As we have seen last season and continuing this season, DSC weaves its themes through most if not all of the episodes of the season. Last year I couldn’t peace it all together until long after the season was over. This year, I’m going to try to keep track of how the thematic elements are laid out in each episode.
There are two themes that are evident from the first episode “Brother,” and each have been described beforehand by the show runners. One is about family, and how the Discovery crew is gelling into a family. Pike will help with undo some of Lorca’s damage and help them become a more functional family. There is also the storyline of Sarek and Amanda’s family, and we see Spock meeting Michael for the first time, with hints of some family disfunction they will have to overcome. It’s not entirely clear yet what the ultimate theme will be.
The other major theme has to do with religious/spiritual faith and secular scientific thought. Burnham’s opening monologue lay’s the predicate: “We have always looked to the stars to discover who we are. A thousand centuries ago in Africa the Kahama Abathua tribe gathered to share a story: the tale of a girl who dug her hands in the wooded ash and threw it into the sky to create the Milky Way. And hidden there, a secret, buried among the eternal stars was a message, an enormous message in a bottle made of space and time, visible only to those whose hearts were open enough to receive it. When I first heard the story of the girl who made the stars, I was not ready to understand. I still don’t know if I am.”
The last idea there–about her not being ready to understand–promises that the season will be about her journey to that understanding. Also by starting with the African myth, the season hints that it is going to be about religion in a universal sense of the word, not limited to the Judeo-Christian sense, which the Abrahamic look of the Red Angels might imply.
Another quote is from Tilly to Stamets after he confessed that the ship feels haunted to him after the death of Culber: “I understand that this place may be haunted for you. But maybe it’s good haunted. Maybe living with ghosts and energies that are bigger than we are is why you love science.”
What is interesting to me is that both of these quotes imply religious faith but also invoke that faith as a motivation follow the ways of science. Burnham says the spiritual, mythic “message” is written in the scientific concepts of space and time. Tilly makes it explicit that spiritual forces reminds us there are forces “bigger than we are” is the same thing that motivates Stamets to be a scientist.
Is religion and science two sides of the same coin, both equally valid means of answering the big questions? Time will tell how far DSC will push this theme.