Star Trek: Short Treks -- Season 2 Episode 3 (Ask Not)

When they named the series Star Trek: Short Treks, they weren’t kidding.  Ask Not is only 8 minutes long.  Almost all of it is in one room.

Cadet Thira Sidhu is on Starbase 28 when it’s seemingly attacked.  She’s told to watch over a mutinous officer, who turns out to be Captain Christopher Pike.  Since it’s been established that he’s an officer after this, we can assume something’s up.

Pike tries everything to persuade Sidhu to let him go.  They quote regulations a few times.  He brings up her brother, who might fall victim to the attack.  There are several angles that Pike tries to no avail; Sidhu stands her ground.

It is revealed to be a test.  It’s almost like a Kobayashi Maru scenario in that there’s no really appealing choice.  She can either restrain a captain or possibly let a mutinous officer go.  The only difference is that there is a correct choice here.  If Pike did mutiny, he would no longer have authority over a lower-ranking offier or cadet.

It’s a very effective story.  I’m not sure if these shorts are meant to tie in to existing series, but it occurs to me that these episodes could serve as a backdoor pilot of sorts.  It would be a way of gauging new characters and scenarios.  It could also be just a short story meant to entertain fans.

So far as I know, this doesn’t tie in to either of the first two seasons.  This was released after the end of the second season, so it might be a tie-in for the third season.  We’ll have to wait and see.

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Star Trek: Short Treks -- Season 2 Episode 1 (Q&A)

This may be the easiest of the Short Treks to review.  Spock gets stuck in a turbolift with Number One.  The episode actually starts with Ensign Spock beaming on to the Enterprise to start his new assignment.  Number One informs him that the best way to make it is to ask a lot of questions, to the point of being annoying.

On their way to the bridge, the Turbolift stops.  The manual override doesn’t work and Engineering’s no help.  So, Spock uses the time to ask all manner of questions of his new first officer.  We find out a lot of things, like it not being a good idea to ask Captain Pike about horses.  Number One also prefers the next-to-current operating system rather than the latest update.  (I didn’t even know starships had numbered operating systems like that, but I guess it makes sense.)

It seems to be a running joke among the All Access series that Number One’s name is actually Number One.  It’s implied that her name is Una, but it’s not clear if that’s a first or last name.  Way back in The Cage, Pike referred to his first officer as such, which is apparently a tradition among some navies.

I honestly wonder if these were recycled from rejected plot ideas.  I could see this having been worked into an episode of Discovery.  I don’t think it would have worked, even as a b story.  This works to get the idea on screens and does seem to fit canon pretty well.  We see Spock smile and Number One advise him to play it straight.  Don’t let your freak flag fly if you want command.

I have always wondered why the Discovery and Enterprise turbolifts have been shown as a group of tracks inside the ship.  I always imagined them as tubes just wide enough to accommodate a single carriage.  Maybe I was wrong.  Maybe this just looks cooler.  I don’t know.  I’m sure an explanation will come along eventually.

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Star Trek: Discovery -- Season 2 Episode 14 (Such Sweet Sorrow: Part 2)

WARNING:  I’m going to give away details, including the ending of the episode.

I’m accustomed to a 26-episode season for Star Trek.  Discovery’s first season was 15 episodes.  Here we are at the end of the 14-episode second season.  I’m also hearing that Star Trek: Picard is going to be 10 episodes.  I’m going to have to get used to a slightly shorter season.

That being said, having fewer episodes does seem to produce a higher quality of episode.  There is a cohesive narrative for this season and we get a decent setup for the third season.

Burnham is going to take Discovery into the far future.  She has a few more things to do.  It takes her a moment to figure out exactly what, but she does it, with an assist from Spock.

Speaking of which, Spock seems to think he’s going with Burnham.  We know he’s not.  If he did, it would mean that there’s a way back from the future.  Instead, he has to go with Captain Pike and be on that spinoff that everyone keeps talking about.

There are two things that I noticed.  Both stem from the fact that control was defeated.  The first is that Burnham goes into the future anyway.  Since Control was defeated, it should be unnecessary for Discovery to make the time jump.  Burnham’s mother should also have come back.

This leads me to my second point.  It’s not stated that she didn’t.  She may have wound up on some distant planet.  However, it’s also not stated that Discovery is going so that they can look for her, either.  Maybe it’s destiny.  Maybe the writers are hearing all the complaints about retcons.  I don’t know.

Part of the finale seems contrived.  There was no reason for Cornwell to put herself in mortal danger, for instance.  Why would the crew even let her?  We also find out that everyone left in the 23^rd century agrees never to talk of Burnham or the spore drive ever again.  So, there’s that.

Either way, it was a pretty solid second season.  It was better than other second seasons that I’ve seen.  It will be interesting to see what a third season holds.  We’ve gotten a few glimpses.  Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a date more solid than sometime this year.

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Star Trek: Discovery -- Season 2 Episode 13 (Such Sweet Sorrow)

I’ve had my complaint about Star Trek: Discovery so far, but I will say this:  I’ve spent the second season wonder what its end game is going to be.  There were seven red signals, a sphere with a vast amount of data and an artificial intelligence bent on getting that information.  We also find out that Burnham’s mother isn’t really dead and that she’s been working against the AI from 930 years in the future.

So, how does this all work out?  The data can’t be erased.  Once it’s in Discovery’s computer, it won’t let Discovery be destroyed.  The only option is to go through with the original plan of sending the information into the future.  The difference here is that Burnham will take the entire ship into the future.  Yes, they’re going to build another angel suit and let Burnham use it.

This raises a lot of questions, some of which I’ve asked before.  Will it work?  Does it even make sense?  Will Burnham’s mother be there or will she even be allowed to leave the future?  Will Discovery make it back to the 23^rd century or will Discovery be 930 years in the future for the rest of its run?

However, we now know what the time crystal was for.  A new red signal even leads Discovery to a planet where the inhabitants might be able to help.  We learn that it will probably be a one-way trip for Burnham and Discovery, as the crystal will burn out.  (That doesn’t mean the 32^nd century won’t have some other means of time travel.)

The entire episode is buildup.  It’s setting us up for what Burnham has to do to save humanity and all life in the galaxy.  She has a lot of figuring out to do and a need to accept her fate as The One.  Yes, she’ll have help and various characters will vow to go with her.  (I suppose it’s better than assembling a new bridge crew in the future.)  I guess we’ll have to wait for Part II to see how it plays out.

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Star Trek: Discovery -- Season 2 Episode 12 (Through the Valley of Shadows)

Having a huge franchise can be a blessing and a curse.  If you don’t draw on it, you are wasting potential.  If you do use it, it can come across as namedropping.  So far in Star Trek Discovery, we’ve seen Amanda, Sarek, Spock, Pike, Number One and the Talosians, not to mention The Enterprise and Boreth.

On the flip side are Control, which is a Skynet wannabe, and the Spore Drive, neither of which was mentioned in any other series or movie.  And there’s Michael Burnham, Spock’s foster sister.  That’s at least understandable, as Spock didn’t mention his parents or half-brother to Kirk.

What can I say?  It’s been a busy season.  Speaking of which, after this episode is the two-part season finale.

So, yeah.  This episode serves as a setup.

Control is bent on getting that Sphere data.  To do that, they need a Time Crystal, which means a return trip to Boreth, where the Chancellor will put in a good word so that Pike can beam down.  It’s not clear exactly what the plan is yet, but it’s got to be big.

Meanwhile, Spock and Michael check out a Section 31 ship that has gone silent.  That’s because Control killed everyone except for one person.  Coincidentally, that person served with Michael on the Shenzhou.  There’s no way that control took that person over.  Right?

By episode’s end, it’s determined that the only rational course of action is to evacuate Discovery to Enterprise and destroy the ship.  Given that a third season has been ordered, it can’t be that easy.  Even if we didn’t know that, there are still two episodes left.

I know I keep on about this whole Control/Skynet thing.  It’s not that farfetched.  Both are AI systems that become self aware and wipe out all known organic life.  Time travel is involved and there’s a parent/child team trying to stop them.  The child is seen as a threat to the AI and the mother has undergone a major personality shift trying to stop the AI.

So, part of the story is trying to change fate.  There’s also a part of the story that involves accepting your fate.  Pike has to accept his if he wants the time crystal.  Michael will also have to accept hers in the two-part finale.  So, there’s that.

It’s not clear what Pike intends to do with the time crystal, exactly.  He can’t get it to Michael’s mother.  It would seem that he has no plans yet to build another suit.  He’s doing this not really knowing why.  However, the alternative is letting everyone die.

The second season is almost as smooth as I’d have hoped.  There are a few parts, like here, where it seems like maybe it’s a victim of one too many rewrites, but I can forgive that.  It took me the entire season, but things are starting to make sense.

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