The Star Trek Moment That Made A Producer Cry
When Star Trek: Discovery first premiered, one of the more controversial elements was that it made Spock’s father Sarek into Michael Burnham’s adoptive father. Some fans thought this was just a cheap way of tying new characters to The Original Series, but Discovery used this relationship to deepen our understanding of Sarek and Spock’s relationship. That is particularly true of the episode “Lethe,” which revealed the cause of Spock and Sarek’s estrangement in a moment that kept making co-executive producer Jordan Nardino cry.
The Attack On Sarek
To understand what drove this producer to tears, you need to know more about the episode. “Lethe” begins with Sarek being attacked by his own aide, a fellow Vulcan who tries to blow both of them up because he hates Sarek’s association with and support of the Federation.
Sarek survives but is temporarily helpless, and his only hope is the psychic link he has with Michael Burnham thanks to their previous mind-meld.
She feels his pain and manages to convince Captain Lorca to search for her father. But their mental link keeps trying to reveal one of Sarek’s biggest secrets, and it’s one that he literally fights (complete with Vulcan martial arts) Burnham to keep her from discovering.
After some intense mental combat between the two, we get the reveal of Sarek’s big secret, and it’s this reveal that always makes Nardino cry.
The Choice
What Sarek reveals to her is that planet Vulcan is a deeply racist place, and the powers that be had no intention of letting both Spock (who is half-human) and Burnham (who is fully human) join the Vulcan Expeditionary Force.
He is told he can choose only one, and with great reluctance, he chooses Spock. Later, his biological son chooses to join Starfleet instead, estranging him from his father and leaving Sarek feeling a lifetime of guilt and shame.
Jordan Nardino
It’s a genuinely moving moment, and perhaps nobody was moved more than co-executive producer Jordan Nardino. He later confessed that he had seen the episode “three times now, and I bawl every single time.”
He was particularly moved by “the revelation of the choice [Sarek] had to make” and how the older Vulcan has been “holding that in his whole life and he’s carrying like a weight to his grave.”
Questions Answered
We honestly have to agree with Nardino on this one—this scene with Sarek and Burnham is achingly bittersweet, with both revealing the depths of their feelings (never easy for a Vulcan) and deciding to let this shared trauma bring them closer rather than drive them apart.
Plus, for longtime fans, this further answered the question of why Sarek and Spock were estranged in The Original Series episode “Journey to Babel.”
That episode presented Sarek as disapproving of his son’s choice to join Starfleet, but “Lethe” reveals that the estrangement was deepened because Spock’s choice accidentally screwed over Burnham, and it was secretly all the Vulcan patriarch’s fault.
Lethe
There are some Discovery critics who hate the show’s focus on emotion and dismiss many great moments because characters like Michael Burnham end up crying.
However, “Lethe” is proof that this show uses emotions to deepen our understanding of Gene Roddenberry’s famous universe. And if you aren’t crying by the end of this episode, you may actually be even more emotionally closed off than the average Vulcan.
