8 Ups & 2 Downs From Star Trek: Discovery 5.7 - Erigah

Before we get into what is my (second ever) Ups & Downs for the seventh episode of Star Trek: Discovery's fifth season, just a quick reminder that these are very much in addition to Seán's video each week. I won't put an Erigah on you if you start with that one, but I hope you remember to check out the article too!

I'd say season five just keeps getting better and better. Erigah continues on with the bold and thoroughly captivating storytelling, at times ramping up the tension to the loftiest of zeniths, accompanied by a truly majestic score, and then releasing it as only Star Trek can with round table discussion and diplomacy.

This season has also been historic for its highly creative and beautifully executed additions to Trek lore. Who thought going in that we'd be learning so much about the Breen? Not me, that's for sure, but I'm loving it, even as I am furiously noting every detail! In that, Erigah does not disappoint, telling us yet more about the Breen, whilst managing not to beat us over the (bucket) head about it.

Properly and to the point, Erigah's a lot to do with it in Erigah. When Uncle Ruhn and co. come knocking to claim the bounty on L'ak and Moll's heads and double face, a dramatic stand-off erupts between Breen forces on one side and the Federation on the other. All the while, Stamets, Tilly, and Adira must continue to work to solve the clue from tower five, as Culber gets a little chilly!

As this season of Star Trek: Discovery edges inevitably towards its finale, we will have to find more and more reasons to console ourselves that it is the series' last. Filming on season five began nearly two years ago now. Then, in the interim of 2023, Discovery was cancelled, and additional scenes — a coda — were shot.

Aside from going out on a high (consolation number one), and getting the addendum (consolation number two), it does feel somehow like this season was always planned to be the last, even though it wasn't. As Discovery showrunner Michelle Paradise told a panel at the SXSW conference in Texas in March 2024 (via TrekCore),

We didn't have to go back and chop up episodes and change a bunch of things. […] I think people who don't know that we didn't know going in that it would be our last season will have no idea that we didn't know. I think it will have felt planned.

That is some sort of consolation (number three), or, as actress behind the Tilly-isms Mary Wiseman told Mick Joest at CinemaBlend, a "kind of kismet".

Such serendipity, like lightning (contrary to popular belief), can strike in the same place more than once. Commander Nhan, of Barzan badassery, only appeared in one episode of Discovery's fourth season (Rubicon). Discovery could have been cancelled, season five could have happened without her, and we might never have seen the character again.

It is our extra good fortune, therefore, that Nhan makes a re-appearance in Erigah, (re-)introduced with much merited visual theatricality as the camera pans over the Discovery and down through a window to reveal both she and Captain Burnham on a walk-and-talk, reminding us of similar camera moves in the season two episode Brother, as Burnham and Saru walk down a corridor to the transporter room where they meet Nhan for the first time.

Nhan also comes out swinging in Erigah — figuratively — at Book. The sardonic jibes fly. "Oh, lots of trust there!" Nhan retorts. "The last time I saw you, also a personal situation, you fired on Discovery […]." The Commander does have a point, and she expresses it gloriously! Book's attempt to see Moll (as she is about to be beamed in) was a little presumptuous! Later, the badass Barzan comes in most literally swinging in hand-to-hand combat with Moll.