The temptation to revert to old damaging ways hits both the characters and writers this week in episode six of Star Trek Discovery Season 3, Scavengers. *Warning: Spoilers Lie Ahead!*
So far this season, Discovery has managed to reinvent itself and become much more of a solid Star Trek show, moving away from the contrarianism and problematic choices of the first two seasons. There has been a definite shift towards grounding it in the crew more, although there has still been a leaning towards Michael (Soniqua Martin Green). This direction is very much welcomed and has reaped rewards already, including the addition of some new characters.
This week, Scavengers reverts a little back to previous type unfortunately and spoils it a little. It did not even need to be this way either, as the plot could have easily been developed along these lines successfully with just a couple of minor tweaks.
Essentially, this episode furthers the storyline regarding Michael’s investigation into what caused the burn. There are two issues here, one of which is that apparently no one from the Federation is investigating it, as they have more important things to do. This seems unlikely, as although they most definitely will have more important things immediately in front of them, the likelihood that there is not another hothead like Michael kicking around seems doubtful.
The second is that Michael reverts so quickly back to her hothead persona, which she has eased into over the year she was alone. Over the past couple of years, she has built up a rapport and friendship with Saru (Doug Jones), but this is very swiftly pushed aside, meaning that some long fought for character development is forgotten just for convenience. When that is then tied to the sometimes tedious character of Emperor Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh), even with her moments of spacing out (laid like plot breadcrumbs), this episode is definitely taking a step back.
Georgiou could easily be one of the more interesting characters, as she is not from the Starfleet mould, so has more scope for certain types of development, but instead is quite often portrayed as a cross between a fairy Godmother and the Hooded Claw. This is a shame as so much potential lies in the gray area. Unfortunately, here in Scavengers, they revert to basic type and have her assist Michael as she travels to a scrapyard planet in search of a Starship black box. Why no one else from the Federation has done this yet is a mystery, but we’ll let that slide I guess.
This whole storyline comes about thanks to the efforts of Book (David Ajala), who has been off for a few episodes doing whatever he does normally. On this planet he has found what Michael has been looking for, so sends word, before getting captured by the Emerald Chain, the Andorian-Orion crime syndicate. The plot works mainly along the lines of some familiar prison tropes, including the perimeter fence/head being blown off standard, as seen in The Running Man, Fortress, Wedlock etc.. This gives the whole of Scavengers a bit of a ‘warmed up rehash’ feel and puts this more in the ‘filler episode’ category that it might have been.
The interesting stuff happens more back with Discovery itself, which is now officially the Discovery-A, having been given some new tech in a shipwide retrofit. This leads to some entertaining moments through the episode, such as Linus’ (David Benjamin Tomlinson), the hapless Saurian who cannot get the hang of the personal transporter. There is also some nice character development with Stamets (Anthony Rapp) and Adira (Blu Del Barrio), who find some time to bond, a friendship which will no doubt bring quite a lot to the show over time.
Overall, Scavengers was a bit patchy, with hoary old tropes raising their heads and Michael reverting too easily back into old habits, which undermines the shows development. Not even the welcome appearance of a self-sealing stem bolt joke saves the planet based portion of this episode, and the more enjoyable parts lay elsewhere. This should be a signal to the everyone that the interesting parts of this show do not rely on Michael or Georgiou, and the focus does not have to remain there. We shall see what happens, but the great start to this season has bought them some goodwill to get past this moment of treading water.
