Context Is for Kings (DIS)

Star Trek: Discovery, Series 1, Episode 3. First broadcast on Sunday 1 October 2017. Stardate: Unknown (2256). This week, disgraced Starfleet officer Michael Burnham falls down the rabbit hole, where she finds an unsettling mirror image of her previous life: a crew regarding her with suspicion, a captain manipulating her with falsehoods, and a Starfleet obsessed with operational security. And then the slavering monster shows up.

Star Trek: Voyager, Series 2, Episode 8. First broadcast on Friday 13 October 1995. Stardate: Unknown (2372). This week, Voyager is beset by a bunch of crazy Star Trek crap — involving china cups, sandwiches and curly-headed moppets, for the most part — but after 45 minutes we still have no idea why it happens or how we should feel about any of it. Still, Kate is awesome, as usual, and that counts for quite a lot.

Star Trek: Enterprise, Series 4, Episode 13. First broadcast on Friday 4 February 2005. Stardate: Unknown (2154). This week, the middle episode of a mid-range arc in the middest of all the shows in the Star Trek franchise. Trip and Malcolm are trapped in various rooms pressing buttons, while the Tellarites and Andorians are on their usual space alien bullshit. Harmless.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Series 2, Episode 9. First broadcast on Thursday 3 August 2023. Stardate: 2398.3. Strange New Worlds jumps genres this week to create something hitherto inconceivable in Star Trek: a high-stakes space problem that can only be solved with a massive, heartfelt musical finale.

Star Trek: Voyager, Series 6, Episode 7. First broadcast on Wednesday 10 November 1999. Stardate: 53167.9. This week, the crew of the USS Voyager awaken an ancient evil and unleash it upon the Delta Quadrant: the Vaadwaur, a phantom army that appears out of thin air, destroys entire colonies, and vanishes in the blink of an eye — but whose soldiers’ physiognomy is such that few men can find them afterwards.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Series 4, Episode 23. First broadcast on Monday 13 May 1996. Stardate: 49904.2. There’s a get-to-know-you buffet at 1930 this week, as the crew of the Defiant team up with the Jem’Hadar to fight some Jem’Hadar rebels who want to take over the Galaxy. And, surprisingly late in the series, we get the first appearance of Jeffrey Combs as Weyoun.

Star Trek: Picard, Series 2, Episode 6. First broadcast on Thursday 7 April 2022. Stardate: Unknown (12–13 April 2024). This week: a party. The crew of La Sirena turn up at a lavish black-tie gala for some top-quality character work, only to be overshadowed by an incredible musical number by Alison Pill and a lovely scene of kindly encouragement from Patrick Stewart. But then they find themselves overshadowed, in turn, by the ineffable hotness of Santiago Cabrera.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Series 1, Episode 17. First broadcast on Sunday 23 May 1993. Stardate: 46925.1. Three plots for the price of one this week on Deep Space Nine. In reverse order of importance: (C) we all stand around in Ops talking about the computer; (B) Julian gets some funny lines and a pleasantly unsurprising character arc; and (A) Odo and Lwaxana are trapped in a lift together with nothing to do but some amazing and even quite moving acting. Underrated, but mostly by people who don’t enjoy things that are good.

Star Trek: The Next Generation, Series 6, Episode 15. First broadcast on Monday 15 February 1993. Stardate: Unknown (2369). When Q first turned up on the Enterprise bridge in 1987, he came to teach all of humanity a lesson about its terrible past. But this week his mission is more personal: to teach Picard how much he owes his young, undisciplined self, and to remind us that youth is silly and difficult, and that the people living through it deserve our respect. (On that topic, if you wish to see the inspiration for Joe’s preferred 1990s hairstyle, you should check out the cover of Star Trek: The Next Generation — Boogeymen (1991) by Mel Gilden.)

Star Trek: Voyager, Series 6, Episode 5. First broadcast on Wednesday 20 October 1999. Stardate: Unknown (2376). Sometimes everything just comes together — a dull script, routine design, a generic score, perfunctory direction, an uncharismatic leading man and a guest star’s strange and flaccid performance. Meanwhile, on Star Trek: Voyager, Tom screams at his long-suffering girlfriend after falling in love with a car or something.