‘Star Trek Discovery’: Can A Twist Be Too Big?

A story doesn’t need a twist to be interesting. But a twist is a very useful tool to suddenly create a totally new dynamic and perspective within the story. The size of this shift is dependent upon the size of the twist. Some stories have relatively small twists, so there are fewer stakes as far as making the twist work within the story’s current plot and characterization. The bigger the twist, the more groundbreaking the shift becomes. But there’s also a greater risk for the twist running contrary to the rest of the story. A great example of this can be seen in the first season of Star Trek Discovery.

The first year can roughly be broken up into two parts, the first of which can be viewed as a prologue of sorts. The story follows Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) as she tries to make a name for herself in Starfleet. Unfortunately, she accidentally triggers a war with Klingon Empire that results in her captain’s demise. The story then jumps a few months with Burnham serving a sentence for mutiny and breaking Starfleet codes of conduct. Thanks to the machinations of Captain Lorca (Jason Isaacs), she is transferred to the U.S.S. Discovery and joins its mission to create a brand new type of interstellar travel that can serve as a secret weapon in the war. It’s later revealed that Lorca was actually an imposter from another dimension with an agenda to get back there and continue his rebellion against that realty’s emperor.

The revelation that the captain was a fake wasn’t revealed until there were only a few episodes left in the season. But it’s such a monumental and huge twist that had huge ramifications on the entire season thus far. All of Lorca’s decisions can be called into question as to whether or not he was acting in his own interest and not those of Starfleet. But not everything lines up perfectly. There are certainly instances where Lorca’s actions can be questioned, but there are other moments when it seems things simply happen by chance or his plans work out due to circumstances completely beyond his control. The show never looks back and questioned this twist, but it raises the question as to whether or not a twist can be too big to actually work within a narrative.

Star Trek: Discovery is now streaming on Paramount+.