Star Trek: Discovery 5.07
You know, I have watched Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock as often as the next ST fan, but it took me until today's episode until the penny dropped about something regarding this season's premise.
To wit: only when Moll decided to use the Progenitor's tech to resurrect her beloved and Michael guessed that this was her plan and that was why she agreed to go with the Breen did it occur to me to wonder: with all the talk about creating life, and now how that technology could possibly be applied to resurrect the dead, why doesn't anyone mention Doctors Carol and David Marcus, who did just that with the Genesis technology? Resurrecting Michael's brother, no less. Granted, that was 900 years ago, and presumably since Genesis turned out to be massively unstable (aside from the resurrecting Spock thing), it's not something advertised largely in Starfleet history, buuuuuuut surely someone should mention Carol Marcus did the creating life (an entire freaking planet with its own fauna) without any progenitor technology? I mean, yes, before anyone says something, the Progenitors' specialness comes from the fact they created intelligent life, but the Spock incident does prove if you have a dead body lying around near the Genesis matrix... Anyway. I just want it stated that Carol Marcus on her lonesome (okay, with her son and the team that Khan's followers slaughtered) managed to invent a similar technology.
Okay, now to the episode proper. Michael must have really had a sense of deja vue with most of her conversations with Raynor this episode, given the obvious parallels to her conversations with Georgiou Prime in Discovery's opening two parter, only now with Michael in the Georgiou role and Raynor as the one advising attack now and with the backstory trauma relating to the aggressive warrior people who were the menace du jour. Possibly due to Raynor not knowing how to use the Vulcan neck pinch and also being older, their conversations go better, Michael learns something useful to stall and bluff the Breen successfully (almost, and what made it then fail wasn't her fault) because by now she's become really good at listening and putting things together, and the camera shows us Raynor's hands again which reminds me I'm still awaiting with dread the inevitable reveal he has some long term damage there from several episodes ago.
Learning that the Breen Overlord who traumatized young Raynor was an Overlady makes me conclude she'll show up any moment now to be the final antagonist/possible truce maker of the season, as another s1 parallel - to wit, L'Rell. Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure Moll will manage to resurrect L'ak, though possibly not in a way she expects. The show going full Pet Sematary there is an option, is what I'm saying. Though naturally we had a great many other people returning from the dead in ST without such side effects, including in Discovery - i.e. Hugh Culber -, but I don't think this will be the case for L'ak, because Moll needs a shock like that to conclude this Progenitor tech really should not be in anyone's hands. (My current guess is that it won't end up in Starfleet's hands, either, and Michael will be okay with that for similar reasons.)
Possibly my favourite single element of this episode was that we got to see T'Rina outside of her relationship with Saru again. Don't get me wrong, I still adore their relationship, but she is a senior stateswoman, and it was nifty that we got to see her in action as just that, and also in a way that does justice to her Vulcan heritage.
Return of Nhan: was welcome, especially with the show in its final stages.
In conclusion, I continue to enjoy the season, including the learning more about the Breen part, and await the arrival of the Breen Overlady. If she's played by Mary Chieffo, you heard it hear first.
To wit: only when Moll decided to use the Progenitor's tech to resurrect her beloved and Michael guessed that this was her plan and that was why she agreed to go with the Breen did it occur to me to wonder: with all the talk about creating life, and now how that technology could possibly be applied to resurrect the dead, why doesn't anyone mention Doctors Carol and David Marcus, who did just that with the Genesis technology? Resurrecting Michael's brother, no less. Granted, that was 900 years ago, and presumably since Genesis turned out to be massively unstable (aside from the resurrecting Spock thing), it's not something advertised largely in Starfleet history, buuuuuuut surely someone should mention Carol Marcus did the creating life (an entire freaking planet with its own fauna) without any progenitor technology? I mean, yes, before anyone says something, the Progenitors' specialness comes from the fact they created intelligent life, but the Spock incident does prove if you have a dead body lying around near the Genesis matrix... Anyway. I just want it stated that Carol Marcus on her lonesome (okay, with her son and the team that Khan's followers slaughtered) managed to invent a similar technology.
Okay, now to the episode proper. Michael must have really had a sense of deja vue with most of her conversations with Raynor this episode, given the obvious parallels to her conversations with Georgiou Prime in Discovery's opening two parter, only now with Michael in the Georgiou role and Raynor as the one advising attack now and with the backstory trauma relating to the aggressive warrior people who were the menace du jour. Possibly due to Raynor not knowing how to use the Vulcan neck pinch and also being older, their conversations go better, Michael learns something useful to stall and bluff the Breen successfully (almost, and what made it then fail wasn't her fault) because by now she's become really good at listening and putting things together, and the camera shows us Raynor's hands again which reminds me I'm still awaiting with dread the inevitable reveal he has some long term damage there from several episodes ago.
Learning that the Breen Overlord who traumatized young Raynor was an Overlady makes me conclude she'll show up any moment now to be the final antagonist/possible truce maker of the season, as another s1 parallel - to wit, L'Rell. Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure Moll will manage to resurrect L'ak, though possibly not in a way she expects. The show going full Pet Sematary there is an option, is what I'm saying. Though naturally we had a great many other people returning from the dead in ST without such side effects, including in Discovery - i.e. Hugh Culber -, but I don't think this will be the case for L'ak, because Moll needs a shock like that to conclude this Progenitor tech really should not be in anyone's hands. (My current guess is that it won't end up in Starfleet's hands, either, and Michael will be okay with that for similar reasons.)
Possibly my favourite single element of this episode was that we got to see T'Rina outside of her relationship with Saru again. Don't get me wrong, I still adore their relationship, but she is a senior stateswoman, and it was nifty that we got to see her in action as just that, and also in a way that does justice to her Vulcan heritage.
Return of Nhan: was welcome, especially with the show in its final stages.
In conclusion, I continue to enjoy the season, including the learning more about the Breen part, and await the arrival of the Breen Overlady. If she's played by Mary Chieffo, you heard it hear first.