Nerd out? On the internet? Ok...

"Homaaaaage!"

-Alterna-Spock, just

loosing his shit, again

Last week was the last new episode of Star Trek: Discovery until January so if you're not caught up, please get caught up so I can talk about it. I'll wait. Back? Ok. Now either buckle up or bail, because we're about to head into nerd territory. Still with me? Splendid. We're just nine episodes in and Discovery's been pretty great. There's certainly things I can criticize, but I'm just happy there's new Star Trek being produced that doesn't rely on ripping off-sorry, homages to the original series.

I know what your thinking: Discovery is chock full of references. And you're right, as a prequel the entire series is itself kind of an homage, but I don't think it's leaning on it as heavily as say, Enterprise. Yeah, I know I trot out Enterprise, specifically 'In a Mirror Darkly' everytime I want to rag on Star Trek for ripping itself off, but I mean look at this:

It's mirror universe Archer fighting a Gorn on the
Defiant; the ship that got lost in a dimensional rift
in The Tholian Web. It's an homage smoothy! 

"You know what I'm sick of Commander?
Caves. We live in the future and explore
space, so why are we always in caves?"

-Geordi, kind of over caves

There're some superficial things Discovery does differently that I really like. For example, the crew isn't constantly encountering aliens who look exactly like humans except with some magic marker spots or rubber forehead appliance. No preposertous appearances by historical figures like Samuel Clemens or Abraham Lincoln. And although the ship has some kind of proto-holodeck onboard, it hasn't, to date, malfunctioned. Oh, and this is kind of a first: so far, no caves. The crew of the Enterprise was always visiting alien planets and hanging out in budget-freidnly caves. It was weird.

Does nobody write music between
Carnival III and the 23rd century?

Of course, the show's not free of Trek references, Michael Burnham is Spock's secret foster sister he never mentioned before and captain Lorca's got a tribble in his ready room. And one of the best characters is Dwight from The Office playing Harry Mudd, but mostly the writers go out of their way to not be like other Star Trek things. We heard Wyclef Jean in episode seven instead of some obnoxious piece of classical music. Characters swear because sometimes you're getting tortured by Klingons and 'gosh darnit' isn't enough. Also not everyone is nice all the time.

Voyager's crew also had to struggle
with how to murder Neelix while
making it look like an accident. 

Don't get me wrong, one of the things I love about Star Trek is that it's set in a time in which people are supposed to have gotten past all their petty bullshit and get along with each other. The Federation is this shining utopia where you don't need money, there's free healthcare and everyone has a replicator. It's swell, but the best Trek stories put stress on that status quo. TNG had Q to show the humans how small and insignificant they are, Deep Space Nine threatened the Federation way of life with the Dominion War and Voyager took it away by having the crew lost in the Delta Quadrant.

At first glance it might look like Discovery is covering similar ground to DS9 with its war with the Klingons, but I think it's taking it from another angle. Instead of the external threat-which since it's set before the original series, we know the Klingons don't win-the show focuses more on asking how much of that shiny Federation utopian philosophy the characters are willing to compromise in order to survive.

Well, they're repeatedly stabbing a sentient alien
with needles to work their navigational system, so a lot?

"You murder your crew one time
and you never hear the end of it..."

-Captain Lorca

Like should Discovery keep using their spore drive even though it's harming the Tardigrade and later Stamets? Or should admiral Cornwell fire Captain Lorca for clearly being a monster? I mean, he is winning the war for them, but still, he did murder his last crew. It was to prevent their slow, painful deaths at the hands of the Klingons, but Picard would never do that...ok, except that one time he did exactly that in First Contact. Hm...bad example, but the point is she was going to fire Lorca before he tricked her into getting captured.

The point is that it's different enough from previous incarnations to feel like something new and fresh while at the same time keeping enough of the flavor of Star Trek that you don't feel like you're just watching Battlestar Galactica with Klingons. Oh, and can we talk about how Discovery boldly went where TNG should have gone like 30 years ago and had Trek's first kiss between two male characters? Because they did.

Way to go Star Trek. I mean Dawson's Creek beat you
to it by like 17 years, but still, welcome to the party.