“New Eden” is the 2nd episode of the 2nd season of the TV show “Star Trek: Discovery” and follows “Brother“.

Note. This article contains spoilers about “New Eden”.

Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) finds out what really happened to Spock from Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) but there’s no time to think about her family’s problems because a new signal is detected. Given the distance of the source, Pike gives permission to use the spore drive and upon arrival a radio signal is detected from a human colony that appears to be about 200 years old.

In an episode directed by old acquaintance Jonathan Frakes, the USS Discovery crew starts an investigation into the mysterious signals introduced in the first episode and their ramifications, which lead to other mysteries. Once again the will to try to bring back the story of “Star Trek: Discovery” in the classic series timeline with a plot that has its roots in World War III and the mission in the colony with the attention to what’s generally known as the First Directive – here called the General Order n. 1 – reminding of those of Kirk and his crew.

The investigation of the signals with the discovery of a human colony dating back to a period prior to the development of warp propulsion and other elements leads to a number of considerations on science and religion. Clarke’s law that states that a sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic finds a new version that states that a sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial technology is indistinguishable from God. For this story-arc there are a number of references to a “red angel” and in this episode the clues show a very long-term plan still to be discovered.

What Captain Christopher Pike, Michael Burnham and Lieutenant Joann Owosekun (Oyin Oladejo) discover on the planet shows this mix of science and religion in a plot that quickly shows that it’s only part of a bigger picture. In fact, it’s intertwined with the one that seemed separate in which Ensign Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman) studies the asteroid captured at the end of the last episode and has to do with a fellow crew member who is not exactly what she appears.

In the end, the religious element seen on the planet is generic in the sense that elements of various Earth’s religions are mixed avoiding possible problems linked for example to fundamentalist interpretations. The elements linked to the red angel are still to be discovered, as well as the role of Spock, who for the moment keeps on being mentioned without appearing. The management of one of the most important characters in the history of Star Trek will be crucial in determining the success or failure of this “Star Trek: Discovery” season.