This week on Star Trek: Discovery, new easter eggs were dropped, familiar characters were mentioned and we heard the name of a ship we all know and love.
Ships Named Enterprise
In the opening shot of this episode, Burnham and Tilly are running through the decks of the Discovery. Burnham was training Cadet Tilly for her officer’s test. As they were running (and wearing hilarious shirts that say “Disco” — short for Discovery) Burnham began explaining the steps to becoming an officer. “Today your goal is getting 6.5 seconds,” Burnham said, “then getting transferred to a Constitution class, like the Enterprise.” BOOM! This is our first reference to Star Trek’s most famous ship!
The Enterprise, as seen above, was one of the Starfleet’s first ships with deep space and warp capabilities. The NX-01 was helmed by Captain Jonathan Archer in the 2001 – 2005 series Enterprise. At this point in Star Trek history, the Enterprise NCC-1701 — the ship from Star Trek: The Original Series — is being helmed by Captain Christopher Pike. Both Pike and Archer were named last week, in the episode titled “Choose Your Pain.”
The mention of the Enterprise is like the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg for Trek fans. It was the first ship Trek fans were introduced to in The Original Series and is beloved by all fans of the second Star Trek series, Star Trek: The Next Generation. Captain Jean-Luc Picard helmed the 5th version of the Enterprise NCC 1701-D for seven seasons on Next Gen.
Like Father, Like Son
In the first two episodes of Star Trek: Discovery, we discovered that Michael had a relationship with Sarek. In episode three, Burnham mentioned a woman named Amanda, who helped raise her. This week’s episode, titled “Lethe” all but summed up Michael’s connection to this well-known Vulcan family. It turns out that Sarek and Amanda raised Michael as their own daughter. It was not a problem for them that she was human because their son was half-human and half-Vulcan. Who is that son? Spock. That’s right, Captain Kirk’s right-hand man, Commander Spock, is Michael’s brother.
In a memory triggered by a trance, Michael saw that Sarek had to choose between sending her to the Vulcan Science Academy or sending Spock. Spock was mentioned by name a few times in this trance, as Sarek recalled his greatest regret. Since neither Michael nor Spock were “pure Vulcans” they were both not allowed to apply.
Speaking of “pure” Vulcans, there were also references to Vulcan fanatics in this episode. Vulcan fanatics caused the explosion on Sarek’s ship, they also bombed the Vulcan Learning Center when Michael was a child. Vulcan fanatics, also known as logic extremists or Vulcan isolationists, were previously mentioned in the two-part Next Generation episode “Gambit.”
Ultimately, this episode was full of Trek canon and that’s what we love about it!
