Discovery visits a library, complete with nifty librarian played by Elena Juatco, and they ENTER BURNHAM’S BRAIN. Also there’s more stuff with the Breen, alas, as it remains completely nowhere. My review of Star Trek: Discovery‘s “Labyrinths.”

An excerpt:

One of the biggest problems with this season is that the ticking clock/competition for our heroes has not been that compelling. Moll and L’ak are just a couple of ex-Couriers who should not be able to run rings around an entire starship full of smart people. Nor should one of them be able to put herself into a position of power on a Breen dreadnought. I’ve said all along that Moll and L’ak reminded me of Honey Bunny and Pumpkin from Pulp Fiction. And that’s the problem—the characters played by Amanda Plummer and Tim Roth in that 1994 film would never have taken over, say, an Army regiment. Hell, those two characters were pretty much undone by bumping into two only-very-slightly smarter criminals in the diner they were robbing.

And that’s the problem with Moll’s storyline here. Ever since the Breen showed up looking for the pair of them, she’s been punching way above her weight class and the scripts have insisted that she win those fights, and I have yet to actually buy it. At one point in “Labyrinths” Moll casually mentions that Discovery has the other four clues, which is the first time the Primarch even knows there are other clues. At that moment, the Primarch should’ve shot and killed Moll. Which, frankly, would’ve been fabulous, a great twist that actually would make sense. Usually what undoes criminals is getting too big for their britches, as it were, and getting hammered.

The Breen have long been mysterious and dull. This week, we find out more about their culture, and now they’re explained and, um, still dull. Alas. But there’s some fun negotiating and politicking and the like, at least. My review of Star Trek: Discovery‘s “Erigah.”

An excerpt:

But the Breen culture we get is one of factions all vying for power, and didn’t we already do this with the Klingons in season one? And L’ak is important because he’s a scion of the royal family, so we get yet another alien species that has futuristic technology alongside medieval notions like primogeniture and the political importance of genetics and bloodlines over more relevant criteria, and bleah. It’s been done before and nothing interesting is done with it here.

On top of that, we get some other tired clichés here, including one of my least favorite: Incompetent Starfleet Security. Moll moves to escape sickbay after L’ak distracts everyone by overdosing on tricordrazine. (How the super-duper 32nd-century technology can allow a patient to possibly overdose themselves is left as an exercise for the viewer. Especialy since it winds up killing him.) The two nameless security guards are taken out in nothing flat, and then Culber tries to stop her and he actually does better than the trained security personnel, mostly because he’s an opening-credits regular and therefore a bigger badass than the trained security personnel. Sigh.

It’s a Prime Directive story! But unlike a lot of PD stories, this one didn’t piss me off! Burnham and Tilly go undercover and try not to die, while Culber tries to deal with things and Adira tries to get used to being on the bridge. My review of Star Trek: Discovery‘s “Whistlespeak.”

An excerpt:

We start this week with the Discovery crew doing what it does best: working its way through a scientific problem. Back in season two, Ethan Peck’s Spock matter-of-factly stated “I like science.” (Peck himself owns a T-shirt with that saying on it that he has worn to many a public appearance.) That’s pretty much the Discovery ethos, and some of the best scenes in this show’s five-year history have been various crewmembers tossing ideas around to figure out a problem. In this case, it’s Stamets, Adria, Tilly, and Burnham trying to determine what the clue they found last week is supposed to mean—which is hard, as it’s just a vial of distilled water with some scratches on it.