Captain's Blog: The Red Angel tells her story of time travel and galactic catastrophe while Section 31 battles for control of all the sphere data. "Perpetual Infinity" When the Klingons attacked a Federation outpost, years ago, and orphaned young Michael Burnham, her mother, Gabrielle, didn't die afterall, but took an experimental super-suit powered by a time-crystal (a real life phenomena, by the way) and disappeared into the time stream. She didn't go where she expected and she couldn't come back right away (it's never easy) and her path showed her the end of all life in the galaxy and put her at odds with a sentient AI named Control, working within Section 31, which wants to collect the near infinite data recovered from the dying "sphere" from Episode 4 in order to... Yeah, nevermind. It's better not to worry about all that. The show stands and falls on the characters and this week it stands. Burnham's mother is back from the future and Sonqua-Martin-Green is just phenomenal when she wakes up and realizes last week's cliffhanger wasn't a dream. The writers sometimes corner her into emotional distress that can get exhausting after a while, but when she gets any other expressions to play with, she just shines. Here she's in shock and denial and reluctant hope, only to be exasperated again when Pike keeps them apart. Eventually they do get that moment together and it's every orphan's fantasy... gone awry. She's cold. Detached. Focused on her mission. So far gone in her agenda to save her daughter by way of saving the galaxy that she's lost her emotional anchor altogether. She doesn't want to be freed from the timestream. She doesn't want to be reunited with her family. She can't let herself be distracted. But eventually her mom-brain kicks in and she takes a moment to linger on Burnham's life, the white dress she wore at graduation, her first day in Starfleet, etc. She's seen it all. How? I have no idea; either invisibility or alternate timelines, or whatever. Who knows. But in a way, she's been there with Burnham this whole time. Every orphan's fantasy afterall. Tear. (But seriously, it's good stuff.) Leland breaks bad. Or rather, the evil sentient AI from the future breaks him. It has taken over Control, the system used by Section 31, and in turn Starfleet, to... I don't know what it actually did, before. Maybe manage all their intelligence data? Think of it like a sentient NSA server basement, where all our web history goes. Anyway, whatever this AI thing is, or wherever it came from (we can just call it Control now), it was hiding as fake holograms, but now it just takes over Leland, with one mission: collect all that sphere data. Why? In order to become sentient. Isn't it already sentient? Shut up. I told you to stop dwelling on it. The Plan -- whether it makes sense or not -- is to hide all the sphere data in the time crystal (which powers the time suit, just like Iron Man) and send it into the perpetual future, where it can't be reached because it won't let itself be deleted. Also, free Burnham's mom. Section 31 intercepts the data transfer, though, or part of it, and they all pew-pew at each other until they have no choice but set Gabrielle free, lost once again in the time stream, this time without a working suit. Conclusion: More technobabble, veering into Star Trek Voyager territory. They try to speed up the exposition and hide it behind a joke so you don't realize just how bonkers it is, but I can still tell. In this case, Spock's moment of bathos, "I like science," isn't so much funny as it is merely... par for the course (and blatantly meme-able). I can forgive the pseudo-science, but they play fast and loose with the logic, too. It's hard to know if they're cheating or just being sloppy, because they withhold so much information to cover their tracks. In their defense, they've surprised us before, and there is clearly a plan mapped out. We're just along for the ride. Luckily, the drama is landing, so it's not a bad ride. The dynamic between Burnham and her mother just plain works, and their climactic moment of bonding was truly moving. Sonequa Martin-Green proves she does her best work bouncing off Anson Mount's Pike, Ethan Peck's Spock, or this week's Sonja Sohn as her mother. Leland is also much better this week as a straight villain instead of a sniveling space-spy. Plus he almost kills Ash Tyler, which makes him one of my new favorite characters, but by now we know Tyler will survive anything. Tyler seems to know it too, because when Georgiou begins to suspect Leland's sudden assertive confidence is evidence of compromise, she enlists Tyler to her aid, threatening him with slow and painful death if he betrays her, and he just says, "Eh, I've been killed before. You're just telling me I'll have time to enjoy the scenery." Ah, that Tyler! Such a jokester. Actually... I haven't been minding him as much lately. Maybe it's the beard. For all Discovery's quirks, this season has seen some incredible course correcting for continuity, special effects, lighting, and characterization. Here's to a strong finish!
Captain's Blog Supplemental: Culber is back in uniform as Doctor. That modeling gig for GQ must not've worked out. Georgiou calls the Prime universe, "Prime". How does she know?! Gabrielle and Michael are both names of angels. Perhaps Michael will take the Red Angel mantel yet? NO! Control is not an Origin Story for the Borg! No, no no! NOOOOO!!!! So... If the data is so massive it makes things sentient and you can't delete it but you can move it, but it's too big to just put on a thumb drive and shoot it with a phaser, then... Discovery is already sort of one big thumb drive, so maybe you could just destroy Discovery? Nah... Maybe shoot it into the future though, and... Hey, isn't that sorta the premise of one of those Short Treks at the beginning of the season? The one where the ship becomes sentient after the crew abandons it in the distant future? Is that what we're building toward? Sounds like a great season finale...
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