Star Trek Discovery "Forget Me Not" - Detailed Analysis & Review

In the fourth episode of Star Trek Discovery Season 3, Forget Me Not, we pay a visit to the Trill homeworld, only seen once before in the DS9 episode Equilibrium. There, Adira hopes to find a way to connect with the memories of her symbiont. Meanwhile, Saru tries to help the crew deal with the emotional issues they're facing since leaving their lives behind.

This episode had some fantastic character moments, and I'm loving the way they're developing Detmer's character. It was also wonderful to see Trill again.

Transcript

Welcome to Nerd Heaven

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars

And I am a nerd

 

This is episode 40 of the podcast.

 

Today we’re looking at the fourth episode of Star Trek Discovery season 3.

For Me Not.

 

The description on Memory Alpha reads

 Burnham and Adira visit the Trill homeworld while Saru's efforts on the Discovery to help the crew reconnect yield surprises.

 

It was written by Alan McElroy & Chris Silvestri & Anthony Maranville

It was Directed by Hanelle M. Culpepper

And it first aired on the 5th of November 2020.

 

Make it so.

 

This episode follows a fairly classic Trek structure. There’s an A plot and a b plot. But in this case, both are connected to the ongoing serialised plot arc of the show.

 

To be honest, my favourite part of the episode was not the Trill stuff, as awesome as it was to see a familiar Trek race come back, a DS9 race no less, it was the B plot that dealt with all the emotional baggage the crew are facing as they adjust to their new reality. It was done very well.

 

And that’s actually where the episode begins.

 

We get a log entry from Doctor Culbert. The visit to earth has been a reality check for the crew  and it’s all starting to hit them, just how little they have to hold on to. When they first arrived, it was all frantic survival. But now they’ve had time to live with it for a bit, and the reality is starting to set in. They’ve left everything behind. Everyone they ever loved. Everything that was familiar. The personal moments we use to define ourselves. They’ve jumped past all of that. They all feel lost and disconnected.

Culvert is in a unique situation to understand, with all the weird stuff he’s gone through, and overcome. He knows something is going on with Detmer. He saw it back in episode 2. But she’s not yet willing to admit that she needs his help.

 

A mantra has arisen among the crew. “When we find the Federation.” some find comfort in that. But not all.

 

I’m really glad they took the time in this episode to acknowledge all of this. It’s important for believable characters. They can’t just go on as if their lives haven’t been turned upside down.

We’re seeing the truth of what a big sacrifice it was that they made.

 

Now, here’s the big problem. I’ve touched on this a little in previous episodes, but there are so many crew members on the ship. And not just our main characters, who know Michael well and really care for her, but all the extras. The little guys. People like Gene who was cleaning Leeland’s remains out of the spore chamber, or the no-names we pass in the hallway in this episode. How well did these people know Michael? Well enough for them all to willingly give up their entire lives, their families, to go into the future with her? I’m sorry, but I find that pretty unbelievable. 

The truth is, we should have had a small group of people come along, who had a close relationship with Michael. And maybe a couple of others who had nothing to leave behind.

We should have a crew that is barely adequate to keep the ship running. We should be scrambling to find new crew members to come aboard and help. Not only would that add some extra tension to the show, it would be a whole lot more believable. It seems that practically the entire crew of Discovery came to the future. And I just can’t buy that.

 

And we’re reminded that Adira’s trill symbiont has the knowledge to help them find Starfleet headquarters. But because she’s human, she can’t properly access those memories.

 

Looking at Adira’s scan, the symbiont seems way too big, but that’s a minor nitpick, and there’s a bunch of ways to explain it. But it looks like what a trill symbiont should look like.

 

Adira doesn’t remember how she got the symbiont. In fact, she remembers waking up a year ago in an escape pod. Before that nothing. Does she mean literally nothing? As in, no knowledge of her life before the symbiont? I think she does. But there are some things bleeding through, like the ability to make a great Bajoran Hasperat.

 

They have a quick discussion, but all agree pretty quickly that the best option is to go to Trill. There’s no guarantee the Trill will help, but if they do nothing, nothing changes anyway.

 

So they arrive and ask for medical help for a host and its symbiont. The commissioner is delighted to help. The symbionts are very important to trill society. They always have been.  They carry the memories of their people. The population was decimated by the burn. It’s not immediately clear whether he’s talking about the host population, the symbiont population, or both.

 

Saru wants Stammets to investigate an alternative way to make the spore drive work, other than plugging himself into it. This makes a lot of logical sense. With the dilithium shortage in the galaxy, the spore drive is more important than ever. And if anything were to happen to Stammets, like it almost did, they’d no longer have any way to use it.

 

Stammets is immediately defensive about this. I’m not entirely sure why. I guess he sees the spore drive as his private domain. The science behind it was his baby. And it’s not like he didn’t try to find other ways of navigating it before they found the tardigrade. But as Saru points out, there’s been 900 years of technological improvement.

Tilly brings up her dark matter idea, that she first started exploring last season. Stammets thinks it's a dead end and is surprisingly closed to talking about it. He won’t even give Tilly the time of day to explain her idea. I guess we just put this down to emotional stress from his recent injury, and the general stress that they’re all under, having left their whole life behind.

 

Michael is so much more human this year. It’s like she’s completely left behind all of her Vulcan upbringing. Sonequa Martin-Green is playing her very very differently. I’m wondering if the writers decided that the whole raised on Vulcan thing was a bad idea and are trying to move on from it.

 

She definitely laughs and smiles a whole lot more. Sometimes, it’s actually a little unsettling, to be honest. But on balance, I think I like this new Burnham more than the old one.

 

Culbert wants Michael to accompany Adira to the surface of trill. He thinks she'll be more helpful as a companion than he will, because this isn’t a medical problem. Adira needs the guidance of somebody who has gone through a traumatic life change. (which of course, he has as well. Culbert is at least as qualified as Michael, if not more, in that regard.)

 

I’m not sure why they can’t both go. But of course, the real reason is that Michael is the lead character of the show, so they have to make sure she is involved in everything.

But Michael does a good job of helping Adira.

I do like it when Culbert tells her she’s a responsibility hoarder. That’s true, although I think at least part of the fault there lies on the writers, not on her personally.

 

Adira doesn’t want to let anyone down. There’s a lot riding on this knowledge that Tal has.

 

But the big question is, why the heck are they flying down in a shuttle instead of beaming down? There is no reason given, and I can see no logical reason at all. It’s so odd that it really draws attention to itself.

 

Anyway, it’s nice to see that some former-Federation worlds like Earth and Trill are still idyllic. Trill is beautiful. I love the blue grass and the flying fish. Little moments like that add so much to the show for me. The wonder they bring is one of the big things I love about Star Trek.

 

Michael and Adira meet the Trill bigwigs.

And they’re very shocked to learn the trill host is human. Very shocked.

When asked to speak her names, Adira can only say her own name. She doesn’t know the names of her previous hosts. Michael explains that Adira can’t access the symbiant’s memories. They should probably have led with that.

 

Vos says there hasn’t been a single recorded example of a successful joining between a symbiont and a non-trill.

So ….. Are we ignoring the TNG episode, The Host, then? I’m not saying that’s not a valid option? I mean, I think last week my words were that the episode is probably best forgotten, because of how it doesn’t match up with anything done in DS9.

 

But there’s another way to look at it. He says “successful joining.” We could potentially argue that Riker’s joining was not entirely successful. I mean, I’m pretty sure the symbiont completely supplanted Riker’s personality. It wasn’t a true blending. Adira isn’t experiencing a true blending either. But in her case, it’s the symbiont that is kind of the silent partner here. I think they kind of left it open for us to decide whether we want to acknowledge the TNG episode or not.

 

Adira says “the symbiant is part of me.” An idea that almost offends the Trill. She doesn’t fully appreciate what it means to host a symbiont. She doesn’t understand the responsibility. The honour. The subtleties of how they see the relationship.

But of course she doesn’t. How could she? So, “it’s part of me,” is probably an understandable way for her to interpret it, from her limited perspective.

 

Anyway, Vos immediately calls Adira an abomination, and demands that they be separated, which would, of course, kill the host. The Federation has no say here anymore, so Trill law takes precedence. So would Trill law really support this?

Maybe. They do seem to value the life of the symbiont higher than they value the life of a host.

 

Guardian Xi explains that the burn decimated the population. Specifically, the host population. It seems Trill is now experiencing a shortage of viable hosts. Which is interesting, because back in the 24th century, it was the other way around. The demand for a symbiont was so high that they had to artificially inflate the requirements to be viable for joining.

He sees this as an opportunity. Adira could be the future. If they considered looking beyond the Trill to see other species as potential hosts, it could solve a lot of problems.

 

Leader Pav won’t support a forced separation, but she sees this joining as an aberration and so won’t help Adira either. She demands that they leave immediately.

 

It’s not entirely unbelievable the Trill would act this way. We know they have strongly-held ideals when it comes to the symbionts. For example, they have a very strong taboo against hosts getting involved romantically with somebody they were with in a previous host. Their value and even their spirituality are all centered around this relationship between symbiont and host.

It’s okay to feel uncomfortable when you encounter something that doesn’t line up with your worldview, but the important thing is to maintain your compassion. And that’s what Vos, and to a lesser extent Pav are doing. It’s easy to forget, in situations like to forget that there are real people with real feelings on the other end. It’s okay for people to disagree on what they believe is right, but you can’t lose your compassion.

 

But Vos isn’t even willing to let them leave. He sets them up to be killed. He won’t let the symbiont go.

Burnham sorts them out with little trouble. And then Xi turns up, offering to help, against orders. He leads them to the caves.

Anyway, Culbert takes his concerns about the crew to the captain. Medically, they’re fine, but emotionally, everyone is suffering. Stress levels are very high. Saru sympathises but he needs a concrete way to help his crew.  The heart of the problem is that they need to feel connected.

 

So Saru does what he often does. He asks the computer for ideas. He’s not impressed with anything it’s spitting out. And then, something very weird happens. The computer screen flashes with something red, and then it starts speaking in a much more human-sounding voice. It laughs. And suggests humour is what the crew needs. A good laugh. And it’s not wrong. Laughter has known healing properties and benefits.

But what’s going on with the computer? My immediate thought was, is this the beginning of the Artificial Intelligence we saw in Discovery’s computer in the Short Trek episode Calypso? I think there’s a good chance that is the case.

Anyway, the computer offers some logical options. Things that I’m surprised Saru didn’t think of without the computer’s help. Actually. He’s a bit skeptical and asks the computer to run a diagnostic on itself. But he takes the suggestions on board.

Back on Trill, they arrive at the caves. We’ve seen these caves before, on Deep Space Nine. This is where they keep the symbionts. The guardians are responsible for taking care of them. They swim around in pools and communicate with one another through electrical impulses.

 

It’s a little confusing what they’re trying to do, at first. Adira hops into the pool.

At first, I assumed they planned to have Tal communicate with the other symbionts in the pool. But then, that wouldn’t accomplish anything, because the symbionts couldn’t pass along the knowledge they learn. What they’d really need to do would be to get another joined trill in there so the two symbionts could talk through electrical impulses, and then the other host could report on what was discussed.

But, they don’t have another joined trill. We know that the guardians do not join.

 

What they’re really trying to do here is get Tal and Adira to communicate with one another. The hope is that here, in this natural habitat for symbionts, that connections will form.

They have a device that will track her isoboramine levels. 

This is a nice callback. Isoboramine is a neural transmitter in trill physiology. It enables the communication between symbiant and host. If levels get below 40% the symbiont will be removed, as to remain would be a great danger to both.

But Adira is human. Her body would not produce isoboramine. So I guess, it must be generated by the symbiont.

The funny thing is, the device doesn’t just have a readout or an alarm or something. No, when levels get low the grass cracks. That’s pretty strangely old-school.

 

There’s a fantastic scene on Discovery. Saru hosts a special meal with his senior officers, and those he works most closely with. A way to show them his appreciation for what they’ve done to get them this far, but also for them to come to terms with what they’ve lost.

You’ll notice that the mythical chief engineer and chief medical officer still don’t show. After two full seasons, we still don’t know who they are. They should be in staff meetings, and they should be here now. I’ll be honest. This REALLY bugs me. A lot.

It’s interesting that Doctor Culbert is here, but we know he isn’t the chief medical officer. At least, he wasn’t in season 1. Maybe he’s been promoted to that position, which would make him higher ranked than Doctor Pollard, who isn’t even at this table.

It’s very annoying.

 

Anyway, I said this is a fantastic scene. And it is. It’s full of wonderful character moments. 

It gets a little amusing when they start trying to come up with haikus, following Georgiou’s lead. It’s a nice scene that shows the camaraderie between the characters. It reminds me of that great scene in Avengers Age of Ultron when they were all joking trying to lift Thor’s hammer.

Things turn decidedly dark when they ask Detmer to do one.

And she keeps blabbering about Stammet’s blood.

It makes everyone very uncomfortable, especially Stammets, and Culbert.

It’s so terribly uncomfortable. It’s great.

What I love about this scene is they’re finally developing Detmer as a charter. Remember back in season 1, when none of us could even remember the names of any bridge crew? I still don’t remember many of their names, but Detmer is one they’re really trying to develop. And we find that Emily Coutts is a really good actor, because the writers are finally giving her something to do. About bloomin’ time. We get a lot of insight into what she’s going through by what she says here. She’s feeling crushed under the responsibility of having the entire crew’s lives in her hands when she flies the ship. Specifically when she has to fly the ship under difficult circumstances, like going through the wormhole, or escaping from that parasitic ice.

The argument between her and Stammets is so powerfully performed by the two actors. I love it so much.

 

Soon the conflict spreads and Tilly asks them if they think they have the market cornered on pain.

And while this is not at all how Saru was hoping this would go, stuff is starting to come out. Stuff that needs to be dealt with. Some deep hurts. 

Once half the table have left, it becomes obvious that the meal is over, and Saru is left alone. Poor Saru. You can’t help but feel for him.

Adira’s Isoboramine levels are dropping. And she’s convulsing. That’s when Pav and Vos arrive.

Vos is still being pretty unreasonable. Pav is not happy, but she’s starting to find that compassion. She allows Michael into the pool, even though she’s not Trill, to try to help Adira.

 

They use a neural stabiliser to help Michael communicate, mentally, with Adira. It looks like they’re standing in a big void filled with little tentacles.

Michael quickly realises that the threads are like the threads of memory. That’s the symbiont trying to connect with her. It wants her to remember. She has to let the tentacles connect. It’s all kinda symbolic and in her mind.

So the threats connect and Adira is taken back into a memory she has forgotten.

 

We meet Gray, Adira’s old boyfriend, who is a Trill. They were together on a generation ship, trying to find traces of the Federation. Gray was receiving a symbiont.

Gray was a cello player.

Adira is hesitant to follow through with the memory, she senses there is pain ahead. She has to open the gift, symbolic of continuing the memory, because that’s what happened in the memory, She gave a gift to Gray. It’s a quilt with stories of moments from their relationship sewn into it.

 

And then, in the midst of that happy moment, the ship is hit by something. Gray is badly injured. He’s gonna die. His biggest regret is that the symbiont will be lost. It will survive if removed from Gray and put into a new host.

But there’s no other host available.

So Adira says she’ll take it. Even though she’s not Trill. The medical robot performs the surgery.

And that’s how Adira ended up in an escape pod with a symbiont and no memory of how it happened.

 

By accepting this memory and assimilating it back into her conscientiousness, the connections finally form, and she is able to access the symbiont’s mind. She and Burnham see all the other hosts.

Several of them are Starfleet officers, in various different uniforms. One of them is from the Star Trek Picard era, which was really cool to see. There’s a pale blue uniform we’ve never seen before, and another, worn by Admiral Senna. That is clearly the current Starfleet uniform of this era. It’s quite unique. Very different to any other Starfleet uniform we’ve seen before, which makes sense for the time. It looks a bit more military. A bit more naval. I don’t mind it. But we get our first proper look at the new oval-shaped comm badge. We’d only seen it in blurry screenshots from trailers until now. It looks pretty good, actually. I like it.

 

Senna confirms that while a human joining is unusual, Tal accepts her as well.

And Adira is reunited with Gray, who appears along with all the other hosts.

 

Michael thanks the Admiral for his message, which gave her hope. But she doesn’t ask about Starfleet. I found it so frustrating. I was practically yelling at the TV, “Ask him where Starfleet headquarters is.” it would only have taken a few seconds to ask.

But she doesn’t.

I mean, this is one of the primary reasons they went through all of this. Not the only reason. They wanted to help Adira too, but this information is vital.

And she doesn’t ask.

It’s not fully clear from the show at this moment, that Adira will now be able to access all of Tal’s memory, but I guess that was the implication. 

 

Still, if it were me, I’d have asked him if I had the chance, just in case.

 

When Adira emerges, able to recite the nAMES of all of her former hosts, all Trill are all convinced.

Even Vos says “we were wrong.”

I found the character arc of these Trill to be a bit short and sudden. And Vos, especially, came around too far too quickly. He was willing to murder Adira a few minutes ago. Now he says “we were wrong.”

It might have worked a little better if he had remained of the opinion that joining symbionts with non-human hosts was not generally a good idea, but agreed that Adira was deserving of their help, but Pav fully embraced the idea of non-trill hosts, as Xi already had. I dunno, I just think that would have added a little extra subtlety and depth to the whole thing. But the way they did it was okay.

 

Pav wants to mentor her, in her new role as a host, which wouldn’t be a bad idea, but Adira feels she is meant to remain on Discovery, and spread the message that the symbionts are a gift for everyone. Pav is even open to rejoining the Federation, should Discovery find them.

It’s all wrapped up a little too neatly with a bow on top.

 

Anyway, Tilly comes to Saru to console him after the disastrous dinner.

Captain Pike made connecting with the crew seem so effortless. But then, Pike had been captain for a long time. Saru is still very new to the job.

But I laughed out loud when Tilly said “This just looked like a Tuesday at my house growing up.”

Stammets also comes in to try to make amends with the Captain and Tilly. He’s finally ready to listen to Tilly’s ideas, and truly show her how much her help means to him.

 

And another fantastic moment occurs when Detmer goes to see Culbert in sick bay and admits that she’s not okay. She needs help. It was hard for her to admit. She’s ready to take him up on that talk.

At first, I was worried that they were wrapping up Detmer’s problems too quickly, but that’s probably not the case. Her healing is going to take a long time. I think this is just the next stage. Hopefully they’ll continue to do a good job of exploring this, because I’m loving seeing Detmer turned into a person, and not just the “aye Captain” parrot.

 

But the crew are all called to the shuttle bay for a surprise.

It’s a comedy film festival. Very old-school type humour. Very slapstick.

I love Linus handing out popcorn.

Then Detmer turns around and sees Stammets.

And it’s a very awkward moment for her. How does she make amends for what she said to him earlier.

And while her face is locked in anxiety and anguish, his unfolds into a smile. And their confrontation turns into a hug. That moment melted my heart and nearly broke me.

 

Saru and Cubert talk about how helpful this has been. “We just had to begin by admitting that we’re not fine,” Culvert says. “We’re not, are we,” asks Saru. “No. But we’ll get there.”

Saru speculates. The sphere data was sent to discovery to protect it. They have done that. They’ve given up their entire lives to protect it. Now, it’s trying to return the favour. It is merging with their computer and trying to protect them.

It seems pretty clear that my theory about this being the birth of the Zora AI in Calypso is correct. During that scene, the computer was voiced by two different actors. Annabelle Wallis, who played Zora in Calypso, and Julianne Grossman, who usually voices the computer. Interesting.

 

Senna knew the algorithm to find Starfleet headquarters and Adira has done the maths. They have coordinates. And she starts playing the cello, something both she and Gray picked up from a former host.

 

The episode closes with a little twist. Gray appears with Adira like a hallucination. A ghost, distinct from the others.

Adira hasn’t told anyone about this yet.

Gray doesn’t know why this is happening.

There is precedent for something like this. Ezri Dax once performed a ritual that pulled the memories and consciousness of one of her former hosts out in a similar way. She could converse with him, but nobody else could see him. Adira hasn’t performed any ritual, but nothing about this joining has been normal. It’ll be interesting to see where this leads.

 

Another good episode of Discovery. It’ll be exciting to see next week whether they can locate Starfleet headquarters. I wonder what they’ll find when they get there. It should be interesting.

 

If you’re enjoying this podcast, please consider writing a review wherever you listen, or subscribing, if you’re watching it on youTube.

Can you believe I’ve almost been doing this show for a year? I released my very first episode on the 6th of December.

In one month, we’ll have to do something to celebrate the first birthday of Nerd Heaven.

 

Anyway, that’s all for now.

I’ll see you next week for the episode “Die Trying.”

Have a great week.

Live long and prosper.

Make it so.