Check Out 10 New Photos From ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Episode 12 “Vaulting Ambition”

CBS has just released ten new images from this weekend’s episode of Star Trek: Discovery, which continues the story of our crew in the Mirror Universe. Episode 12 is titled “Vaulting Ambition” and features the return of Michelle Yeoh as Phillipa Georgiou, the emperor of the Terran Empire in the Mirror Universe.

Episode Description

Burnham heads to the ISS Charon with a special ‘gift’ for the Emperor. With the help of an unexpected source, Stamets gains clarity while trapped inside the mycelial network. Saru asks for L’Rell’s help.

Photos

Video

Today CBS also posted the video preview (same one show on CBS All Access on Sunday).

 

Episode 12 of Star Trek: Discovery will be available on CBS All Access on Sunday, January 21st by 8:30 pm ET. It will air in Canada on the Space Channel at 8:00 pm ET the same day and be available on Netflix outside the USA and Canada on Monday, January 22th at 8 am GMT.

Keep up with all the Star Trek: Discovery news at TrekMovie.

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The sets always look so good.

agreed very high production sets, they did not cheap out

More torture ? Mother f—ing yippee.. Did Netflix give them a quota or something ?

Hate to say it, but this mirror universe has kind of a dark Flash Gordon feel to it. The stories have been good, but lets not spend to much time here….

As soon as they arrived I had a sinking feeling like ” oh…we’re here for the rest of the season aren’t we “.

The joy.

Well, the next episode is fun with the emperor. I’m assuming the one after that they track down the Defiant. Last one, lets go home. So, the last episode of the season wraps up war with the Klingons, and gets Michael restored to all her Starfleet glory? Five episodes in a 15 episode season is a long time to be off topic.

for all we know michael or lorca will be killed off, or they do a reset and michael wakes up to gergiou and there is no battle of the binary stars

I think they’ll have to use the spore drive to get home instead of the interphase that the Definat went through. The interphase has a time differential, so it would probably send them to the 24th century. Plus, the crew would all start murdering eachother once they went through.

They were never serious of doing or saying anything substantial with the Klingon war arc and “nativist Klingons” to begin with, apart from striking points with the home base and the media. As some less uncritical reviewers have said, Discovery sacrifices the integrity of its characters for twists – and the same is true for its plots.

And people try to claim this is a “less camp” Trek!

Hmmmm….well I’ve enjoyed everything so far and feel like the MU story has been even more fun than the Klingon war. I’m ready to take some time and see where this goes.

“More fun than the Klingon war”? The bar you are setting is not terribly high!

Interesting ship name: ISS Charon. According to Wikipedia “is the ferryman of Hades who carries souls of the newly deceased across the rivers Styx and Acheron that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead.”

I wonder if the ISS Charon is actually the Klingon Ship of the Dead that is now under Terran control and rebadged. :) Those sets look like they could easily be the old Ship of the Dead sets converted for the Emperor. Might explain why the Shenzhou couldn’t see the ship as it was firing on the planet below.

You said that in the other places as well.

Love the Masters of the Mirror Universe sword!

its amazing its like crouching tiger meets got meets st

According to After Trek, Michelle Yeoh was involved in helping to design the sword

….they certainly didn’t scrimp on production values for this show, that’s for sure. Quite impressive.

And it might just be me, but I think Burnham’s hair looks ridiculous.

ya, I prefer her hair to be non curly like how it was when she was graduating, much sexier

Well, the hair could be seen as part of the “artificial” Vulcan-ness. Burnham has naturally curly hair, but it was straightened while she was trying to “pass” as Vulcan. Now that she is rediscovering her humanity, she’s letting her natural curls come back :)
And her hair is AMAZING!

she has fantastic hair, my personal pref is non curly like mu tilly

I like Tilly’s curly hair, just as I like Burnham’s. I hope Tilly goes back to her red curls. I am so sick of “Hollywood” females with blonde hair.

I do not like the shaping done on Burnham’s hair for the MU, but it does look kind of “Mirror.” Can’t explain that very well. I like Burnham’s hairstyle in the regular universe much more.

yes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Sonequa’s hair is perfect. Black hair is generally curly. No need for her to straighten her hair to meet an arbitrary and very white standard of “beauty.” Should she change her name to sound more white? How about lighten her skin to be more “beautiful?” Nah. It’s time we put the racist silliness to rest. :) #BlackIsBeautiful #NaturalHair

Way to first invoke racism yourself and then ask to put it to rest

*yawn*

how is prefering straight hair racist? I prefer straight hair is all. Not only white woman have straight hair yes? Many black, asian, hispanic or non whites have straight hair. Why must there always be the race card. I am just saying when I saw Michael with straight hair, to me she is prettier in that form. Nothing more nothing less.

It’s somewhat racist because black American women who wanted office or teaching or other white-collar jobs in the mid-20th century had to straighten their hair to look “acceptable” for employment. I would not say “many” black people have straight hair, although there are some. Many do, however, go to enormous trouble to straighten their naturally curly hair. ENORMOUS trouble, and usually expense.

@Marja A non-sequitur here, but I thought Viola Davis looked pretty great at the Golden Globes. If someone wants to straighten their hair (or — and these ones aren’t racist: get a perm on naturally straight hair, or dye grey hair or get a hair transplant for thinning hair etc.) for their own reasons, great — but, yeah, expecting it is tricky.

Agreed that to gain employment one must straighten hair is racist, but I was stating a personal preference to which I like.

I like straight hair over curly hair, just my personal preference. MU universe Tilly looks hotter than prime universe Tilly and graduating Michael looks hotter than curly hair Michael.

I wasnt suggesting that anyone had to have straight hair or else.

Can you sound anymore ridiculous?

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with criticizing a haircut, or liking straight hair over curly hair (or vice versa).

That would be like saying it was racist for all white people (and frankly, all races) who wanted their hair as huge and curly as possible in the 80s.

true

My hair is salt and pepper and has never been curly…

Native Americans with curly hair 🤔 how devinely quaint. 😮

African Americans – I knew you referring to them but where’s

the diversity there? Rich heritage obviously but a bit b&w….

It’s time to stop telling black women how to wear their hair. For years, their hair was considered by society to be unclean, unkempt, unprofessional. They were basically not allowed to wear it the way it grew out of their head.
So to tell a black woman, who is wearing her hair in a natural style, that it would be better straight cannot be divorced from the years of women being forced to suppress their own blackness. I understand it’s not intentional, but the reality is the message is still: your black hair is unclean, unkempt, unprofessional.

That’s the beauty of the free world, do as you wish. You also cannot force someone else to like one style over another.

If one chooses to go with straight hair over curly and vice versa all the power to them. Also if someone else finds one style sexier all the power to them. This applies to men shaving or not shaving and tatoos or non tatoos, piercings or non piercings.

It’s not just you. As I mentioned it’s got that “Marge Simpson” look (minus the color).

And they have specifically mentioned in the run-up of the show the odd hairstyles of her and Tilly are part of “exposing the natural hair of the actress”. Apparently having a nice ‘do like Tilly sports in the MU and Burnham did in the first episode is “oppression by the evil patriarchy and white supremacy” #too. The greater issue is that EVERYTHING in his show, even the tiniest detail, has got to be an uncompromising, divisive political statement, which of course is why it is part of the problem and not the solution to the cultural wars – tone-deaf to the signs of the times!

nicely said

…well, gosh, shame it’s not like that apolitical Original Series that didn’t make a grand political statement every other episode…

…seriously, where do you people come up with this material? TREK was literally built to be an engine to tell deeply political and philosophical stories aka TWILIGHT ZONE. Moreover, it’s rarely subtle about the “right” side of those stories; from “Last Battlefield” to “The Enemy” to “Far Beyond The Stars”, time and again TREK has told very direct stories about the impact of racism as well as other Social Justice values.

TREK doesn’t just wear ’em on its sleeves, it punches the viewer in the face with ’em. The people who don’t care for DISCO’s modern portrayals of such things seem, to this Son of the South, to be of a kind with those Southerners who wrote in dismay when Kirk kissed Uhura.

It’s about time TREK starts to re-embrace, on the Production end, those same values in ways large (having a gay couple) and small (opening up to natural hair on the actors). What’s fascinating is that the latter also serves a story purpose; as others have pointed out, Burnham’s evolution as a character is mirrored (no pun intended) by her hairstyle, and Tilly shows similar growth and change, most startlingly by the mirror wig, but also even early on when Tilly literally “lets her hair down” for the party, the 1st time we see her as more than a nervous nelly.

So yes, there’s actual storytelling in those hairs. :) And it’s story that matches the history of TREK, so I’m A-OK with it, and hope they continue down these lines.

Well said Woodrow!

Indeed. Hair has political and cultural importance. Women’s appearances are already scrutinized and “policed” more than men’s are, particularly in the workplace. Every place I’ve been where there’s a majority male environment (tech), guys can dress sloppily, but to be taken seriously, women have to dress 2x as better.

When you add race to the context, there’s even more scrutiny. Many legal battles have been fought in the US over the right of black men and women to have natural hair at work, because appearance codes specify “acceptability” based on white hair. Black hair is structured differently – to straighten it isn’t as easy as a white redhead with “curls” simply using a straightening iron, it involves some pretty harsh chemicals – relaxers, etc – in addition to lots of heat treatment with irons, blow drying etc – it’s a significant investment of time and money.

It’s even coded into the culture: Straightening your hair is sometimes seen as a “sellout” move, and characters with straightened hair can be seen as siding with The Man vs ‘righteous’ natural hair.

Hair length is a thing (ranging from Rapunzel long to Furiosa short) and in drama films and thrillers, the act of a woman cutting off her own hair is seen as significant (so much so, it has its own Trope Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ImportantHaircut), because long hair takes YEARS to grow.

It’s significant in the context of Star Trek because on Vulcan, Michael was trying to “pass” as Vulcan, even adopting their signature haircut (which is a topic for another day, why is there so little variation in haircuts for any given world?); but we see that all that is in vain, she is not accepted as Vulcan by other Vulcans; after years in Starfleet she returns to her natural hair.

In the MU, her hair is still natural, but shaped up for a militaristic, aggressive look.

There’s a lot more to be said, but check out Chris Rock’s documentary Good Hair for a look into this, and also, it’s significant that the characters have real, natural hair in Black Panther (opening soon!)

I never understood why the Afro natural look went out of style. Wasn’t it tied to the civil rights movement, the right to look like who you are?

Don’t go to the palace…

I’m hoping for some master sword play from Michele Yeoh, hopefully in a fight that lasts longer than her bout with T’Kuvma. She’s capable of so much more.

Yes, that would be pretty boss!

They just couldnt help themselves… Mirror Empress has stupid deltas on her boots. WHY? ?? ? ?

Wonder if Tyler continues to have problems with his Voq memories and Saru goes to L’Rell for help.

would Voq want to go back to his original looks now that he is outted as a spy and is possible

I don’t think that would be possible. As Culber said right before his demise, Voq’s bones were surgically shortened, vertebrae altered, bone marrow altered, etc, to pass as human. Likely that is a one-way transformation, even with 23rd century medical technology, irreversible. Who knows where the outer skin of “Ash Tyler” came from – fridge horror if you think about it too much.

LOL…excellent spot. I totally missed that detail.

They’re upside down deltas. Hmmm.

In this take on the MU, the Terran Empire crest of the sword-through-earth is set on an upside-down delta. You can see these in close-up in the previous episode where they have that montage shot of the crew trading in their badges, repainting the USS to ISS, changing the display backgrounds, etc.

Not much discovering going on here.
Just retreads and revisits of things already covered by TOS and it’s spinoffs.

Oh well, I guess it all gets glossed over with flashy effects, sets and costume party designs.
Oh look, the phaser beams are green this week!

Michele Yeoh was known as Michele Khan earlier in her career. Appropriate she is the Khan (Empress). Could she be a descendant of Hoshi, who took the “Empress” mantle in Enterprise?

I was thinking the same thing and posted it the tread about the previous episode. Funny thing happened. I was called a racist for thinking this. Some people, sheesh

While production is high,everything looks too dark to me.The sets look too dim and in the space scense it’s hard to tell what’s going on. I know they went for a more theatrical look and pace.I guess I’m thinking old school TV “in livig color”.Those bright colors stood out like the uniforms and the different alian ship colors. Must be getting old.

What is highly odd is that this emperor wears a standard Starfleet uniform under her cloak – zipper and all – look closely at the collar (the zippers in Discovery and before, Enterprise, always striked me not as something realistic but part of what will date these shows horribly in the future as a product of their time – similar to the use of spandex and mini-skirts in the past)

Cod pieces are coming back into style I hear…

And pumpkin pants.

That second last photo is telling don’t you think?