Star Trek: Discovery: Is a Romance Budding?

[Warning: This post contains spoilers from Episode 7 of Star Trek: Discovery, "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad." Read at your own risk.]

It's time to start brainstorming 'ship names. A new power couple, brought together under strange circumstances, emerged during Sunday night's Star Trek: Discovery.

The fun-filled episode saw Rainn Wilson return as Harry Mudd to exact revenge on Captain Lorca (Jason Isaacs) for leaving him stranded on a Klingon prison vessel. He escaped with help from his trusted bug sidekick Stewart who, sadly, parted ways shortly after. Sneaking his way onto the USS Discovery, he trapped the ship in a 30-minute time loop as a way of not only killing his sworn enemy an infinite number of times but also to uncover what makes it the Federation's secret weapon in their war with the Klingons so he can sell them out to the pointy-faced aliens. Way harsh, Tai.

While Mudd succeeded in tormenting the Disco crew (we're making this a thing, right?), his actions also brought the crew closer together. Stamets (Anthony Rapp), standing in as the Sam Winchester in Discovery's own "Mystery Spot" episode, is the only one aware of the anomaly thanks to his connection to the spore drive. After reliving the same scenario numerous times, he clues in Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) who only believes him after he gets her to reveal her secret: she's never been in love.

That might very well be the case for her now but the human raised as Vulcan now has her eye on a special crewmate: Lt. Ash Tyler (Shazad Latif). The two formed a bond in "Lethe" and this week saw their relationship progress rapidly with some help from the uncharacteristically amiable Stamets.

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As the science officer and Burnham work to figure out how to break the neverending cycle, Stamets encourages her to let Tyler know exactly how she feels about him. "Never hide who you are. That's the only way relationships work," he tells her. Taking his advice, Burnham agrees to dance with the newly-crowned chief security officer, to Al Green's "Love and Happiness" no less, and the two even share a kiss.

However, their romantic moment is cut short with the realization that they've got important business to tend to. Namely, stopping Harry Mudd before he completes his devious mission to hand them and their precious spore drive over to the Klingons. His plan would have worked if it weren't for the brilliant crew who tricked him into restarting the time loop after rewiring the captain's chair so that he'd send their coordinates to someone other than their enemy.

As it turns out, Harry Mudd was on the run from his beloved fiance Stella whom he stiffed out of her dowry. Accessing the ship's archives, Stamets put two-and-two together and informed Tyler, who did the handiwork to ensure that Mudd gave up his position to his paramour and her ridiculously wealthy father rather than those eager Klingons.

With Mudd out of the way for now, Burnham and Tyler can get back to their blossoming romance. But don't break out the champagne just yet! Despite the major steps forward, it looks like this will be more of a slow burn.

New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery stream Sundays at 8:30/7:30c exclusively on CBS All Access.

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