follow, defeat Control, and travel to the future.

The all-knowing Sphere

Season 2 of "Star Trek: Discovery" is full of big, wild ideas that could serve as the basis for a film or an entire series. The first, of course, is the threat of Control. The second is the Red Angel. The third is a sentient, planet-sized lifeform called the Sphere.

This Sphere has spent hundreds of thousands of years exploring the galaxy, collecting information and experiences. It has existed for such a long time that it is now dying. With such a wealth of knowledge and experience, it doesn't want to be forgotten, so it transfers its memory to the Discovery's computers.

As wonderful a find as this is, it is also incredibly dangerous. When Airiam, a cybernetic member of the Discovery crew, is infected by a future version of Control, she is directed to transfer all the sphere data on artificial intelligence to the current form of Control. With that information, Control will be able to gain full sentience and take over the galaxy — just as seen in Spock's vision from the Red Angel.

Defeating Control

For any "Star Trek" fans upset that "Star Trek: Discovery" takes place 10 years before "The Original Series" but the technology is significantly more advanced — or that Spock never mentioned having a human step-sister — their fears were partially quelled when the ship made the jump ahead almost one thousand years.

By the end of Season 2, Control was defeated, the mystery of the Red Angel was solved, and the need to get the sphere data to a safer time period arose. With the data merging to Discovery's computers, the decision was made not to try and delete the data but take it into the future. Using the Red Angel suit, Michael Burnham drags the USS Discovery into a time in a future not yet explored by the "Star Trek" franchise .

Once Discovery is gone, the Federation decides to clear the ship's existence from all Starfleet records and never speak of it, the crew, or its mission again. Thus, Michael Burnham is never mentioned, nor is the Discovery or its experimental spore drive.

The future of Starfleet and the Federation

The jump to the future is successful, but Michael arrives there alone. Since she was towing the ship, not riding in it, the trip was different for her. Immediately upon arriving, she rams into a ship piloted by Cleveland Booker before being pulled in by a nearby planet's gravity, regaining control of the Red Angel suit only seconds before splattering on its surface.

At first, she is panicked that Discovery won't answer her call but is soon thrilled by the knowledge that there is life on this planet. She eventually meets Cleveland Booker and discovers that the Federation barely exists anymore. The reason for its diminished size and influence was something called the Burn. In the 31st century, nearly every warp core installed in Federation ships exploded, wiping out swaths of life and nearly destroying the Federation. Exactly what caused this "burn" is the central mystery of Season 3.

One year later

In this new world, where dilithium is more precious than ever, Michael travels the galaxy, trading it for goods and services. She spends an entire year recording her experiences and searching for any sign of the Discovery. Finally, her search efforts pay off, and she is reunited with her crew. In a completely new headspace, Michael isn't sure about serving on the Discovery any longer. True, she earned back her respect and rank but is she is more interested in solving the mystery of the Burn and restoring the Federation rather than limiting herself to a single ship.

By the end of Season 3, the mystery surrounding the Burn is solved, the Federation is in the early stages of reconnecting with its lost members, and Michael joins the crew of the Discovery again. This time, however, she isn't a specialist or a first officer — she is the captain.

Season 4 is still set in the 32nd century and Michael is now known as Captain Michael Burnham. Her arc mirrors the real-life arc of the show. She started as a first officer who lost everything and worked her way back to a command position, while "Star Trek: Discovery" began life as a prequel with a dubious connection to canon and became a sequel that takes the franchise to brand new heights.

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Star Trek: Discovery

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Star Trek: Discovery is an American Sci-Fi-action series developed by Bryan Fuller and Alex Kurtzman; it is a sequel to Star Trek: Enterprise .

The series is distributed by CBS on its over-the-top subscription service CBS All Access, however Netflix holds rights to distribute the series outside of the United States and Canada.

2 Cast and Characters
5.1 Promotional Videos
5.2 Promotional Images
7 References

Summary [ ]

Cast and characters [ ].

Sonequa Martin-Green as Michael Burnham
Doug Jones as Saru
Anthony Rapp as Paul Stamets
Mary Wiseman as Sylvia Tilly
Wilson Cruz as Hugh Culber
Shazad Latif as Ash Tyler (Klingon)
Jason Isaacs as Gabriel Lorca
Anson Mount as Christopher Pike
David Ajala as Cleverland Booker

Episodes [ ]

Gallery [ ], promotional videos [ ].

Star Trek Discovery Official Trailer HD Netflix-0

Promotional Images [ ]

See More [ ]

References [ ]

1 Baby Reindeer
2 Cole Walter
3 Rigel Wilde

Screen Rant

Star trek: discovery’s 4 number ones explained.

Star Trek: Discovery has had four different Number Ones over the course of its five seasons, including Captain Michael Burnham.

Star Trek: Discovery features a rotating cast of Captains and Number Ones, showcasing dynamic leadership changes throughout the series.
Characters like Saru, Burnham, Tilly, and new addition Rayner bring diverse personalities and skills to the USS Discovery crew.
The evolution of these key roles, from First Officer to Captain, demonstrates the growth and adaptability of each character over the seasons.

Just as Star Trek: Discovery has featured several different Captains of the USS Discovery throughout its five-season run, the show has also introduced four different Number Ones. Since its beginning, Discovery has been less of an ensemble show than previous Star Trek series, and the crew of the USS Discovery has been constantly shifting. Discovery tells the story of Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), who has gone from being an accomplished First Officer to a notorious criminal to the Captain of Discovery. Burnham has filled the position of Number One more than once, and two of her best friends have also taken on that role.

Ambassador Saru (Doug Jones) and Lt. Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman) have both served as First Officers of the USS Discovery, although their careers have since taken them in different directions. In Star Trek: Discovery season 4, the show found a dynamic that worked well, with Burnham as Captain and Saru as her First Officer. But Discovery can never go too long without shaking things up, and Callum Keith Rennie's Commander Rayner did just that when he joined the cast of Star Trek: Discovery season 5 . As Captain Burnham's newest Number One, Rayner has proven to be a great addition to Discovery's crew, despite (and also because of) his gruff, no-nonsense command style.

Every Star Trek Discovery Captain In All 5 Seasons

4 commander/captain saru, under the command of captain gabriel lorca & captain michael burnham.

During the two-part premiere of Star Trek: Discovery, Saru was serving as the Chief Science Officer on the USS Shenzhou, under the command of Captain Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh). After Commander Burnham committed mutiny and Captain Georgiou was killed, Saru was promoted Commander and became First Officer on the USS Discovery, under the command of Captain Gabriel Lorca (Jason Isaacs) . Although Saru had not yet gained the confidence he would in later seasons of Star Trek: Discovery , he proved to be a capable and compassionate First Officer.

Saru took over command of the USS Discovery after Lorca was revealed to be from the Mirror Universe, and he shared "joint custody" of the ship with Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) for most of Star Trek: Discovery season 2.

Saru commanded the USS Discovery for its journey to the 32nd century, and he was promoted to Captain. Saru later took time away from Starfleet to become a member of the village council on his homeworld of Kaminar. After the Dark Matter Anomaly destroyed Kwejian, Saru returned to Discovery as Captain Burnham's First Officer, retaining the rank of Captain but choosing to go by the designation Mr. Saru. As the first Kelpien in Starfleet, Saru had already made history , but in Star Trek: Discovery season 5, Saru accepted a position as a Federation Ambassador, adding another achievement to his impressive resume.

3 Commander Michael Burnham

Under the command of captain philippa georgiou & captain saru.

When Star Trek: Discovery began, Commander Burnham was serving as the First Officer on the USS Shenzhou, under the command of Captain Georgiou. After her subsequent mutiny, Burnham served six months in prison before transferring to the USS Discovery, where Captain Lorca assigned her as a Specialist in the science division. After Michael helped end the Federation/Klingon War, she was fully reinstated as a Commander and became Chief Science Officer on Discovery. At the end of Star Trek: Discovery season 2, Burnham wore the Red Angel suit to lead the USS Discovery into the 32nd century.

Michael Burnham was a fine First Officer (aside from the whole mutiny thing), but she truly excels at being a Starfleet Captain.

Captain Burnham arrived in the future a year before Discovery, but she later reconnected with her former crew and reluctantly accepted the role of Captain Saru's Number One. Michael served as First Officer throughout Star Trek: Discovery season 3, until she helped take the ship back from Osyraa (Janet Kidder), the leader of the Emerald Chain. Saru then suggested that Burnham take over as Captain , and Admiral Charles Vance (Oded Fehr) assigned Michael as Captain of the USS Discovery. Michael Burnham was a fine First Officer (aside from the whole mutiny thing), but she truly excels at being a Starfleet Captain.

With its time travel plot that saw Captain Burnham run into her past self, Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 4, "Face the Strange," illustrates just how far Michael has come since Discovery season 1.

2 Lt. Sylvia Tilly

Under the command of captain saru & captain michael burnham.

Sylvia Tilly began her Star Trek: Discovery career as a cadet aboard the USS Discovery under the command of Captain Lorca. After the end of the Klingons' War with the Federation , Tilly was promoted to Ensign and was placed on the command track. She continued on this trajectory until Discovery traveled into the future. When Captain Saru demoted Burnham for insubordination, he asked Tilly to be his First Officer. Although she was initially reluctant to take the job, fearing others on the ship were better qualified, Tilly's fellow crew members assured her she was the right choice as Number One.

After Commander Burnham helped take the USS Discovery back from Osyraa and became Captain, Tilly remained First Officer and was promoted to Lt. junior grade. Tilly then began to question whether she wanted to remain on the command track, and spoke with Dr. Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz) about ways she could step out of her comfort zone. Culber recommended Tilly for a mission that involved leading a group of young Starfleet cadets. Although the mission quickly turned dangerous, Tilly successfully coached the cadets through it, and she later accepted a teaching position at the recently reopened Starfleet Academy.

Star Trek: Discovery Proves Starfleet Academy Show Doesn’t Make Sense Without Tilly

1 commander rayner, under the command of captain michael burnham.

Callum Keith Rennie's Commander Rayner joined the cast of Star Trek: Discovery for its fifth and final season, and the gruff former Captain has proven to be a breath of fresh air. In Discovery's season 5 premiere, Rayner held the rank of Captain and commanded the USS Antares, but was asked to accept early retirement after making a questionable call during a Red Directive mission. Captain Burnham, however, asked Rayner to be her new First Officer after Saru accepted a position as a Federation Ambassador.

Commander Rayner has proven invaluable to Discovery's mission and remains a highlight of Star Trek: Discovery season 5.

As a Kellerun, Commander Rayner's personality contrasts sharply with the more optimistic crew of the USS Discovery, and his command style is very different from Burnham's. Rayner has struggled to relate to Discovery's crew members and adapt to Michael's command style , but his advice and knowledge have helped save the day on multiple occasions. As Discovery races against couriers Moll (Eve Harlow) and L'ak (Elias Toufexis) to find the Progenitors' treasure, Commander Rayner has proven invaluable to the mission and remains a highlight of Star Trek: Discovery season 5.

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

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Review: Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 Episode 5 “Mirrors”

Star Trek: Discovery picks up immediately where “ Face the Strange ” left off, as our protagonists track their quarry’s ship to a hidden, interdimensional pocket of space that holds a few surprises for them and the audience.

Thanks to some sciencing from Paul Stamets ( Anthony Rapp ) and Sylvia Tilly ( Mary Wiseman ), Captain Michael Burnham ( Sonequa Martin-Green ) has a way to find where Moll ( Eve Harlow ) and L’ak ( Elias Toufexis ) are. Apparently, there’s a wormhole hiding in plain sight near where Discovery lost track of the criminals’ warp signature.

This wormhole is too small for a Crossfield- class ship to fit through, so Burnham and Cleveland Booker ( David Ajala ) – the latter of whom is on a mission to rehabilitate Moll, if possible – take a shuttle and see what’s on the other side of the wormhole’s aperture. Find a surprise, they do indeed, as the I.S.S. Enterprise , the evil version of the heroic Starfleet ship, is nestled in the wormhole – albeit without its crew, which apparently evacuated the vessel at some point. It’s beaten to hell and serves as a refuge for Moll and L’ak, whose own ship was destroyed by the interdimensional pocket of space’s destructive environment.

Discovery writers sure can be sneaky! They’ve been foreshadowing the appearance of a Constitution -class for the last two episodes; remember when Gen Rhys ( Patrick Kwok-Choon ) and Commander Rayner ( Callum Keith Rennie ) both remarked the Connie was their favorite ship? As we’ll see, this isn’t the last bit of foreshadowing that comes true in this episode.

“How did it end up in interdimensional space?” “I don’t know. Must be one hell of a story.” – Book and Burnham upon seeing the I.S.S. Enterprise

Astute viewers will recognize an often-used cost-saving measure in the annals of Star Trek history: the reuse of sets from another concurrent show. (Seriously, rewatch TNG , DS9 , and Voyager and you’ll be surprised how often props and sets are reused between those shows.) As Burnham and Book explore various halls and rooms, including the bridge and sickbay, the familiar surroundings seen in Strange New Worlds are subtly transformed by Mirror Universe iconography. While nods to the iconic starship Enterprise are always appreciated, our initial reaction to this surprise location—admittedly tinged with pessimism—is that it’s of course it’s the Enterprise . A practical move, perhaps, to keep expenses in check. By Grabthar’s hammer… what a savings.

Finding the ship deserted sure is strange, and Burnham and Book ascertain Moll and L’ak are in sickbay, presumably with the next clue in the Progenitor puzzle. But first, the pair check out the transporter room, which holds some strange items, such as blankets, children’s toys, and a locket that holds a picture of two people, which Burnham inexplicably decides to take with her. Moreover, the dedication plaque of the I.S.S Enterprise tells the story of the ship and its crew: the Terran Universe emperor seemingly tried to make changes to the way things were done in that evil universe, and the Enterprise escaped and picked up refugees who were trying to flee the Terran Universe and enter the Prime Universe.

One of the leaders among those on the Enterprise was a Kelpien, who Burnham deduces must have been the Mirror Universe version of Saru, and that the crew must have fled the Enterprise once it got stuck in the interdimensional pocket of space. Is it just us, or does this sound like a potential episode of Strange New Worlds ?

Burnham, Book, Moll, and L’ak face off in sickbay, where Burnham makes a startling connection between L’ak and a particular dilemma he is facing. The criminal pair hope to use the Progenitor treasure to clear L’ak’s Breen blood bounty. Yes, L’ak is Breen, that enigmatic and masked species from Deep Space Nine . Neato!

The rest of the episode bounces between what’s happening on the Enterprise , and flashing back to how Moll and L’ak first met and became romantically involved. Moll, the courier, would do business on the Breen space station on which L’ak, a member of a royal Breen family, was posted. The two connected over L’ak’s recent demotion and efforts to fight the embarrassment that came with it.

Over some time, the two became nearly inseparable, and L’ak even took the bold step with Moll by showing her his face – a big deal in Breen culture, as keeping their masks on allows them to retain their true, semi-transparent form, and not the solidified appearance we’ve seen on L’ak. Their relationship is tested when L’ak’s superior (and uncle), Primarch Ruhn ( Tony Nappo ) decides to interrupt their courtship. L’ak doesn’t take kindly to being asked to kill Moll, so the Breen turns on his own people, earns a Breen blood bounty, and flees with Moll. The pair now share a goal: earn enough latinum to retire on an (unnamed) fabled planet somewhere in the Gamma Quadrant, free from the trials and hardships of the courier life.

Suffice it to say, “Mirrors” is most memorable because it casts a welcome light on the shadowed backstory of this season’s main villains. Moll and L’ak are now a relatable pair, star-crossed lovers who are hell-bent on earning themselves a happy ending. As much as we don’t want to see the Progenitors’ tech get into the wrong hands, who now doesn’t want to see everything work out for Moll and L’ak?

Anyway, the quartet still need to get off the Enterprise , but the shuttle on which Burnham and Book arrived is destroyed by the turbulent pocket of space. With mere minutes to spare before the Enterprise is destroyed by the wormhole’s tiny aperture, Book and Moll share some last-minute words about their shared relationship with the late Cleveland Booker, and how Book hopes Moll makes the right choices regarding her quest for the Progenitor tech. Burnham, meanwhile, engages in a melee with L’ak, and the Breen ends up injured and inadvertently relinquishes control to Burnham of the next map piece in the Progenitor puzzle. The courier and disgraced Breen end up escaping the ship in a convenient Terran warp pod, leaving the chase between our heroes and enemies for another day.

“If we hit it precisely with a sequential hexagonal pattern, it should stay open for approximately sixty seconds. But once it collapses, it’s gone for good.” “Why hexagonal?” “Doesn’t matter… it’ll work.” – Adira ( Blu del Barrio ), Rayner, and Stamets as the crew finds a way to get the wormhole aperture bigger. We think this line from Stamets is reflective of the evolving working relationship between the results-orientated Rayner and the crew, and how this relationship is getting better the longer Rayner is first officer.

Burnham devises a novel way to signal her first officer for help in getting the Enterprise through the aperture: a pulsing tractor beam emitting from the Enterprise , shot through the wormhole’s opening, in a numerical sequence featured in a famous play from Kellerun culture. Rayner is then able to lead his crew to devise a way to pull the Enterprise into normal space.

The sequence where Rayner is faced with command of a ship tasked with the near-impossible rescue of his captain is the best of the episode. It’s no secret Rayner was knocked down a few pegs after his demotion and reassignment to Discovery , but that lack of confidence and inner angst is demolished thanks to Rayner listening and working with his bridge crew to save the Enterprise . Plenty of lesser-known bridge officers get a say in how Discovery could help the Mirror ship, and lightning-fast decision-making shows Rayner back on his game.

The last element to note about this episode is some emotional trouble Doctor Hugh Culber ( Wilson Cruz ) is having. Tilly provides an outlet for this angst. Culber explains the experiences he’s had in the last few years – namely dying, coming back to life, and being a Trill host – really put into perspective the intellectual journey he is on in the face of the Progenitor’s quest. Tilly helps him realize he isn’t only experiencing an intellectual quest, but a spiritual one. This conversation is just another instance of Discovery setting up some wild expectations for what the crew might ultimately discover at the end of the season – something beyond the bounds of science, perhaps?

Even though their prey gets away again, Burnham and her crew have the next clue in the Progenitor puzzle, and it is hiding in the I.S.S. Enterprise ’s sickbay. Hidden in the map piece Burnham grabbed from L’ak is a vial, which Stamets will analyze soon. Burnham learns the crew who escaped from the I.S.S. Enterprise ended up in the Prime Universe and were able to start new lives. A Terran scientist aboard the Enterprise , Dr. Cho, ended up being a branch admiral, and we’re meant to assume she was one of the scientists on Dr. Vellek’s team hundreds of years ago as they studied the Progenitor tech. Dr. Cho then hid her piece of the Progenitor puzzle aboard her old ship as a symbolic gesture of her ability to find freedom in a new universe.

Discovery continues its final season with another thumbs-up episode that serves an important lore-building role in the franchise. Seeing the Breen again is a joy, especially since we were staring at one the whole time and never knew it. And how striking was that Breen space station where L’ak was based? Another important note for Star Trek historians is that now the Mirror Universe Enterprise is in the 32 nd century, and stationed near Earth thanks to Joann Owosekun and Keyla Detmer piloting the ship back to Federation space. Will we see that ship again this season?

As the Progenitor puzzle deepens, so do the emotional stakes for our crew, exemplified by Culber’s introspective journey, the subtle reignition of Book and Burnham’s relationship, and Rayner’s triumphant return to leadership. We’re now at the halfway point in this season, so there’s still plenty of time for surprises, emotional consequences, and expectation-setting for this eagerly awaited treasure.

Stray Thoughts:

Hopefully, you’re watching this episode with subtitles on, because goodness is it hard to hear what masked Breen says.
The Mirror Universe version of the U.S.S. Enterprise was last seen in the Original Series episode “Mirror, Mirror,” albeit this wasn’t the Strange New Worlds version of the ship. Likewise, the Terran version of Spock, whom Booker asks if Burnham ever met, was in that same episode.
How did Adira conclude they were the one who brought the time bug aboard Discovery ?
Why didn’t Burnham and Book try talking down Moll and L’ak before diving into the room with the holo-projected doubles?

New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery stream Thursdays on Paramount+ , this season stars Sonequa Martin-Green (Captain Michael Burnham), Doug Jones (Saru), Anthony Rapp (Paul Stamets), Mary Wiseman (Sylvia Tilly), Wilson Cruz (Dr. Hugh Culber), David Ajala (Cleveland “Book” Booker), Blu del Barrio (Adira) and Callum Keith Rennie (Rayner). Season five also features recurring guest stars Elias Toufexis (L’ak) and Eve Harlow (Moll).

Stay tuned to TrekNews.net for all the latest news on Star Trek: Discovery , Star Trek: Prodigy , Star Trek: Strange New Worlds , Star Trek: Lower Decks , and more.

You can follow us on X , Facebook , and Instagram .

Kyle Hadyniak has been a lifelong Star Trek fan, and isn't ashamed to admit that Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and Star Trek: Nemesis are his favorite Star Trek movies. You can follow Kyle on Twitter @khady93 .

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'Discovery's Elias Toufexis Could Be 'Star Trek's Next Jeffrey Combs

Toufexis and Eve Harlow breakdown their Breen backstory and call the 'Discovery' set the best they've ever worked on.

The Big Picture

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5, Episode 5, "Mirrors," delves into Moll and L'ak's backstory, revealing their love and the price on their heads.
Stars Eve Harlow and Elias Toufexis discuss fleshing out their romance, joining the sci-fi series for its final season, and L'ak's connection to the Breen.
The duo also praises the Star Trek: Discovery cast and crew for the warm and welcoming atmosphere, with Sonequa Martin-Green leading the way as a fantastic number one.

A few weeks ago, Star Trek: Discovery kicked off the series' final season with a dazzling new mystery and a pair of wildly compelling antagonists. Seemingly out to cash in on the greatest treasure the galaxy has to offer, lovers Moll ( Eve Harlow ) and L'ak ( Elias Toufexis ) have been neck-and-neck with Michael Burnham ( Sonequa Martin-Green ) and her crew as they hunt for clues . This week's episode "Mirrors," sees Burnham catch up with the two as she and Book ( David Ajala ) corner them on an abandoned ISS Enterprise from the Mirror universe.

As the two couples are made to face each other, we also get a glimpse into Moll and L'ak's backstory. Not only do we learn how they fell in love, but we also come to understand why they're on the run — L'ak is a Breen and in their attempt to run away together the duo killed a pair of guards. Now the warlike race has a price on their heads.

Ahead of the episode, I sat down with Harlow and Toufexis to talk about the big reveals in "Mirrors," the complex relationship between their characters, and what they're taking away from their time on Discovery . During our conversation, we also spoke about their personal experiences with Star Trek , when Toufexis learned he would be playing a Breen, and which episodes of Season 5 are their favorites.

Star Trek: Discovery

Taking place almost a decade before Captain Kirk's Enterprise, the USS Discovery charts a course to uncover new worlds and life forms.

Both Harlow and Toufexis have a fair share of sci-fi credits to their names with Harlow having made waves on shows like The 100 and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. while Toufexis appeared in the smash hit series The Expanse as well as having voiced characters in a truly impressive number of video games. When asked what it was like to go from their sci-fi roots to arguably the biggest sci-fi series of all time, Harlow admitted that she'd actually "never seen Star Trek before." She went on to explain, "to me, I was like, 'Oh, cool, another job. Oh, cool, I get to be in space!'"

Meanwhile, Toufexis was a huge Star Trek fan. "And Elias was like, 'No, you don't understand. This is Star Trek .' Even in the sides for the audition, I remember the word “Klingon” being in there, and I'm like, “Wait, how do I pronounce this? What is this?” And on set it was like, “What's a Tribbler?” Harlow joked. "Then Elias was like, 'Okay, let me send you a YouTube video.' So I think for me it was just like, 'Oh, cool. This is fun. This is nice,' and then being told the importance of it by my co-star," she laughed.

For Toufexis, the role was a dream come true. He explained:

"It was great for me. I love sci-fi, and I was happy to do a lot of sci-fi before Star Trek, but yeah, I'm a giant Star Trek fan. Accepting the role was a no-brainer, and I was very, very happy and geeked out every day on set. I would get mad at people who worked on the show who didn't know the stuff that I knew. Not Eve. I would never get mad at Eve."

As actors, both Harlow and Toufexis know the struggle of auditioning over and over for until something sticks. He said, "as an actor, you audition for everything, and you take what sticks, right? That's the nature of the beast." He went on, calling Discovery a career highlight. "So it just happened to be that I have done a lot of sci-fi stuff in my career, so Star Trek is kind of the peak sci-fi . So, it's all downhill from here," he laughed. However, as any good Star Trek fan knows, playing one character is not always the end of the line for an actor in the series. I joked that Toufexis could return on another series in the future, following in the footsteps of actors like Jeffrey Combs and Suzie Plakson , to which he heartily agreed, "I'll play, like, 10 characters."

'Star Trek: Discovery's Moll and L'ak Are Hopelessly Devoted to Each Other

Shortly after we meet these two in the first episode of Season 5 , it becomes very clear that L'ak would do anything to protect Moll, to the point of taking out excessive violence on anyone who threatens her. When asked if that defensive nature was a result of their nature or inherent in them as individuals Toufexis explained, "I think it's inherent in them, but they bring it out of each other. It's a part of their character."

He went on to explain that L'ak was already looking for a way out of his life as a high-ranking Breen when he fell in love with Moll. He said, "I don't know if he was looking for love, but he found it, and then that brought out the guardian in him." He went on to say that one thing he loved about the fifth episode is that, in learning their history, we see that Moll and L'ak are more equals than it seemed in the first four episodes.

"It looks like he's almost her bodyguard, but when they're alone, you see it's not really the case. They're on absolutely equal footing, and he defers to her a lot. He's just protective of her, but she is of him, and that's their love." He went on to explain, " My favorite thing about these characters is their love for each other. It's rare in sci-fi that you have antagonists that have a genuinely good reason to do what they're doing, that I think people would relate to their love and passion for each other and freedom. That's it. We're not bad guys. We just want you to leave us the hell alone." He points out that in this episode, Moll admits they never would have made an enemy out of the Discovery crew if they'd just been left alone, "But you keep on us, and we’re gonna defend ourselves.”

Meanwhile, Harlow explained that the complete devotion Moll and L'ak have for each other is what makes them relatable. She said:

"I do think it's inherent to their nature, and I think that that's what makes them likable, is that there's the love and loyalty there, and they're the first beings in each other's lives that have been, like, he's proven to me that he's worth the love, he's worth the loyalty. Literally, everybody else has either died or betrayed, left. All that stuff. This one being has shown me that it's like, 'No, this is actually where I can store my loyalty, love in this being, and I'm gonna hold on to this being no matter what.' "

With this episode being called "Mirrors," not only for the time spent on a Mirror Universe ship, but for the relationships within, as Moll and L'ak serve as a foil to Book and Burnham. I asked the pair if they felt like their characters recognized themselves in their counterparts. For Toufexis, Book and Burnham are barely even on his radar. He said, "At least as an actor, I never even considered that. I was just like, 'Nah, I don't care about them.' He's very one-track-minded." He then laid out L'ak's priorities, saying:

"At least for me, the way I played it was, 'I just want Moll, and I want you to leave us alone. And if this tech, whatever it is that we may not understand, or even if they understand its power, whatever this tech is, if it could grant us freedom and to be left alone and to just go live our lives in love together, that's all that matters.' So I don't think they're looking and going, 'Oh, they're a lot like us, those two.'"

Meanwhile, Harlow agreed, comparing their characters to "caged animals." She said: "Everyone else are [our] oppressors, and so I don't care what's happening out there. I don't care how similar it is, because ultimately they have the key to the door to freedom, and they're holding here. It’s like, 'Fuck yeah!'"

Elias Toufexis Learned He Was Playing a Breen While Getting His Prosthetics for 'Star Trek: Discovery'

While the Breen have existed since the 90s, having first appeared in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , we know very little about their species. Most notably, we don't know what they look like under their helmets — at least we didn't until this episode. As a fan of the franchise, I had to ask Toufexis if he knew he would be playing a Breen when he first got the role or if he found out when he read the script. He revealed that he actually found out while getting his prosthetics made. But before telling the full story of how he found out L'ak was a Breen, Toufexis took a brief detour to joke about another vast disparity between his Star Trek experience and Harlow's.

He said: "This is a funny story we haven’t told yet. When I auditioned, I knew I was gonna be in makeup because I had already been on the show in the third episode. I played one of the prisoners that's on the show, on Discovery , so I knew I couldn't play with my own face again. I knew I'd be in prosthetics. And I remember, this is like a side thing, but I remember calling Eve and talking about working together, and I said, 'So what's your makeup process?' She's like, 'I don't have any makeup. I don’t have any prosthetics.' 'What? You mean I have to go through five hours of hair and makeup…?'" Harlow chimed in confirming the call, "You were like, 'No, no, no, like prosthetics.' I’m like, 'Yeah, no. Nothing.' And he's like, 'Wait, are you sure?' [Laughs] I’m like, 'I don’t know how to break it to you, but no.'"

He joked that he was "hoping we were both gonna have 2:30 a.m. calls and all that kind of stuff," before diving into how he learned he'd be playing a Breen. He explained:

"But when I found out that he was a Breen was when I went to do the first step of the prosthetics. Being a giant Star Trek geek, I said, 'Can you show me what I'm gonna look like?' Because they’re doing that thing, the plaster mold, where you have to sit there in 20 minutes and try not to have a panic attack. But at that session, I said, 'Do you have any art of what he's gonna look like?' And they showed me, and I said, 'Do you know what race he is?' Because I think I had heard that he was a new race, or an unseen race, or something like that. And they said, 'Yeah, he's a Breen.' I was like, 'Wait, Breen? They don’t take off their helmets.' My geek mind starts going. Then they're like, 'Yeah, you're gonna be the first time that this race is revealed in Star Trek,' and that really got me going. I was like, 'Oh, okay! Let's plaster me up. Let's do this.' And somehow I got through it. But yeah, I was really excited to find that out. Especially [because] Deep Space Nine to me is, like, I love Deep Space Nine . I know the Breen they talk about in TNG a little bit, but Deep Space Nine to me is, like, one of my favorite shows ever, not just Star Treks shows. So, the fact that I was gonna be involved in that. We kind of delve into Deep Space Nine , so I was super happy."

Moll and L'ak Aren't Villains — They're Just Antagonists

In "Mirrors," Moll and L'ak become much more fleshed-out characters as we get a glimpse into their history with each other. Much like the revelation with the Breen, I had to ask Harlow and Toufexis if they had made up any backstory for their characters prior to learning the roots of their love story when they got the script for this episode. Harlow explained that they really only fleshed out the basics like how long they'd been together. She pointed out that sometimes if you make up a backstory for your character it can get entirely undone by the narrative. She said: "The thing is, you could create a backstory, and then you get the next episode and it’s like, 'Ha, joke’s on you. Totally wrong. Everything that we thought…' So, at least this is the way that I work, it's like, 'Okay, what are the stakes? This person is my everything.' That’s just how I’m gonna play it. "

"In terms of the flashback, I mean, it was fun," she grinned. "This might sound really vain, but looks-wise, what did she look like back then? I’ve just got to shout out to the hair and makeup and costume team. Freaking amazing. Such talented people, and also so collaborative, and talking about all this, and being excited about it as well. I think this is what was really cool about the show. Literally every single person is so excited about what they do. Like the props people, they're like, 'This is so awesome,' and then you're like, 'Yes! This is so awesome.'"

Despite not being a Star Trek fan before joining the franchise, Harlow explained that she couldn't help but fall in love with the whole team. "So even though, again, I did not know Star Trek , you can't help it. It's infectious when you're surrounded by that energy, and so it's like, 'Oh, cool. We get to explore our characters’ backgrounds and be in this Breen world.'" She went on to say, "seeing the sets is insane. That screen, the wall, is incredible. You step into the space and you're like, 'Whoa, people created all of this and I get to be a part of it? Incredible.'"

Toufexis was thrilled to get an episode so heavily dedicated to Moll and L'ak's motivations. Having played his fair share of TV baddies , he noted that this is the first time he's gotten to play out the why of what his character is doing himself. He told me:

"The backstory was the best part for me because, I've said this before, but I play a lot of bad guys on TV, and very often it's other characters that are just explaining why my character is doing what he's doing, or make a line thrown here or there, like this is what happened to me, so this is why I'm doing this. Whereas with L’ak, I got to play it. I got to go back and play how he got to where he is, and the great thing is it's justified. What I hope is that the people who watch Episode 5, when they rewatch, they go, 'Oh, yeah, everything they're doing they have a right to do. They're not bad. They're just the antagonists.' I don't mind if they call us villains for promotional purposes, but I’m kind of like, 'They're not villains.'"

Harlow chimed in saying, "They have hearts of gold, okay?" To which Toufexis doubled down on Moll and L'ak's desire to just be left alone.

Eve Harlow and Elias Toufexis Reveal Their Favorite Episodes of 'Star Trek: Discovery' Season 5

Again, as a pair of Trekkies, I had to ask Toufexis about the incredible experience of getting to actually spend time on the bridge of the Enterprise in this episode. Naturally, he was delighted. He told Collider:

"Well, you can imagine. I've already said I'm a super nerd. And also, The Original Series , that's what I watched growing up . I'm not that old, my dad had them all on tape — so I'm old, but I'm not that old. My dad had them all on tape in the ‘90s, so I watched them over and over and over again, and the movies, especially. So, for me, that was my introduction to Star Trek was the Kirk Enterprise, right? Even though I know this is not the Kirk Enterprise, but Kirk's on it. So being on that ship, I know story-wise it was the ISS Enterprise, but I'm still like, 'This is the Enterprise. I don't care what decals they put over this. I'm sitting on the Enterprise.' I went and took secret pictures of me on the bridge and stuff like that. I was just freaking out, man. I was like, 'This is like the coolest thing.' How can you not freak out being a fan of something and then suddenly getting paid to be there? It's pretty cool."

While she didn't have any personal connection to the sets herself, Harlow understood the importance through Toufexis' experience. "I had him explain all this to me," she laughed. "It's like this is my very own Star Trek Wikipedia sitting next to me. I'm like, 'Okay, cool, noted. Thank you.'"

When asked what their favorite episodes of Discovery Season 5 were, Toufexis decidedly chose the one we all just watched. "Five for me, for sure," he said, though he was sure to give some praise to the rest of the season as well. "There's a couple of episodes coming up that are really good, too, but for me, it's five because of that, the background and getting to play the background. It's kind of their big episode that reveals everything about her. So for me, it's five. " Meanwhile, Harlow set her sights on the series finale, saying, "I forget which episode it is, but it's later, it's either Episode 9 or 10, and I don't think I can say anything. I'm not gonna say anything, but yes, there is one I like."

The 'Star Trek: Discovery' Set Is Unlike Any Other Thanks to Sonequa Martin-Green

While this is Harlow and Toufexis' first season of Discovery, it's also the show's last. As I noted in my review, despite the writers not knowing Season 5 was the end, they somehow managed to bring the story to a full circle moment. And Toufexis felt the exact same way, he said, "You know what, I was just thinking about this morning. I was thinking about how it's somehow in this weird… The TV gods… Because the episodes that were already written before they knew it was gonna be the last season have this feeling of closure in this weird way, right?" He went on to explain, " Like Episode 4, where they go back and see themselves in the past. That is something that you would do when you would be ending a show, or Doug [Jones], Saru, going off and having these new chapters. That's something you would do when you would end the show. So, it’s this weird kind of thing that happened where it almost was fate that it was going to be the last season . I don't know if that is a sad note or something, but it just worked so well."

"So what I hope people take out of it is just this great feeling of closure of this amazing five years that these people have done. I mean, I'm a fan of the show and I've watched every episode. You're sad that it's ending but at the same time it's ending so well that you just kind of hope everybody just really enjoys the ride of this last season and then looks at everything as five years of what this show actually accomplished, which if you step back and look at it is a lot."

While Harlow admitted that she hadn't "thought about it that deeply, but ultimately I just want people to like it." She had nothing but high praise for series star Sonequa Martin-Green , saying: "The first thing, I stepped on set and everyone, Sonequa was so kind and so welcoming. Every single person on that set was wonderful , and one of the first things that I was told was, 'Welcome to the family.' I just want people to like it, to deserve that title of being in the family, if that makes sense."

For these two, working on Discovery was unlike any other set they'd ever worked on. "I would like to piggyback off of that," said Toufexis. "Eve has worked a lot, I’ve worked a lot, and this is one of the best sets you could work on. From Sonequa and down to the crew, to Michelle [Paradise] and Tunde [Osunsanmi], and all those guys, Alex Kurtzman. You just end up going like, 'All these people are nice.'"

The vibes on set were amazing from the start, to the point that Harlow could hardly believe it to be true, certain that at some point the magic would wear off. However, the warm, familiar atmosphere never faded. She explained:

"When I started, I was like, 'There is no way that this lasts for six months. There's no way.' Because people get stressed. It's just like being on sets — it's chaotic, there’s so many people. And, oh my god, until the very end people were so kind. I feel like a fangirl when I talk about it, and I feel like I've talked about it so much, but it's just because it's lasted, and it just shows what a set can be like. We had this thing, crew appreciation, which is like every single day, a different crew member would be clapped for, and throughout the day, if you saw this crewmember, you could just start clapping for them. So that means that by the time we finished filming, everybody knows everybody's names and what they do and has an appreciation for everybody's job. I've never seen that on any set. And it didn't get in the way of us finishing days. I know that some people are like, 'Oh, it takes time to do this care and appreciation.' Yes, it takes time. It’s, like, 30 seconds, and it lifts everybody's spirits. Anyway, yeah, it's great."

Toufexis confirmed that the source of those good vibes without a doubt comes back to their fearless leader. "It's Sonequa’s set," he said. "Sonequa was the number one, and she's the best number one I've ever worked with. Hands down. Just [the best] of the whole show. She's amazing. I could never say enough good about Sonequa." And Harlow couldn't help but agree: "Every single time I see her, I’m like, 'Sonequa, I love you so much!' I know I'm gushing again for the 50th time, but yes."

"Mirrors" is available to stream now on Paramount+ . New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery hit the platform every Thursday. Stay tuned at Collider for more.

Harcourt Fenton Mudd

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Harcourt Fenton "Harry" Mudd was a male Human , notorious for being a con artist , smuggler , and swindler, who lived during the mid- 23rd century .

1.1 Early life
1.2 Captivity by the Klingons
1.3 Escape and reunion with Stella
1.4.1 First encounter with the Enterprise
1.4.2 Hot water on Deneb V
1.4.3 Second encounter with the Enterprise
1.4.4 Third encounter with the Enterprise
2 Memorable quotes
3.1 See also
3.2 Appearances
3.3 Background information
3.4 Apocrypha
3.5 External links

History [ ]

Early life [ ].

Mudd claimed that he had been screwed over since the day he was born, and justified his con schemes by claiming he deserved their prizes.

Mudd claimed to have once robbed a Betazoid bank by memorizing all the necessary codes; it was later speculated that in order to have really done this, he would have needed a time crystal like the one he used against the crew of the USS Discovery .

In the mid-2250s, Mudd was due to marry Stella Grimes , daughter of wealthy arms dealer Baron Grimes . ( DIS : " Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad ")

In Mudd's account of events, he fell madly in love with Stella, the only woman he ever loved. Her family did not approve of him, so he felt he had no choice but to try and buy her father's respect. He borrowed a large sum from some non-traditional lenders and gifted her with a moon . This scheme worked, but he eventually fell behind on his payments and his creditors came after him. They chased him into Klingon territory , where he was captured and deposited on a prison ship . ( DIS : " Choose Your Pain ")

However, when Starfleet researched Mudd, another version of events emerged. They suspected that Stella was merely Mudd's target after they discovered that he had fled her and taken her dowry with him. They theorized that he had fled into Klingon space not to escape his creditors, but to flee her father, who had offered a reward for finding him. ( DIS : " Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad ")

Captivity by the Klingons [ ]

For some time, Mudd shared a cell with Starfleet Lieutenant Ash Tyler . As a method of preventing camaraderie amongst prisoners, when the Klingon guards periodically came to deliver a beating, they would allow the subject to choose one of their fellow prisoners to receive the beating instead. Mudd always chose that option. Mudd kept a pet while imprisoned, a small alien insect-like creature he named Stuart , which he trained to steal small objects such as food, sometimes from fellow prisoners.

Mudd meeting Captain Gabriel Lorca

In December of 2256 , Mudd and Tyler were then joined by the USS Discovery 's Captain Gabriel Lorca . After Lorca's interrogation by L'Rell , Mudd was discovered to be spying on his prisonmates for the Klingons, passing on information when other prisoners confided in him. Lorca and Tyler managed to escape soon after, but left Mudd behind. ( DIS : " Choose Your Pain ")

Escape and reunion with Stella [ ]

Escaping from Klingon custody with the help of Stuart, Mudd tracked down Captain Lorca aboard the Discovery in an attempt to steal and sell the ship to pay off his debts with the Klingons, equipped with a time displacement device and traveling inside a gormagander .

Unfortunately for Mudd, Lieutenant Paul Stamets was able to use a side effect of a recent spore drive -related eugenic manipulation to see through Mudd's temporal manipulation.

With his help, members of the Discovery crew ultimately managed to out-con Mudd, in reuniting him with Stella and her father. Although Mudd already spoke of his love in the past tense, Stella was eager to forgive and marry him, claiming that she had always known what kind of person he was. Her father supported the marriage, justifying this bizarre position by saying he'd do everything for his daughter. Before the duo left with Mudd, Stella's father promised to keep Mudd with Stella, and away from Starfleet. ( DIS : " Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad ")

Abandoning Stella and life as a con man [ ]

Mudd's interstellar exploits began again after he deserted Stella once more, becoming a peripatetic grifter who roamed through the galaxy practicing various cons, schemes, and scams – not always successfully. At some point subsequent to his encounter with Discovery , the Federation had charged Mudd with thirty counts of smuggling , twenty counts of attempted homicide , one count of attempted regicide, and "penetrating a space whale" (the aforementioned gormagander), and offered a bounty of 100,000 credits for his capture. In typical fashion, Mudd turned this to his advantage; he built or obtained a number of android duplicates of himself, and (while disguised as a female alien bounty hunter ) sold these androids to other bounty hunters, whose hopes of receiving the bounty on the real Harry Mudd were dashed upon discovering that they had paid for an android copy. ( ST : " The Escape Artist ")

Mudd's police record

By 2266 , Mudd had been convicted of smuggling (receiving a suspended sentence), transporting stolen goods, and purchasing a space vessel using counterfeit currency . For these last two crimes, Mudd was sentenced to undergo psychiatric treatment , the effectiveness of which was officially disputed. He held a master's license , permitting him to legally operate a spacecraft, but this license was revoked on stardate 1116.4 for operating stolen spacecraft and transporting illegal goods. ( TOS : " Mudd's Women ")

First encounter with the Enterprise [ ]

Mudd showing Captain Kirk his "cargo"

Mudd was first encountered by the crew of the USS Enterprise in 2266. Mudd, using the illegal Venus drug , attempted to sell Eve McHuron , Ruth Bonaventure , and Magda Kovacs to a group of lithium miners led by Ben Childress on Rigel XII . The drug gave the impression that the three women were beautiful, when in fact they were not. Childress and the other miners married the women anyway, as they were more interested in companionship and the benefits that having three practical, intelligent women around could provide, and the women were happy to escape their previously lonely existence. Before leaving Rigel XII, Mudd asked Captain James T. Kirk if he could remain on the planet, saying it would be adequate punishment, though this request wasn't granted. Criminal charges were later pressed against Mudd for his actions and he spent at least some time in jail . ( TOS : " Mudd's Women ")

Hot water on Deneb V [ ]

Somehow, though, Mudd soon escaped. He then promptly began to sell the plans for alien technologies to various worlds – without bothering to pay any royalties to the actual off-world patent owners . This ended when an attempt to sell Vulcan fuel synthesizer technology to the inhabitants of Deneb V backfired. The transaction was unmasked as a hoax when the Denebians actually contacted Vulcan to ensure that Mudd had the rights to sell the technology in question, which, of course, he did not. ( TOS : " I, Mudd ")

Second encounter with the Enterprise [ ]

Mudd with Kirk again

The penalty for fraud on Deneb V was death . However, Mudd managed to "borrow" a spaceship and escape before the sentence could be carried out. He ended up fleeing to a previously uncharted planet , one that was populated entirely by androids programmed to adapt the planet for productive use, who became interested in studying Mudd as a specimen of Humanity . This meant that while the androids attended to his every need, and even made him the titular ruler of the planet (later named Mudd in his honor), Mudd was not allowed to leave.

Mudd surrounded by three of five hundred copies of Stella

Mudd then attempted to broker a deal where he would be allowed to escape if he provided the androids with other prime Human specimens to study. Therefore, in 2268 , Mudd identified the starship Enterprise to the androids as a likely source of exceptional examples of Humanity. (Mudd had no idea at the time that the androids instead planned to take over the galaxy and make all organic sapient races so totally dependent on them that they could effectively enslave these races.) Subsequently the android known as Norman , posing as a member of the Enterprise crew , successfully took control of the ship and took it to the planet Mudd. The crew of the Enterprise, however, was able to escape captivity by identifying Norman as the control for all of the planet's androids. With Harry's help, the crew proceeded to confuse Norman with illogical behavior, causing him to break down. After the androids were reprogrammed, Mudd was left behind on the planet as an example of a Human failure – along with five hundred uncontrollable android replicas of his shrill wife Stella for company. ( TOS : " I, Mudd ")

Third encounter with the Enterprise [ ]

Mudd causes a miners riot on the planet Motherlode

Eventually, Harry Mudd stole another spaceship and escaped the androids' planet in 2269 . He traveled to the planet Ilyra VI and "sold" Starfleet Academy to its inhabitants. Mudd then used the proceeds of that con to travel to Sirius IX , where he discovered a love potion crystal that he sold to over a thousand of the planet's inhabitants. Unfortunately, the buyers suffered allergic reactions to the crystals , and Mudd was forced to flee to the mining planet Motherlode , where he also tried to sell the love potion drug. Once again, however, he encountered the crew of the Enterprise and was captured by Captain Kirk and Spock .

Mudd was incarcerated in the brig , where he gave the love potion to Nurse Chapel as a gift. She then took the potion to Spock, but found that it did not take effect immediately; as a Vulcan, the effects of the drug took longer. Later, the drug did affect him, and Spock fell in love with Chapel. Fortunately, the drug only had temporary main effects – and a rebound aftereffect. After yet another escape, Harry Mudd was again captured and sentenced to an indefinite period of rehabilitation therapy, without guarantee that it would be effective. ( TAS : " Mudd's Passion ")

Memorable quotes [ ]

" Ouch! " " Who are you? " " The name is Mudd. Harcourt Fenton Mudd, Harry for short. I reiterate – ouch. "

" You can't walk away from me, Lorca. I'm coming for you. You hear? You haven't seen the last of Harcourt Fenton Mudd! "

" You are mad! " " No. I'm Mudd. "

" But men will always be men no matter where they are. "

" You see, gentlemen, behind every great man there is a woman urging him on. And so it was with my Stella. She urged me on into outer space. Not that she meant to, but with her continual, eternal, confounded nagging. Well, I think of her constantly, and every time I do, I go further out into space. "

Appendices [ ]

Appearances [ ]

" Mudd's Women "
" I, Mudd "
TAS : " Mudd's Passion "
TNG : " The Big Goodbye " (sketch)
" Choose Your Pain "
" Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad "
ST : " The Escape Artist "

Background information [ ]

Harcourt Fenton Mudd was performed by actor Roger C. Carmel in the three episodes he appeared in for TOS and TAS. With the exception of the Enterprise crewmembers, Mudd was the only character to be played by the same actor in more than one episode of Star Trek: The Original Series . He was later played by Rainn Wilson for his appearances in DIS and ST.

The character of Harry Mudd, as devised by writer Stephen Kandel , was inspired by the fact that NBC had announced fears that the first Star Trek pilot episode, " The Cage " (with its alien Talosians ), would not be understood by its audience. Kandel later recounted, " I said, 'What if we start with a character who isn't alien or highly technologized, but rather somebody with whom the audience would easily identify?' What we came up with was a roofing salesman, a con man. " ( Starlog issue #117, p. 44) Kandel also stated, " I originally had the idea of a kind of a traveling salesman and con man – the medicine salesman in The Wizard of Oz , that ends up as the Wizard , an interstellar con man hustling whatever he can hustle; a lighthearted, cheerful, song-and-dance man version of a pimp. "

Stephen Kandel was given the chance to develop one of Gene Roddenberry 's story outlines, "The Women", which was basically about "space hookers" bound to be sold as wives on a distant planet by an "intergalactic pimp", named "Harry Patton". Kandel felt the story lacked a focal point character, and merged it with his idea of the charismatic con man. ( These Are the Voyages: TOS Season One , pp. 43 & 133)

In a revised draft of the story outline for " Mudd's Women " (dated 23 July 1964 ), Mudd was described as " an old reprobate named Harry Mudd who has a colorful reputation in space for fly-by-night schemes, grandiose promotions, and suspected smuggling. And yet it is impossible not to like Mudd. "

In the final draft script of "Mudd's Women" (dated 26 May 1966 ), Mudd was initially described thus; " HARCOURT FENTON MUDD… Harry Mudd… scoundrel… delight… conniver… hustler… and much, much more… half the classic Scaramouche… half the classic almost everything else. Harry Mudd, in a word, is style… and all his own kind. " Later in the script, Mudd was referred to as having a "razzle dazzle, extra-legal kind of approach to life," and the teleplay continued, " His instinct is to scratch, scramble and con… his nature is precisely what he says it is and nobody believes. "

Stephen Kandel was highly proud of having conceived the character: " Harry Mudd was a marvelous character because of the highly recognizable Human quality set against the alien-in-time or alien-in-space activity that evolved, " Kandel remarked. " That's what made it amusing, and it's also hard to do because you had stern-jawed Kirk who would meet an eight-foot intelligent reptile and deal with him as any astronaut would. Then, the reptile would meet Harry Mudd, whose first impulse would be to run and hide, and second impulse would be to sell it scale enhancer. " ( Starlog issue #117, p. 44)

Stephen Kandel was also impressed with Roger C. Carmel's performances of the role, enthusing, " Roger C. Carmel was wonderful as Harry. He inhabited the character and expanded it [....] He developed the character physically as an actor [....] He WAS the character to such a large degree that no one else could possibly play the part. " ( Starlog issue #117, p. 44) " It was an ideal part for him, " Kandel also commented, and related that he believed the role fit Carmel to such a degree that the actor was slightly frustrated that the other roles of his career failed to measure up to it. ( The Star Trek Interview Book , p. 134)

Along with Khan Noonien Singh , Mudd was one of only two opponents to face Kirk more than once in live-action Star Trek productions. Mark A. Altman observed that the repeated appearances of Mudd served as a precedent for crossover appearances later in the history of Star Trek , such as the initially TNG characters of Q and the Duras sisters reappearing on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . ( Trek: Deepspace Nine , p. 70)

Plans for a third TOS episode featuring Harry Mudd, entitled " Deep Mudd ", were scrapped when Carmel became unavailable. ( Starlog issue #117, p. 44)

In " The Big Goodbye ", an illustration of Harcourt Fenton Mudd was seen when Data was assimilating the Dixon Hill novels . This illustration was from the FASA RPG module The Federation .

The Art of Star Trek contained a photo of a raktajino bottle from Quark 's Bar which bore a label stating: "100% Colombian," "Made from the Green Hills of Earth" (a title of a short story by Robert Heinlein ), and "Imported by Harcourt Mudd." If this was canonical and referred to the same Harcourt Mudd, it would indicate that Mudd entered into this business sometime after the First Khitomer Accords and his original misadventures with the crew of the Enterprise , because raktajino was unknown to the Federation in the 2260s , as documented in DS9 : " Trials and Tribble-ations ".

During pre-production on DS9 : " One Little Ship ", Ira Steven Behr voiced regret that the episode's villain wasn't "someone like Harry Mudd." Behr went on to say, " He's a real villain, but essentially a comic character, and that would make the two sides of the story match up. " Because it was too late in the process of the episode's creation for such a drastic change, however, the concept of using Mudd was largely forgotten by the DS9 writing staff. The only exception was in the mind of Hans Beimler , who imagined an ending to "One Little Ship" if Mudd had indeed appeared therein. Relaying the conclusion, René Echevarria said, " Once Harry realizes he's been foiled, he steals a runabout and tries to make his escape from the Defiant [...] He gets pulled into the [episode's] anomaly and it's about to close up forever when we beam him onto the ship, and he's only [a fraction of an inch in size] [...] And Odo says, 'Well, at least we won't have to feed him very much!' " ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion (p. 531))

Before actor Greg Grunberg portrayed Commander Finnegan in Star Trek Beyond , multiple individuals suggested to him that he should play Harry Mudd in the alternate reality films . " I would absolutely love to play Harry Mudd, that would be incredible, " Grunberg enthused. " I would have to redefine the character and do it the way I see doing it, but that character to me has comedy and brings levity and I would be able to work with robotic chicks. How fun would that be? " Regarding Mudd's appearance, Grunberg reckoned, laughing, " I would go with the big mustache and an earring, why not? " [2]

The casting of Rainn Wilson as Mudd followed a general meeting he had with the newly formed DIS writing staff, the actor having asked his agents, as soon as he had heard about the new series, if they could set up the meeting. During the conversation, he remarked to the DIS staffers that he would "love it" if there was a role in the series for him to play. Although the writing staffers were unsure if there was anything suitable yet, they promised to keep him in mind. [3] " We said, 'Well, we'll keep in touch,' " continued Executive Producer/Writer Aaron Harberts . " He left, and we got into thinking about these little Easter eggs and someone said, 'Oh, Harry Mudd has to make an appearance.' That's when we said, 'Oh my God, that's Rainn.' " [4] Approximately six months after the initial meeting, Wilson received a phone call asking him if he would like to portray Mudd, an offer he enthusiastically accepted. [5]

In adopting the Mudd role for DIS, Rainn Wilson was pleased with the amount of creative leeway he was given with the part. " I got to take what Roger Carmel did with the original character and then add my own, special sauce, " Wilson commented. " He created a fantastic, flamboyant, over-the-top, mischievous but kind of dangerous character. I get to bring a little more to it. " ( Star Trek Magazine Discovery Collector's Edition , p. 40) He also stated, " To get to go back and do a classic character from TOS... [....] It really was a dream come true for me. " One of the factors Rainn "really loved" about Mudd was that he had a backstory which preceded even his earliest appearances in DIS. However, Wilson was also of the opinion that his presentment of the Mudd character was in sync with how Carmel had previously played the role. " He was always deadly. Remember, in 'I, Mudd,' he's going to trap them on a planet with androids and take the ship and leave them to die. Mudd has always had a dark edge. He's a con-man and a merchant and a trickster, but he's always had a deadly edge. So, I think they're continuing in that tradition. " [6]

Mudd's outfit in "Choose Your Pain" was designed by Gersha Phillips , mostly cut from leather, and fabricated by the show's costume department. The outfit was inspired by the stage costumes worn by English musician Adam Ant . After being used in the series, it was displayed as part of an exhibition at San Diego Comic-Con in 2017 . ( Star Trek Magazine Discovery Collector's Edition , p. 41)

Ultimately, Aaron Harberts and the rest of the creative team have been pleased with the depictions of Mudd in DIS. Harberts consequently referred to the character as a "huge throwback, but one that reaped huge dividends." [7]

Apocrypha [ ]

FASA 's RPG sourcebook The Federation claims that Mudd was born in St. Louis.

In the video game Star Trek: 25th Anniversary , Mudd encountered Kirk again in 2268 , between the events of " I, Mudd " and " Mudd's Passion ". He was discovered on a salvage mission of a derelict ship of unknown alien origin. While aboard, he managed to accidentally sell weapon components to pirates , become infected with unknown alien drugs, nearly kill an Enterprise landing party with faulty equipment, and destroy a priceless archive of computer records. Following the conclusion of his investigation, Captain Kirk ordered Mudd to donate five of every artifact he found to research. Also, Lt. Uhura arranged for Mudd to meet his "long-lost wife" at a nearby starbase . In the game, Mudd's voice was provided by Tom Wyner.

In the video game Star Trek: Starfleet Academy , Mudd's notoriety had reached every known sector to such extent that by 2288 , his escapades were required study material at Starfleet Academy . One of the sophomore-junior year simulations was that of a mock rescue attempt which cadets were required to pass. In the simulation, the classroom/bridge was to protect his small freighter, the Stella , while also negotiate with a hostile Romulan warbird .

In US comic strip " It's a Living ", Mudd later purchased a planet for its rare ores, but found, to his dismay, that the planet was actually a large egg for a space-faring creature. After it hatched, Mudd sold the planet back to its original owner (who was unaware of the creature), but he still ended up losing out, as the ores were then floating in space and were actually easier to mine.

Other appearances of Mudd include Where Sea Meets Sky , Mudd in Your Eye , " The Business, As Usual, During Altercations " (from Mudd's Angels ), " The Light Fantastic ", " Operation Con Game ", " When You Wish Upon a Star...! ", " Mudd's Magic! ", " Mission: Muddled ", " The Sky Above... The Mudd Below ", " Target: Mudd! ", " Made Out of Mudd ", and " The Survival Equation ".

Harry Mudd of the mirror universe

Harry Mudd's mirror universe counterpart appears in issues 1 and 2 of the comic series Star Trek: Discovery - Succession . He is known to be more of a humanitarian concerned with helping the refugees of Risa , although he has a prior relationship with the mirror universe counterpart of Michael Burnham . He has also smuggled weapons in the past, indicating a shady background.

Harry Mudd (alternate reality mirror universe)

Harry Mudd of the alternate reality's mirror universe

Harry Mudd's alternate reality mirror universe counterpart appears in the fiftieth and fifty-first issues of the Star Trek: Ongoing comic series, where he has been doing business with the mirror universe counterpart of James T. Kirk on the planet Arronia II. When he attempts to re-negotiate his terms with mirror Kirk, the deposed captain shoots and kills Mudd and leaves the planet on his ship.

External links [ ]

Harcourt Fenton Mudd at StarTrek.com
Harcourt Fenton Mudd at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
2 ISS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

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Episode list

S1.E1 ∙ The Vulcan Hello

S1.E2 ∙ Battle at the Binary Stars

S1.E3 ∙ Context Is for Kings

S1.E4 ∙ The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry

S1.E5 ∙ Choose Your Pain

S1.E6 ∙ Lethe

S1.E7 ∙ Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad

S1.E8 ∙ Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum

S1.E9 ∙ Into the Forest I Go

S1.E10 ∙ Despite Yourself

S1.E11 ∙ The Wolf Inside

S1.E12 ∙ Vaulting Ambition

S1.E13 ∙ What's Past Is Prologue

S1.E14 ∙ The War Without, the War Within

S1.E15 ∙ Will You Take My Hand?

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

“Maybe we’re not so different.”

“You both still have choices .”

“Maybe we can shape our own futures too.”

Love stories

Under the mask

Final thoughts

More to come

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Star Trek: Discovery

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