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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Star Trek: Discovery -- Season 2 Episode 11 (Perpetual Infinity)

We were given a lot to process in the previous episode of Discovery.  It was assumed that the mysterious Red Angel was Michael Burnham.  The assumption wasn’t far off.  It turns out that The Red Angel is actually her mother, Dr. Gabrielle Burnham.  This is a big shock, considering that Dr. Burnham and her husband were killed by Klingons, leaving Michael to be raised by Sarek and Amanda on Vulcan.

Gabrielle has been living more than 900 years in the future.  In that future, Control has taken over and killed all organic life on every planet she’s seen.  She’s been making trips back to Michael’s present so that she might prevent this.  Unfortunately, Gabrielle can’t stay in the present for more than a few minutes.  She’s sucked back, making meaningful change difficult.

This is where Discovery comes in; they’ve found a way to trap the Red Angel.  The bad news is that this only delays the inevitable.  It becomes apparent that Gabrielle will eventually return to the future.  Even worse, she doesn’t want to talk to Michael, her only child.  That’s how focused she has become on preventing this disaster.

Control is after some important information.  The data can’t be deleted.  The best plan is to move it into Gabrielle’s suit and send it into the distant future, where it will be permanently hidden from Control.

With three more episodes left, one can assume that the plan doesn’t exactly work out.  Gabrielle does go back to the future by episode’s end, leaving the crew to find some other way to deal with Control.

It occurs to me that since Control is a computer program, it could effectively wait the 930 years.  But that would be 930 years for humans to deal with Control.  It might also have served as the impetus for Control to wipe out all life anyway.

We also learn that Gabrielle didn’t just make a few trips to the present.  She had logs for over 800 trips.  She even hints at Captain Pike’s fate.  It’s no wonder she’s so focused.

There’s also the question of whether or not Control will become The Borg.  Both seek perfection.  Both are capable of assimilation.  “Struggle is pointless,” as Leland puts it.  Gabrielle has invented time travel.  Discovery has a spore drive that can go anywhere in an instant.  It is conceivable.

Alas, it doesn’t look like this is going to happen.  I’ve already finished the season and it looks like Control will be dealt with some other way.  Then again, anything’s possible.  I’ve noted before that nothing ever truly stays dead in the Star Trek universe.

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Star Trek: Discovery -- Season 2 Episode 10 (The Red Angel)

SPOILER ALERT:  I’m going to give away major surprises here.

There’s a line of thought that most mythology has some basis in reality.  Gods and angels could be powerful aliens.  Bigfoot could be any number of real-life animals, such as bears.  There’s even a word for it:  Euhemerism, which is the belief that actual events are distorted to the point where they become legend or myth.

In Discovery, there’s The Red Angel.  Spock saw it as a child.  The Red Angel even helped Spock.  He drew pictures of it, but it was dismissed as the product of a child’s active imagination.  Come to find out a few episodes ago that The Red Angel actually exists.  And it’s assumed to be a humanoid in a mechanical suit.

At the beginning of the episode, something comes to light:  The suit contains a bioneural imprint.  But it’s not any bioneural imprint.  It belongs to none other than Michael Burnham.  So, the crew sets off on the assumption that The Red Angel actually is Burnham.  It’s kind of a flimsy case, but whatever.

Here’s where the crew makes its next logical misstep, though.  They reason that since The Red Angel is Burnham, she’ll act to save Burnham.  Thus, putting Burnham at mortal risk will serve as bait so that they might capture The Red Angel.

Um, ok.  Is it really wise to have Burnham present during these discussions?  Wouldn’t it kind of give their plan away?  I would think they’d have her wait in the next room or something.

There’s also the cliché of having to possible actually kill her for the plan to be effective.  We all know that they’re not going to do that to such an important character.

Despite a few weaknesses, the episode serves as a good transition from Project Daedalus to Perpetual Infinity.  That may be its greatest weakness, in that the series had to get from one point to another and didn’t really have a great way to do that.  The Red Angel has to be drawn out somehow and there’s really only one way to do that with any certainty.  It’s not a great plan, but it’s hard to come up with a better one.

Dr. Culber also talks to Admiral Cornwall, who was a psychologist.  She doesn’t offer her a session, per se, but it is nice to finally see that he does recognize the need to reach out to someone.  I suspect it’s going to be a long road back for Culber.

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