Warning: Spoilers follow for the latest Star Trek: Discovery episode, now streaming on Paramount+.
As ambitious as Star Trek: Discovery has been in distinguishing itself from all the other Trek series, there’s something both comforting and exciting when it goes retro with its storytelling. In the fourth episode this season, "Face the Strange,” Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and her freshly appointed Number One, Commander Rayner (Callum Keith Rennie), oil and water themselves through a complex time-jumping plot featuring prior episode callbacks, returning character cameos, and that tried and true Trek trope: the doppelgänger battle!
This episode’s particular time pickle lays the groundwork for two important outcomes. One is forcing Burnham and Rayner to rethink their established views of what good leadership looks like as they time-bug their way through recent USS Discovery history. And second, it gives Burnham a chance to see exactly how far she’s evolved as a person, from a mutineer in Season 1 to the respected captain of the Discovery.
Watch a clip from "Face the Strange" below:
"Face the Strange” is a classic, Trek-style finale season script that pulls from its five seasons' worth of deep mythology and starts the process of saying goodbye in earnest. To get their thoughts on revisiting history through those shiny little time bugs, IGN spoke with Martin-Green, Anthony Rapp (Commander Paul Stamets) and David Ajala (Cleveland “Book” Booker) about some of their favorite moments in this reflection on time.
A Reno Reunion and Breaking in a New Number One
With the mission clear — destroy the time bugs that have infested USS Discovery — Burnham and Rayner take one path and conscript Rapp’s Stamets to help through engineering. A time jump reunites him with his old engineer sparring partner, Commander Jett Reno (Tig Notaro), who helps him theorize some potential fixes to his problem.
It was just so fun to get to break down the walls and see Rayner's warm heart in that crusty exterior. -Anthony Rapp
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Rapp tells IGN that the episode felt like a full circle moment for the character, harkening all the way back to the series’ first time loop episode. “‘Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad’ from Season 1 was one of my favorite episodes of the show. So it was nice to get to do a little wink and nod to that,” he says of this episode. “I haven't gotten to do as much stuff with Sonequa directly over the course of the seasons, so to get to do more with her was really fun.”
Having more Burnham time this season means Rayner time too, and Rapp says getting to fold a veteran actor like Callum Keith Rennie into their cast was a pleasure as well.
“Whenever anybody new comes into our cast, we always welcome them with open arms, especially Sonequa,” Rapp says. “She makes sure that if you're coming into our house, you are welcome: ‘Sit down. You're a part of our family.’ But [Callum’s] been around a long time, so there was a part of him that was like, ‘O.K., yeah, we'll see. I've heard that this is a nice place, but we'll see.’ And then we kept demonstrating that.
“It was just so fun to get to break down the walls and see his warm heart in that crusty exterior,” Rapp chuckles about his character’s interactions with Rayner. “And that episode in particular was one of those times where I got to do a lot of that with him. It was a total blast.”
Booker Beefcake and a Tease of What’s to Come
Since the fourth season finale, the relationship between Burnham and Ajala’s Book has been strained. He’s mostly been away on his Federation-mandated make-good with those impacted by the DMA from that season. But this episode provides Burnham with a bittersweet – and, in Ajala’s words, “sexy stuff” – taste of better days.
At one point, Burnham time-jumps into her quarters before the strife of the DMA period, only to find a shirtless and unburdened Book who reminds her of what they once had.
“It was so much fun because of course it's a moment for her,” Ajala says of the scene that ends with a passionate kiss. “She has that moment with Booker and then it's like, ‘Oh, wow, we're not here yet. But I remember how good this felt.’ It was lovely. That whole episode was really, really powerful.
“But there's another episode in Season 5 which kind of piggybacks directly off of that episode, which goes a lot deeper,” he teases.
Burnham Wrestles With Herself Across Time and Memory
Outside of the time bug problems and unexpected reunions sprinkled throughout "Face the Strange,” emotionally, the episode is about revisiting the work that Burnham has done over five seasons and countless dire scenarios to climb back from being an almost despised mutineer in the first season to the beloved captain she is now.
Jumping through moments in time reinforces that journey to Rayner and herself while also making a strong case for her style of personally involved leadership. Before they get thrown through time, Rayner viewed her familiarity with the crew as a weakness. By journey’s end, he has a much different perspective.
Martin-Green says getting to revisit some of Burnham’s greatest hits with an outsider riding shotgun was an unexpected gift of an episode.
They are the same person, but we have to show how much Burnham has grown in the way she defeats her younger self. -Sonequa Martin-Green
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“Oh my goodness, I think they hit me with it just before we started shooting it,” the actress says of being told the premise of “Face the Strange” during production on Season 5. “I like to know things ahead of time; not too far ahead, but some time. So I knew that it was coming. But man, I didn't know how fulfilling it was going to be until we were there.
“Sean Cochran wrote the script and Lee Rose, one of our most beloved directors, directed the episode, and, man, there were some visual effects components that we put in that we hadn't seen before, with some elements in the cinematography that we hadn't [done] before,” Martin-Green says of the complexities of having Season 1 Burnham go mano a mano with Season 5 Burnham. “Even when we were doing the stunt choreography with Chris McGuire and his team, we were talking a lot about how to mirror the movements of these two Burnhams because they are the same person, but we have to show how much Burnham has grown in the way she defeats her younger self, right?”
She continues, “I just loved that we were able to see the contrast, that we were able to see the growth and the journey because you sort of forget about it when you're just with present-day Burnham. But man, how far did she come?” the actress emphasizes. “And that goes for everybody. Everybody could have had that same moment with their past selves, and seeing how much they grew.”
But Martin-Green does acknowledge it's particularly sweet to have Burnham’s past make such a compelling case in changing Rayner’s mind about the benefits of bonding with your crew.
“That is very true,” the actress smiles. “It's like we can now see that there is some merit to it.”
For even more on the new season, check out our interview with the cast and showrunners about how Star Trek: Discovery ends an era with Season 5. Or read our Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 review for Episodes 1-4.
