The season premiere, “Brother,” hits some speed bumps as it careens towards a new mission.
[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for “Star Trek: Discovery” Season 2, Episode 1, “Brother.”]
The Season 2 premiere of “Star Trek: Discovery” definitely feels like the beginning of something. “Brother,” launching Thursday on CBS All Access, is all about establishing a new status quo, a new chain of command, and most importantly a new mission focused on exploration over conflict. Where that mission will take this ambitious yet flawed series, however, is as yet a mystery.
Picking up moments after Season 1 ended, Captain Pike (Anson Mount) of the U.S.S. Enterprise (you may have heard of it) comes on board Discovery with news from Starfleet — the Enterprise has been disabled by massive systems failure, so he’s taking command of the good ship Discovery to investigate some odd signals that “have the Federation’s hackles up.” That quest leads the Discovery to a rescue mission on a crumbling asteroid, but no real answers as yet to what those signals might be, or what Spock (a heard but not seen Ethan Peck) might be out investigating.
Lest we forget that Spock is Commander Michael Burnham’s (Sonequa Martin-Green) foster brother, “Brother” lays in flashbacks to their meeting as children, following the death of Burnham’s parents. Those who maybe spent Season 1 wondering what their relationship was like get some clues as a result, as Burnham admits that they were never really able to connect, for reasons that remain unknown but she clearly regrets. It’s never been exactly clear why, from the very beginning of the series, the show’s writers had integrated this connection between Burnham and Spock (beyond making it possible to feature Sarek as much as he was in Season 1). Thus, this may be the most important mystery for Season 2 to solve, and the end of the premiere sets up this potential.

Anson Mount in “Star Trek: Discovery.”
CBS
Directed by Alex Kurtzman, who is now officially running the show on his own following the mid-production firing of Gretchen J. Berg and Aaron Harberts (who had previously taken over for Bryan Fuller when he left the series prior to its premiere), “Brother” isn’t as rocky a ride as the descent down to the asteroid, but it’s also not exactly easy going. The introduction and quick demise of cocky science officer Connolly (literally smashed by an asteroid while mansplaining his navigational prowess to Burnham) is a joke that feels awfully mean for “Trek”; it’s one thing for viewers to make jokes about the red shirt phenomenon, but another for us to laugh at the death of a Starfleet officer.