Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 2x09 - "Project Daedalus"

Sad to see Airiam go. They did well with her brief character development and the silent end-credits was impactful.

 

Just did a rewatch. Noticed something about Spock’s observation about Culber not having lost his love for Stamets but rather finds himself in a state of uncertainty about himself. It could easily apply to Spock, though he’d never admit it to Burnham.

As to Burnham not checking on Nhan, there isn’t that much time elapsed (seemed longer on my first watch) and, cold though it may be, the priority is stopping Airiam.

Lastly, transport to the ship, with Airiam’s wireless link to the Discovery's computer, along with her clearly articulated planned course of action, would have been highly irresponsible. I don’t think it needed to be spelled out (I loathe having Everything. Spelled. Out. For. Me.)

Not flawless but compelling.

 

I know some have mentioned the use of transporters to disable Control. If the station was once a prison, wouldn't it have been built in such a way as to keep people from beaming off or being beamed off in certain sections (like where prisoners are kept)? I would imagine that Control is stored somewhere that may not be accessible by transporter, either because there are mechanisms that prevent transport or its built out of material that cant be beamed through.

 

Was it really trying to destroy the ship or just slow it down long enough to allow Airiam more time to finish transferring the sphere database?

 

I'm curious about this. I've seem multiple people refer to silence at the end of the episode. A few others have said that the lack of music and the sound of the ocean over the credits was powerful. .....I definitely hear music and no waves on mine. Am I missing something? Heh.

 

It has nothing to do with needing anything spelled out.

They could have immediately beamed her aboard, kept her in the pattern buffer until they had a communications jammer in place in sickbay, and then beamed her to a medical bed. She would have been pretty messed up from being exposed to space and in no condition to put up much of a fight anyway, even with her cybernetic enhancements.

And I'm not citing some obscure fanon tech idea, it's been done on the shows before.

Is it a big deal? No. It doesn't ruin my enjoyment of the episode. It's just an observation.

 

I, too, loved how this episode both moved along the main plot but also had aspects of a standalone episode which made it quite satisfying to watch. I was caught up in the drama and intrigue unfolding and that scene between Michael and Spock was wonderfully drawn in terms of character interplay.

Aspects of the episode were chilling, like the discovery of the floating bodies, the corpses crashing to the floor when life support was returned, discovering Patar had been dead for weeks and realizing that they'd been interacting with Control's holographic forgeries, not real people. The AI having turned on the S31 staff was a sobering thought.

Despite the fact that Airiam didn't get a lot of development until this episode, her death still hit me like a gut punch. I think Michelle Paradise and Frakes managed to get us to really feel the loss of a character and of her potential. It was like we were given a small glimpse into her life and her desires as a human being but were left wanting more on purpose. Also I think the crew really sold it in term of their feelings of devastation at losing her. Normally Tilly's reaching out to her would have worked on such a show, but this time, they had the courage to make it a no win situation.

I liked how both Spock and Michael had equally good points regarding each others' personality flaws. And that Michael was faced with a decision she couldn't make and someone else had to do it for her.

I really think beaming her on board Discovery again would have been a catastrophic mistake. Airiam herself knew that she had the capability to take over the ship remotely and destroy it, if given the chance. She believed 100% that being taken to the brig would not have stopped her.

And I confess didn't even think of Nhan while the scene progressed because I was so caught up in it, and was surprised and relieved when she showed up at the end to save the day. I think it was just a dramatic choice to have Nhan be the one to fiinally push the button, showing her resilience and determination to protect everyone, and not meant to be an indictment against Burnham's lack of care for her.

This episode left me emotionally reeling and I gave it a 9/10.

The only nitpicks I had were that the mine sequence was a touch clunky (it was a delaying tactic for Airiam to complete her download and transmission, right?), and there were a couple of camera shots which felt needlessly elaborate in terms of movement.

It made me wonder, since we've had those upside down, weird angle, spinning shots a lot this season, if it's a deliberate affectation. Kind of a silly speculation, call it a fanwank if you will, but what if it's meant to signify Control listening in on/watching everyone. If you go by the novels, Control is meant to have itself spread all over the Federation, integrated into many of the computer systems. But unable to act as an avatar in the same way that hacked Airiam was able to. It would give those jarring visuals a plot reason for occurring, rather than it just being a weird stylistic choice that more than one director this season has made.

I don't normally notice the camera work on the show, I couldn't point out a dutch angle if you asked me to, but I have noticed it being more disorienting, and 'busy' this season. So it makes me wonder why it's cropping up in multiple episodes. Are the weird spinning/rolling/moving shots happening only the ships (like Discovery and S31) or are they also happening when planetside in non-Federation locations?

 

While I didn't love this one as much as the last, Paradise does seem to favor scenes that really dig into character (Spock and Stamets, Spock and Burnham), which bodes well, in my opinion.

Yes, I note that many people on the subreddits have asked why they didn't just brig her. The answer, to me, is that the brig had frequently failed to hold people with neither Airiam's strength nor cognitive powers. She would certainly have taken over Discovery.

I recall reading that Frakes was exciting that Discovery let him experiment with the camera with very little constraint, so I think we're seeing that experimental creativity on display this season. It's mostly worked for me, but at times it doesn't always seem to have a narrative purpose, such as the zoom-and-spin out from a wall panel to two characters walking in the corridor in this one, or the shot in 2x03 when we start out seeing Michael and Amanda's reflections on the ceiling and then pan down. I'll be curious to see if this style continues, or changes next season.

 

ALSO, MARK THE RETURN OF SHOUTING SPOCK! CITIZENS, REJOICE!!! 'TIS A MIRACLE! HE'S SHOUTING AND HE LOVES IT!

 

I get what you're saying, but isn't that the kind of technobabble, reset-button, consequence-free storytelling we all agreed Voyager had done to death and Trek needed to move away from?

I don't think we need everything spelled out. If they could have saved her, they would have. They didn't, so they couldn't.

This was absolutely in service of the dramatic situation that had been established and goes to the heart of Discovery and Burnham in particular. As Spock pointed out, she always thinks she's got the answer and can find a way out, but here she was powerless to help her friend but also seemed frozen at a crucial moment and couldn't do what she needed to do to save her crew. No Red Angel this time, just Nhan

 

I'm not advocating for consequences-free storytelling. If they felt killing Airiam off best served the story, then I'm fine with that. I already said it was an incredibly moving scene.

I just made an observation, that using tech available on the show and a technique that has been used multiple times before on this show and others, they could have easily saved her. And that maybe they could have found away around that like having main power down due to the mine attack (hence no working transporters on the ship), thus forcing the away team to take a shuttlecraft over and back. It doesn't take any kind of elaborate technobabble to work.

I also said in the post you quoted that it had nothing to do with having everything "spelled out", so I'm not sure why you're reiterating that again. I just think they forgot that it was an option, as has happened numerous times before, like at the end of Nemesis when they forgot about the existence of transporters in all the shuttles (which they don't have in this era). That's not over-reliance on technobabble to know that, it was just a mistake in the writing.

It's not a dealbreaker, as I gave the episode the highest rating possible. It's just pointing out an option not taken, as I thought you do in a commentary thread.

 

The transporter has the unfortunate side effect of causing the crew to forget its existence during moments of crisis.

 

Just thinking about Airiam again if her implants help her to live and to function why would the hacking take control of her so much? I thought the implants were there to serve her needs and not the other way around?

 

Dunno - I heard a wind breeze but otherwise silence.

 

He said "not the only" not "not the first" - maybe they became fashionable after he was born...

 

There are ocean/beach sounds (sounds of small waves crashing on the sand as seen in the early scene of Airiam’s memory) mixed with some breeze sounds. Through my TV speakers it is difficult to discern the layers of audio in the end credits but in 5.1 through my home cinema audio gear, it’s quite clear.

 

Suspension of disbelief where required.

I feel they explained just enough that serves the need of this particular episode / season. Explaining too much would be pedantic, and having the audience stretch the suspension of disbelief to high levels would break the emotional impact. They've got the balance right this episode and this season, I feel.