Reconnection: The Return of the Trill

With Forget Me Not returning us to the Trill homeworld, there's been much rumbling about how Discovery has treated the joined species we last visited 26 years ago.

Which means that there are only really three avenues that we could go down to explore the "truth" behind that so why join me to discuss The Host from The Next Generation and Equilibrium and Facets, both from Deep Space Nine's third season.

Equilibrium is a biggie and being all of 14/15 when I saw this one the first time round I completely missed all the nuances, the depth of the story and all the machinations therein. It was too talky and at no point did anyone even hint at drawing a phaser. Ok, I know Star Trek ins't all about that but it was coming off the back of The House of Quark which, while it's slightly Klingon is one of those episodes that attempts humour and doesn't quite succeed with this British viewer.

Yet Equilibrium now is a real head-turner and underappreciated with its exploration of the Trill joining process and just how it is "sold" to the indigenous population.

As you will know (yes, potential spoilers here), it turns out that Joran received the Dax symbiont after Torias and not, as Jadzia believed, Curzon (although it would eventually end up there). The revelation that approximately half the population were suitable for joining is a huge bit of news since it would relegate something very special and prestigious to incredibly average in a blink of an eye and has the power to destabilise the Trill.

Joran wasn't the perfect choice for the symbiont given his rather violent tendencies but let's not get too bogged down with the narrative because there significant points here that Discovery has absolutely nailed.  

The Caves of Mak'ala for one are back here with the breeding pools for the symbionts revisited (stretching for miles beneath the surface). In Equilibrium these aren't specifically named and we would have to wait until season seven's Afterimage for that. The insular Guardians seen in Equilibrium don't make an appearance in Forget Me Not while we do see that the pools can be used to communicate with the symbionts more directly and in a sort of visionary state. The new piece is that non-joined non-Trills seem to be able to do this as well and while you might offer up a frown and a few grumbles, Burnham is our guide to the series and it makes sense in that respect to allow her to be our eyes into this cerebral realm.

What does bug me a little is the non-Trill joining with the symbiont. Is this biologically possible given the difference in species? Maybe over 900 years there has been some evolution within the symbiont as I can't see how a human would decide that trying to join would be a great choice to make in life. In fact there has to have been some jump forward because if you recall in The Host, Odan cannot survive in Riker's body and has to be transplanted into a full Trill host. Would making Adira a Trill have worked? Yes, but it would have cut out that element of surprise when we discovered that she was the one who could link Discovery to Admiral Sena Tal because she was the host of that symbiont.

But Discovery's Forget Me Not is actually a far superior demonstration of gender biase and the like since in The Host Beverly cannot comprehend that the new host for Odan is female. It's perhaps in character for the role and the time but both this and the season five The Outcast are almost cringeworthy when it comes to their attitudes towards transgender and gender neutrality. Ok, I'm no expert on either and nor would I ever dare to be but Discovery has made both of these concepts understandable and relatable and if you've got a problem with it, go somewhere else. The Host was groundbreaking for its establishment of the Trill, the way in which the symbiont could be passed and to anyone yet it rudimentally seems to avoid accepting that people come in all shapes and sizes and that, y'know what, sometimes you have to look further than skin to see the real individual. With Forget Me Not this is certainly the case in no small part to the excellent casting of both Blu del Barrio and Ian Alexander as Adira and Gray respectively.

Facets, which crops up at the other end of the third season also supports some of the actions from Forget Me Not. While the appearance of the previous Tal hosts isn't the zhin'tara ritual we experience on Deep Space Nine, it does bring together and connect the past lives to the present host who is accepted even though they are not a Trill themselves. Indeed, the choice to use them/they as opposed to he/she etc may initially be from the actors themselves but it suits the part perfectly and describes that two-part relationship in a more specific manner than it was ever done through Jadzia or the later Ezri on Deep Space Nine.

The echo of a previous host - Gray - seems to have fluttered a few people but Jadzia was haunted by Joran if we recall. In that instance his memories had been repressed and still pushed through while Gray's were allowed to rise to the surface after the completion of the joining of minds. Yes, if we follow the lessons of Rejoined from the fourth season of Deep Space Nine then there's an issue since Trill are not permitted to continue relationships from previous lifetimes. Tal isn't pursuing that because it's not physical, this is a mental connection and five episodes n it doesn't appear dangerous (give it time...). Jadzia was often quoting the experiences of her previous hosts as Deep Space Nine progressed, sometimes helping overcome a problem and in fact her friendship with Sisko is borne from his friendship with Curzon.

If we look closely into all that I think there's more to contend with on that station than we're looking at with the echo of Gray in Adira's head on Discovery. This is a closeness to a previous host that we've not seen before. Curzon wanted to be close to Jadzia because he was in love with her and that is superficial if compared directly to this intimate bond that exists with the former and present hosts of Tal. Adira has absorbed the qualities from the symbiont's past as we see from them playing the cello. But this partnership comes across as more even and trusting than the wayward - no, reckless - Curzon was in Facets. Adira seems to be in tune more with the past running alongside her in the same body while Jadzia absorbed it into herself and made it one more her own but this could be a side effect of this less than approved pairing.

Perhaps like the connection to a human host after 900 years, Discovery has demonstrated its own changes within the structure of the Star Trek franchise with the very open manner in which it has tackled key, current matters at the heart of its stories. The inclusion of the Trill is a clever way to spin it into a science-fiction environment but crucially the show hasn't shied away from its responsibilities and this latest episode and visit to the Trill homeworld has not just revisited some old stomping grounds from the beloved Deep Space Nine but it has added facets and changed the equilibrium of Star Trek at its very core. My god, this is potentially the biggest franchise shake-up since The Animated Series had Uhura in command of the Enterprise. 

The universe has moved on and the "inconsistencies" that are being thrown around by so called fans seem almost idiotic. Nine centuries have passed, things change and like Star Trek itself, the Trill have evolved. Perhaps its time to actually watch and listen to this show rather than passing judgement on everything that's different - after all, isn't that one of the core pieces of the franchise - to celebrate the unique?

What do you think about the return of the Trill? Handled well or a misfire from Discovery?

Track back on our season three Discovery reviews HERE

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