FAR FROM HOME

The second episode of the new season certainly packed a few great and gruesome moment for our freshly arrived crew and our hero ship with many surprising moments. Far From Home is a perfect title for this episode as it does feel like the crew of Discovery has to face with this brand new world that they know nothing about yet. Dangers, surprises, personal transporters, parasitic ice and guns with torture settings. Let's see how this episode hold up against the first one.

FIRST IMPRESSION

I have to admit after reading many of your comments on my previous episode review I must say I was a bit harsh in that review. the episode was not bad, but for me it felt less exciting than "Move Along Home" - yes, I'm weird! :) Jokes aside I must say that this episode felt much more like Discovery and much liked it too. The visuals were stunning as always, Iceland still looks distant and beautiful with a touch of gritty that this episode introduced us to. The future still seems dangerous and wild, but I love that "old fashioned" optimism and hope that the crew put into the situation. Seeing Saru taking command and trying to take control of Georgiou is a refreshing dynamic for sure, also seeing more of Reno was helping lighten the mood in the dangerous situation.

The setting was stunningly beautiful and with the introduction of the parasitic ice we got something new to talk about. Living ice... almost felt like the living snow in episode Snowman in Doctor Who. I know this has nothing to do with Discovery, but as a fellow Whovian I appreciated this in a strange new level. An ice that can live and eat up things that are not ice. Cool... literally! :)

WHAT's  UP  WITH  DETMER?

Probably the biggest question right now is the situation with Detmer. What on Earth is up with her? She seemed like someone who was dead after they exited from the time jump and than after crashing the ship safely to the planet she seemed disorientated, lost and now herself. This is definitely going to be one of the secret of this season and might I say I love the fact that we get "secondary" characters - and I use the term with care - as a subplot. it feels more like an old fashioned Star Trek show and now thinking back Tilly, Stamets and Culbert had their fair share of stories in the first two season I somehow never really acknowledged before, so here we go, I have surprised myself for once.

HUGH  FEELS  OVERLY  HIMSELF

I know this should not be an issue in any level and I'm glad that our good doctor has finally returned to his own self, but I could not help wonder how different he was when we left before season 2 after spending time in the discovery version of "Upside Down." again, nothing wrong with it, I'm glad that he is himself and also that he is funny, but it feels a bit too soon for me...

Bandits  of  the  saloon

I could not help but seeing a typical "western" moment in the arrival o the bar scene. Tilly and Saru walks in and suddenly everyone is looking at them reaching for their guns... and even when Zareh and Co showed up, their boots had that sound of an old cowboy booth. Nicely done, a very nice touch to the old fashioned western movies or might I say the "space western" style that back in the days Gene sold the show. I'm not sure is this supposed to be a nice little homage or simply a coincidence, but for me that elevated the episode. 

Discovery  is  still  violent  for  me

Parasitic ice on its own it's a bit concerning, but as a life form it's not bad, it's just feeding. I'm much worried about these new guns that seems like now can torture you instead of a quick vaporise or stun mode, but than again, it's the future and there's no federation as we know it, so i guess people can do whatever the hell they want with weapons we have not seen before. The bar fig scene was quite violent as well. For sure Saru and Georgiou showed us once more that we should not piss them off otherwise we gonna get hurt, however the Emperor did more damage than our Kelpian. It's funny though how her disobedience actually helped Saru and Tilly out in this rather dangerous situation. 

Georgiou is still one of those characters I would have loved to see as the Captain who we lost in the first episode of Discovery as this one is just a killing machine. I'm not sure how exactly she handled Leland after their fight in the last season finale, but that gooey flash remains did make my tummy feel unwell. Poor "Hazmat" Gene who was cleaning that up seemed fine though... maybe not his first mission doing that kinda things.  

Confusions

Now this is my usual nit-picking segment and there's not much, but there is a few thing I would love to know about as I have not yet figured it out myself. So the first thing is the parasitic ice... Discovery get's covered with it and they basically land on the damn thing that slowly starts building up around the ship. as we got to know from Zareh no one is safe out there after sunset. So unless if there's other things to be concerned about I guess the ice is already quite a serious thing that can eat - well, pretty much anything I gather. So when Saru and Tilly leaves Discovery they walk through the ice and they did not get that infection with them? Or maybe was it too "hot" for the parasite to stuck in their booth? Who knows, I'm not a parasite expert. :)

The other thing that kind of left me puzzled that Zareh was asking our two crew member to bring him to Discovery... Well, he did arrive with a ship with - I imagine - has better scanners than anything from the 23rd century, so why did they need them to take them there? Could not he just showed up and get what he wanted at the first place? Maybe I'm over thinking this one and he is actually nice and did not want to barge in and holding "prisoners" instead for something for an exchange.

CONSLUSION

This episode was good. I was not crying out of joy of banding my head to the wall... it was a good episode. It was good to see our crew coming back and having hose little interactions. I think Saru definitely stepped up his game as a commander in chief and the dynamic between him and the Emperor was something I have not seen before. He is a big surprise and Doug Jones really sold his act to me, good points for that. I loved the ice and the familiar faces from Enterprise and that the crew finally reunited with Burnham is certainly a great thing to see. 

So overall the episode was good, enjoyed it much more than the previous one, but I might have to watch them again together and see if my initial rating can be raised, which I will be updating you guys on at some point. as for now this episode earned a solid 3.5/5 for me and as before I'm looking to hear your thoughts as well. :) _\\//