The crew of the Discovery has hit another snag on their attempts to return home: the files on the Defiant have been redacted of all useful information. Because Stamets remains out of commission and it has still somehow not occurred to an entire ship full of scientists that they could just make another pilot for the spore drive, Burnham has no choice but to infiltrate the imperial palace-ship in search of more information.

This is, of course, a monumentally stupid idea, and it ends about as well as you’d expect.

Meanwhile, Voq’s clash with Tyler’s memories begins to tear his mind apart, and Stamets finds his consciousness adrift in the mycelial network, where a dark force threatens to tear down all realities.

Now, there are actually some things I like about “Vaulting Ambition.” Stamets’ story, in particular, is really well done. It’s great sci-fi, with a real feeling of something epic brewing, and it also brings about some of the most heartfelt scenes in this series to date.

Also, the Terran Empire’s palace-ship is incredibly cool. It’s sort of like a cross between a Star Destroyer and the Spear of Adun, and it’s just all kinds of badass and amazing.

Everything else, though?

Errr…

Well, Tyler/Voq is still a mess. Last episode was all about how the conflict between Tyler’s memories and Voq’s personality was gone and only Voq now remained, but now all of a sudden the two sides are in constant war with one another. Because reasons!

This arc now seems to have found a kind of resolution; it’s terribly rushed and makes no sense, but really, what could they have possibly done to salvage this dumpster fire of a story at this point?

“Vaulting Ambition” also manages to give me an entirely new cause for complaint that I’ve never had about a TV episode before: It’s super short. Barely more than half an hour. I mean, I may not love this show, but at least give me my money’s worth…

My other big issue with this episode is another major spoiler. Well, not really, because most everyone saw this coming, but I’ll still give you a chance to leave just in case.

Obligatory dummy paragraph so you can go.

Okay? Okay.

So, yeah, Lorca’s from the Mirror Universe.

Much like the Voq/Tyler reveal, this takes an interesting character and makes them boring. I never liked Lorca, but I did think he made the show interesting. It was fascinating to see a captain so far gone from Starfleet’s ideals. I was expecting some kind of Section 31 twist or some other story of corruption within Starfleet, or some commentary on how war makes monsters of us all.

That, ironically, would have delivered on the themes that Discovery’s Mirror arc seems to have been trying (and failing) to paint. The idea that the seed of darkness exists in all of us.

But nah, he’s just from the evil universe. Who needs intelligent social commentary when you can have cheap shock value?

Really, that’s Discovery’s motto right there.

I’m also a little uncomfortable with the revelation he’s a sexual predator (maybe even a pedophile). In all fairness, I probably shouldn’t be. There’s no rule that says Star Trek can’t touch on such themes. It’s darker than the franchise usually goes, but there’s nothing necessarily wrong with going dark places.

I guess it just feels like, again, cheap shock value. Lorca was already evil enough. Did he really need to be a child-molester, too? Could this show be any less subtle?

And I don’t really trust Discovery to handle this properly, especially given the show’s massively insensitive handling of the topic of sexual assault in the past.

I do feel a little bad for trashing this show in every review. I know a lot of people are enjoying Discovery (somehow), and I don’t like raining on people’s parades. I should probably just stop watching — I’m basically hate-watching at this point — but I’m invested enough that I kind of want to see how the season ends. I very much doubt I’ll show up for season two.

I suppose I could stop doing the reviews, but I do find it cathartic to have a good rant after each episode.

Well, there’s only a few episodes left.

Overall rating: 5/10

Well, this is better than last week’s disaster, even if that’s not a high bar to clear.

“The Wolf Inside” sees Burnham continue to struggle to maintain her cover in the Mirror Universe. When she’s ordered to massacre a group of rebels, she seeks alternate solutions, seeing the multi-racial insurgents as a pale shadow of the Federation of her own reality.

I really enjoyed this hopeful, idealistic Burnham. I wonder if she’s met the Michael Burnham who started a war with the Klingons out of blind racism.

This is another episode that hearkens back to Star Trek’s traditional identity — full of adherence to an idealistic morality — and it’s nice to see, but it’s starting to just feel like paying lip service. It’s like every few episodes the writers are like, “Oh, right, this is a Star Trek show. Better throw in a couple quick lines of moral pontificating.”

Because there isn’t a whole lot of depth here. The Mirror Universe is too much a cartoon parody of evil for this philosophizing about the potential for darkness within us to have any real resonance. One or two instances of the protagonists demonstrating basic decency does not a profound message make. Any claims to diversity or inclusiveness have been rendered moot by Discovery’s consistently shabby treatment of anyone who isn’t white or Burnham.

Also, the Tyler/Voq arc is still a mess. They’ve really painted themselves into a corner here. They can’t wrap it up too fast because it’s too integral to the both the main plot and the character arcs, but I really find nothing at all appealing about it, for all the reasons mentioned in my last review.

A betrayal story works best when the traitor is someone who should know better. Someone who was once good, or appeared that way, but fell from grace. Their bonds with the other characters need to be real for severing those bonds to mean anything.

There was never anything decent in Voq. It was all just smoke and mirrors. The stolen memories of a dead man. He’s just a monster. He can’t truly betray the Discovery crew because he was never really one of them. Emotionally, it all falls flat.

Once again, the highlight comes from Tilly. Oh, her story is boring and predictable in the extreme, but Mary Wiseman plays it so well.

She is too good for this show.

It occurs to me this reads as another very critical review, despite the fact “The Wolf Inside” was really a pretty decent episode. But that’s the risk in an arc-based series like this. If the entire arc is based on fundamentally weak premises, it kind of sucks the fun out of everything.

Other Star Trek shows had rocky first seasons, too, but in those cases you could just shrug and move on after every bad episode. Each week brought a fresh start.

Discovery doesn’t have that luxury. Its stumbles just keep accruing, threatening to sabotage the whole series. To paraphrase the great Sir William Talent, Discovery dug a hole so deep it’s going to drown in its mistakes.

Overall rating: 7/10