Discovery Review: “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum” and “Into the Forest I Go”

The last two episodes take the Discovery where no one has gone before…. And we won’t know where that might be until January.

Titles: “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum” and “Into the Forest I Go”

Directed by John S. Scott, Chris Byrne
Written by Kirsten Beyer, Erika Lippoldt and Bo Yeon Kim

Cast
Sonequa Martin-Green as Michael Burnham
Jason Isaacs as Captain Gabriel Lorca
Shazad Latif as Ash Tyler
Anthony Rapp as Paul Stamets
Doug Jones as Saru
Wilson Cruz as Dr. Hugh Culber
Kenneth Mitchell as Kol
Mary Chieffo as L’Rell
Jayne Brook as Vice-Admiral Katrina Cornwell
Mary Wiseman as Sylvia Tilly
Emily Coutts as Keyla Detmer
Clare McConnell as Dennas
Sara Mitich as Airiam
Patrick Kwok-Choon as Rhys
Conrad Coates as Admiral Terral

Premise:

Burnhan, Tyler, and Saru explore an alien planet and inadvertently make first contact. As Saru overidentifies with the mysterious inhabitants, we learn the planet lies in the path of the warring Klingons.

Burnham, Tyler, and Stamets risk their lives to take out’s Ship of the Dead. We learn how Tyler survived Klingon imprisonment and torture, and realize all is not well in his brain.

The episodes end with an unplanned stop, as the series heads into hiatus until January.

High Point:

The episode maintained the tension, and raised suspicion about the survival and the mental stability of important characters.

Low Point:

Kol’s ship has cloaking technology, and technology exists that permits the Federation spies to detect a single human on board the Klingon vessel—but, somehow, the Klingon security system is so lax two humans can walk around the ship undetected.

The sexual aspect of Latif’s trauma has been handled on TV before, but more often with female characters.

The Scores:

Originality: 3/6

Effects: 6/6 The show has some excellent visuals. Roddenberry and company could only dream of space shots like these.

Acting: 5/6 Shazad Latif gives a strong performance as a traumatized man.

Production: 6/6

Story: 4/6

Emotional Response: 5/6 These episodes evoke the original series. “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum” takes us on location to a world with an apparent problem. “Into the Forest I Go” has the captain ignore Starfleet ‘cause he knows what’s best, and collect accolades when his Kirking around saves the day.

Overall: 5/6

In total, “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum” and “Into the Forest I Go” receive 34/42

4 replies on “Discovery Review: “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum” and “Into the Forest I Go””

  1. I wondered about that security system thing, too. Then I realized that it all the security systems in the world don’t help if nobody actually looks at them or enables them and the Klingons (or at least that batch of them) do seem to be arrogant enough to assume their ginormous planet killer is invincible, at least against the inferior humans. Also, that ship is *huge* so there’s a really good chance that they’re understaffed, especially given how Kol came to possess the ship. Also, “pattern maskers”.

    Not saying there isn’t a problem. Just that it may not be as much of a plot hole as it seems on the surface. Then again, Star Trek has always shopped for scripts at Plot Holes ‘R’ Us.

    • We went through the same discussion at my place. Even a line acknowledging one of those things might be helpful.

      Even for an understaffed ship, their plan verges on plot black hole syndrome.

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