Death is all over tonight’s incredibly intense episode of Discovery, from the very first scene to the very last.
It starts with something I would not have credited them doing with the death of so minor a character as Airiam: a funeral. Usually such pomp and circumstance is reserved for people in the opening credits, and the fact that they went to this trouble for a minor character was a welcome change from the norm, where the characters’ reactions to other characters’ deaths depends entirely upon their actors’ billing. It shows that the writers remember that, even though the viewers barely knew Airiam, the crew of Discovery knew her damn well.
I also love that they used Spock’s funeral at the end of The Wrath of Khan as a template for Airiam’s service here. But instead of just one eulogy, we get several—from Pike, from Tilly, from Stamets, from Detmer (my favorite of them, as Detmer explains how Airiam helped the pilot deal with her own cybernetic implants—”It made both of us new, and that there could be a future”), and finally from Burnham. We even have a musical coda, à la Scotty playing “Amazing Grace” on the bagpipes—in this case, Saru singing a lovely Kelpien death dirge as they send out Airiam’s coffin through the torpedo tube.
The theme of death continues in a conversation between Leland and Burnham. Back in “Light and Shadows,” we found out that one bit of leverage Georgiou has on Leland is that Leland was responsible for the death of Burnham’s parents. Leland, rather sensibly, removes that leverage by telling Burnham the truth: her parents worked for Section 31. They were assigned to Doctari Alpha by 31, for a project supervised by Leland. The Klingons killed them because of that project, which was to create a suit that could travel in time, a response to the Klingons experimentation with time travel. (This dovetails rather nicely with Admiral Janeway acquiring time-travel tech from a Klingon more than a century hence in Voyager’s “Endgame.”) And 31’s suit is actually what the Red Angel is wearing.
More to the point, though, is that the information they downloaded from Airiam includes biological data indicating that the Red Angel is Burnham.
I love that they dropped this on us right at the beginning of the episode, seeing as how the most popular fan theory has been that Burnham is the Red Angel. So they don’t waste any more time in the episode titled after that particular persona to give credence to that very theory.
And then they totally screw with us, because in the end, it isn’t Burnham. Which is fine, as it being Burnham never made sense anyhow, especially given that the Red Angel saved Burnham’s life, which shouldn’t have been possible for her to do. While it’s true that the Red Angel’s MO fits Burnham’s particular neuroses—something Spock points out in a meeting, to Burnham’s chagrin—it also doesn’t quite track that it would be Burnham doing this.
No, the Red Angel is Burnham’s Mom. (And she’s played by Sonja Sohn! Who is magnificent and wonderful and great, and now we need more actors from The Wire on Star Trek please, beyond Sohn and Idris Elba. Maybe Lance Reddick as a starship captain? Michael K. Williams as a Klingon? Wood Harris as Burnham’s Dad?)
This is just brilliant, as it keeps the Burnham connection, but makes it much more complicated. And it makes much more sense. The common thread among most of the Angel’s appearances is saving Burnham’s life. Spock and Burnham come up with a rather ingenious yet totally insane plan to bait the Angel: put Burnham’s life in danger. Since they believe that the Red Angel is Burnham, she will, of course, not permit herself to die. Meanwhile, Stamets, Tilly, Leland, and Saru all work on ways to capture the Angel when she shows up to save Burnham. (Nobody brings up the rather salient point that letting Burnham in on the plan means she’ll know about it in the future and be able to plan against it, though that winds up being a moot point with the Mom reveal. Still, it’s a hole.)
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Death permeates the episode elsewhere, as Burnham and Nhan discuss what happened on the 31 base last week. Burnham is prickly at first in Nhan’s presence, since the security chief is the one who actually killed Airiam (under Pike’s orders). But both officers come to a rapprochement—Nhan is grateful that Burnham was there to try to find a better way than killing their comrade, and Burnham is grateful that Nhan could follow the order when Burnham really really couldn’t.
Plus, we have the ongoing thread of Culber trying to figure out how to live his life after dying and coming back. He goes to Admiral Cornwell, who apparently has a past as a therapist. (As a fan of Sports Night, this amuses the crap out of me, as Jayne Brook rather brilliantly played a therapist in the second season of that show.)
The Culber-Cornwell talk is one of several superlative conversations in this episode. We’ve got Georgiou messing with Stamets, Culber, and Tilly’s heads, since they all know who she really is, and so she can tweak them on the subject of their counterparts in the Mirror Universe. (And much as I loved Stamets declaring his homosexuality with the same fervor that pretty much every other Star Trek character ever has declared his or her heterosexuality, I also loved Georgiou dismissively telling them not to be so binary.) We’ve got Saru telling Leland that he needs to see for himself that the 31 captain can be trusted. (That scene is the first time Saru has been out-and-out intimidating, without losing the character’s general serene calm, and it’s yet another bravura performance by the great Doug Jones.)
And then we have one of the absolute high points of the episode, the Spock-Burnham conversation in the gym. (I had thought the funeral would be the high point, and then we got this conversation, which supplanted it. It would later in turn be supplanted by the Red Angel reveal at the end.) Ethan Peck is almost frightening in how well he channels Leonard Nimoy in this scene. He’s aided and abetted by a script that is full of pretty much letter-perfect Spock dialogue. Much credit to writers Chris Silvestri (a writers assistant) and Anthony Maranville (the show’s researcher), who just nail it, especially in this scene. Peck, Silvestri, and Maranville absolutely capture Spock’s low-key snideness and his formal affect and his roundabout manner of showing affection through overly complex, mannered speech. It starts perfectly, with Burnham pounding a dummy in frustration shortly after having punched Leland twice in the nose following his revelation about her parents. Spock says, “I’m sure Captain Leland appreciates your choice of high-density urethane foam in lieu of his nasal cartilage.” From that moment, I was sold, and the rest of the scene did not let me down.
As good as Peck is, though, it’s Sonequa Martin-Green who makes this episode, as she has to go through a lot, starting with her eulogy of Airiam, continuing to her initially awkward conversation with Nhan, to finding out that she’s somehow the Red Angel (or so everyone thinks), to stumbling toward rekindling her relationship with Tyler (one good thing that did come from Airiam’s death is that Tyler has been freed from house arrest, as it was Airiam who sent the unauthorized signals), to finding out the truth about her parents, to volunteering to be temporarily killed.
Throughout it all, Martin-Green nails every emotional beat, from sadness at the funeral to shock at the revelation that she’s the Red Angel to anger at Leland’s revelation to being calmed by Spock—who knows just what buttons to push to make her feel better—to determination to go through with their crazy-ass plan. And then we have the gut-twisting anguish of her screams of agony as the crew exposes her to a violent atmosphere to endanger her life and lure the Red Angel.
Then, finally, the big moment, when she sounds for all the world like a five-year-old girl when she recognizes the Red Angel, and speaks the last line of the episode: “Mom?”
Oh yes, and we have one more bit of death. While 31’s base was destroyed and all the computers scrubbed, the Evil Future A.I. Of Doom is still out there somewhere, and it appears to kill Leland. Right when I was starting to almost respect the bastard, too. That particular twist will have its consequences next week, presumably. For now, it looks like next week is the Red Angel vs. the A.I. with Starfleet stuck in the middle. Plus, of course, a rather crazed family reunion. I must admit to being incredibly eager to meet Burnham’s Mom—admittedly, mostly because Sohn is playing her, but also in general. In a season full of emotional gut-punches, this may be the biggest one for Burnham.
Keith R.A. DeCandido will be at Planet Comic-Con next weekend in Kansas City. Find him mostly at Bard’s Tower, Booth 803, alongside a bunch of other authors, among them Mercedes Lackey, Larry Dixon, Dan Wells, Mario Acevedo, and Brian Lee Durfee. Other guests of the con include Trek actors William Shatner, Jennifer Morrison, Lori Petty, Chris Sarandon, and Wallace Shawn, as well fellow Trek word-slingers Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore, Chris Claremont, and Thom Zahler.
Okay… So the Red Angel started out being some incredibly dangerous phenomenon manifesting all over the galaxy at once… and now it’s just one lone time traveler fixating on Michael Burnham. Methinks the change in showrunners led to a fundamental change in what the Red Angel was intended to be. Indeed, I’ve heard some intimations that Berg & Harberts wanted to take the show in a genuinely metaphysical/religious direction; I wonder if that could’ve been a factor in their dismissal, since it doesn’t fit Trek’s basically secular worldview.
The time travel angle is a bit of a problem for me, since it might clash with how I portrayed the history of Starfleet’s discovery/exploration of time travel in Department of Temporal Investigations: Forgotten History. But then, maybe the Section 31 angle salvages it, because that justifies it being a secret that the rest of Starfleet wouldn’t know about.
I pretty much agree with Keith on all points – especially as regards Ethan Peck’s performance. That said, it really feels like there is another plot hole in that we haven’t heard any real explanation for the Red Angel rescuing all the New Eden colonists’ ancestors back in the day if, in fact, everything revolves around Michael Burnham. I think we are probably going to get a week full of flashbacks if that scene of the Klingons disembarking in the preview is any indication. Hopefully that little plot hole will get filled in then.
Not all that much happened during this episode. There’s the funeral, and the plot to trap the Red Angel, but otherwise it’s about conversations, most of them pairs: Culber and Cornwell, Burnham and Nhan, Burnham and Spock, Burnham and Leland. Oh, and I’m guessing Control has (as everyone feared) escaped, and it stabbed Leland in the eyes (I’m assuming that wasn’t a standard biometric).
Tilly still hasn’t learned to not blather when addressing Admiral Cornwell.
Awkward phrase: “We had DEFCON-level sexy fun together”. Georgiou is still employing her tactic of dropping conversational depth charges to keep foes (everybody’s a potential foe) off-balance.
In the trap, when Burnham’s exposed to the toxic atmosphere, her skin immediately starts to blister. What about her eyes? IMHO, she should’ve worn goggles — no point in injuring her more than necessary.
The Red Angel suit disgorges Mrs. Burnham, which feels like a “we’ll save money by doing this entirely in digital” solution.
Unlike last week, this script remembered to supply an excuse. “Beam her directly to Sickbay.” “Can’t, there’s tachyon interference.”
Tech grumble 1: the capability of site-to-site transport in this era. That wasn’t done in TOS, and was a nifty new capability in TNG.
Tech grumble 2: Section 31 is able to build a time-travel suit, and yet in TOS Starfleet is seemingly alarmed by the new-fangled potential of time travel (black star slingshots, Guardian of Forever). Is Spock’s experience here compatible with his later demeanor? (How could we tell? He’s cool as a cucumber no matter what.)
Half-baked technobabble 1: Leland needs to “override the security buffers”, apparently to supply extra power to the graviton beam. To do so, there’s a specialized eye-scan rig in a separate room. –But they had no trouble redirecting power to tractor beams a few eps ago, using only bridge controls.
Half-baked technobabble 2: “It’ll take 12 warp cores to power the trap.” “No prob, we’ll do it on this planet with a lot of deuterium.”
They’re assembling the containment field generators (a re-dress of the dishes from the Shenzhou transporter set) in the docking bay and there’s the nice touch of an unattended robot arm doing some of the work (oh, and there’s that workbee flitting around yet again). It’s sometimes surprising how few shipboard sets this high-budget show has, such that activities occur in ill-suited locations. What if they unexpectedly need the bay for, y’know, docking operations?
Conducting the funeral in the docking bay, with hundreds of crew, and with only the atmospheric containment field — this is not a fault-tolerant situation. Does Discovery even have doors? It feels like they’ve been influenced by Star Wars visuals in this respect.
Quoth Philip: “Tilly still hasn’t learned to not blather when addressing Admiral Cornwell.”
I’d end that sentence four words sooner…..
And speaking as someone whose most well-regarded Star Trek novel (Articles of the Federation) consisted entirely of conversations, I have no problem with an episode that’s mostly people talking to each other. Especially when the conversations are as good as these are…. :)
—-Keith R.A. DeCandido
I’m glad you pointed out the fact that they were all telling Michael the plan to trap her future self, and how stupid that was. It made me cringe throughout the whole episode and practically yell at my TV – WHY WOULD YOU TELL THE PERSON YOU’RE TRYING TO TRAP HOW YOU’RE GOING TO TRAP HER? If every other aspect of the episode was not as good as it was, it would have ruined the whole thing.
@5 said: WHY WOULD YOU TELL THE PERSON YOU’RE TRYING TO TRAP HOW YOU’RE GOING TO TRAP HER?
I suppose you would if you were assuming it was a predestination paradox in which a future Burnham would “remember” capturing her future self …
@5/Blend: Actually that makes sense, because if Burnham were the Red Angel coming back to change things, then she’d be from a timeline that didn’t have the Red Angel in her past affecting events, and thus she wouldn’t have memories of events that came about because of her presence in the past.
Why would she be from a timeline without a Red Angel? I always assumed the show was playing it as if they believed the Red Angel was future Burnham from the timeline they are currently in, thus the Red Angel would presumably have Michael’s memories. Anyway, it’s moot, I guess, given it’s her mom in the end, but I don’t see how or why the Red Angel, if it WERE Michael, would have to be from a timeline without the Red Angel?
@8/Blend: I haven’t seen the episode yet, but I’m speaking of how time travel is usually portrayed in fiction. If a character goes back in time, interacts with the past, and changes it, then they still remember their original past, the one they came from, and don’t remember the changes they made. Marty McFly still remembered the original version of 1985 when he got Back to the Future and saw how his life had improved. Spock Prime still remembered the Prime version of his life even after his and Nero’s actions ended up splitting off an altered timeline. And so on.
Re: letting now!Burnham know the plan to capture presumed future!Burnam — I’m not convinced the writers understand how they want this form of time travel to work, or how to explain it.
I’ve also seen signs that the writers are conflating what *they* know and what the *characters* could know or reasonably surmise. To wit: Saru sees the Red Angel and immediately identifies it as “future technology”. The Red Angel gives Spock a vision and he interprets it as “all sentient life in the galaxy” (not “Federation” or “region”). They’re attacked by a future-AI and conclude it’s derived from Control, conveniently confirmed when Control goes rogue. (I suppose all the computers-run-amok that are *alien* won’t be encountered until TOS.)
This week on How I met Your Mother… May I quote myself from last week? Comment 36:
“Possibility: Michael’s mom is still alive. Could be the Angel or guiding the Angel. She saves Burnham’s life and chooses Spock as her protector.”
I even threw Amanda into the pool before, so guess the maternal thing came across in the writing at some point.
Now we have Chekov’s Red Angel timesuit standing there. Will Michael use it? Safe bet, I’d say. She could still be the Angel from this point forward. The writers love twists on twists, or twistbacks. Plus, it would incorporate the Daedelus/Icarus myth. We haven’t seen Icarus yet, although invoking that particular doomed figure doesn’t bode well. Or it could be another red herring.
The plot to kill Burnham was just crazy, it was batshit crazy. And they follow it even though Michael’s made some misguided decisions in the past. Spock’s only excuse is that they’d just had a rapprochement as brother/sister. The whole thing was massively stupid. And I say that as someone who liked the episode otherwise, especially all the character work.
Another thing that didn’t add up for me was the red signals being connected to the Angel. They started this season saying there were 7 signals, now they’re saying only 3 have appeared, 4 to go. Retcon within the season?
This week in “No one listens to Pike anymore”: Last week Michael couldn’t follow his order to space Airiam. This week Spock disobeys a direct order and lets Michael die. Bet there’s no consequences to this at all.
Another quibble: The Angel arrives after she’s dead and revives her with a red laser? What did it actually do? And what did the crew think they could do if she sustained too much damage as she died? The suffocating I can see, but the skin boiling…? Nevermind the eyes should’ve been severely damaged by then. She probably shouldn’t have been able to see her mom, even. This was cruel even for a harebrained scheme.
@10. Philip: I agree with this. The characters overreach or overstate things because the writers don’t keep things in context. How does Saru know it’s future tech? He doesn’t. How does Spock know it’s all sentient life destroyed? He doesn’t. We only saw several planets destroyed, plus some more missiles being deployed in actual space. That could take decades to cross the galaxy. A little reining in would help.
Sunspear: good predictive job, there! :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
The fact that Airiam’s data showed that the Red Angel was Burnham doesn’t mean that the revel of her mother is wrong or changed. It’s time travel. The appearances of the Angel that we’ve seen may not have happened in the order we have seen them for the Angel. For example, the appearance to young Spock may have actually been one of the last trips into the past that was made. It’s time travel. Trying to make it make sense from our perspective just doesn’t work. Just sit back and say “OK”.
That said, of course it’s Burnham/Burnham’s mom. It had to be. Everything up to this point is about Michael. Former captain? Burnham responsible for starting the war that led to her death. Also, former captain’s Mirror Universe counterpart is the Emperor of the entire Terran Empire. Foster parents? Former characters, loved by fans. Foster brother? Ditto. Love interest? Klingon spy/murderer/Section 31 op. Parents? Section 31 operatives. Leland? Responsible for their “deaths”. How the heck could it possible be anyone else?
My prediction? Burnham’s mom isn’t long for this world and Michael will take on the role and finish the job.
If the Angel shows up when Burnham is in danger, what’s up with the seven original red flashes? Is she going to be travelling back to the time of the first episode this season in various parts of the galaxy? And when was she in danger in New Eden and The Sound of Thunder before the red bursts? The bursts showed up before the danger, not in response to it. The ship was actually drawn to those locations because of the appearance of the red flashes. So isn’t the red Angel actually drawing Burnham into danger?
@13. kkozoriz: “what’s up with the seven original red flashes”
I’m thinking of that scheme as an overlay for the season that may no longer match the stories actually told. They know of seven flashes, which correspond to a micro-wormhole opened by the Red Angel, yet only three have happened so far, one of which they caused. This sounds contradictory.
Pike in episode one: “Over past 24 hours, Federation sensors picked up seven red bursts spread out over 30,000 light years.”
Not exactly simultaneous, but close. Guess they could’ve been synchronized because… time travel. That’s still a lot of space to travel for anyone having to go to the location of the original signals. Travel speed has been variable across the various Treks. This is still over 100 years before Voyager‘s drive, which could travel close to warp 10. That drive could do about 1,250 LY in a year. (There was lots of time travel and other shenanigans in that series too, which helped them get home faster than the projected 7 decades.)
30K LY could take decades to cover given current Starfleet technology. Wait, I forgot our convenient plot device, the spore drive. That could work for the Discovery showing up at the next signal sites. But how’s anyone else, like S31, going to keep up across that vast expanse of space?
This was, hands down, the best script in Star Trek Discovery to date. My only problem was that the Georgiou-Culber-Stamets-Tilly scene was so glorious I couldn’t stop giggling all episode. From the implication that in the Mirror Universe, everyone is an Evil Bisexual; to Section 31’s evident predilection for leather and intricate (moral) gymnastics; to Burnham’s asphyxiation (neither auto nor erotic): everything set me off.
I can safely say, that to know Airiam, was to love her. And to love her, was to know her… Those who knew her, loved her, while those who did not know her, loved her from afar.
The Red Angel is Michael’s mommy. Oh God, why?
I get that Section 31 is shady as heck, but why does their retinal scanner have spring-loaded security ice picks? That’s just poor interface design.
@18/Zodda: For that matter, why does fiction still insist on having characters in the present or future use retinal scanners, which require getting up close (as I assume is the case here from the description), when it’s already far more common in real life to use iris scanners, which are not only much easier and more convenient to use but considerably more accurate? Indeed, I’ve even seen one show (Syfy’s Dark Matter) use the term “retinal scanner” when what was shown was explicitly an iris scanner, to the point that they were using contact lenses to duplicate authorized irises yet still calling them retinas. How bad do you have to be at anatomy to confuse the thing on the front of the eyeball with the thing in the back of it? And why are TV writers 20 or 30 years behind the curve on biometric technology?
Are we sure it isn’t older Burnham?
Just finished watching. I agree with others that felt the script was a little batshit but still enjoyed it
Some additional observations
– When the red angel landed / trapped and her boot hit the ground reminded me of the boots in STIII (I think ) when the assasinators of the Klingon chancellor got caught by their boots
– What was up with Culber’s fashion ? It looked like he was ready to go clubbing in 2019 (or 1995)
– @krad , thought for sure you would have included in your review when Lt. Nilsson walked on the bridge – everyone stared at her like she had risen from the dead, that is because Lt. Nilsson is played by the same person that played Airiam in season 1.
– also theories from season 1 that Admiral Cornwell is actually Lethe from TOS, especially since there were an s1 episode with that name and her being prominent that episode – connecting the dots to the therapist mention – re-enforcing that theory
– the scene with Georgiou, Culber, Tilly and Stamets was over the top – very silly but enjoyable – was like wow when Georgiou used the word pansexual
@20 – for a second I thought it might be an older Georgiou and ironically Sohn’s mother was Asian and her father is African American. But barring some crazy twist, most would interpret the ending as a definitive reveal that the Red Angel is Michael’s mom
Yes, we’re sure it’s Burnham’s Mom because she said, “Mom?” at the end, plus the character was played by a completely different actor. What more do you want?
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
My various thoughts on this episode:
-I think this is the first time the word “gay” was used in Star Trek, much less the actual concept of homosexuality was directly verbally addressed. And first time “papi” was verbally uttered too!
-Related to the first point, my favorite thing in this episode were the various character moments between various sets of characters. I think that was the greatest thing going for the episode.
-Perhaps everyone in the Mirror Universe is bisexual of pansexual!
-It’s fun when MU Georgiou compares and contrasts Prime Universe people to their MU counterparts and makes them uncomfortable in the process. It really makes me wish everyone on Discovery knew who this Georgiou really was so she can let “our” Spock know what his MU counterpart is up to at this point in his life. Probably serving under MU Pike?
-Culber’s off-duty clothes seems very late 20th-century/early 21st-century contemporary. He looked good but it also looked like he was about to go on a date at the happening gay bar downtown so it kind of took me out of the story.
-I really do like the story point of dwelling on how Culber is dealing with being alive again because so many times in the past on Star Trek you see characters resurrected and they don’t discuss the implications of that. But here finally we do, and Culber is saying he’s essentially a new person with the old Culber’s memories so it is fascinating to explore.
-Why does Culber get to take the lead role regarding medical issues? Whatever happened to the CMO? Is she of no importance? Culber isn’t even in uniform anymore.
-10 episodes in and still no reappearance or Tig Notaro or Rebecca Romijn. Perhaps they’re being saved for the season finale.
-Purely superficial but I thought Ethan Peck looked real good in his EV suit.
-Like someone else commented, Burnham didn’t follow Pike’s orders last week. No repercussions? This week, Spock also ignores Pike’s orders AND points his phaser at a comrade. But I’m sure he’ll give a free pass too.
-I don’t think Leland is dead. His eye seemed to regenerate. Is he Borg? Augmented? Merging with the Future AI? After Leland was “attacked” was it his voice that was being mimicked by Control to give Tyler the order to close the wormhole or time vortex or whatever?
-How is it that Section 31 of this era seems so much more technologically advanced than Starfleet of TNG-era?
-I think I’m already over this whole Red Angel-arc. Between the reveal of Section 31’s involvement in it, Klingons yet again being shoehorned into the narrative, seemingly everything in the universe revolving around Michael and her family, and just how time travel stories such as this can be so so convoluted, I’ve already forgotten what the whole arc was supposed to be about.
-The reveal of the Red Angel was disappointing to me. I guess with so much hype and speculation for over so long perhaps any reveal would have been a let down. But I think I was also disappointed because it wasn’t someone I recognized even though to Michael, obviously it’s someone she has an immediate closeness too. But I think that also points out to an oft-nit picked problem with Discovery: it’s inability to slow down and develop characters. In this case, it would have been nice to get at least one previous flashback (and we’ve already gotten so many) that depicted a young Michael with her biological mom to get a sense of their bond. As it is, there are a lot of dramatic consequences for Michael to be reunited with her mom after not seeing her for a couple of decades, much less thinking she was dead. Could Michael’s dad be alive too? And I thought Saru said the Red Angel’s suit was from the future, presumably 500 years in the future – the same era that the modified Discovery probe came from. Or was that just an assumption on Saru and everyone else’s part because no one could fathom that Section 31 is already that advanced?
@21 – that’s so funny! You had the same reaction to Culber’s attire that I did and you posted your comment as I was composing mine.
And the Klingon scene you’re referring to is actually from ST VI: TUC.
@GHiller: “I thought Saru said the Red Angel’s suit was from the future”
Supposedly it was his superior eyesight that allowed him to determine that. Which.. c’mon.
It’s also a plot hole because the Angel is appearing to him at that point and not Burnham, who’s up in space on the ship and in no danger. Also puts a dent in Spock’s theory.
Edit: Burnham also wasn’t in WW3.
@25: This arc is so convoluted I think I need to start taking notes to keep track. As someone else above else mentioned, I don’t think there’s anything to preclude the possibility that there are multiple Red Angels in operation. Yes, Michael’s mom is clearly one, but perhaps Michael herself takes up the mantle at some point, and perhaps even others. So this could be why they show up even when Michael isn’t in danger and save helpless souls during WWIII.
“Our mysterious ally from the future is me. So you have to kill me, so future me will be forced to time-travel to revive me, and we can kidnap and interrogate her.”
OK, which RPG were the writers playing when they came up with that plan?
@@@@@ #1– Christopher, the first thing I thought about while watching the episode was, how were you going to reconcile this in a future DTI story? ;) Reconciling stuff like this with the novel verse is something that both you and Keith excel at.
That particular twist will have its consequences Interesting Things To Do When Bored
Michael Burnham, you are everything and everything is you.
I never want to watch you suffer like this again, although in this show, it seems to be par for the course.
This episode for me is the one that made Michael a character I deeply care about, and Sonequa Martin-Green is throwing everything she’s got at it, Cap’n. I felt every emotional beat with Michael, from start to finish, in this episode, and boy howdy does Michael suffer in this one, even beyond the usual degree in which Michael suffers in this series. With this, I think Michael hits her peak, and I hope after this arc is over, Burnham can start to live.
For much of the show up to this point, Burnham had been (at least for me) either too much or not enough of something: i.e. too calculating, too Vulcan, not quite human, or too over-the-top in emoting. Here, Michael (and of course SMG herself) finally have a perfect balance. In a nutshell, Michael finally feels like a person, with feelings and needs and stuff, not just a plot device to move the story along.
All that stuff is what make or breaks Trek for me; the surrounding plot and ships and technobabble is just gravy.
Yes, this episode has lots of conversations, and I love that. Every single one is great, my favorite being Spock and Michael in the gymnasium, which supplanted the talk between Cornwell (so glad she’s still onboard Discovery) and Culber; third place is Michael giving Leland a well-earned punch in the face.
Michael is pretty much guaranteed to suffer in some way next week, but I am keen to see what happens.
Sunspear @11, the first signal was at the asteroid belt at the top of the season, second was Terralysium (New Eden), third was at Kaminar.
Also did the Red Angel appear at Terralysium? Pike, Burnham, and Owosekun were in danger when that orbital asteroid field was going to smash into Terralysium with extinction-level event consequences, but the Discovery crew prevented that cataclysm; I don’t remember the Red Angel appearing in that one. It’s probably a plot inconsistency due to the change in showrunners. Blah, blah, blah, I’m sure the writers will retcon it somehow. Meh.
@31. Dante: But a retcon of the season while the season is still running? That’s some next-level meta shit right there.
The scene with Georgiou, Stamets and Culber was mortifyingly bad. It’s terrible enough that Trek has a longstanding history of depicting people as straight in the “normal” universe whilst having their evil alt-universe selves be depicted as bi or pan. Now they’re also stating that gay people somehow get magically converted to being bi or pan when their moral core is compromised.
This was the first time that the word “pansexual” was spoken in Star Trek history and it was done in the name of rejecting pansexuality and implying that pansexuality is more likely to be found in dodgy amoral mirror universe counterparts. It was a really shitty way of uplifting gay characters, by putting bisexual and pansexual people down.
@33 – The treatment of gay characters in this episode is pretty much in line with how the mirror universe characters were portrayed in DS9. “Normal” folks in the “normal” universe, “abnormal” ones in the “abnormal” universe.
Frankly, Trek’s treatment of gay characters still leaves a lot to be desired and that includes Stamets and Culber.
As far as for traveling 30k light years in a time machine, remember that the planets, indeed the galaxy, are moving through space as they are moving through time. Any time machine would by necessity have a way to compensate for this, or else they would show up at the same spacial coordinates where they left, and the destination wouldn’t be there. For a simple example of what I mean, if you were on Earth and left in August and wanted to arrive back on Earth in February, you would have to move to the other side of the sun. So to travel thirty thousand light years all you would have to do is to plan your route the same way a delivery driver plans his route. I bet that the iPhone 257 even has an app for that.
@35. IndianaJoe: The name TARDIS alone contains more sophistication about time travel than what we’re getting in the current series. Yes, of course the suit would have to compensate for relative dimensions in space. One way I’d defend the writers is that at tens of thousands of light years, several million miles accounting for planetary position is relatively insignificant. Which leads to another inconsistency: initially they state that the signals do not correspond to planetary bodies. Then they follow one to Kaminar. (shrug)
The incongruity is that the season started with seven micro-wormholes opening within 24 hours across 30K LY. Then as the episodes progressed, they opened again sequentially as the Discovery arrived there. They also appeared in the past in events apparently unconnected with Burnham. The rescue of the WW3 refugees may not tie into the bigger scheme at all.
At this point, the Angel’s appearances are haphazard and inconsistent. They certainly appear where Michael isn’t in danger, despite Spock’s assertion this episode. So perhaps the best assumption is that there are multiple Angels. Or the writers have abandoned consistency altogether. Consistently inconsistent.
@36/Sunspear: “The incongruity is that the season started with seven micro-wormholes opening within 24 hours across 30K LY. Then as the episodes progressed, they opened again sequentially as the Discovery arrived there.”
How is it incongruous that a wormhole could open more than once? The Bajoran wormhole opened and closed all the time.
Besides, the whole reason Discovery is involved with this at all is because Pike needed it to investigate the wormholes. So presumably that initial mass appearance was to get their attention, a lure to get them to those locations.
But why span them over 30k light years? Having them appear near Earth, Vulcan, Andor and Tellar would certainly get their attention as well.
And if they appear when Burnham is in danger, what about everyone else on the ship? Couldn’t it be one of them?
What am I saying, of course not. The obvious conclusion to come to in any situation like this is that it must be connected to Michael Burnham. Because everything else has been as well.
I’m just chiming in to say that, about a month ago I saw that I had a fairly light week on my schedule so I pulled the trigger on the free all-access promo week, and binge watched the series to that point. Then last week CBS offered me another free month, which will get me through to the end of the season 2. Patience pays.
I don’t understand why it has to be either/or. The Red Angel appeared for many reasons, and a common trait for some of them was Michael. Why can’t it be that the Red Angel has a larger purpose, but of course along the way she will make sure Michael is protected as well?
@CLB: “presumably” and assumedly (is that a word?).
Come back after you watch these and see if it adds up. This episode, Spock says he’s figured out the variable, that it’s Burnham, and Burnham, standing right there, doesn’t counter with Kaminar, which involved Saru. Or that Discovery seems to randomly choose where they go next. In other words, the seams are showing.
It may all tie together by end of season. But at this point, it looks like a cute way to tie stories together that may have been better as standalones instead of a connect-the-dots scheme.
Also, no one’s mentioned time crystals so far, a call back to Mudd’s episode last season. The Angel suit is supposedly powered by one and at this point we don’t know the rules or limitations for it’s operation. To be able to flit around across half the galaxy is no mean feat for tech that’s never mentioned in any other Trek.
Not sure the stable wormhole maintained by aliens who are considered gods is relevant here. Although terminology like “Angel” may have initially attempted to steer the season in that direction. Maybe there was a “War in Heaven” theme planned before the last couple showrunners were booted.
I actually hope it all hangs together by the end. So far, it’s confuddled and very messy.
@41/Sunspear: “Not sure the stable wormhole maintained by aliens who are considered gods is relevant here.”
The Barzan wormhole in TNG: “The Price” also opened and closed multiple times. And anyway, whether they’re called “gods” or “angels” or just “Fred,” it’s logical that entities with the technology to create wormholes in the first place could also open and close them at will. I just don’t see how, in the context of the Trek universe, a wormhole opening more than once is in any way strange or inexplicable.
While a mother protecting her daughter is all very sweet and touching it seems kind of a reductive solution to a galaxy spanning mystery. I assume there will be more to it than that.
I loved the funeral, and the reveal at the end was unexpected, and also welcome, because I was not happy about Michael being the Red Angel. And I’m still not sure how I feel S31 being all over the time travel; to be honest.
As for Saru’s death dirge, I expected something more alien, but it was lovely. Spock and Michael’s interactions, both private and public, are very nicely written an acted. The writers really nail Spock’s dialogue, and Peck is doing a great Spock, without trying to do a Nimoy impression. Burnham’s scene with Nhan was also nice.
I appreciate them showing Culber talking to a therapist, even unofficially, about his issues. Although, it’s kind of obvious when Pike says Culber is in charge of stuff despite not being yet reinstated, because it’s absolutely because he’s in the opening credits.
On another note, “time crystal”, really? Was that a placeholder until they came up with some technobabble, and then they forgot to change it? And the “sexual tension” scene between Georgiou et al was pretty stupid, although I appreciate Stamets and Culber saying they’re gay out loud (although one of them could have been bi). Yes, it’s nice that Georgiou tells them to not be so binary… but it’s still SPACE HITLER WOMAN!!! It’s another use of “look, the evil, morally loose woman is pansexual!” It also irks me a bit that they’re all working with her without even blinking. I don’t want them to break down crying or anything, but at least show some concern…
Abnother thing I didn’t like were Burnham’s shrieks of pain while being exposed to the toxic atmosphere. Yes, it’s corrosive, I know, but given her usual restraint, it felt a little bit over the top. I would have asked her to rein it a bit.
@1 – Chris: I’m glad it ended up moving away from metaphysics.
@3 – Phillip: Michael’s mom is probably Dr. Burnham, not just Mrs.
@18 – Zodda: I thought the same, but then I realized that the ships probably have nanofabricators (we’ve seen them using them for uniforms), and we know they have drones and robots and stuff… Control could have easily replaced the original scanner with a tricked out one without anyone being the wiser.
@21 – jmsnyc: YES! Was Wilson Cruz just wearing his street clothes? That really distracted me. As for Nilsson, I don’t think they’re staring at her because she seems risen from the grave, but because she’s taking Airiam’s place on the bridge.
@23 – GHiller: How is this “shoehorning” the Klingons into the story when they’ve been integral to the show (not to mention, the entire franchise) from the start?
@33 – Vicky: YES.
Another piece in “did the concept of the Red Angel change early in the season?”: how does a single suited human and a micro-wormhole transfer an entire church building? (Or possibly building plus surrounding farmland with Earth-crops.) At the least, this implies control over the position of the wormhole’s mouths we haven’t seen subsequently — in this ep, the wormhole appears high above the planet and the Angel zips downward to the installation (which may have been an artistic necessity for “make it visible to Discovery on-screen”).
I also object to the term “micro-wormhole”. In written SF, that term usually refers to something just wide enough to pass a modulated particle beam or a communications laser — but anything big enough for a human is definitely macro. Maybe the writers are using the term in comparison to the Barzan and Bajoran wormholes, able to pass starships (but which the Federation hasn’t yet encountered).
@34/Indianajoe (emphasis mine):
The Red Angel suit does need some way to travel through space, but that’s not why. What you’re describing is a Newton-style absolute reference frame, which doesn’t exist. (And maybe your visualization is the common “stack of still images” metaphor.) Given Einstein-style space-time, you can’t move in time (or space) without also moving in space (or time).
@45/Philip Thorne: If you look more closely at the passage you quoted, you are both saying that movement through space and movement through time are inseparable, so that a time traveler would need to be able to move through space as well. So you’re not actually disagreeing.
And for the purposes of the discussion, “the same spatial coordinates” can easily be defined relative to the center of the galaxy or the positions of distant galaxies, say, because it’s not meant to assert Newtonian absolutism, merely to make the point that planets and stars are not stationary (and that their movement is accelerated by gravity and thus cannot be mathematically treated as stationary as one can with an unaccelerated frame).
Now, if only Michael would not cry a river every time she hears something revelatory or emotionally draining. It happened twice in this episode – two times too many.
If the suits are so small and form fitting for the most part and allow someone to travel through time and space, why are the starships so big? Sure, you need to take still along with you like food, supplies, labs, etc but the tech for the suits seems like it would provide much faster transport. Just look at how far apart the initial red bursts were and that distance was all travelled in under 24 hours.
Get a small survey crew together, make a similar unit to carry along a shelter filled with equipment and supplies and just red burst everyone to wherever you want to go. In other words, “What does god need with a starship?”
@CLB: ” I just don’t see how, in the context of the Trek universe, a wormhole opening more than once is in any way strange or inexplicable”
It may not be ultimately inexplicable. We’re not at the end yet. But the Bajoran wormhole was a complicated bit of business, with many plots built around how it was kept stable and who was allowed to pass thru it. It was also bound to one location. Well two, considering the other terminus.
Here, over 100 years earlier, we have a wearable suit, an advanced Iron Man-in Space armor, that does this at will while spanning half the galaxy. You’d think someone on DS9 would have said at one point, “Hey, remember that series of incidents that were observable across the entire galaxy and it turned out it was us? Why are the Prophets a big deal again?”
This isn’t something that can be swept under the rug like the MU or spore drive, if that’s how that ends up.
I’m assuming that just like the spore drive and the MU we’ll be told that Starfleet simply classified it. Also cloaking devices.
And time travel. You’d think that Spock would say “Or we can just borrow a couple of these suits that my sister and I saw just a few years ago.”
SPOCK: This does open some intriguing prospects, Captain. Since the formula worked, we can go back in time, to any planet, any era.
KIRK: We may risk it someday, Mister Spock
– The Naked Time
How hard is it to imagine that a technology that opens artificial micro wormholes at whim might be dangerous for the galaxy, and that’s why it ends up being buried?
@51. Magnus: that’s not the hard part. It’s that Spock has already seen it and knows the link to time travel, which of course, never comes up in TOS. Then there’s S31, who’s not likely to abandon a time travel arms race with the Klingons, which is not mentioned anywhere else in other Treks.
The simultaneous appearance of 7 wormholes on the same day is witnessed by half the galaxy, followed by other observable openings. Maybe S31 could brainwash a few people, but can’t classify astrophysical phenomena. Other races are also aware, as we’ll apparently see this week when the Klingons show up.
It’s getting harder to imagine how all this will synch up with TOS, other than a lot of handwaving. The writers continue to paint the floor of a very large room toward the corner opposite to the exit door.
There’s a lot in different Trek series that doesn’t sync up, as I’ve mentioned before. A lot of technologies that are known in one series/era and seemingly forgotten or abandoned in a later one.
Makes sense that Spock doesn’t go into a long speech about a classified mission from 10 years prior, especially since the technology involved isn’t going to be seen again.
Or, if it really makes people feel better, he did tell Kirk one night during the many years they served together. Spock also told Kirk and Bones about Michael during the campfire scene at the conclusion of ST V.
There, problem solved.
—-
There’s a subset of forum posters who seem to exist simply to complain about Discovery. It is getting tiresome when other threads of Trek rewatches don’t have this problem.
@54 – And there’s a certain subset of Trek fans who simply cannot conceive of a Trek reality that doesn’t have every single, self-contradictory bit shoehorned into it.
Whatever happened to being open to new ideas and possibilities? Klingons in TMP? Sure, they could have always looked like that but they changed them again (and further tweaked them again) and then introduced the whole idea that they DID look different in TOS. The Discovery changed them yet again. It could have been a great chance to see that there’s actually different sorts of Klingons, TOS, TMP, TNG & DSC all attending the gathering on the sarcophagus ship. But nope, every Klingons looks like the Discovery ones now.
You know, one thing the Klingons could really stand is some diversity, breaking them out of the monoculture that they’ve been in for so long. But no, let’s just keep things in the Empire the same except when we show that things are different it’s because the Klingons that are not part of the monoculture are rebels. But then again, diversity has never really been a major part of Trek. Sure, we got Sulu and Uhura but they’re not really that different than Kirk & McCoy except for Uhura’s taste in cabin decorations. The diversity is literally skin deep.
It’s like if people suddenly decided that all Starfleet captains look like Madge SInclair because that’s what the captain looked like in the opening of TVH.
Trek has given us alternate realities ever since Mirror, Mirror, through over 100,000 of them in Parallels (TNG), up to the JJ Abrams reboot. Why is it such a stretch to think that we’ve seen more than we think we have? Why should we be told to overwrite episodes that have come before in order to get the new ones? Case in point, we’re told that the Eugenics Wars was Earth’s WW III and it happened in the 1990’s. In TNG, suddenly there’s a new Post Atomic Horror despite our being told explicitly in The Omega Glory that Earth escaped an atomic war. Was Spock an idiot in Space Seed, totally forgetting the Atomic War? Or was TNG wrong when they retconned it? Why not accept that they’re both correct and any contradictions are simply slightly different realities?
@54. M: “Or, if it really makes people feel better…”
You’ve got this completely wrong. It’s about as diametrically opposed to what I’m getting out of Discovery as possible. I’m enjoying the show. I’m having fun picking it apart.
It’s what geeky fans do.
Oh, the simplistic explanations you give. You’re not even trying. There’s complexity to the lore here that deserves to be explored. How it fits or doesn’t fit is interesting. Spock isn’t just keeping secrets from Kirk, who presumably has higher security clearance than him. He’s acting dumb when he seems fascinated by accidental time travel. He already knows it’s possible.
@55/kkozoriz: Portraying different cultures is hard if you don’t have a native advisor. At least Uhura spoke Swahili on two occasions, Scotty and Chekov had their accents, and Scotty and Uhura had their cabin decoration. TNG did nothing to convince me that La Forge came from Somalia.
But yes, more diverse Klingons would have been nice. Have we ever met anyone from a planet under Klingon rule?
Concerning the atomic war, I think TNG was wrong to retcon it. We’ve been told repeatedly in TOS that humanity managed to avoid an all-out nuclear war, not just in “The Omega Glory”, also in “Return to Tomorrow”. And suddenly they didn’t. In cases like this, I prefer the old tale over the new one.
@56/Sunspear: Hmm, perhaps they both already know it’s possible? Kirk immediately says “Time warp”. That sounds like a technical term. Perhaps they’re intrigued because they have just learned that time travel doesn’t need dangerous future technology – anyone with a warp drive can do it.
@58/Jana: The term “time warp” has been around in science fiction since the 1930s. It’s long been in the vernacular as a metaphor for anachronisms, deja vu, etc. It’s even the name of a song in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. So Kirk wouldn’t need any special technical knowledge to be aware of the phrase.
But yeah, otherwise, that’s basically the interpretation I went with in my novel Department of Temporal Investigations: Forgotten History to reconcile “The Naked Time” with the time travels in Enterprise. It wasn’t that nobody had traveled in time before, it was that no Federation vessel had ever done so under its own power without intervention from outside forces. Although I’m not sure if that still works now.
Let’s do the time warp againnnnn! :-D
La Forge is from Somalia? Who knew?
@54 – M: Yes. I’m particularly tired of the people who don’t watch the show, but still come to the reviews to diss it. Those who watch it, but do it only to complain, are annoying too.
@60/roxana: TNG: “Cause and Effect” gave Geordi’s birthplace on his personnel file as the “African Confederation.” The novel Losing the Peace by William Leisner later narrowed it down to Mogadishu, Somalia, and interestingly enough, the remastered Blu-Ray edition of TNG (which updated the computer readout text since it would be more legible in HD) incorporated that bit of book lore into Geordi’s personnel file in that episode.
@59/Christopher: My point is mostly that the conversation between Kirk and Spock at the end of “The Naked Time” still works if we assume that they know about time travel and just had no feasible method to do it. Kirk doesn’t say: “Was this… a time warp? Like in the old stories? Spock, did we actually travel in time?” He says: “Time warp. We’re going backwards in time. Helm, begin reversing power.” “Time warp” doesn’t have to be a technical term, but it could be. After all, “robot” originated in science fiction too.
Did the time warp in The Rocky Horror Picture Show even involve time travel? It never did when I tried it!
@CLB: “Although I’m not sure if that still works now.”
Is it ever frustrating having to re-engineer paradigms, or is it still fun?
Btw, my brother has read your DTI novels and enjoyed them. He said something about Kirk being Public Enemy No 1 for the time agents. He’s more of a Trek fan than I am.
@63 said: Did the time warp in The Rocky Horror Picture Show even involve time travel? It never did when I tried it!
Sure it did! By the end of the song, you have traveled in time exactly 3 minutes, 18 seconds into the future … future … future ..
@57 – “Portraying different cultures is hard if you don’t have a native advisor.”
That’s what would make it so interesting about showing diversity among the Klingons. We don’t have to worry about them showing up and saying people are doing it wrong. But we’re stuck with monoculture.
@66. kkozoriz: They missed an opportunity to create an off-shoot, like Vulcans and Romulans.
What would we call the Klingons’ cousins?
Who’s to say that Klingon isn’t a collective name for the warrior races in that region of space, for just one example.
If the “original” Klingons thought you were worthy to fight alongside them, you were granted the name Klingon. The others, what John M. Ford dubbed ‘kuve”, became servitors. Farmers, miners and the like. Treated roughly by Federation standards to be sure but not mistreated by Klingon standards.
After all, if the Federation has all sorts of humanoid races in it’s space, why shouldn’t the Klingons. Starfleet only gets to see the ones that are as good at fighting as the original Klingons.
For one thing, if it’s all one race, the Klingons could never hope to keep up with the Federation population wise.
I agree, more variety within the different alien cultures would be nice. Remember that time in TNG when they had a Ferengi scientist and a Klingon scientist on the ship? It was kind of a lackluster episode, but still refreshing to see members of those species who weren’t a greedhead and a warrior, respectively.
Exactly. But even moreso. The empire obviously needs scientists but what about the people that think slightly differently than the others? The problem with monocultures is that it tends to make the character oftentimes interchangeable. One Klingon viking biker can be pretty much like any other.
Klingon pacifists! Ferengi socialists! A laughing Vulcan! Oh, already done. Anyway, yes, more of that kind of stuff would be very cool.
I’ve long wished for seeing subject races of both the Klingon and Romulan empires.
@72/MaGnUs: That’s one of the reasons I like Nemesis, with its introduction of the Remans. At last, someone writing Star Trek understood what the word “empire” means and how it works! It means the rulers have subject peoples that they exploit as labor and cannon fodder. The only other interstellar polity we’ve seen in Trek that actually works like an empire is one that isn’t called an empire, namely the Dominion.
The Federation also has slave labour, the Troglytes or Ardana. Kirk treated the situation there as more of an OSHA offence. At no point did he say that they had to stop the treatment of the Troglytes beyond offering filter masks and an ignored offer of mediation. And Ardana is called out as a member of the Federation. It’s funny but Kirk would have helped overthrow the ruling class if Ardana weren’t Federation member as he has done on many other planets.
And if there’s one planet like Ardana, there are likely others.
KIRK: Ardana is a member of the Federation, and it is your council’s responsibility that nothing interferes with its obligation to another member of the Federation.
PLASUS: Of course, and we accept the responsibility.
—
PLASUS: You could have had those filters for all the good it will do you.
KIRK: They will be very effective. sir. They’ve been severely tested, and the Troglytes will no longer suffer from retardation and emotional difficulties.
PLASUS: They will all be like her. ungrateful, vindictive.
VANNA: Yes. Our demands have just begun. Here is the zenite, Captain, just as I promised.
(Sentinels pile the containers on the balcony)
KIRK: Thank you, Vanna.
DROXINE: Stratos is so pleasant and so beautiful. I think I’m afraid to leave it.
SPOCK: There is great beauty in the knowledge that lies below, and only one way to really experience it.
DROXINE: I shall go to the mines. I no longer wish to be limited to the clouds. Is your planet like this one?
SPOCK: No. No, Vulcan is quite different.
DROXINE: Someday I should like to visit it.
KIRK: Perhaps some form of mediation can be helpful in your difficulties. The Federation Bureau of Industrialisation may be of aid to you.
PLASUS: I will tolerate absolutely no interference! You will not set foot here as long as I rule!
@73 – Chris: Yeah, that’s one of the few things I like about Nemesis.
KARA ?!
The mysterious red angel turns out to be Michael’s Mommy in a time suit. Kind of a letdown IMO, though it’s obviously supposed to be a big shocking reveal.
Not just a time suit but one with infinite data storage capacity. Any resemblance to science went out the window with that one along with the notion of time crystals.
I don’t want to see anyone holding up Star Trek as being above other shows like the original Lost in Space or pretty much any other SF show because the science is better. We’re obviously just one step away from wands and magic potions at this point.
@78. kkozoriz: As I’ve said elsewhere in these reviews, the Red Suit is simply magic at this point. It almost surpasses what Thanos can do with the Infinity Stones. It even subverts any limitations established within universe, say with Voyager over a hundred years later.
This isn’t true SF. It’s science fantasy or cosmic superhero storytelling.
Particularly when you take into account the fact that it was constructed when Burnham was a child.
@78/kkozoriz: “Any resemblance to science went out the window with that one along with the notion of time crystals.”
Power crystals are very new-agey. But then, so are ascended energy beings, and those have been part of Star Trek right from the start. Of course, that doesn’t justify magic technology in Federation hands.
@81 – Of course Star Trek has always used things that cannot be based on science. Energy being being an obvious one. There’s times now thought (time crystals, red matter) where it seems that they’re not even trying any more.
Seen this now… Revealing that Section 31 built the Red Angel time suit is a weird twist, and certainly different from what was originally intended. I echo the above questions — if it was built 20 years in the past and not the future, how is it so incredibly advanced? Did Section 31 steal technology from some super-advanced alien race the rest of the UFP doesn’t know about? Was Future Guy secretly helping them? What gives?
And having the whole thing revolve around Burnham’s parents… That seems to be a habit Alex Kurtzman learned from J.J. Abrams, making the entire series mythology and worldshaking dangers ultimately turn out to center on the main character’s family conflicts. Well, at least it’s not daddy issues this time around.
It was nice to see Leland come clear about his guilt, and to reveal that his role in the Burnhams’ deaths wasn’t as sinister as Georgiou implied earlier. I think Burnham was too hard on him, getting accusatory right after he voluntarily confessed under no duress of any kind, but maybe she was too angry to see that. Nice scene with Spock afterward, though.
That scene with Georgiou, Culber, and Stamets was awkward and weird. I think she was trying to get them to admit their attraction to each other, but the way she did it was questionable, and I agree with the above complaints that it perpetuates the “gay/bi is evil” myth. Also, Georgiou just came off as way too impish and nice and caring, given that she’s a genocidal psychopath.
@11/Sunspear: “Another thing that didn’t add up for me was the red signals being connected to the Angel. They started this season saying there were 7 signals, now they’re saying only 3 have appeared, 4 to go. Retcon within the season?”
What Pike said in the premiere episode was that Starfleet detected 7 signals but couldn’t get a precise lock on where they came from, except for the first one at the asteroid. That makes sense if you think about it astronomically. If you see a light in the sky, you know what direction it’s coming from, but you don’t necessarily know its distance, so it could be anywhere along a straight line extending out in that direction. So you’d need other ways to calculate its distance, like getting a second reading on it from another angle so that you could triangulate its position based on parallax. Therefore, it would take a second occurrence of each signal in order to narrow down its distance as well as its direction, and only then would you know where, specifically, it was coming from.
@41/Sunspear: “This episode, Spock says he’s figured out the variable, that it’s Burnham, and Burnham, standing right there, doesn’t counter with Kaminar, which involved Saru.”
He’s referring to the common variable in the times the Angel appeared without a corresponding red signal. There was a signal at Kaminar. Keeping Michael safe is not the Angel’s only agenda; it’s an additional priority alongside whatever agenda underlies the signals, and so it accounts for the Angel’s non-signal-adjacent appearances and is useful as a way to lure the Angel in the absence of a signal.
@CLB: Can’t answer you about the angel’s agenda and the signals without spoiling things. It’ll make less sense than you think.
You do have a point about the original seven. Saying they occurred simultaneously, or observed at the same time, doesn’t make astrophysical sense. They are red flashes, which means if they are to be visible across a 50K LY section of the galaxy on the same day in whatever frame of reference Pike is using, they would have been triggered at different points in time. Unless they are violating the speed of light. Which… this is Star Trek. It’s not rigorous science.
@84/Sunspear: Star Trek has always had FTL sensors able to detect astronomically distant events in real time. For instance, in “The Immunity Syndrome,” Chekov’s long-range scan of system Gamma 7A in another sector is able to confirm within moments that it’s been rendered lifeless, which must have been a very recent event, since Starbase 6 reports having just lost contact with the system. (Though I wonder why the starbase’s own long-range sensors couldn’t have confirmed the same thing.)
@CLB: across 50K LY? How big’s the Federation at this point anyway? Terralysium is in the Beta Quadrant. Are there Fed outposts there? Seems like the human colony there is isolated.
That is the larger problem here. The sense of scale is off. The instantaneous travel makes dramatic storytelling more convenient, but as I’ve said before, it feels like it’s all happening in the same star system. People knocked GoT last season for compressing time and space for plot convenience, but this is orders of magnitude higher.
@86/Sunspear: Over whatever distance the plot requires, just as it’s always been. And since the signals were specifically intended to get Starfleet’s attention, and were generated by an arbitrarily advanced technology, I don’t see why it’s hard for you to accept that Starfleet was able to detect them.
@67. CLB: They’re occurring over vast enough distance that they shouldn’t be simultaneous to begin with. But that point is moot, as you’ll see.
This actually may not be worth my time, since you’re playing catchup and I’ve already made my points before. But does it not trouble you at all that the phenomena which creates the connect-the-dots structure of this season’s plot requires Q-level powers of galaxy hopping? 100 years before Voyager, which was limited to roughly 1K LY in a standard calendar year (I worked it out elsewhere more precisely), this being is hopping 50K LY back and forth in a day.
And don’t answer till you’ve seen the final episode. You’re speculation is off.
@88/Sunspear: “They’re occurring over vast enough distance that they shouldn’t be simultaneous to begin with.”
Yes, which is the whole point! As I said in the comments on the season premiere months ago (after it was shown for free on YouTube), the whole reason Starfleet makes this such a priority mission for Pike is that it must take incredible technology and power to create seven simultaneous signals across galactic distances, and thus they might be a potential threat.
“But does it not trouble you at all that the phenomena which creates the connect-the-dots structure of this season’s plot requires Q-level powers of galaxy hopping?”
Yes, it does, and I have said as much already. It’s implausible that the Section 31 of 2236 could’ve built a time- and space-travel suit that powerful, one that puts spore drive to shame. There’s a big gap in the storytelling there. Either they adapted a hyper-advanced alien technology they found, or they had help from the future, or something. That’s a major plot hole.
But Starfleet sensors being able to detect distant events instantaneously is not even slightly a plot hole, because there are decades of Trek precedent for that. So I have no idea why you’re so fixated on such a complete non-issue.
@89 – ” the whole reason Starfleet makes this such a priority mission for Pike is that it must take incredible technology and power to create seven simultaneous signals across galactic distances, and thus they might be a potential threat.”
But as we saw, except for the time crystal <ugh>, it was all Federation technology. And they already knew about the time cystals <ugh again> because of Mudd.
And the crew of Discovery could slap one together in a matter of days. They certainly didn’t seem to think that it was all that much out of the ordinary. Even the “infinite data storage” capacity. Who needs Memory Alpha? Just give each researcher a suit without the time travel component.
@CLB: It’s a bigger problem than just a plot hole. In terms of the storytelling, those seven bursts don’t exist because no one created them. As I said elsewhere, they are orphan relics. Every time they say “the seven signals’ in subsequent episodes, they sound ridiculous.
I don’t want to get into the weeds about Starfleet sensor capability because, you’re right, you either accept it or you don’t. What I’m looking at is the actual reach of the Federation, which you have dodged or keep missing. For sensors to send back data to a central Starfleet location, wherever it was collated, would require repeaters and transmitters. Are you saying that these are seeded across half the galaxy already? Even then there would be built in delays for the info to be transmitted back.
But then, this instantaneous observation across 50,000 LY is in the same ballpark as a human made suit that can physically hop that distance in no time and hop back.
@90/kkozoriz: Discovery could only recreate the suit because they had Dr. Burnham’s exact construction plans, as I recall the dialogue. So it’s just a question of how Dr. Burnham figured out how to make it. As I’ve said, I’m partial to the idea that Section 31 discovered some sort of hyper-advanced alien tech that they didn’t share with the rest of the Federation. Maybe they stole it from an advanced civilization. Maybe they discovered it in an ancient ruin, like how the Guardian of Forever would be found decades later. Maybe they captured a time-traveling historian from the future.
@91/Sunspear: What do you mean, “repeaters?” Again, we know that long-range/subspace sensors can instantaneously detect things across great distances. Look at the Argus Array, the subspace telescope in TNG. Subspace sensors are instantaneous or effectively so, regardless of distance. That’s been an accepted conceit of the Trek universe for over 50 years. So it’s just a matter of the subspace signals being powerful enough to register.
@CLB: this isn’t subspace signals. (And you’re still not specifying “great distances.”) This is visible light. It should obey the speed of light.
Consider the final signal supposedly sent by Michael. It arrives in the sky above Earth about four months after the battle with Control. When and how was this set? She’s supposedly 50K LY years away and 930 years in the future. Spock sees it with the naked eye. Enterprise determines its physical location in real time. How did that light travel that distance?
Of course if we ignore relativity and physical laws and embrace magic travel and sensor tech…
@93/Sunspear: Try not to be so literal about the “color” of the signals. It’s an annoyance that they call them “red,” yes, but can’t we just shrug it off and talk about something else?
@94. CLB: Are you seriously being condescending about this?
Pike: “Where’s my red thing?”
The season’s entire plot is built on seven red signals, which they incessantly bring up. The show defines them as visual artifacts. What are the signals? They are the result of wormholes opening up, which in this case produce a red aurora effect, just as the Bajoran wormhole produces color effects.
I’m starting to doubt you understand the implications of what Michael supposedly does with the seventh signal. She is 50K LY away near Terralysium, with a supposedly burnt out time crystal. She’s also in the future, which means we’re expected to believe light travelled backwards into the past.
It would take 50K LY light years for that light to travel to Earth. We see a luminous red nova in the last image as the ship warps. Unless she travelled 50,000 years in the past, there’s no way it would be visible to the naked eye four months after the battle. We know she didn’t do that.
This kind of conceptualizing would get a failing grade in Astronomy 101. It’s very muddled.