Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 2x10 - "The Red Angel"

[cooleddie74]

I was amused at how Leland mispronounced Qo'noS. He called it "Kwo-nose."

 

[Alan Roi]

I suggested the whole scheme, including the "point of the exercise" as you put it, was simply illogical from the get-go. And it was, because it relied on incomplete information and untenable assumptions.

Characters in fiction in general and Star Trek in particular do things based on incomplete information.

Please do go take a long walk off a short pier.

That's just offensive.

(As to the underlying point: in the scene as presented, the only reason they couldn't transport Michael straight to sickbay is that the RA had, finally, started to arrive. My point was that if they'd had a transporter lock all along, they could've yanked her the moment Spock obstructed the rescuers on the surface, without any problem. Indeed, if they'd had a transporter lock all along, the rescuers on the surface would've been frankly redundant in the first place.)

We have seen many times before that transporter locks can be lost. The fact is, when they tried to beam her out of there they couldn't. No prior Transporter lock would have made a difference even if they decided to place one, which they didn't, not expecting to face such a homicidal Vulcan in Spock (Perhaps his success in we must kill ****, is what spurs Spock to be such a kill-first character later on).

Yes, I've read the Wikipedia page. Are you honestly suggesting the time crystals in the show, with the powers seen in "MTMTSMGM" and now this season, bear any relation to real-world phenomena other than a coincidentally shared name?

A time crystal or space-time crystal is a structure that repeats in time, as well as in space. So, no, it doesn't just share a name. Come on, you said you read the entry, but you act like you didn't. Its still new form of matter recently discovered in modern physics that Trek is using, as it as done for the last 50 years.

I'm not objecting to quasi-magical Treknology as a general thing. The difference between this and the other examples you mention, though, is that those examples help make the whole Star Trek concept possible by defining its parameters and boundaries, whereas this threatens to undermine and deconstruct them, as discussed above. (It's not unlike the problems presented by things like interstellar transporting and tribble blood in the Abrams films.)

It does not undermine anything, It merely adds to the parameters and boundaries previously defined, as new information always does.

As for the others, interstellar transporting was known in the TOS era (That Which Endures), and was being experimented on in the Enterprise era by human beings, although not successfully (Deadalous). The regenerative powers of Khan's blood (not tribble blood you erroneously call it - it was made clear that it was Khan's blood that revived the tribble.) was mentioned in Space Seed. I tell you to pay attention because it's important to not make errors defending your case, but you obviously don't want to, considering how much you get wrong and use in your defense anyways. .

Bottom line, the whole plan only worked because the plot required it to. There is no set of logical assumptions that makes it plausible that the plan would work (without also making it either unnecessary or foolhardy), and indeed in the end it only did work because of information the characters didn't have.

They established a plan based on the information they had. And it actually did work based of the information they were going with exactly as they has hoped. The only thing they got wrong was who was in the suit. But they aren't temporal specialists, so that's understandable.

 

[Alan Roi]

I was amused at how Leland mispronounced Qo'noS. He called it "Kwo-nose."

Makes sense that everyone pronounces things differently, just like in Arrow, the American characters can't seem to pronounce Ra's al Ghul properly.

 

[Alan Roi]

Ethan Peck keeps killing it.

#TeamPeck

Really its #teamSpock. And he will continue 'killing it' in TOS as well.

 

[Push The Button]

Officers, arrest this person for violating the Temporal Prime Directive!

Man, a lot to process in this episode.

Leland's story about the temporal suit and the "death' of Michael's parents doesn't make sense to me. Section 31 learns the Klingons are mucking with time travel. They make a time travel suit. The Klingons find and destroy the suit, but then Leland says they abandoned "it". What did they abandon, the suit (that he thought was destroyed) or their work into time travel? Then Section 31 finds a time crystal to power the suit, but the Klingons pursue the crystal to the system where the Burnhams are staying. Moma Burnham had a hand in developing the suit, was she there to pick up the crystal to power the suit (which was supposedly destroyed)? The star going supernova and releasing a large amount of energy is mentioned. Did that also have something to do with powering the suit? If so, what was all the hoopla about staying to see the supernova, if they had to stay anyway. Leland's wording also makes it seem like the time crystal might have been a lure to trap the Klingons in the supernova.

Also, thank god the mystery of the Red Angel turned out to be an actual mystery. I thought it was going to be Lorca and the Mirror Universe all over again.

Lorca as the Red Angel would have been awesome.

 

[Worf2DS9]

Is the woman who took Airiam's place the original actor who played her?

Yes, I thought that was a really cool, somewhat meta moment bringing Sarah Mitich's new character, Lt. Nilsson, onto the bridge to take over Airiam's station.

The ending of this episode is the Alias Mom reveal like in the season 1 finale of Alias. I've seen this on other shows in the years since Alias aired.

That's totally what I thought of too! It was certainly a surprise twist on both shows.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

But honestly, which would you choose if you were Michael?

I'd save Mother Burnham, Georgiou would cheat death by having a sexy party with the Grim Reaper himself

 

[Alan Roi]

Lorca as the Red Angel would have been awesome.

Yes, but this actually fits the narrative, and explains some things about Burnham as well.

 

[Alan Roi]

I'd save Mother Burnham, Georgiou would cheat death by having a sexy party with the Grim Reaper himself

I cannot argue with your logic. It is impeccable. #teamSpock

 

[Fleet Admiral Tuvix]

Excellent episode. At first I thought the time logic was bad but it occurred to me that, whether Michael knows about the plan or not, the fact remains that she would still have to protect her past self to ensure her future existence.

This season isn't just about family, it's also about the downside to wish fulfilment, which works delightfully on a meta level to some of the more tedious and inane haters.

Stamets gets Dr Boyfriend back, and that's trash.

But then Michael and Spock seemingly patch things up.

Saru and Syranna also had a tempestuous reunion. I really enjoyed the nuance there.

And now Michael gets (half of) her most deep seated wish.

I'm probably reading tea leaves here, though. I wish Tyler had more to do. It's easy to forget or stop caring about his reason for being there. He's a walking faucet of trauma for at least 3 members of the crew.

Starfleet really needs better HR.

 

[Dales]

oh dear.I found this episode very disappointing.

I like this show (a lot) but I admit that compared to a series like next generation (TNG), discovery is not close to that level of genius writing. the more I rewatch TNG the more I am beginning to see the faults with discovery and this episode really disappointed me.

the plot was too easy to the point of flaky, the writing was generic and the red angel reveal just felt okay, the red angel capture was simplistic.this episode felt like a CW episode.

also you can tell this is Alex Kurtzam, he reused his amazing spiderman movie story line of peter parker parents were secrets agents or something with Burnham's parent, just like how spiderman's magic blood was reused as khan magic blood in into darkness to cure kirk.

I give this episode a 5/10.

 

[The Vast Loneliness]

Wait. It's a prog rock album?

Progressive Rock. My favorite Prog Rock Album is 2112 by Rush. Any 70s "Yes" album is considered Prog rock. Pretty much all of the Rush albums from the 70s are Prog rock also. I'd check them out if you like rock.

 

[Push The Button]

Yes, but this actually fits the narrative, and explains some things about Burnham as well.

Gabriel Lorca ..

 

[The Vast Loneliness]

Okay, WOW! That surprised even me. It was cleverly hinted at and subtle clues were, in retrospect, given therefore I can't call a foul on this.

Definitely going to watch it again.

WOW!!!

The Red Angel …

What episode from Dr Who is this clip from? Just curious. Romana was an awesome Dr Who companion. Female Time Lord equal to the Dr in every way. This was back when a Time lords didn't change their sex when they regenerated. At least it was never discussed if they did. My favorite era of Dr Who.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Episode 10 "Red Angel"

So where do we begin.

8/10

DEFCON LEVEL FUN!!!!!!!!!!!

And boy was it fun.

The funeral for Airiam was nice, they put her into a photon torpedo and shot her into space. It was lovely hearing everyone speaking about her and the emotion the actors gave to this scene was just great. Saru spoke, and sang and hell Doug Jones has a good singing voice who would have thought? Was that some kind of fireworks or something when they were lowering her body on that platform? Looked like that's what they were trying to do.

I liked all of the interactions in this episode. I didn't know that in an earlier part of her life Admiral Cornwell was a therapist or such so that little scene with Culber was a really well done scene. I think he's starting to come to terms with his situation and I think her words helped a little. We had a Tilly scene with "What just happened?" and I love any scene she's in. She just has this fun way of delivering her lines. Mary Wiseman is great. She makes redheads great again.

I was a bit unsold on their plan to capture the red angel, and the first reveal that it might have been a future Michael Burnham threw me for a bit but I kind of twigged where they were going with this about the middle of the episode. By then I was thinking a familial match so maybe a sibling or such, didnt' think it would be her actual mother who she had assumed was dead. Risky plan too because had she died there and mum didn't show up they'd all be screwed but I think they might be anyway.

I think Leland was infected with Control programmed nanites. I don't think our evil AI is done with yet. They still didn't reset Control yet and who knows what's going on with Leland, I think he's been compromised by nanites or something. See guys I told you nanites would play a part in all this LOL. The way this episode ended I think there's a hell of a lot more to come in the next 4 and final episodes to this season. We still have a galaxy to save.

My favourite person from the mirror universe was here again and any scene Michelle Yeoh is in is gold. She steals the camera with her presence. Love that lady. I think she and Tilly get some of the best lines.

I think Spock and Michael have made up and now are a bit closer this episode then they have been in the past. I think as we draw near to the end of the season we'll see the brother and sister bond get stronger again. I actually love this interpretation of Spock done by Ethan Peck. He's really got the character nailed down as he plays his scenes. It's just how I feel but I think Leonard Nimoy would have been proud of him.

I really don't have much to say about the whole Control plot now but I don't think we've seen the last of it. Something infected Leland and I'm betting big that it's the AI that has done something to him as a last ditch save in case they tried to do what they just did in this episode. I don't know what's gonna happen next episode but I think we are in for an exciting ride.

Great episode, lots of fun, and a solid fun ride.

 

[The Vast Loneliness]

Discovery clearly isn't your thing man. Why keep torturing yourself?

My guess is a 2 for Star Trek is still a 10+ for any other show. 99% of TV is garbage. The only other show I watch is The Orville.

 

[cultcross]

Well. First impressions: that was pretty bad.

First of all, the involvement of S31, and especially Georgiou, isn't getting any more tolerable as time goes by. In fact, Georgiou was at her most annoying in this episode. She sings the praises of totalitarianism, she gleefully enjoys making others personally uncomfortable ("what just happened," indeed?), and (in unexplained contrast to earlier in the season) she doesn't seem to be making the slightest attempt to hide the fact that she's from the Mirror Universe, even around people who didn't previously know it. Why isn't she safely locked away in a Federation penal colony at this point?

As for the rest of S31, the notion that Leland knew about the history of the Red Angel suit all along, yet never shared that information, renders him even less trustworthy than before, and compels the question of why Pike or anyone aboard Discovery would cooperate with his plan.

Second, the whole scenario reeks of "small universe syndrome." It's not bad enough that viewers were already expecting Burnham to be the Red Angel; now we're told that her parents were the inventors of the suit, and it was that project that led to their deaths. I've handwaved away earlier complaints from other fans that everything in this show is All About Burnham, since she is ostensibly the protagonist, after all, but this is really getting ridiculous.

Third, many of the emotional beats didn't ring true. In particular, Burnham's shockingly immature reaction to Leland's admission to her (which wasn't actually even the kind of plot-relevant information she was asking for, but never mind that) managed the impressive task of making me actually sympathize with Leland. The whole story isn't remotely the most reprehensible thing he's done; indeed it sounds like his motives at the time were good and the risk was unintentional, and yet this is the thing she goes off on him about? Hell, she should be grateful to know she's been blaming herself needlessly.

Beyond that, her rapprochement with Tyler was unconvincing, and had every bit as little chemistry as their relationship last season. Really the only sequence that worked was Spock's one-on-one with her... mostly due to Peck, whose take on Spock continues to evoke the original without imitating it. (The interlude with Culber talking to Cornwell was also almost a good moment, but on the whole it just came across as too pat. And the opening funeral for Airiam merely underscored all of the unearned emotion already discussed in re: the previous episode. Does every redshirt death get a full-crew funeral?)

Fourth—and this is the biggest and most multifaceted problem—the whole plot just made no damn sense. It makes no sense that the suit is a Federation time-travel experiment from nearly 20 years past; indeed, weren't we told in a recent episode that it was future tech? (And of course it has quite a lot of abilities beyond time travel — including instant healing, as seen in this very episode.) It also doubles down on the annoying Plot Devicium of "time crystals" from last season, making them something that's apparently been known and available for decades... which (logically) should have huge implications well beyond this story, and (in terms of continuity) completely undermines the new-ness of the Enterprise's pioneering time-travel discoveries in TOS.

Moreover, if the Red Angel really were Michael (as everyone was led to believe), the scheme to trap her was beyond stupid. It rests on the notion that she would protect her own existence in the past — but what does it assume about her future knowledge? Clearly the Red Angel is willing and able to intervene beyond just the "present" time frame of the seven signals (as demonstrated by the indirect rescue of adolescent Burnham on Vulcan), but just as clearly she doesn't always do that, as Burnham's life has been in danger multiple times (as recently as last season) without the Red Angel ever putting in an appearance. So there's no basis for assuming that putting her at risk now will necessarily do the trick. If her future self knows about the risk to her past life, then she would also know that the whole setup was a trap... but if her future self doesn't know about the risk, then she wouldn't come regardless. (And how does this explain her other appearances, including to Spock on some unnamed world for the mind-meld, when Michael was nowhere around?) Indeed, if they expect that her future self remembers this past, and has good intentions, then the most sensible thing to do would be simply to ask her to come back to that point in time and explain what the heck is going on. If her future self is unwilling or unable to do that for some reason, then, well... she has more information than they do, and the fate of intelligent life is at stake, so maybe capturing her and derailing her plans is kind of a foolhardy idea.

Meanwhile, In terms of precautions to "safeguard" Burnham, the whole scenario also made no sense. Why didn't her fellow officers in the watch chamber at least have their helmets on? Why didn't the ship have a transporter lock on her, before the tachyon radiation showed up?

Having the Angel then actually turn out to be Burnham's mother is piling nonsense on top of nonsense, just for the sake of a Shocking Twist (which has no impact for viewers, as we've never met the character before). Never mind the mystery of how she isn't dead... the reveal completely undermines information from earlier in the same episode about the "bio-neural match," which supposedly proved beyond any doubt that it was Michael in the suit. Mother and daughter would not be identical on that level.

On top of all that, there was never any basis for Leland's assumption that the future AI (which they're equivocating about now—is it a future version of Control, or only something that took over Control?) was hitchhiking through the Red Angel's wormholes; after all, obviously the threat existed even before the Angel undertook those trips, as it's what motivated them. Yet, regardless, that unwarranted assumption turned out to be correct—indeed, so correct that it happened before they could even act to prevent it, and it took over Leland's ship so effortlessly that one wonders why it had to use Airiam as a proxy before. (And why is the security eye-scanner on that ship in a different room off the bridge? And why does that scanner have a deadly pop-out blade built into it—unless we're to believe that hardware change was somehow made instantaneously by the AI's software upgrade?)

I think it's fair to say this was the worst episode of the season. Okay, it's not quite as hamfistedly awful as some of Braga's time-paradox plots from back in the day... but it's not far from it.

(And lastly , just as a side note... how does the timeline of all this backstory fit together? Leland says the time-trvel arms race with the Klingons began 20 years ago... so, say 2237 or '38. When were Burnham's parents killed? She herself was born c. 2226 (given that she entered Starfleet in '49)... and she doesn't appear to be more than 10 or 12 in the relevant childhood flashback scenes. In the schism with Spock, seen just a couple of episodes ago, she looks at most 13 and Spock is no more than eight or ten... so, say, c. 2239-40. Did the whole "arms race," including her parents' development of the miraculous time-travel suit, happen in the space of a single year?)

As others have said, I don't agree on every point, but this is an eminently fair post and you raise many of the same thoughts that were going through my head watching it. I had real reservations about the plot of this episode and indeed the implications of it for the season arc.

I don't know how to rate this week. I enjoyed many aspects of the episode (the memorial, the Spock/Burnham calling each other out stuff, Culber's dialogue, Lt Nelson or whatever her name is introduction moment, Tilly as always) but the plot honestly made me sigh. And Georgiou is just a weird character they would do well to be shot of. They're trying to play her like, say, Spike on Buffy as the morally ambiguous outsider who makes cutting remarks and drives conflict, but she just comes across as awkward and strange to me. She doesn't fit in this show's world. Even Leland is preferable, I buy him as a Special Ops officer even if I don't care for s31.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

It's not a plot hole. It's totally Spock's character to not say a word about his family until absolutely forced to.

Um hmm. T’Pring, anyone?

CHAPEL: But Spock, I asked you point-blank last season if you'd ever been engaged, and you said nothing! Now you've had a fiancée since you were seven?
SPOCK: It was less than a marriage, but more than a betrothal. Vulcans embrace technicality. Also, it was none of your damn business. Take your soup and get up out of my face, already! Poking! Prying! If I want anything from you, I'll ask for it! ​

-MMoM

 

[Alan Roi]

My guess is a 2 for Star Trek is still a 10+ for any other show. 99% of TV is garbage. The only other show I watch is The Orville.

12 Monkeys was very good (time travel). So was Counterpart (mirror universe for grown ups).

 

[cultcross]

I'm guessing that where this show is now going is that the entire plot is a section 31 fuck up, that somehow Project Daedalus created both Control and the Red Angel trying to stop it.
Not really the deep look at rationality and faith that I was hoping for, but at least it's better than ZOMG MIRROR UNIVERSE. So, progress.