REVIEW || Star Trek: Discovery - Context Is For Kings 1x03

It's that time, folks. It's the day after a new Star Trek: Discovery episode has been released and so that means that it is time for my review. I actually watched this episode on Monday instead of Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. My enthusiasm was quite unexpected considering how scared I was of watching the first two episodes. Nevertheless, Discovery was never far from my mind for the past week. I'm serious. I've been thinking about it quite a bit this week. Plus, this week was the introduction of Jason Isaacs' character, Captain Gabriel Lorca. 

Undoubtedly, I will be correcting his name several times in this post. I seem to type 'Garbiel' instead of 'Gabriel'. So if you spot one that I missed, please tell me. So without further adieu, let's get started...

Context Is For Kings takes place six months after the events of 'The Vulcan Hello'.

First thing's first, the title; Context Is For Kings. An interesting title. Star Trek has been known to use elaborate and often significant titles in the past. Mostly those types of episode titles were for Deep Space Nine or Enterprise. So right off the bat, my curiosity is piqued. Then when the episode title was dropped into the episode, I loved what it meant. 

As always, the special effects are incredible. At the very beginning when Burnham is on a prison transfer shuttle, the special effects of the warp tunnel and the little bugs that hitch-hike on the shuttle's exterior are so vivid and spectacular that I was already in awe by the time the Discovery makes its entrance. And make an entrance it did. I know that I already miss the Shenzhou and Captain Georgiou but Discovery is fresh off the assembly line. As one prisoner pointed out, there weren't any scuff marks on the shuttle bay floor. Shiny! And shiny it is. 

The design of Discovery is unlike anything that I've ever seen in Star Trek, even with the new design of the Enterprise in the movies. It is crisp and clean and bright on the inside. Everything looks sleek, sterile and meant for a purpose. I feel like it has elements that are subtle homages to the previous ships in the series; the engineering department where Burnham is temporarily assigned reminded me of the engine room on Enterprise. The bridge reminded me of the Enterprise from the movies and the hallways remind me of Enterprise if they were just a little wider. 

Discovery itself is difficult to pinpoint when it comes to its mission. Is it a science vessel? Is it for space exploration? Or is it part of the war effort against the Klingons? At first, it seems to be a science vessel because there are a number of silver shirts populating the corridors. There is a cultivation bay where it appears that they are doing a number of intriguing and perhaps dangerous experiments. However, it isn't very long before you find out that Discovery has another side to it with armed officers standing outside specific doors. That felt like such a throw-back to the MACOs from Enterprise; Military Assault Command Operations - an attachment of troops who specialise in military operations. Starfleet officers are trained for combat but not on the scale that MACOs are. I really enjoyed that appearance on Discovery and when one goes on a mission to a downed sister-ship, it further compounded my belief that they are MACOs. I particularly love the black badge that they wear. I want one! Seriously. Where can I buy one?

What interested me the most about Discovery was that the officers needed to give a breath scan for entry to classified areas. That was intriguing and something that I've never seen before. Retina scan, sure. Thumbprint, yep. But your breath? Okaaaay. Nevertheless, the Discovery has the ability to conduct over 300 scientific experiments which reminds me of the Titan which Riker commands in the books. His ship is for deep space exploration and science. I wonder if Discovery will follow in that vein. 

Now to Captain Lorca, himself. The introduction of Lorca was beyond engaging. The fact that his ready-room was dark and that the light levels needed to be adjusted gradually due to a war injury was intriguing. We've never encountered a captain or a character like that. Lights have always been straight up or straight down, not gradual. Also, the visual of space being reflected in Isaacs' eye was spectacular.  That was probably my favourite visual of the entire episode. 

With Lorca being played by Jason Isaacs, aka Lucius Malfoy, I didn't know what to expect when it came to an accent. I can tell you now, it isn't British but an American one. That may take me a little while to get used to but I'm okay with it. Minor point. The entire episode made me love Lorca. I don't know if he's a good guy or a bad guy but he is an ambitious guy for sure. I love that he is like Georgiou in that he was a soldier and now a Starfleet captain. My favourite line about Lorca is from Saru; "[Captain Lorca] is not a man who fears the things that most people fear..." I got goosebumps. Another line from Lorca resonated with me; "[that's the kind] of thinking that wins wars." He has a military mind and I'm enjoying how that fits into the realm of Star Trek. He seems to be morally vague. He isn't afraid to do what is right to gain a tactical advantage I love that he is a darker commanding officer. I am very intrigued by this captain. Very, very, very intrigued. Plus, the dude has a Tribble for a pet. A Tribble! Dude is insane for sure! I'm just waiting for a Tribble related episode.

With regard to new characters, I do love them. I love that a number of the crew from the Shenzhou have been re-assigned to Discovery. Saru is the First Officer and he has the sass to go along with that position; "I will do a better job of protecting my captain that you did yours." Sass and burn and a bitch-slap all in one. Don't skimp on the claws, Saru. With Saru, I feel like he talks a lot like Data did. If you've watched The Next Generation, you may know what I'm talking about but that was just an observation that I made. 

I adore Tilly. She's so adorable and loveable. I love how awkward she is but she's ambitious, intelligent and determined. She wants to be a captain someday and she knows that she will accomplish that dream but she also knows that people underestimate her. On the landing party, she definitely wasn't awkward or a weakling. She held her own. She's endearing that way. I had to laugh when she told Burnham that there was assigned seating when in reality there really was no such thing. I've always loved the subtle comedy in Star Trek. With Tilly's awkwardness, you get a character that will put her foot in her mouth with her babbling and she addresses the elephant in the room of Burnham's name; Michael. "I've never met a female called 'Michael'.' Moreover, I love that her character doesn't have perfect skin. If you've watched Star Trek previously, the cast all have clear skin and perfectly manicured hair. Tilly has acne and red, voluminous, curly hair which you wouldn't expect her to have considering her on-duty styling. Also, she snores. Such a beautifully flawed character. 

The chief engineer has already established himself as a bit of an arrogant knob. He's brash, he's rude, and he's unapologetic about it. He consistently undermines Lorca's orders and I could see that it was beginning to irke Lorca. I wonder if that will explode later in the season. I'm interested to see how his brilliance will continue. He's one of the characters that shows how disruptive this war has become on people. He was happy doing his own research for Starfleet when the war broke out and disrupted the momentum and divided his team. War is disruptive and everyone must do their part whether they want to or not. 

This episode would have been perfect airing closer to Hallowe'en. It was such a spooky episode and spookier than 'The Haunting of Deck Twelve' from season 6 Voyager. Dead starships are scary. I honestly wouldn't want to be walking around one of those and so my heart was racing during those scenes. 

What makes me think that this would be a perfect Hallowe'en episode is what happened to the crew of the downed ship. Their corpses were mutilated and warped in a way that I have never seen in Star Trek. They belonged more in Beetlejuice or another Tim Burton style movie. I was actually quite shocked by it. But I loved it, nevertheless. It was such a different route to go down. I was not expecting this from this series when watching the trailer. Another thing that I was not expecting was the language. I don't care about curse words. They slipped a number in throughout Enterprise but it did take me aback when Burnham said, "Shit! The worked!" I'm no prude when it comes to language as I curse like a sailor, but Star Trek has always been a family show and I fear that with the mangled corpses and the language it's veering away from that dynamic so that it brings in a new generation of viewers from Netflix and from the movies. Again, not that I mind. 

What I found most intriguing about Discovery was the way that they treated space travel. They tackled propulsion in a way that I've never known Star Trek to do. We've encountered many different types of travel; warp, transwarp, quantum slipstream, subspace conduits and transwarp hubs. Never have they talked about space travel as if they were travelling through the veins and arteries of the galaxy. That fascinated me for sure. They theorize that they can travel anywhere in the blink of an eye and be anywhere at a moment's notice. That would be extremely beneficial in this war against the Klingons. When Lorca was explaining all of this to Burnham, I was on tenterhooks. I was engrossed and it made sense. It sounded incredible. I wasn't overwhelmed by the technobabble that Star Trek is famous for. 

I also loved when Burnham was quoting Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol and how that book became a bonding moment for Tilly and Burnham. Burnham talks about how that book turned logic on its head and for someone that was raised by Vulcans, it was nice that she doesn't completely subscribe to logic. It also allowed her to talk about her past and that she had a foster mother on Vulcan who was human. She dropped one of the biggest name bombs she possibly could have dropped. Amanda. I sincerely hope that the new fans were able to pick up on that because that was the best place for the episode to end. Basically, Star Trek was like, "and on that bombshell, we'll see you next week.'

This episode was thoroughly enjoyable. I loved the new characters, especially Lorca. My curiosity has definitely been piqued by this series and my fears are somewhat dissipating. That being said, we are only on the third episode. Who knows where it may go from here but I certainly along for the ride and eager to discover (eh, eh!) what is out there. 

This episode is a firm 7 out of 10.  Let me know your thoughts on this episode and on the series so far. 

** All gifs used in this post are from Tumblr.com