2x02 New Eden

[7.2/10] I’m not sure Star Trek Discovery has had a more traditional Star Trek episode than “New Eden.” There’s still serialized elements, like the continuing investigation of the red flashes, and Tilly’s asteroid, that set the show’s approach apart from prior entries in the franchise. But this episode gives us a trio of main characters investigating a local weird happening and distinct society on a far off planet, while the rest of the crew deals with a related but distinct planetary criss from the ship, which ultimately requires them to renoodle the energymotron to do it. I can’t think of anything more dye-in-the-wool Trek than that.

It’s also based around a central theme of science versus religion, which prompts a big ethical dilemma. That sort of unifying ideal at the center of an episode has been a core of Trek since The Original Series. And while rarely so explicit about real life Earth faiths, the franchise has been debating the acts of gods vs. the rational explanation since the first time Spock made a skeptical frown. For anybody who claimed that Discovery’s first season didn’t feel enough like the Trek of old, the new showrunners clearly heard you, and offered this corrective.

And it’s not bad! After using a hack from Tilly that’s souped up by Burnham, the Discovery tracks part of the red flash signal coming from the Beta quadrant. After a spore drive jump, the crew discovery a pre-warp civilization, blasting a 200-year-old distress signal, in a remarkably earth-like society. Pike, Burnham, and Owosekun beam down to investigate, and discover that the people on the planet are the descendents of a group that magically (or through advanced technology) whisked away from nuclear war on Earth and deposited here, where they’ve lived a pastoral life and practiced an amalgam of all Earth’s faiths ever since.

It’s an appropriately out there premise, but one that’s familiar. The show bundles the conflicts nicely, with our heroes wanting to figure out exactly what happened with these people, and determine whether there’s any connection to the red flashes, without arousing the suspicions of their hosts or violating General Order 1 (i.e. the prime directive) and disturbing this more primitive society.

It’s all competently done at worst. There’s a few close shaves at being captured and found out, time for lots of debates and discussions over whether this bucolic life is a paradise or a prison, and one local who chalks up every event to the divine while the other is desperate for something more scientific and based in reason. That mirrors the dichotomy between Pike, whose father taught both science and comparative religion which left him more able to appreciate the comfort of belief, and Burnham who, true to her brother’s precedent, is inherently skeptical and reluctant to accept these people’s account and lifestyle rooted in faith.

There’s solid material there. The argument isn’t exactly deep in execution, but it touches on deep ideas. Pike rightly points out that in the world of Trek, various crews have encountered plenty of beings and phenomena which have powers and motives beyond our comprehension. (A fellow writer once joked that every story from Gene Roddenberry ended with the reveal that the culprit was a supercomputer, a god, or a supercomputer that became a god.) Burnham makes compelling arguments about giving these people the truth even when she’s still processing what amounts to her own spiritual experience of an angelic-like figure.

The show naturally comes down in the middle somewhere, with Pike spilling the beans to the science-minded local in exchange for some intel that might help explain the flashes. And the whole show walks the line between providing scientific explanations for events that people take as miracles, while at the same time showing that there’s more than what we see and hear and things beyond our understanding.

That ties into the ship-based end of the story, where a planetary disturbance calls on the Discovery to counteract some radioactive debris in orbit around the planet, lest the locals be eradicated by an extinction-level event. It dovetails with Tilly trying to extract a sample from the asteroid, and in the noggin-shaking aftermath of her accident with it, figuring out how to use it to save the day.

For the most part, it’s a perfectly functional bit of Star Trek problem-solving. The beats aren’t exactly novel, but Tilly’s sick bay revelation and wild but ultimately successful plan to neutralize the debris is buried in technobabble, but makes enough intuitive sense and includes enough visual flair to make it work. I particularly enjoy the interactions between Tilly and Saru, which are nicely parental -- stern but sweet and encouraging.

The problems two-fold, and permeate both parts of the episode. The first is that the show is incredibly expository throughout. We can’t just surmise what the state of play is, or whether Tilly is worried about her actions jeopardizing her position among Starfleet’s up and comers, or figure out on our own where everyone stands in the debate of science vs. belief through. The script for “New Eden” is riddled with these obvious “here’s what’s going on, audience” statements that bring the whole thing down a notch. That’s balanced a little bit by the friendlier, quippier tack the show’s taking in its second season, but there’s too many times in “New Eden” when I found myself wishing the writers would take their foot off the gas on the exposition.

The second is the very familiarity that is probably comforting to a lot of fans. Don’t get me wrong, I love classic Trek in pretty much all its shades, and I’ve long since accepted that there’s merits in the execution beyond just a repeated form. But if you’ve seen any decent sampling of Star Trek, you probably knew how this one was going to go, both on the planet’s surface and above it. There’s not much new on offer here, right down to Tilly’s painfully obvious (and frankly pretty hokey) Tyler Durden situation.

I like away missions. I like ship-wide problem solving. I like theme-informing debates over whether these events are divine intervention or whether there’s a reasonably explanation. But this is the same old Star Trek with a new coat of paint. That makes it familiar, and fun, and undeniably functional, but beyond the central mystery, it doesn't really do anything to advance the cause. Star Trek is always going to be comfort food for me, but as solidly enjoyable as “New Eden” was, I hope this was an isolated season 2 throwback, and that Discovery plans to do more to challenge the audience, than just comfort it with the familiar, in the future.