6 Ups & 5 Downs From Star Trek: Discovery 5.6 — Whistlespeak
10. UP — For Science, La Abuela, And Linguistic Xenoanthropology
There is little more that says Star Trek than opening on three glorious geeks analysing a vial of, as it turns out, still just distilled water ("… and wet," don't forget wet!). The brilliant amalgam of science and humour in this scene of Whistlespeak with Burnham, Stamets, and Tilly is worth the UP alone. Solving the clue might be proving challenging, but Captain Burnham seems invigorated by the quest: "If chemistry isn't the solution, try history, anthropology…" she tells Tilly and Stamets. "On it!" Tilly replies. Sheer science perfection!
In this episode, we also got to 'meet' (so to speak) Doctor Culber's previously discussed grandmother (his 'abuela'), who really deserves an UP just for herself, even if her appearance is only (and can only be at this stage) in the form of the "Grief-Alleviation Therapeutic Hologram" with "brainwave patterning" that her grandson is trialling.
As Culber opens up to the holographic representation of his grandmother about his feelings post-Trill, he at first believes she/the program has misinterpreted what he has been telling her. She corrects him, however, rather eloquently:
I also trained you to be a doctor, a man of science. How can we consider the soul, when you have not yet examined the body?
A neural scan a day, keeps the… Wait. Huh. No. I lost it.
Another absolute highlight of the episode was getting to see Burnham back in full-on xenoanthropologist mode, a role she had held as first officer of the USS Shenzhou. Burnham's passion for the subject is clear to see, played to perfection (as always) with wide-eyed wonder by Sonequa Martin-Green, as she pores over the Halem'nite whistlespeak linguistic data.
The scene was particularly fascinating for this language nerd, and it got me intrigued about all the extant whistled languages on Earth today. Not to get on my digital soap box, but you really "can learn so much about a society by the way the individuals speak to each other"!! 'Dust' as a synonym for 'pain' they might also want to note down for later!