Synopsis
Burnham and Adira visit the Trill homeworld while Saru’s efforts on the Discovery to help the crew reconnect yield surprises.
Review
Before watching “Forget Me Not” I had managed to spy a review online which described the episode as on of Star Trek: Discovery’s filler episodes. Instantly it conjured ideas of how Trek has killed time in previous shows when the story wanes a little. It also had me slightly concerned that we were padding time so early in the season.
But my experience of watching “Forget Me Not” was clearly not the same as that reviewers. Instead I found this episode was an incredibly emotional experience which really spoke to Gene Roddenberry’s core ideals for Star Trek in a way which felt relevant to a contemporary society.
The previous episode (reviewed here) introduced us to Adira (Blu del Barrio), a human who we soon discover is carrying a Trill symbiont. Now we’re fleshing out both their backstory and furthering Discovery’s search for Starfleet.
Adira and their boyfriend, Gray, introduced in flashbacks (played by Ian Alexander) form the emotional core of “Forget Me Not,” whist the Discovery crew shoulders the B-storyline of the week.
Blu del Barrio is Trek’s first non-binary character whilst Gray is the franchises’ first trans character. Both characters have their gender identities perfectly wrapped within the story of classic Trek species the Trill. Though it wasn’t necessarily the idea behind the character of Dax in DS9 or the episode of TNG where Riker (Jonathan Frakes) briefly carried a symbiont, the Trill are a perfectly analogy for fluid gender identity.
Whilst the symbiont’s are gender-less the hosts who carry them are not. But carrying generations of memories and personalities, the symbionts fluidly move between male, female and the entire spectrum throughout their existence.
Barrio and Alexander have brilliant chemistry on screen. It’s hopelessly romantic and it struck me just how poignant this story will be to young viewers tuning in to Discovery. The episode was written by the trio of Alan McElro, Chris Silverstein and Anthony Maranville, their story beautifully handles the subject matter and presents in a way which is by no means political or shocking.
When I think back to what Trek meant to me when I was younger and how I perceived Gene Roddenberry’s vision this episode feels like a home-run. Trek is intrinsically about a vision of the future which is accepting of all our differences and “Forget Me Not” embraces that ethos wholeheartedly.
The episode is directed by Hanelle Culpepper who has also worked on Star Trek: Picard. Her direction brings a level of emotional maturity which rises Discovery above the pack when it comes to TV-level science fiction.
Elsewhere in “Forget Me Not,” the Discovery crew is learning how to deal with the consequences of their shift in to the future. That review which called this episode filler commented upon the Discovery crew’s actions this week as “childish and misplaced” but what I see here is a group of broken people coming to terms with everything which has happened in the last few episodes.
Saru (Doug Jones) is on what feels like a very natural path towards taking on a leadership role. This episode finds him searching for the right way to unify his crew and in doing so he breaks them apart. But breaking them apart also allows the healing process to begin.
I’ve commented in my other reviews of season 3 that it feels like Discovery is pitching an emotional PSTD tale for a number of characters. In particular we’ve seen Lieutenant Detmer (Emily Coutts) struggling with the adjustment. Those emotions bubble over this week in ways which feel entirely natural to the human condition.
In the past Discovery has focussed on a singular story arc: the spore-drive, the parallel universe, the red angel etc. But season 3 has developed a higher-standard of storytelling which is allowing multiple arcs to develop: the search for Starfleet and the crew’s emotional recovery. Having the two stories running in tandem simultaneously allows the show to develop and flesh out its characters without entirely pulling focus from the exploration of space.
Verdict
“Forget Me Not” is absolutely Star Trek: Discovery at it’s most mature and most effective.
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