7 Ups & 2 Downs From Star Trek: Discovery 5.9 — Lagrange Point
Two black holes; two teams for a Breen heist; two starships and worlds collide.
I thought time was supposed to slow down (relatively speaking) when the gravity gets a little stronger, like being in close proximity to two black holes. Instead, it's hurrying by at an alarming rate. We're already at episode nine, the penultimate of the entire series, regrettable as that is to write. Lagrange Point is, for all intents and purposes, the first of a two-parter to be concluded by next week's finale.
Contracted in screen time, although by no means to its detriment, Lagrange Point is also a relatively short episode by Star Trek: Discovery standards. It packs a punch, however, and a lot in, with its fewer minutes, all under the expert direction of Jonathan Frakes. In a duranium nutshell, it's a mini-heist movie, a cunning plan to get the encased Progenitors' technology back from Moll and the Breen.
Overall, I found Lagrange Point to be extremely entertaining, a well-executed episode of Star Trek with one hell of a ship-on-ship space battle near the end! There were a few differences of opinion this time between me and Seán, however. Perhaps we will go to war, after all! Only kidding… Let's not start a whoopsie-daisy! I'm sure we can all get along at that Breen 'party' we have this evening!
10. UP — Cold Open, Warm Bridge
The relatively lengthy cold-open to Lagrange Point begins on the dramatically twisty-turny at Federation HQ, as if the camera itself had been propelled there right out the spore drive from last week's 'Burnham Manoeuvre'. It ends on a hook which is equally a reversal, not of motion but of circumstance. Whilst not necessarily the most shocking put to screen, the Breen smash-and-grab of the Progenitor structure is up there with the best executed pre-credit turn-of-events.
When the Discovery crew jumps to the final coordinates of the clue trail, the literal gravity of the life-and-death situation doesn’t seem to hamper their spirits either. They all pull together, and once on the other side of some pretty high odds against them, there is a much-deserved pause for levity (almost) all-round.
"It's tonight somewhere. Do we have to wait?" We'll all join you for those drinks! No Detmer and Owosekun yet, but absolutely glorious work from commanders Asha and Jemison in their stead. The moment certainly made me chuckle as much as it did Captain Burnham. Jemison's deadpan, immediate reply to Burnham's request for an ETA on the Breen — "Right now!" — was also pure (operations) gold!