There is so much to love about Discovery season 2. The character work is just top-notch. The texture and depth added to the Sarek clan is just amazing. Here, we arguably see this family at its lowest ( I do say "arguably" here. This family has always been portrayed as deeply dysfunctional.) Literally everyone is pissed at everyone else. Despite this, you can still clearly see how much they love and depend upon each other. Amanda is a force of nature that I would never want to cross.
Discovery season 2 transformed Christopher Pike from a canonical curiosity to absolutely one of the best characters in the entire franchise. The moment where he accepted his fate for the greater good in Through the Valley of Shadows sends shivers down my spine every time I watch it. That scene would possibly give our theoretical first time watcher a sense of mystery, foreboding and foreshadowing about Pike's fate.
In fact, all of the major supporting characters got a bit of a spotlight... in the first half of the season. Tilly with her sentient mycillial hitchhiker, Stamets and his struggles with the newly resurrected Culber, and Saru realizing the truth about his people and liberating them from oppression. Even some of the the secondary supporting characters got some development. Owo was raised on a Luddite colony. Detmer is an ace pilot and gearhead who's been flying since her early teens. Airium got a wonderfully touching spotlight / send off. Admiral Cornwell was a great character and her sacrifice was genuinely moving and heroic. The ready room scene in An Obal for Charon is one of my favorite scenes of the season and it could have used more like it.
For better or worse, the second half of the season the focus switched more over to Michael and her relationships with Spock and her mother. There's still some really good stuff there, but I wish they would have continued developing the secondary cast a bit more.
There are a lot of great individual episodes. Brother, New Eden, An Obal For Charon, The Sound of Thunder, Project Daedalus, If Memory Serves and Through The Valley Of Shadows are all standouts. In fact, I would probably put If Memory Serves on an all-time top 20 list.
Where it tends to fall apart is in its attempt to be serialized. The Red Angel, Section 31, Control, Michael's mother, a threat to all sentient life in the universe... It was just too much. It really does fly off the rails in the two-part finale story-wise. I love the character moments. I loved the Discovery's crew choosing to join Michael on her journey to the Future. Spock and Michael's reconciliation and farewell. But the story just flies off the rails. They have to go to the future to keep Control from acquiring sentience, but Control is on the ship with them and will just be going to the future with them. I'm sure the people in the future will appreciate that. But wait! The Control threat is actually defeated before they jump to the future, but they jump to the future anyway! Bwuh?
The whole epilogue where are they essentially saying that "we must never speak of this ever again" was unsatisfying on many levels because I never actually saw any reason for Spock to have mentioned any of these events in the future anyway. Spock was never one to reveal personal information about his family to outsiders. Kirk didn't even know that Spock's father was a Vulcan Ambassador until he was standing right in front of him, he didn't mention he had a fiance until he had to go home for his wedding day, and he didn't mention he had a half-brother for another 25 years after that. Easy-peasy. Spore Drive? Deemed unfeasible due to necessary human genetic manipulation and classified. Why didn't Spock mention he had a sister? You didn't ask. Easy-peasy.
The epilogue does accomplish the purpose of providing a segue into Strange New Worlds. This is where the narrative shifts from Michael to Spock, who will be at the center of the next three television shows (counting SNW and TAS) and 6 movies.
There weren't really a lot of "firsts" for our theoretical first-time watcher in Discovery season 2. Section 31 was established in Enterprise. All of our main characters from the Enterprise were introduced in Short Treks. Even Kaminar, Siranna, Queen Po and the Xaheans (although I did watch this particular Short Trek during the season after Saints of Imperfection) were established in Short Treks.
If we were doing this a year from now, our first time viewer would be moving on to Strange New Worlds and the continuing adventures of Spock, Pike and Number One. There, they would also have the opportunity to meet, at the very least, Uhura, Christine Chapel and Doctor M'benga before seeing them on The Original Series. For now, our first time viewer would move on to TOS, and I believe that they would already have a very firm and solid understanding of who Spock is and how he does things and that sometimes what he doesn't say is as important as what he does say.
As for Michael, Discovery and friends... I'll be seeing you later. Much, much later...
and there is no way to watch Mirror Mirror, without following it up with Fairest of them All. In my opinion. I also watch To Boldly Go, as a lead in to The Motion Picture.
