Star Trek: Discovery airs on CBS All Access on Thursday’s in North America and Netflix internationally on Friday’s.
Synopsis
Spock and Burnham head to Talos IV, where the process of healing Spock forces the siblings to confront their troubled past. Stamets desperately tries to reconnect with an increasingly disconnected Hugh, while Tyler struggles to shed the crew’s suspicions of him due to his past as Voq.
Review
Star Trek: Discovery is (kind of) coming full circle this week and tying in to the original pilot of The Original Series. This was a much more thought provoking episode which dialled back on the fast paced action and instead tried to focus more on Captain Pike (Anson Mount).
The opening montage featuring scenes of Jeffrey Hunter as Pike, Leonard Nimoy as Spock and Susan Oliver as Vina really helped to ground the episode in Trek history. The whole sequence felt like it was honouring what Gene Roddenberry had done with the original pilot.
The entire episode did a great job of setting up the final arc of the season as the motivations of the Red Angel were unveiled. I do still wonder if the person in the suit will be somebody we know though.
I’m torn between an older member of one of the other crews returning for a cameo. Or it being somebody like Tilly in the costume trying to warn the Discovery crew that their current actions will have terrible consequences on the future.
The prospect of a future where all sentient life has been wiped out also offers up some interesting potential scenarios for the show. Of course any number of these could also set up any number of plot holes. Surely it can’t be the Borg? But it could. What about Species 8472? Yup, it could also be them. But then why wouldn’t Discovery has warned the Federation… don’t ask, you’ll just confuse yourself like I have.
I applaud the show for taking the bold move of tying itself in directly to the unaired pilot. The updated Talosians were a great addition to the episode. At times I did struggle to keep up with Pike’s visions of Vina on the Enterprise and how this tied in with being able to telepathically communicate from the planet to the ship. It was definitely a little convoluted.
But sometimes Star Trek is at its best when it’s blinding us with illogical science and this was certainly one of the most “Trek” episodes of the series.
In the grand scheme of things Star Trek: Discovery has suffered with some teenage growing pains in this second season. But I’m glad to see the story is beginning to propel itself towards an ethically diverse end point. Do they change the future? Is the future avoidable? And what is Spock’s involvement with the whole scenario??
Verdict
“If Memory Serves” is certainly one of the more complicated episodes of the season. Although I found it a little difficult to keep up at times there was a lot to enjoy. It benefits hugely from tying itself to the unaired pilot of The Original Series.
7/10
On the next episode…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2mBw2DLKn4Star Trek: Discovery is produced by CBS Television Studios in association with Alex Kurtzman’s Secret Hideout, Bryan Fuller’s Living Dead Guy Productions and Roddenberry Entertainment. Alex Kurtzman, Bryan Fuller, Heather Kadin, Gretchen J. Berg & Aaron Harberts, Akiva Goldsman, Rod Roddenberry and Trevor Roth serve as executive producers.
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