Nov 17, 2020
‘Star Trek Discovery’ Season 3 Episode 4: Forget Me Not
The U.S.S. Discovery makes a journey to the Trill homeworld in search of answers, by way of Adira’s memory of her past lives.
The Trill are a space fairing species that were first introduced in The Next Generation episode, The Host. In the episode, Commander William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) was temporarily joined with a Trill ambassador’s symbiont in order to continue crucial negotiations between two factions at the brink of war. The Odan symbiont’s rejection of Riker in that episode sets up the significance of Adira (Blu del Barrio) as the human host of the Tal symbiont, as no human host has ever been able to successfully join with a symbiont. In Forget Me Not, Discovery travels to the Trill homeworld, in order to help Adira recall a traumatic experience from her past, while the crew of Discovery attempts to deal with some pretty traumatic experiences of their own.
Season 3, Episode 4: Forget Me Not
The episode opens with Doctor Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz) giving a medical log on the current state of the crew. Although the crew seems physically intact after their unprecedented journey into the future, mentally they are not in a good place. Culber takes his finding to Captain Saru (Doug Jones), sending Saru on a mission of ascertaining a way to keep the crew connected after severing ties to all they know and love from the 2250s.
You must remain connected.
Saru’s mission to connect the crew to something meaningful presents a daunting challenge for the captain. Having the crew deal with such a traumatic event of this sort is unusual at best, but Saru is up for the challenge. Saru queries the ship's computer on ways to foster said connection, which initially results in less than ideal conventional suggestions to accomplish the goal. Next, in what may be one of the most interesting implications for Saru as captain of Discovery, and maybe for the ship as a whole, the computer screens begin to flicker and the computer's voice begins to phase, resulting in a huge personality change for Discovery’s computer. Ironically enough, the change doesn’t immediately alarm Saru, but he deduces that the Charon-entity data has somehow managed to merge with Discovery’s computer system, acting as the ship’s symbiont.
While not entirely discernable, the computer voice seems to morph into that of Zora from the Short Trek Calypso, which starred Annabelle Wallace as an advanced and almost sentient version of Discovery’s computer system. While the episode doesn’t really give us more on what that could mean for the show, it definitely lays down the breadcrumbs for a big change ahead.
Saru employs a thanksgiving-style dinner with the bridge crew in an attempt to form a sense of family. Unfortunately for the Saru, the similarities between the yearly holiday dinner and his attempt to bring the crew together have more in common than he would have anticipated. And if I were to equate our beloved crew to a real family; Saru would be the father figure, Keyla Detmer (Emily Coutts) and Joann Owasakun (Oyin Oladejo) would be sisters, Ronald Bryce (Ronnie Rowe Jr) and Gen Rhys (Patrick Kwok-Choon) would be brothers, Silvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman) would be the oddball of the family, Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp) and Hugh Culber would be cultured but sometimes mean uncles, while Phillipa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) would be the crazy Aunt.
Saru starts the dinner with a touching speech on the current state of their new shared reality. Each crew member is asked to reiterate the words they first spoke when agreeing to become a part of the journey into the future; resulting in a warm confirmation from each. Next, the party takes the challenge of creating impromptu haikus after Georgiou shocks everyone with a haiku of her own. As the challenge goes around the table, the lighthearted moment takes a disturbing turn when Detmer’s haiku results in a direct insult to Stamets, descending any would-be pleasantries into havoc; bringing an abrupt end to Saru’s well-intentioned feast.
Well, at least the wine was good. — Georgiou
The notion of the dinner descending into madness was certainly not a result that Saru could have foreseen, but in hindsight, it was the outcome that was needed for the crew to move past the pain of their reality. There was a certain amount of catharsis in the chaos; leading to the crew actually talking about their situation rather than keeping their feeling bottled up inside. Keyla Detmer mentions the pressures of being a pilot and how they are always portrayed as tuff and macho, leaving her alone to carry the weight of it all on her shoulders. The dinner also leaves Paul Stamets and Silvia Tilly in a better place, as Stamets finally gives Tilly her due credit for the work she’s done on the development of the spore drive.
Meanwhile, Discovery and her crew have arrived at the Trill homeworld. Culber urges Michael Burn (Sonequa Martin-Green) to accompany Adira to the planet, stating that her post-traumatic growth uniquely qualifies her to be to one to accompany Adira. While I do love the message in post-traumatic growth that Culber imploys, the notion that Burnham the best officer to accompany Adira on this mission seemed a bit contrived.
Upon arriving on the planet, we immediately learn the burn has left the Trill population decimated. Trill hosts are low in numbers and the continued existence of their species is at risk. What’s more, is that Adira is seen as an abomination to the species as she is not a Trill, but a human host. While Guardian Xi is confident that Adira may be the key to the continued prominence of the Trill symbiont, the other Trill council members see the human host as a direct threat to the species; so much so that Adira and Burnham are immediately asked to leave the planet and forgo any chance of Adira recovering the memory of her past lives. The journey to the shuttle is cut short when one of the Trill species insists on taking the Tal symbiont from Adira, leading Michael to defend the two, before a sympathetic Guardian Xi suggests Adira proceed to the Caves of Mak’ala despite council disapproval.
While the aesthetic of the Trill homeworld exterior scenes felt new and inviting (complete with flying fish), the look of the Caves of Mak’ala felt warm and familiar. As Adira enters the Trill pools in order to reclaim her memories, the story transitions into a story-telling mode that I usually abhor, being in someone’s head. With that in mind, I really disliked the parts of the story where we are in a void of sorts, where we see Adira attempting to connect with her symbiont's history. It felt like a way to unnecessarily inject Burnham into the story, though I can see the need to have some conflict here as a visual manifestation of why Adira had yet to connect with the symbiont. That being said, everything else in this memory sequence was extremely strong.
When it comes to Adira’s past, the show hit on all the right notes to convey the connection between Adira and Grey (Ian Alexander); not only providing a tragic backstory as to why Adira may be blocking the memories, but also an interesting connection to past lives that could be used going forward. There is something extra special about seeing Adira deal with Grey receiving the symbiont and how it changed their romantic relationship, gracefully displaying the nuance of how Grey Tal is different, but somehow still this same; a relationship concept we’ve seen play out in various ways in Star Trek’s past.
Then there is the overall tragedy of how Adira became Adira Tal and the implications thereof. Adira takes the Tal symbiont after her lover Grey Tal is killed, therefore taking all the memories of her lover along with the symbionts. Seeing how this is conveyed going forward in Discovery should be a fascinating thing to watch. In addition to the very touching but tragic flashbacks, we also get a great moment of Adira in communion with all the Tals. The visual and acceptance of that moment gave all the feels, allowing Adira Tal to emerge from the pools as a new and confident person; garnering the acceptance of the Trill council.
Lastly, we are left with Adira giving Discovery the coordinates to Starfleet headquarters, leading our crew along their next journey. While I have no predictions as to what they will find, I am really hoping to get more information on who or what may have caused the burn.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Saru confronting Paul Stamets on a spore drive replacement. A notion that Stamets finds borderline offensive. There is also something about Tilly’s suggestion of dark matter that really intrigued me, especially since the dark matter asteroid last season played an important part in her arc.
With Discovery, the mysteries keep coming. For as many questions that are answered, it seems that far more are raised. I continue to love being in the future, with no constraints and zero notion of what’s coming next. And that is just an added bonus to keep me coming back to these characters and this ship I love.
