Star Trek: Discovery - "Lethe"

==ALERT: CONTAINS SPOILERS==

Watched "Lethe" last night and was blown away by the character development in the episode. Sarek had seemed like such a good bloke when we had seen him in earlier episodes. But this episode reminds us once again that he is a difficult person. It makes us realise how Spock had so many problems with him growing up. Here he was doing the same thing to Michael, piling all these impossible expectations on her and making her feel inferior for not measuring up.

Like most Vulcans, he suppresses his own emotions. But also, like a proud person, he suppresses his own failings. He clearly has a sense of shame about what happened with the Vulcan Expeditionary Fleet, and he chose his own pride over revealing the truth of what happened to his daughter. That was why he let her live with the shame of thinking that she had not met his expectations. And after the mind meld, still suppressing what shames him, he pretends not to remember it.

I also liked the scene where Michael has her epiphany after confronting him. She will never be what he wants her to be, but he will never be what she wants him to be either, and that's okay. A very Star Trek-like attitude. I also remember Alison Bechdel having the same epiphany in the wonderful Are You My Mother? about her own mother.

I really loved what was happening with Lorca too. He disobeyed Starfleet Headquarters by going in gung-ho to rescue Sarek. But then he deliberately holds back from going in to rescue Admiral Cornwell. The difference of course is that if she actually gets killed by the Klingons she cannot relieve him of his command, so it's a real Breaking-Bad-style decision. It was unclear at the start of the series whether Lorca was a hero or a villain, but maybe he's slowly sinking into villainy.

So far this show has shown itself to be better with the characters than with the ideas. But that's okay, Deep Space Nine was the same. And yet the ideas still came out through the interplay with the characters. Both this show and Deep Space Nine are grittier and more realistic versions of Star Trek, and that's probably got much to do with why I like them so much.

I will pick this nit, however. Every time we see the Klingons talking to each other they are speaking in Klingon with English subtitles: kudos for the realism there. But in the opening scene with Sarek, he is on Vulcan, talking to another Vulcan, in English, a lapse in consistency.

P.S. On my train trips to and from work I am watching Mad Men. I was actually thinking that it would be really cool if Matthew Weiner was the showrunner for a Star Trek series. He likes to explore contemporary issues through the prism of another era, which Star Trek does too. He is also an incredible stickler for detail. You need that if you are going to run a Star Trek show because the fans are sooo picky! It's a big, complex fictional universe that's been created and they'll know if your Klingons are eating the wrong thing for breakfast.