It was worth the wait. The episode held up to the standard set by last week, and with the story of the seed vault, it was even quite topical; it's a very relevant concept in this time and age, and it seems increasingly more likely that the Burn will turn out to be Discovery's analogy to climate change.
I wasn't surprised at all by Starfleet not welcoming Discovery back with open arms. Vance had every right to be suspicious. Just remember what happened with Arturis "decrypting" Starfleet's message and leading Voyager to the Dauntless in
Hope and Fear. When a ship that just magically happens to have exactly what Starfleet would need to circumvent the Burn appears out of thin air right next to their HQ, caution is not entirely unwarranted. One specific bit I've liked about the first meeting was the final confirmation that Discovery and its crew wasn't subjected to a complete
damnatio memoriae, only the specifics of their mission and their disappearance. Did we really expect some MIBs visiting Siobhán Tilly and ordering her to doctor her daughter out of every family video? Come on.
The further debriefings were hilarious, especially Nhan's utter refusal to cooperate and Georgiou nonchalantly shorting the holograms out. I enjoyed her verbal sparring with David Cronenberg, who's probably the first person who actually managed to get under her skin. It was written all over her face when he told her about the fall of the Empire. The end of the episode, however, indicates something bigger happened after this. The holograms did mention some new discoveries about Terran biology, maybe they exploited that in some way, which seems likely given how she appears to faint in the promo for the next episode. Together with Tal's lullaby apparently being known throughout the galaxy, we're certainly seeing the first seeds of the overarching plot of the season, I think.
The crew's interactions with each other during the mission reminded me a lot of Worf and O'Brien's clash in
Starship Down, with Burnham running a more informal than usual ship, probably with the intention of showing Future Starfleet why they need to be kept together, with Future Starfleet mirroring Worf's more rigid and formal style. The show also kept the good Trek tradition of security officers having no clue what the eggheads are talking about, just like how Worf eventually had to let Muñiz and Stevens do their thing. I also loved, absolutely loved Saru using the example of Giotto and three-point perspective as part of his argument to Vance at the end. Discovery keeps going in the direction I've imagined it would, painting the setting as a Foundation-like sci-fi analogue of the Middle Ages after the fall of Rome and the Black Plague (another thing the Burn might be analogous to), with Discovery helping to start a new renaissance.
On the other hand, I actually cared more for Stamets & Co brainstorming the solution for Dr. Attis' predicament than for what happened on the Tikhov itself. I think Nhan or the Barzans should've been fleshed out more before stranding her on the ship. It still had its moments though, especially with Hugh understanding why Nhan's judgement is clouded and getting Burnham to convince Attis instead as well as Nhan's parting words to Burnham. Her decision to stay behind still failed to strike the emotional note suggested by the episode for me, however. But that's my only real gripe with an episode which I've thoroughly enjoyed.
Stream-of-consciousness lists are awesome:
- Gavriil Adrianovich Tikhov (1875-1960) is widely considered to be the father of astrobotany. A very fitting name for a spaceship-based seed bank.
- At first I've found it weird that the HQ was in interstellar space, but the distortion field indicates they want to stay hidden. Where else could you hide more effectively than in deep space?
- The references in the future starships were beautiful. The USS Nog (which Alex Kurtzman confirmed to be an Eisenberg-class ship) brought tears to my eyes. But Owo's "we'd love to hear the stories" upon seeing USS Voyager was hilarious. Never miss an opportunity to advertise, kids.
- I found it funny how everybody kept explaining what prions are. It absolutely sounded like a writer had just learned about them.
- I loved glasses being used as a fashion statement, circumventing the question of why they'd be needed in the future. I'm a bit sad though that Cronenberg didn't get to say he hated Retinax V.
- Owo encouraging Keyla...
these two keep melting my heart.
- Reno understanding Tilly's "duh" was absolutely perfect. I've always said she needs to start mentoring her. She could teach Tilly a thing or two about being unapologetically yourself.