Bring on the water bears!

You know in the midst of all the shit show that is everything right now, I almost forgot that today is Federation Day. Yes, Federation Day, it's a holiday celebrating-wait, you know what? I do this every year so I'm going to spare you the explanation, click here if you want to catch up but otherwise, Happy Federation Day!

The lesson here is when life hands you a core breach in slow motion
because of you know, tachyons or whatever, go ahead and draw a smiley.

Pictured: pretty much this,
but in space. 

And what a Federation Day this is. It's the first in like ten years where there's a new Star Trek show to discuss. A Star Trek show that's bananas. Bananas foster even. But that's not a bad thing. Since we haven't really talked a lot about it since it started, I thought that we'd celebrate Federation Day this year by discussing the many ways in which Star Trek: Discovery is already batshit insane. Oh, and I should warn you that I'm going to spoil some things about the first four episodes, so you know, bail if you're not caught up.

Still there? Super. So Discovery is about Mr. Spock's heretofore un-mentioned sister Michael Turnham who mutinies, gets sent to prison but then gets assigned to a starship that travels through space powered by mushrooms and steered by a giant water bear, but we'll get there.

No really, mushrooms and water bears. You probably think I'm kidding but... 

To boldly go where-where...oh shit...
did they just-I think I'm going to be sick...

Micheal Burnham, Spock's sorta sister, failed to recover her Captain/mentor's body from the Klingon ship at the end of episode two and last week we found out that the Klingons ate her...they ate Michelle Yeoh. I mean...holy shit. We all knew this was going to be a darker Trek, and this happened off-camera but goddamn. This is up there with that time Picard and Riker phased Dexter Remick's head until it exploded. In thier defense, Remick was the host for some kind of alien, mind-controlling parasite, but exploding head's aren't really something you expect from Star Trek where Starfleet's whole deal is that they're supposed to solve their problems with words and not exploding heads. Once again: exploding head.

Courtmartialed or murdered in a face-
lift machine. Yes, that actually happened.

Speaking of not very Star Treky ways to approach space, one of Star Trek: Discovery's major running storylines so far is the conflict between the ship's crew-who are mostly scientists, and the Captain who's a 'shoot first ask questions never because everyone's dead kind' of guy. Usually the phaser happy malcontents on Star Trek are corrupt admirals who, by the end of the episode get their commence, usually getting exposed as traitors to the Federation's let's all get along philosophy and end up courtmartialed.

"I...well...but I could...goddamnit..."

-Captain Draco's Dad

But not Captain Lorca. He's sort of the anti-Picard, and because there's a war Starfleet's put him in charge of finding a way to defeat the Klingons. His plan so far is to bring the tardigrade monster that they found in episode three onto his ship and have Burnham poke it until she can determine how to use it against the Klingons. He's sort of like a less smarmy Paul Riser in Aliens. Less smarmy and with an even stupider plan. I mean, first of all they have one monster and there's like, millions of Klingons. His plan is to sick the water bear on all of them?

And even if he could train the water bear to eat Klingons, wouldn't they have to get it onto their ships? Yeah, there was that episode where Scotty beamed a bunch of tribbles over to the Klingon battlecruiser, you know, as a joke because Klingons hate tribbles, but they weren't at war then. They're probably not just going to let Discovery beam over a six-legged murder bear. Maybe if they say it's a candy-gram? I don't know.

Pictured: Scotty, shortly before he callously sends
thousands of living creatures to their deaths.

If you said the writers are
on 'all the drugs,' you win!

Speaking of the murder bear, we also learn in episode four that it's the key to making the spore drive work. Yeah, the ship is equipped with a drive that somehow allows instantaneous travel anywhere in the universe. Because mushrooms. Anyway, Anthony Rapp's character helped invent the technology, but can't get it to work, probably because it's preposterous. Then Burnham discovers that the aforementioned monster is also a super-computer which-when properly tortured-can navigate the mushroom network begging the question how many drugs is the writing team on?

Sure, these things all sound absurd, but is that a problem? Star Trek has always been kind of ridiculous. Humans evolving beyond intra-species conflict, replicators eliminating hunger and poverty and aliens who speak perfect, unaccented English thanks to an invisible universal translator. Yes, the Discovery ship travels via mushroom physics, but is that any less believable than dilithium crystals? I say keep it weird. Anyway, Happy Federation Day!

No really, the Enterprises runs on sea glass.
Mushrooms are like way more science by comparison.