The Answers Are In The Past If Memory Serves Star Trek Discovery

By opening with scenes from the ‘unaired’ pilot of ‘Star Trek called ‘The Cage’ that we’ve all seen, ‘If Memory Serves’ was promising a thrill ride of an episode.  These kinds of episodes can go a couple of different ways though.  Too much fan service and it’s easy to lose sight of the reason for providing it in the first place.  Fortunately, the episode avoids that trap and delivers both a fun trip down memory lane and an intense look at what the rest of the season holds.  You’d think the two things wouldn’t work together but it all blends in dazzlingly.  Of course, the main crux of the episode is the relationship between Burnham and Spock.  Spock needs assistance to deal with the information the red angel has shared with him and who better to assist him than the Talosians and his estranged adopted sister.  The Talosians are able to show Burnham Spock’s mind so that she’ll be able to assist in figuring out how to avoid the future the angel has shown Spock - the destruction of all life in the galaxy.  That assist comes at a price though and we are shown the exact betrayal Burnham afflicted Spock with when they were children.  She told Spock she didn’t love him and didn’t want him around, thinking that it would help save Spock.  Oh, the complicated relationships siblings can have. What is interesting here is that, though we’ve known that the angel first appeared to Spock as a child, we didn’t know the exact depth of information it brought back then.  Without the angel’s intervention, Burnham would have died out in the Vulcan Forge.  So we know that the angel has an interest in keeping Burnham alive. I could go on and on about who the angel might be and why there is such an interest in Burnham, but I already have and you can read that here.  We are dealing in a lot of canon right now though.  The show’s producers have said that season 2 will bring things more in line with the established ‘Star Trek’ we know.  It’s an interesting choice then that they have not only further explored the relationship between Spock and Burnham but have also introduced Section 31 into the mix, both things that seem to take us further away from the Kirk years of Trek.  I’m hoping that we aren’t flying toward a reset button, but it is starting to seem like a possibility.  Either that or Spock held on to the most unhealthy grudge, which doesn’t seem like the character at all. Hugh Culber’s return from the dead could have been handled in an almost schmaltzy way.  The architecture existed as we’ve seen communication between Culber and Paul Stamets while Culber was ‘dead’ and we were shown a much more pristine version of the character than what we have now.  For the show to choose to have someone who has no idea who they are anymore is so much more appealing.  While, as a gay man, I am hoping to see the ultimate reunion of Culber and Stamets, I think it is important to examine the relationship between Tyler and Culber.  Executioner and victim, both men being something that they are not.  Now that the fight is over the conversation can begin, and it’s going to be a doozy.