Star Trek: Discovery 5.04
I'm currently travelling, and also, this episode was put up late at least in my part of the world, so I didn't have the chance to watch it until last night.
It amazes me more and more that the writers supposedly didn't know this would be the last season when they started, because this episode works very much on that assumption, as the plot device - villain sabotages Discovery via time shenanigans, Michael pllus Paul Stamets plus one more crew member to the rescue - is directly from s1's Harry Mudd episode - referenced by Michael and Stamets via allusion in dialogue, too -, and as that (s1) episode also forwarded Michael's character and relationship development (this is when she starts to get out of her self loathing and starts to connect to the crew, and her relationships with both Tyler and Stamets change big time) , this episode does a similar thing for Raynor while also confronting Michael (in the end and inevitably) with literally her past self. (Given that the s1 Discovery they end up on is so early that Landry is still alive, this is really Michael as her shut-off, self-loathing, desperate and guilt ridden maximum.)
The other eras were somewhat arbitrary, except for the far future (the one from Calypso the short Trek, with Michael encountering a lonely Zora and a dying ship), serving the plot in that they make it clear that the big seasonal MacGuffin getting into the wrong hands really would do great great damage to everyone, and put Michael Burnham and her hew XO Raynor through the tried and true plot device of two people who have just been through a big fundamental disagreement having to work together to save the day, thereby getting to know each other better and learning from each other. Raynor continues to strike me as a mixture of early Michael (the final time jump made that clear) and (presumably) Prime Gabriel Lorca/Mirror Lorca as he presented himself in early s1. The only thing that annoyed me a bit was that he very obviously received a deeper wound at the hand which he was hiding from everyone. If Raynor slowly dies of this thing through the season, I'm crying cliché.
Lastly: It was lovely seeing Airiam and early s1 style Tilly again in addition to early Michael, and the actors very much pulled off slipping into their early season shoes. As in the definite TNG finale (now definite because Picard was such a let down), the contrast between their selves at the start of the show and their current selves was a neat way to show how they've developed.
It amazes me more and more that the writers supposedly didn't know this would be the last season when they started, because this episode works very much on that assumption, as the plot device - villain sabotages Discovery via time shenanigans, Michael pllus Paul Stamets plus one more crew member to the rescue - is directly from s1's Harry Mudd episode - referenced by Michael and Stamets via allusion in dialogue, too -, and as that (s1) episode also forwarded Michael's character and relationship development (this is when she starts to get out of her self loathing and starts to connect to the crew, and her relationships with both Tyler and Stamets change big time) , this episode does a similar thing for Raynor while also confronting Michael (in the end and inevitably) with literally her past self. (Given that the s1 Discovery they end up on is so early that Landry is still alive, this is really Michael as her shut-off, self-loathing, desperate and guilt ridden maximum.)
The other eras were somewhat arbitrary, except for the far future (the one from Calypso the short Trek, with Michael encountering a lonely Zora and a dying ship), serving the plot in that they make it clear that the big seasonal MacGuffin getting into the wrong hands really would do great great damage to everyone, and put Michael Burnham and her hew XO Raynor through the tried and true plot device of two people who have just been through a big fundamental disagreement having to work together to save the day, thereby getting to know each other better and learning from each other. Raynor continues to strike me as a mixture of early Michael (the final time jump made that clear) and (presumably) Prime Gabriel Lorca/Mirror Lorca as he presented himself in early s1. The only thing that annoyed me a bit was that he very obviously received a deeper wound at the hand which he was hiding from everyone. If Raynor slowly dies of this thing through the season, I'm crying cliché.
Lastly: It was lovely seeing Airiam and early s1 style Tilly again in addition to early Michael, and the actors very much pulled off slipping into their early season shoes. As in the definite TNG finale (now definite because Picard was such a let down), the contrast between their selves at the start of the show and their current selves was a neat way to show how they've developed.