ST: Discovery 2.05
I’m frightfully busy these weeks and could watch this episode only ten minutes or so at a time because of this, not due to its content. Not the ideal way to enjoy a Star Trek ep!
Which might influence my impressions. I enjoyed a lot of it - not least because Tilly got de-damseled again, and while everyone was on a mission to rescue her, she took the initiative and ended up bff with the Mycellial Network, or rather a representative of same. As a bonus, she figured out how to return Hugh Culber to the living outside of the network. Go Tilly!
Speaking of Culber the resurrected, I don’t think the science behind how he ended up in the network makes much sense, but then nor did the one behind Spock’s return to the living in ST III: The Search for Spock, and I’m perfectly prepared to handwave. (Especially considering that we’ve get to get a good Doylist explanation why it was necessary to kill the good Doctor off in the first place, rather than, say, leave him in a tv coma, which would have fulfilled the same Voq/Tyler storyline function in last season’s plot. If the space mushrooms plot this season depends on Hugh’s death, stint with them and return, there would be one.) Here’s to you, Hugh Culber, and may you never die again! The scenes with Stamets were appropriately touching.
What I’m still chewing on is the Section 31 thing. Not just the big retcon - for the benefit of non-DS9 watchers and DS9 forgetters, when Section 31 was introduced to the Star Trek verse on DS9, it wasn’t as Starfleet’s intelligence service - that one already existed, named, none too imaginatively, „Starfleet Intelligence“. It was as an additional to said service Black Ops operation whose very existence was so supersecret that none of our heroes knew about it until one of its agents showed up in Dr. Bashir’s bedroom, and then he still had trouble convincing anyone he wasn’t just crazy when talking about it because. Meanwhile, everyone in the Discovery era seems to know it exists and very blasé talking about its existence, and in fact it seems the only Intelligence service Starfleet currently has. Now, as far as I recall from Section 31 showing on Enterprise, that’s not entirely unprecedented - certainly Section 31 was less supersecret there, though still more so than here - , and you could fanwank that between the rough century of the TOS era and the DS9 era, the whole operation got officially dissolved, which is why by the time Sloan starts harassing Julian Bashir, everyone goes through the „Section 31? Never heard of it!“ motions.
But what is worrying me more is Cornwell’s „they may not be pretty, but they’re necessary“ speech late in the episode, because that sounds suspiciously like 24, and precisely what the last season argued against. (And then there’s the Doylist knowledge that a Section 31 spin-off is coming.) Do not want. Though maybe I’m paranoid and what will happen on this show will be precisely what will lead to Section 31 being officially dissolved.
On a minor but also irritating note: I don’t get the rationale of Pike being briefed about Lorca but not about Georgiou. And while it’s good Michael is distrustful of MirrorGeorgiou, emotional connection or not, I’m still waiting for someone to bring up the woman isn’t just guilty of a few ruthless shootouts but multiple genocides, constant torture in dealing with just about anyone for any reason (and, yeah, cannibalism) over in the other universe. This being said, hi, Pippa, and, see posts in this very journal last season, I’m all for Michael having an ongoing arch nemesis she has complicated emotions about, and vice versa.
Tyler/Voq as a Section 31 agent and back on Discovery: hmmmm. I liked that they let Stamets react, and presumably we’ll get some good character stuff between TylerVoq and Hugh Culber once the later is in better shape, but why Section 31 would think an Ex-Klingon with two identities and strong emotions about Michael Burnham could be trusted to work for them after about two weeks defeats me. I mean, the CIA kept rehiring my beloved Arvin Sloane on Alias, fine, but look, Arvin Sloane was really good at what he did, no matter who he did it for! (Usually himself and Rambaldi.) Tyler’s one stint as a spy-without-knowing-he-was went spectacularly pear-shaped. On his side, I also don’t see why he’d think any organisation hiring MirrorGeorgiou, who, see above, would be trustworthy to work for, but then again he doesn’t have that many options, so okay, maybe.
In conclusion: yay for the return of Culber (and all of Tilly’s scenes), et tu, Kat about Cornwell’s speech, hm, wait and see about anything Section 31.
This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1329689.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
Which might influence my impressions. I enjoyed a lot of it - not least because Tilly got de-damseled again, and while everyone was on a mission to rescue her, she took the initiative and ended up bff with the Mycellial Network, or rather a representative of same. As a bonus, she figured out how to return Hugh Culber to the living outside of the network. Go Tilly!
Speaking of Culber the resurrected, I don’t think the science behind how he ended up in the network makes much sense, but then nor did the one behind Spock’s return to the living in ST III: The Search for Spock, and I’m perfectly prepared to handwave. (Especially considering that we’ve get to get a good Doylist explanation why it was necessary to kill the good Doctor off in the first place, rather than, say, leave him in a tv coma, which would have fulfilled the same Voq/Tyler storyline function in last season’s plot. If the space mushrooms plot this season depends on Hugh’s death, stint with them and return, there would be one.) Here’s to you, Hugh Culber, and may you never die again! The scenes with Stamets were appropriately touching.
What I’m still chewing on is the Section 31 thing. Not just the big retcon - for the benefit of non-DS9 watchers and DS9 forgetters, when Section 31 was introduced to the Star Trek verse on DS9, it wasn’t as Starfleet’s intelligence service - that one already existed, named, none too imaginatively, „Starfleet Intelligence“. It was as an additional to said service Black Ops operation whose very existence was so supersecret that none of our heroes knew about it until one of its agents showed up in Dr. Bashir’s bedroom, and then he still had trouble convincing anyone he wasn’t just crazy when talking about it because. Meanwhile, everyone in the Discovery era seems to know it exists and very blasé talking about its existence, and in fact it seems the only Intelligence service Starfleet currently has. Now, as far as I recall from Section 31 showing on Enterprise, that’s not entirely unprecedented - certainly Section 31 was less supersecret there, though still more so than here - , and you could fanwank that between the rough century of the TOS era and the DS9 era, the whole operation got officially dissolved, which is why by the time Sloan starts harassing Julian Bashir, everyone goes through the „Section 31? Never heard of it!“ motions.
But what is worrying me more is Cornwell’s „they may not be pretty, but they’re necessary“ speech late in the episode, because that sounds suspiciously like 24, and precisely what the last season argued against. (And then there’s the Doylist knowledge that a Section 31 spin-off is coming.) Do not want. Though maybe I’m paranoid and what will happen on this show will be precisely what will lead to Section 31 being officially dissolved.
On a minor but also irritating note: I don’t get the rationale of Pike being briefed about Lorca but not about Georgiou. And while it’s good Michael is distrustful of MirrorGeorgiou, emotional connection or not, I’m still waiting for someone to bring up the woman isn’t just guilty of a few ruthless shootouts but multiple genocides, constant torture in dealing with just about anyone for any reason (and, yeah, cannibalism) over in the other universe. This being said, hi, Pippa, and, see posts in this very journal last season, I’m all for Michael having an ongoing arch nemesis she has complicated emotions about, and vice versa.
Tyler/Voq as a Section 31 agent and back on Discovery: hmmmm. I liked that they let Stamets react, and presumably we’ll get some good character stuff between TylerVoq and Hugh Culber once the later is in better shape, but why Section 31 would think an Ex-Klingon with two identities and strong emotions about Michael Burnham could be trusted to work for them after about two weeks defeats me. I mean, the CIA kept rehiring my beloved Arvin Sloane on Alias, fine, but look, Arvin Sloane was really good at what he did, no matter who he did it for! (Usually himself and Rambaldi.) Tyler’s one stint as a spy-without-knowing-he-was went spectacularly pear-shaped. On his side, I also don’t see why he’d think any organisation hiring MirrorGeorgiou, who, see above, would be trustworthy to work for, but then again he doesn’t have that many options, so okay, maybe.
In conclusion: yay for the return of Culber (and all of Tilly’s scenes), et tu, Kat about Cornwell’s speech, hm, wait and see about anything Section 31.
This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1329689.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.