Star Trek: Discovery season 1 episode 8 review: It doesn't get more classic Trek than music-emitting planets

After last week’s triumphant time loop episode, Star Trek: Discovery here delivers another answer to the vocal contingent of fans who complain it doesn’t ‘feel’ like Star Trek. What could be more Trek than a landing party encountering a race of peacenik energy beings on a planet that emits its own electromagnetic ‘music?’ Outside of William Shatner seducing a woman with green skin, that’s about as much in the tradition of Roddenberry et al as it’s possible to be.

Sadly, though, we also spend a lot of this episode in the company of the Klingons. Maybe it’s because this viewer hadn’t had his coffee yet, but Kingon mid-ranker L’Rell’s attempted defection with the captured Admiral Cornwell was baffling. Her disdain for Kol, her leader, for his lack of honour made sense, but that’s about it: L’Rell then went on a spree of double, triple and ultimately (maybe?) a quadruple cross, breaking Cornwell out of her cell then beating her to death when her plan to defect was rumbled, then swearing fealty to Kol, before being arrested by his goons for her rebellion.

It wasn’t even clear if Cornwell was dead, the repeated shots of her body definitely hinting that she was alive – but to what end? So much of how the Klingons are handled in STD works superbly, from the ballsy decision to do their scenes in the Klingon language to the ornate new redesign, it’s disappointing to see all this good stuff squandered by writing which was just confusing rather than complex.

The Klingon material does rather let down what’s otherwise a strong episode. The opening battle, where the Discovery tries but fails to rescue a ship under attack from six Klingon vessels, was spectacular and gave Jason Isaacs a chance to show just why his Captain Lorca is such a strong wartime leader. We’ve seen it’s a bad idea to share a bed with him, but he’s a handy man to have around in combat.

Even he can’t save their Federation Comrades, however, and so we switch to follow Burnham, Saru and Tyler as they explore Pahvo, a planet that’s essentially the planet from Avatar. All life on its surface is connected, and the energy it emits could be used to see through the ‘invisibility shielding’ the Klingons used to massacre the good guys in the opening scene.

The problem is, the energy creatures who live there (and look like something off a Yes album cover) aren’t used to visitors, and Federation protocol insists their resources can’t be used without their permission.

Saru sets about working out how to communicate with the Pahvians, and Burnham and Tyler set about one another. It’s very Trek that the build-up to their big kiss – their first not to get lost in a time loop – is around how Burnham is doomed to return to prison when the war ends, but about how she’s working to shorten the war anyway. Spock’s old standby about the needs of the many is rolled out, adapted, and these two are off to the races. There is a lot of speculation online that Tyler is a secret Klingon infiltrator that feels like a bit of a reach, but it would be a pretty fun twist, regardless of the sky-high suspension of disbelief it would need.

This all feels incidental, however, compared to the close look we get at Saru. We knew about his threat ganglia and how he comes from a species very much not at the top of its planet’s food chain, and it’s fun hearing (and seeing) how he can run at 80 kph, but we haven’t really explored how this genetically-imposed permanent state of fear might feel.

Turns out it sucks, which isn’t a huge surprise but does make Saru’s actions make sense. After the Pahvians communicate with him in a way that oddly resembles the galactic brain meme, he becomes convinced that their state of harmony is the only way to exist, and refuses to allow his comrades to continue their mission.

Things escalate, as they do, and before long Saru and Burnham are fighting as he smashes their communications uplink. This is equal parts a possession narrative and a sensitive taking of a character’s logic to its sensible end point, but it would be a shame if Saru was sin-binned for his actions, not least because of Doug Jones’s performance. He’s a specialist in acting under prosthetics, but is often dubbed in his best-known roles (like his work for Guillermo Del Toro in Hellboy and Pan’s Labyrinth), so one of the main pleasures in this show is seeing him get the showcase he deserves – we’ll find out what happens him next week, when this present brace of episodes comes to an end and we’ll finally see what all this Klingon nonsense has been building to.