Mostly great. The reveal of the memory between Burnham and Spock was basically what had been predicted, but still reasonable and justified. The method on how we got there was slightly forced -- I'd much rather it be something that came out of the characters instead of an arbitrary "price" asked in exchange for magicking away Spock's brain fog, but at least the mystery is behind us and we can move forward.
The re-appearance of the quarry killed the visuals of Talos IV for me. I believe we've seen that location already twice, though the only one that comes to mind is the Rebel Base in the MU, and putting a small crop of plants in one spot isn't enough redressing to overcome it and give my suspension of disbelief something to work with. Even some color grading to put things much warmer would at least have helped (and matched the old soundstage colors more closely as a bonus).
I felt Saru's decision to let the fight play out was a seriously stupid one, and I'm glad that Pike addressed that. I wonder if Saru really took it to heart, however. He's just not himself since he matured (ugh, they keep saying "evolved"), and it's consistent with his behavior on Pahvo when his fear was prematurely removed, too. I miss the wiser Saru that didn't see aggression as the answer to every problem. Poor Culber. Stamets has never been a people-person, and now he's being asked to connect with someone that was always the one doing the emotional heavy-lifting in their relationship. Ouch.
By the end, I was left with the distinct impression of a half-season close, or even that we're coming up on the finale soon, as most of the side missions delaying the crew have been resolved and we can get back on the trail of the main mystery full time. I'm sure the Section 31 plot will continue to slow things down, but we'll see.
I felt bad for Tyler during the accusation. I was hoping that Saru approaching Pike in the hall about the security breach meant they'd try to keep it private until they did further digging, but it seems likely they only did a small amount of investigation before confronting him in a way that tipped their hand to the real mole. Sloppy move, crew! Given that they suspected him of an implanted personality, I was surprised Pike confined him to his quarters rather than requiring a medical exam, again taking a short-sighted approach to resolving an issue as Pike did with Saru's insubordination. Either way, you need him off the bridge, but one is possibly going to provide answers while the other just delays things. It's interesting to see them dealing with the shortcomings of having a Data-like crewmember, which TNG often ignored even when Data did things just like this. I'm interested in the repercussions once she's exposed. I do hope she survives.
The end of the episode was powerful, and felt like a really nice moment with everyone coming together. The preview doesn't seem to flow from it, but the ending at least had me looking forward to more!
I still don't like Giorgeau (And her gloating about Genocide still has me wondering why she's getting her own show).
I just can't tolerate Georgiou. And if they want to give her depth, maybe they shouldn't have her gloating about another genocide.
She was the only negative about this episode for me.
She gets worse with every appearance, for me because it's excruciatingly obvious that her plot has a goal to reach and nothing else matters. She's not outsmarting anyone, or pitting her wits against anyone's, or twisting events to her advantage without exercising any official power. Leland and the Admirals all have to be completely incompetent and utterly blind to miss how cacklingly "diabolical" the Unrepentant Evil Cartoon is being in her plans to usurp power. These people in S31 are master tacticians and super spies, or else they wouldn't be here, so having them miss the obvious is a hole in the storytelling and makes every scene with them, and especially her, pull the rug out from under itself. Nothing they do feels like it matters so long as "I'm Getting My Own Show Soon" gets to go around doing whatever she wants because she literally has a destiny to accomplish them. I'd love to be wrong and find out that Leland and the rest of S31 are letting her think she's outsmarting them, but I really,
really doubt that's the case. Even if we hadn't been spoiled on this upcoming show, it's still terribly weak writing without believable character motivations; it's just that we happen to know that the motivations are meta-textual ones. It's dramatically uninteresting to see a villain say "this is how I'm going to gain additional power" and then they just... do it, because no one stops them.
It feels like my reaction is supposed to be "Oh, she's so cool!" but she's not clever or cool. The one agent that S31 should be keeping on the shortest leash possible is running around seemingly without oversight and without anyone being warned of her nature (clearly not even in an oblique manner, since they insist on keeping her origin secret). So much for being an Intelligence Organization. If they do go under, it'll be because of how monumentally inept it is during this era, but it won't have been earned. I haven't gotten the impression at all that we're supposed to be viewing them as this naïve, it's just a side effect of the inability to write their usurper as smarter than a smart group of people.
Technically Control is in all Federation tech. They can’t hide from it even if they wanted to.
I really hope not. Egads, that sounds like really terrible fanfic. So now I'm worried.
The implication given in this episode that S31 is somehow controlled without military or civilian oversight by an AI is already ridiculous enough. I could have bought it as a massive intelligence database and analysis system, but that's just too far for me. Which reminds me: the probe used SQL Injections against Discovery? I chuckled at the silliness.
Sara Mitch must be so bummed that she had to relinquish the Airiam role given the direction this is going.
At least she's not off the show, I guess, but it's too bad she left the role right before it got something to do. Hopefully we'll continue to see her elsewhere on the ship. She acted well in that small bit we saw (and did a good job with Airiam previously, IMO).
I'm glad so many people liked this episode but the Talosians just seemed to be forced in the storyline to please the longtime fans. They are really the only ones who can "heal" Spock? That girl who played Vina can't touch Susan Oliver either. Don't mean to be negative.
Seemed like a stretch to me, too, but in the end they mostly just kinda stood there and let the main characters do most of the work, so it didn't bother me as much. It's fan service, but it didn't really abuse them aside from making the rare visit seem a little less rare.
What was up with the clips from The Cage at the beginning of the episode? I know they wanted to connect this episode with The Cage but that montage of clips with the funny editing was a bizarre way of doing it.
I didn't get it either. As a long-time Trek fan, it made me sigh, largely because of the "retro" font, the sounds, and the editing of it. It feels too much like tone/design whiplash and fanservice to do it that way, but apparently a lot of people here loved it. For me, it's another example of Discovery being uncomfortable in the spot it's chosen to inhabit.
I find it amazing that this is the first time since The Cage/The Menagerie that we visited the Talosians. They certainly did them justice here.
We also finally saw the incident that stopped Burnham and Spock talking for all those years. Burnham was doing her own thing and moving on, but her calling Spock a half-breed has obviously stuck all these years. It was heartbreaking, even though Spock thanked her for what she did.
