There is not much of an original or good sci-fi story in Grounded. The goal of this episode is to subvert ST tropes of characters putting the burden of things all upon themselves and justifying taking matters into their own hands. That is oddly contradictory since a main theme of the first two seasons, is that institutions and rules are only bureaucratic annoyances meant to be broken and joked at, not even deserving of debate. But it seems pretty obvious that Burnham... I mean Mariner is out of control evidenced by the unfunny scene of her friends tackling her, etc. She screams "I don't want to get you in trouble" as she tried to ditch her friends that she takes for granted for the 17th time. Simply revising that dialogue to say "more trouble" would make it coherent considering how much trouble they potentially are in already. So, this "story" shouldn't come close to subverting anyone's expectations; it is obvious Mariner is on a path that will end in failure. Not only do they not write a good original sci-fi, but they mostly fail at their narrowly focused goal.
Just like Disco, when this show seems to take a step forward, they take two steps back instead. We got two seasons of often melodramatic mother and daughter bickering to finally reach a point where we could move on, but instead they just reignite it. I thought for a moment they were geniuses by bringing Mariner back home so we can see a different father-daughter dynamic. But the admiral father is just a 15 second tool here. He repeats the trite comment "trust the system", a phrase hardly used or implied in the ST universe (unless they are actually the corrupt commander hiding something) or hardly used in our times unless you do not comprehend nuance and badly translate any defense of a status quo into such simpleness. There is such a thing as "trust, but verify" which has been turned into "verify, but verify" recently. Such ideas are often used in the real world, but these showrunners reveal they are ignorant of that. Maybe a wise old admiral would have given Mariner the obvious thing she needs, something to be useful within the domain of a rational legal defense that is better than her plan that would include punching a Klingon. Mariner has acquired an almost out-of-nowhere deep mistrust of "the system" after her mother's arrest. But the extraordinary Mariner we have been given so far should know scores of people in command and the legal system that she's been on adventurers with and owe her favors, not to mention Riker who is fond of Freeman. That is, she IS in the system deeper that she should be and is ignorant of her privilege. Her insanity reaches a high point after she decides, as the Federation legal expert she has magically become, that Boiler's logs are useless. She engages in harmful catastrophic thinking, something the showrunners won't recognize because society is more consumed by it today probably including themselves. See QAnon conspiracy theories or anxiety/depression over things like climate change. You can argue that supports the subversion of the rogue "ends justify the means" mission trope; such characters are just suffering from catastrophic thinking or a martyrdom complex. But this episode doesn't see or address that, especially within the characters. They just treat it as Mariner being Mariner once again with nothing to learn other that she shouldn't have done that, but only because it turned out to be unnecessary and the vague abstraction, "we are Starfleet". No, the solution had little to do with magical Starfleet principles or teamwork; It was actually, "verify, but verify" and not "trust the system" that prevailed in the end. Nothing about her internal behavior is explored other than possibly the lame - she's upset enough to do literally anything. All along, this episode feels like a frustrating old-fashioned sitcom because there is an obvious path that is ignored. Does the Captain married to a darn admiral not have any advocates on their side? Get their advocates to legally get the darn logs. Duh! But don't argue that just highlights the stupidity of rouge missions, because I challenge you to find many so-called ST rouge missions where such a course is so frustratingly obvious but utterly ignored (not counting Disco).
Science fiction is supposed to put us in creative worlds and explore possibilities, ideally highlighting or raising insightful questions about the human condition and contemporary societies. When they write an episode with a single-minded goal of subverting a trope that runs the risk of producing only a parody and not science fiction. They are over-relying on the call-backs to previous ST much more then in previous season. This show is much better when their stories can stand more on their own, creating new worlds and then fitting the call-backs and subversions within that, rather than trying to so the other way around. This episode is 100% parody, not science fiction and thus, not Star Trek. It needs to be more like 50-50 parody/sci-fi. But just because they superficially say things like, "We are Starfleet" and give you more ST callbacks the unthinking stans are duped into thinking they got something good and "real" Star Trek. Nope. Bring back Orville please!
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