WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Star Trek: Discovery Season 3, now streaming on CBS All Access.
In Star Trek: Discovery's third season, the crew adapts to a new time period after their decision to travel forward into the 32nd century in the finale of Season 2. The voyage into the future has not only changed the characters irrevocably, but also the ship itself. Season 3 Episode 6, "Scavengers," saw the Discovery undergo a massive refit to update it with technology from the current century's Starfleet.
Utilizing newfangled programmable matter, the USS Discovery-A now sports new interfaces, detached warp nacelles, as well as new tricorder/personal transporter comm badges. This refit also reintroduced a technology that many long-time Star Trek viewers are very familiar with: new holodecks.
According to a post on Star Trek's official Instagram page, @startreklogs, which post "personal logs" from the show's characters, new holodecks were installed onto Discovery, much to the delight of Tig Notaro's Commander Jett Reno.
Starting with Star Trek: The Next Generation, the holodeck became a reliable source of storylines for the writers to explore throughout the franchise. Not only did the simulated environment give the opportunity to utilize different, sometimes unexpected settings besides the Enterprise or an alien planet, but it was also gave a chance to see how each character uses the technology for recreation, a rare opportunity for dedicated Starfleet officers.
At first, the holodeck was a great way to shed insight on a character. In Deep Space 9, O'Brien and Dr. Bashir would often hang out by using Quark's holosuites, recreating famous battles from Earth's history or playing spies. In one of the TNG's more wholesome episodes, Lieutenant Barclay became addicted to the holodeck as he used it to escape reality. Data's Sherlock Holmes obsession even resulted in a few clashes with a dangerous holographic Professor Moriarty.
However, the holodeck soon became an overused Star Trek plot device. In the original series, transporter malfunctions were often used as a crutch for storylines, such as creating doppelgängers or transporting the characters to the Mirror Universe. As Star Trek progressed, the holodeck malfunction episodes became the new worn-out plot device. Oftentimes, something would go wrong with the holodeck, either trapping the characters inside the simulation, turning off the safety features or allowing holographic characters to travel outside their confines. In fact, Star Trek: Voyager became especially notorious for their overuse of holodeck-themed episodes. Occasionally, there would be a gem, like "Bride of Chaotica!" but most were repetitive and oftentimes felt like filler episodes.
Now, technically, holodecks are not a brand new technology for the USS Discovery. In the Season 1 episode, "Lethe," Captain Lorca and Lieutenant Ash Tyler completed a combat simulation within a holographic room, battling Klingons with phasers. However, now that Discovery is not a wartime ship, the new holodecks could perhaps give the crew a chance to kick back and relax.
The decision to transport the ship to the 32nd century was a great way to detach the show from a narrow canon window and introduce new, never-before-seen technology. But Star Trek: Discovery should be careful to not take a step backwards and indulge in this tired trope too much.
Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 stars Sonequa Martin-Green as Commander Michael Burnham, Doug Jones as Captain Saru, Anthony Rapp as Lt. Commander Paul Stamets, Mary Wiseman as Ensign Sylvia Tilly, Wilson Cruz as Dr. Hugh Culber, Blu del Barrio as Adira, David Ajala as Cleveland “Book” Booker and Michelle Yeoh as Philippa Georgiou. A new episode arrives on CBS All Access every Thursday through Jan. 7, 2021