The Discovery travels to Book’s home planet to help rescue it from Osyraa, the formidable leader of the Emerald Chain.

The second of director Jonathan Frakes’ three Discovery episodes this year has an awful lot of plates spinning, but no great resolution of any threads. It’s one of those transitional shows that pushes the main plot along while adding a couple more ingredients to the mix. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it does feel a little fragmented.

Book asks for help from the Federation – his family back home are being threatened by menacing Orion Osyraa (Janet Kidder – The Man in the High Castle) and from the outset we see that she’s ruthless. She wants Andorian Ryn (Noah Averbach-Katz) to be returned to her, claiming that he’s a criminal, but Discovery won’t play.

In fact, Discovery’s response is to let Detmer (nice to give her something to do) attack the Orions from another ship, claiming that she went rogue and would be reprimanded. It’s a curious defence of ‘It wasn’t me, honest’ and the Orions are quite rightly having none of it – they’ll be back!

Elsewhere there’s lots of sub-plots: Philippa’s neural disease is being investigated, Stamets and Adira are trying to crack the music code and Saru is working on his command catchphrase!

Verdict: Hit it! Execute! Carry on! It’s a packed agenda for the crew this week with some solid direction from a Star Trek stalwart. 7/10