Main thoughts:
Okay, first of all let me say this: I really do think this show has found the perfect Trek formula this season. Having long, serialized character arcs that are influenced by, but independant from the plot of the week. And I think the plot mixture of having an over-arching season long arc, built up from the first episode, then for the most part of the season more episodic tales more loosely connected to the main arc, and then ramping it up in the end to full serialized storytelling fits
perfectly for a Star Trek show. And I genuinely love that the main arc is a
mystery story - that gives us that good, warm feeling of "exploration" that a Trek show needs.
That being said: I think this episode made it undeniable clear that this season's main arc is fundamentally broken. As much as I still crave to see what Bryan Fuller originally envisioned for the series - it seems obvious that this season as well has completely changed course with the change of the showrunners. Gone is pretty much everything resembling the "faith vs. science" theme that was advertised.
But the bigger problem is - none of the main arc makes any sense anymore. The hypothethis that the red angel is connected to Burnham is completely unconvincing, since it already appeared during WWII to save some humans, and to Spock alone. But the main issue is that a majority of plot-twists feel like complete ass-pulls, because nothing is set up or resolved - literally every idea is both introduced and executed immediately. It doesn't help that this show has absolutely no rules for time-travel - remember, this is supposed to be in sync with the Kelvin movies, where the "grandfather paradox" doesn't exist, because time-travel creates alternate timelines. And I do hate the return of the magic timeballs.
But the episode never really gets over it's main issue: that it's whole set-up is completely unbelievable: They are in a war for life itself with an evil A.I. from the future. But they get protection from another time-traveler. Why do they so willy-nilly set up to completely disable said time-traveler, and even risk his life and a paradoxon to do so? They really set up an intricate plan to shoot themselves in the foot. And then shot themselves in the foot. Next episode: Does Burnham has to get into the suit? How do they proceed without a foot?
The bright side is: The writers really manage to introduce some good ideas, and their reasoning even works when you don't think about it. SO overall, I still look forward to the conclusion of this arc, and I think it will be an actually pretty interesting conndrum, told in an entertaining way. Just - we have to prepare ourselves for the resolution to not make actually a lot of sense, and it won't actually fit what we've been told so far, because it's been retroactively glued on top of what the fired screenwriters wanted to do originally. Again.
What I liked:
- I actually really enjoyed Leland as the shady good badguy. Never thought he'd be one of my favourite recurring characters of this show
- As such - I still think it was a mistake to make him resposible for Burnham's family tragedy. But god damn, that scene between the two was amazing, and I really love that he was forthcoming about it for himself. He's really not evil for evil's sake. He's just wrong. I like that. The leather-clothed shady guy who's constantly talking about how shady he is is actually a pretty nuanced character
- Spock worked a bit better as Spock this episode. There is still something widely off about Peck's line-delivery and acting (not bad, just not Spock), but IMO his lines and actions, and all of it with a small smirk, actually kinda' worked.
- I continue to like the way the Stamets-Culbert-relationship develops. I'm still not super into it, and it still feels like a fix against the "kill your gays" trope of season 1. But the do so in such a genuine way, and honest spirit, it might be one of the best "actor-brought-back-to-life"-stories in Trek
- Soooo. Tyler worked AGAIN for the season's big main baddie, without him knowing it? Man this guy can't catch a break
- Last episode, I thought it was Section 31's computer that annhilated all life. But having it be "a future A.I." (who's identity we don't know yet), which just took over Control (and Airam) is a much more interesting concept
- The big TWIST!!!!-Ending was neat
What I didn't like:
- The funeral at the beginning felt completely shallow. Do we pretend Airam was more than a disposable extra the entire series until now? Not even real-Georgiou got such a big good-bye, not even talking about Culbert, Landry, and blue-shirt-splattered-on-asteroids.
- Section 31 has time-travel now???? 20 years before Kirk? Are they fucking kidding?
- Also: Magic time-balls on the black market? This show handles it's MacGuffins extremely uncareful. On a mere television show I'm willing to let a lot more slide. But we're approaching dangerous "super-blood and magic transport beaming"-levels of breaking internal universe-rules here
- Georgiou/Stamets/Culbert's "You are gay. My version of you was bisexual. And we did a lot of the sex. And with you too"-scene was probably the most immature scene I have ever seen on Star Trek. Ever. And Janeway once lizard-fucked Tom Paris.
- Also: Can MU-Georgiou just fuck off this show for good? She's now completely the caring mother-figure for Michael, who just casually drops fascist propaganda, promotes genocide and is a space-cannibal. But neither the writers nor the characters care about ANY of that. Everybody just treats her like the Georgiou-mentor character the writer think she is. No one cares they are now fully celebrating their local fascist as "the cool girl" and did-I-mention-how-much-more-effective-fascism-is?-you-really-should-try-it-out-people!....
FInal Grade
6/10. Like last week. Feels like mostly exposition, as if that was intended as the first half of a single episode, and then needed padding to be the first half of a two-parter. Together with last week the weakest episodes of the season so far. The show is still overwhelmingly good. But the main story-arc isn't. And every episode dealing with more details of it suffered for it thus far.
