Star Trek: Discovery - Episode Guide - Season 4
Another season of Discovery, another season-long story arc for the crew of the now-ancient ship! Of course, technically speaking, the Discovery itself has been upgraded with the technology of the 31st century; on the other hand, the AI-driven ship also still boasts the amazing spore drive allowing the immediate travel to all parts.
And that spore drive is given quite the workout in season four. As an entire planet is destroyed by an anomaly apparently controlled by heretofore uncontacted aliens, Discovery is sent to all corners of the quadrant, from Earth to beyond the galactic barrier and back again, in an attempt to cease the unthinkable destruction.
While the entire season answers to the overriding story arc, Discovery season four does include a few (nearly) bottle episodes, such as the classic doomed away team trope of episode 4, “All is Possible” and the action-adventure riddled with shady characters of episode 8 (“All In”). Some clunkers are included in the lot and the consistency is highly variable, but standout episodes save the overall effect.
Star Trek: Discovery episode guide – Season 4
- Kobayashi Maru – Like season 4 overall, the debut episode starts slowly but raises stakes quickly. It begins benevolently enough, with Burnham and Book through technological goodwill hoping to return Alshain IV to Federation membership despite a rather humorous misunderstanding about Grudge the Maine coon cat/queen. Onto Book’s home planet of Kwejian, where there’s just enough time to learn a little about the culture and fauna before it gets hit by one great big…***
- Anomaly! Sure enough, Kwejian is gone and, as the sole starship immediately on the scene, the Discovery is tasked with analyzing this massively destructive anomaly. Soon, the cosmically orphaned Book is flying his own ship into the belly of the havoc-wreaking beast to suprising success – though the success is naturally short-lived. In the B-plot, Dr. Culber transfers the consciousness of Gray into a new host body, and Jean-Luc Picard gets name-dropped. Oh, and Saru is back! (Ah, you knew he wouldn’t be gone for long….)***
- Choose to Live – The story of J’Vini of the Qowat Milat, the Romulan order of warrior nuns seen in Picard season 1, becomes Starfleet public enemy no. 1 when she kills a Starfleet officer in the perpetrating of her fourth dilithium heist. As for the overarching question of the anomaly, Book and Stamets roadtrip it to Ni’var with the data garnered by Book. ***
- All is Possible – It’s a Tilly-focused episode and about time, honestly. (Yes, she did get that one star turn in Short Treks, but still.) Tilly leads an away team of cadets in a mission that unshockingly goes south quickly, ultimately fulfilling the ST trope and ganis knowledge about leadership; this in turn is parlayed into a job at Starfleet Academy, for which she departs immediately. In a mission lower impact but higher stress than Tilly’s, Burnham and Saru exercise their diplomacy muscles as Ni’var continues negotiations to rejoin the Federation. ****
- The Examples – The anomaly has reappeared some 1,000 light years from its previous position and is headed for the Radvek asteroid belt. Enterprise is sent to evacuate the Emerald Chain colony there, though leadership attempts to leave a group of prisoners on the surface to die. And joining the crew to participate in some data-crunching is Ruon Tarka, one serious and genius-level Risan. ***
- Stormy Weather – Discovery enters a void created by the passage of the anomaly through space and is immediately trapped inside. Somehow connected are the hallucinations Book is suddenly having. One would think that a sentient character would be of assistance here, but nope: Zora, the consciousness of the ship, is having a psychological crisis. If you can ever have padding in a 14-episode season, this it. **
- ...but to Connect – The Zora subplot threatens to throw the entirety of season 4 off the rails in this one, with the sentient ship figuring out the location of the anomaly’s creators but refuses to divulge the information for fear of the crews safety. Arguments ensue, and a rather silly decision is reached regarding Zora’s future. Meanwhile, Tarka and Book get chummy and set off to destroy the anomaly. *
- All In – The episode that answers the question “Will they still be playing Texas Hold ‘Em 1,000 years in the future?” Okay, so technically the card game involved is Leonian poker (Can you go allin in Leonian poker…?) and Lt. Comm. Owosekun participates in some hardcore alien MMA, but the resonances of 20th-century gaming resound nonetheless. As Burnham and Book seek out the same black-market broker – the former for information, the latter for isolynium to power up an anomaly-destroying weapon. Tons of action and fun rule the day, the sort of story at which the big-budget Discovery excels. ****
- Rubicon – Security officer Nhan returns to Discovery just in time to engage in a race to the heart of the anomaly. A slow-moving plot is goosed when Tarka finally seems to succeed in destroying the so-called DMA, but this season ain’t over yet…**
- The Galactic Barrier – “To boldly go where the crew of the Enterprise NCC-1701 did in season 1 of The Original Series...” As the name suggests, the latest task has been set by Federation bigwigs as establishing first contact with Species 10-C, who are discovering to inhabit space beyond the titular boundary. In addition, Tarka reveals the motivation behind his obsession (sort of) having to do with an old prison buddy and a parallel universe. **
- Rosetta – In seeking Species 10-C, Discovery happens upon a dead planet dotted with alien skeletons. The crew deduces both that the species abandoned the planet and that they can communicate through hydrocarbon emissions. In sabotaging the main computer and stealthily piggyback their ship onto Discovery, Tarka and Book take Engineer Reno hostage. ***
- Species Ten-C – Now *this* is some proper Star Trek. The Discovery crew indeed makes contact with Species 10-C, but how does one communicate with a species that doesn’t actually speak? A fantastic science-fiction mystery story that would enrapture the Hoshi Satos and Nyota Uhuras of the Federation, not to mention Star Trek fans. The predictable penultimate-episode B-plot involving Reno turning Book against Tarka bogs things down a wee bit, but in general this episode is an exemplar of this series’ true potential. ****
- Coming Home – A decent conclusion to the series which ties up any number of plotlines, from communicating to Species 10-C to Book’s redemption and tormented angst to the inclusion of Ni’var and/or Earth in the Federation. Hate on Discovery if you must, but how any Star Trek fan could not admire the intelligence and optimism with which this crew and this series concludes one long narrative… ***
So after reconnecting the disparate societies of the former Federation and saving perhaps the entire galaxy, where does Discovery go from here? Where no one has gone before, we dare say…