‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Recap – ‘Short Treks’

Written by John Edward Betancourt 

​When it comes to streaming services and what they can offer, it really is a brave new frontier storytelling wise. Because there are no standard constraints that a streaming show has to abide by, it can air whenever is convenient, and it also allows for the universe of said series to expand in ways we never thought possible and for proof, just take a look at Star Trek: Discovery. Because not only does this series return tonight after a slightly longer than normal hiatus, so that CBS could properly tell this tale, but it also found a way to further expand adventures for the crew by way of four beautiful shorts called ‘Short Treks’ that started airing in the winter and just recently wrapped up and well, rather than examine every single one of them when they came out, I was eager to see what they had to offer as a collective whole and now seemed like a good time to break these stories down in brief fashion, starting with where this abbreviated jaunt through the stars began…
 
‘Runaway’
Now this first visual short story took us on a brief adventure with Ensign Tilly, who just so happened to discover that a stowaway had come on board the Discovery and in true Star Trek fashion, what made this short so compelling and interesting was the sheer fact that Tilly took the time to get to know the stowaway and offer this young lady kindness and understanding over anything else. And for her gentle approach, she came to learn that this unexpected visitor aboard the ship was in fact royalty, and someone who simply wanted to run at first from their destiny and honestly, this was quite the beautiful tale. Because not only did it expand upon Ensign Tilly and what makes her tick, it showed us how big of a heart she has and the kindness that she exudes was enough to influence this royal passenger to return home and embrace her role and it was just a nice way to remind us of how the characters are king in this universe and are always good at their core, regardless of the hardships they’ve faced.
 
‘Calypso’
Now this ‘Short Trek’ was definitely an unexpected and welcome surprise when all is said and done and I say that, simply because this particular chapter, was so incredibly unique. It revolved around a man named Craft whose escape pod was brought aboard a deserted U.S.S. Discovery, and since the ship had been abandoned for a millennium, the computer system had become sentient and identified itself as Zora and well, she and Craft worked to make friends and well, you just don’t see stories like this in Star Trek. And it was a surprisingly majestic tale revolving around how lonely a place the universe can sometimes be and how important it is for any sentient being to have friends and loved ones and the twist of man becoming friends with a hidden machine was simply wonderful to say the least and while this one took me off guard at first glance because of its unique style storytelling wise, this is one that’s grown on me the more I’ve had time to think about it, and it really is an impressive little tale, and one has to wonder if the abandoned ship plot line will come up again in season two of the series.
 
‘The Brightest Star’
Now the third tale, may flat out be my favorite of the bunch, and it’s one that features Commander Saru long before he became a Starfleet Officer. In fact, in this tale, we see him back on his home world of Kaminar and well, what we learned about his pre-officer years and his world was downright fascinating. For his species believed in balance, the kind brought about by self-sacrifice to a neighboring species and his kind were utterly fine with this. They never questioned their purpose, they merely believed that their respective God guided them to this path, and they all waited patiently for their time to come to be sacrificed and that didn’t sit well with Saru. He wondered if there was more to life in general and more out there amongst the stars, and used a piece of a ship from the aliens that take his people to communicate with Lieutenant Georgiou aboard the U.S.S. Shenzhou, allowing for him to escape this place before his time was up and what made this story so beautiful and inspiring, was that it reminded us to dream big and ask for more in life, and pursue it, because the rewards far outweigh the risk or the alternative…
 
‘The Escape Artist’
Now the final ‘Short Trek’ in this collection brings the saga to a close, in the most entertaining way possible by reintroducing Rainn Wilson’s iteration of Harry Mudd and well…this particular episode is truly a delight. Because Wilson also directs this one and we spend a fair chunk of this tale, learning exactly how Mudd gets out of the many jams he finds himself within and watching Wilson provide us with an unrestrained Mudd here, and the fact that this episode almost serves as a prequel to ‘Mudd’s Women’ from The Original Series put a smile on my face for this entire short, because this story was downright hilarious. There was no deeper meaning to be found here, or grand philosophy, just good old-fashioned fun and I think that was a wonderful way to wrap up these vignettes and I won’t lie, this was a really cool set of stories to put together for Trek fans. I’ve just never seen this when it comes to the franchise, and now that we are all done with ‘Short Treks’ for now, I’m ready and raring to go for season two of Star Trek: Discovery.

---