Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 2x11 - "Perpetual Infinity"

[Jackson_Roykirk]

^^^
Sorry, I never get this line of thinking as given the nature of EVERY TV show like Star Trek, the audience KNOWS in the end the ship, main characters, etc. will survive and triumph at the end of the story. Are you REALLY believing "OMG! everyone will die!" when you watch an episode?

Oddly enough, I'm experiencing an opposite effect with DSC's Christopher Pike.

I know where Pike's character is heading -- right to that chair in about 7 or 8 years -- but Mount's performance has given the current DSC character such life that I tend to temporarily forget all about Pike's future inescapable fate.

 

[eschaton]

The actress was SUPPOSED to become a more major character and love interest for Geordi. (No I'm not kidding that was the plan when she was cast.) Why they didn't follow through with that plan, IDK.

IIRC they were upset she cut her hair short.

 

[Alan Roi]

Nothing wrong with childishness, it is just embarrassing when it is accidental rather than intentional.

Many people are really enamoured with fantasy and scifi genres, and watch any rubbish that happens to contain those. I just want good television. For example, to me Stargåte is just rather bad television show. That it is scifi, doesn't make it any better. I rather watch a good crime show than a bad scifi show.

In my lifetime I've found that even good crime shows suffer from such creative handcuffing from the limitations applied by the genre that I'd gladly watch bad scifi over that, as almost any scifi is more interesting by virtue of it being an environment where all other genres can be played out in a comparatively creatively unfettered manner.

 

[Alan Roi]

Oddly enough, I'm experiencing an opposite effect with DSC's Christopher Pike.

I know where Pike's character is heading -- right to that chair in about 7 or 8 years -- but Mount's performance has given the current DSC character such life that I tend to temporarily forget all about Pike's future inescapable fate.

As we see at the tend of the Menagerie, however, landing in the chair its not necessarily the end of his story.

 

[Yistaan]

As we see at the tend of the Menagerie, however, landing in the chair its not necessarily the end of his story.

There's absolutely nothing preventing Pike from getting cured after the Menagerie and getting a new set of adventures with the Discovery crew. Spock wouldn't be able to come along though as he's canonically still with Kirk/Enterprise during this time.

 

[eschaton]

There's absolutely nothing preventing Pike from getting cured after the Menagerie and getting a new set of adventures with the Discovery crew. Spock wouldn't be able to come along though as he's canonically still with Kirk/Enterprise during this time.

Do you really think Discovery is going to be on the air for another eight years? Or are you expecting some sort of time skip?

 

[Alan Roi]

Do you really think Discovery is going to be on the air for another eight years? Or are you expecting some sort of time skip?

As we've seen in the past and will see shortly, the future can present all kinds of possibilities. Animation, Movies, revivals, returns of characters decades after their previous TV series ended...

 

[Longinus]

Do you really think Discovery is going to be on the air for another eight years? Or are you expecting some sort of time skip?

Yep. I really don't think that Pike being out of commission in eight years is any kind of a problem, even if there was a Pike spin off. They'd presumably start making it soonish if one were to happen, so they would have seven years like most Trek shows.

 

[cooleddie74]

At least the O'Briens could get married and stay married, making it work despite the periodic physical distances between the two. Starfleet has fewer stable relationships than Elizabeth Taylor did.

 

[CommanderRaytas]

we? are you one of blofeld's goons?

HE PROMISED ME BAGELS, OKAY?

No bagels in Germany.

 

[Yistaan]

Do you really think Discovery is going to be on the air for another eight years? Or are you expecting some sort of time skip?

A time skip would jive with the unexpected season ending that Kurtzman keeps hinting.

 

[Rahul]

To be honest - this is probably the episode that turns me off from this series entirely. Especially since it's pretty much inevitable they go the Borg route.

THis is the episode where pretty much everything turns into dumb. Expected an answer to all the mysteries set up through the entire season? Fuck you. We're doing Spock against the Borg with time-travel now. Even if it has nothing to do with the show, the timeframe, the themes or even the tone of the show at all.

The sad thing is - the ONE tiny thing that is original in this episode - mother Burnham fighting an unwinnable time-war for the sake of the future - is actually pretty fuckin' interesting.

A few thoughts:

Technobabble
This episode runs on an amount of technobubble that is unprecedented even for "Star Trek". Yes, "Voyager" had sometimes even longer strings of technobabble-sentences put together. But in this episode, technobabble literally replaces plot. There are no stakes, because neither the problem, nor the solutions are in any way palpable. Just a strings of words together put before people shoot somewhere, which because of technobabble now works where before it didn't, but only a bit, so that the plot can continue. That was SHIT writing if I ever saw one.

Tilly, Stamets, Saru, Cruz, Jett Reno
With the exeption of Burnham, every original character created for this series is forgotten. Everyone is theri seventh-season sitcom parody of themselves. Tilly says some stupidly inapropriate awkward plot-irrelevant lines, then vanishes forevet. Stamets - the mushroom guy - is now the generic technobabble guy. Cruz and Saru are nothing more than their job descriptions.

The obsession of the writers to re-write the most popular characters - Spock, the Borg - has put every original character and idea of this show to the backseat. This isn't a show run by caring writers. This is the fans running the asylum.

Control as the Borg Origin
It's hard to actually describe how utterly fucking stupid a ret-con that is. And yeah - "assimiliating Patar", "Struggle is pointless" "Order by any means necessary", the green nanobots - it's the Borg. And it's probably the dumbest idea possible.

It's probably the dumbest idea possible to make humans be the ones responsible for the genocide of countless species, by creating the ultimate Star Trek antagonist. It's even dumber, since that never actually happened in one of the "main" storylines (TNG, TOS, the movies), but a sad, fee-gated spin-off.

Imagine if the coming "Star Wars" animated show suddenly revealed that actually the Jedi were lead by a secret sect that is going to destroy the entire universe, and Palpatine only created the Empire to wipe them out and save the universe.

That reveal would be dumb as hell. Only trumped by the stupidity of the medium it actually happened in, and the insistance that this is still "canon".

Other things

• Lorca, Tyler, Airam, Leland - this show has WAY too many fucking secret undercover imposter moles on board. It seems this is the only trope the writers know to pull some suspension out
• The red angel suit is also warp capable to travel to all the planets in the future?
• This show treats science with comicbook logic: There is only ONE time-travel suit. Even if it's 20 years ago. No one will ever built a new one, there are now existing records - it's only this one, the same way there is only one Iron Man suit.
  
• So, we're not giving Spock a character arc, we're just going from distant asshole to smirking supporter? Also, he is the only being with dyslexia in the entire universe through all of time to understand time-travel. Ugh.
• The sphere's data is the dumbest McGuffin possible. You're teling me in the entirety of the history of the Trek universe, no other species has created A.I. that has reached sentience? Hell even holograms and some weird tools (the exocomps from TNG) did! So why is this specific data so important?

Final Grade
4/10
I liked the basic idea of Burnham's mom's single-mindedness in protecting the future against the timeline, and what it means personally for her and her daughter. Everything else was utter shit.

 

[Longinus]

@Rahul, that was really harsh, but I can't really disagree with any of your points. I really, really hope that the Borg thing is a fake out, but it probably isn't.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

Other things

• Lorca, Tyler, Airam, Leland - this show has WAY too many fucking secret undercover imposter moles on board. It seems this is the only trope the writers know to pull some suspension out

Is it really any worse than Voyager? That show had Tuvok as a Starfleet mole in the Maquis, Seska as a Cardassian/Kazon mole in the Maquis/Starfleet, Michael Jonas as a Kazon mole, Seven of Nine as a Borg mole (when the episode depended on it).

 

[Turd Ferguson]

Another thought I had. What if Control ISN'T the big bad AI? What if Dr. Mama Burnham's quest for perfecting the timeline is the catalyst for the Borg? Maybe she fuses with her suit and goes back in time. She decides she'll never be able to set the timeline right, so she goes on a quest to assimilate all sentient life to bring them closer to perfection. It is with this act that in the future, Control deems the Borg incursion a threat to the whole universe and starts systematically wiping out all assimilated sentient life? Keep in mind, we're only going off the info of Dr. Burnham (who clearly seemed unhinged by her ordeal) and Spock, who is a recent releasee from a psychiatric hospital. Not really the most reliable sources of information for the coming future events.

 

[Rahul]

@Rahul, that was really harsh, but I can't really disagree with any of your points. I really, really hope that the Borg thing is a fake out, but it probably isn't.

Yeah, I'm sorry, that was probably TOO harsh.
I still like the show. And will watch it (at least until the end of the season - and as I still own Netflix, probably check out beyond that as well - just not in as timely a manner).

That writing was just utter disappointment.

And I watched the episode in full right now - I guess I should have waited at least a day or so, to collect my thoughts. Then my verdict would have probably been a lot more restrained. Right now, I just threw my hands right in the air and wrote here. Not a good tactic.

Is it really any worse than Voyager? That show had Tuvok as a Starfleet mole in the Maquis, Seska as a Cardassian/Kazon mole in the Maquis/Starfleet, Michael Jonas as a Kazon mole, Seven of Nine as a Borg mole (when the episode depended on it).

Yes. Because VOY had quite a lot mor episodes for that many moles. But also, they had different motives and different reasons for different fractions.

None of them was the straight up "24"-type of mole for the seasons badguys, which so far all of DIS' have been.

 

[Rahul]

Another thought I had. What if Control ISN'T the big bad AI? What if Dr. Mama Burnham's quest for perfecting the timeline is the catalyst for the Borg? Maybe she fuses with her suit and goes back in time. She decides she'll never be able to set the timeline right, so she goes on a quest to assimilate all sentient life to bring them closer to perfection. It is with this act that in the future, Control deems the Borg incursion a threat to the whole universe and starts systematically wiping out all assimilated sentient life? Keep in mind, we're only going off the info of Dr. Burnham (who clearly seemed unhinged by her ordeal) and Spock, who is a recent releasee from a psychiatric hospital. Not really the most reliable sources of information for the coming future events.

Maybe? I mean, "Control" is not going to be straight up become the Borg. "Control" wants to destroy all life. But they defeat Control, and the remnants of Control assimilate one last person, get thworn back in time, and try another way for their "order" ideology.

No matter what, it's the worst type of prequel-syndrome.

Personally, I found it most interesting last episode, when it seemed like the "future A.I." was an A.I. completely unconnected from "Control", that was just taking over "Control" as much as it did Airam and Leland.

THe main problem for "Control" actually being the big bad (and amplified for when itwill become the Borg) is WE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT CONTROL.

We don't know the user-interface. We don't know how it works when it's supposed to work (is it only on that station? On every ship? On Earth?) Who and what for it was created, and how in the hell it was meant to analyse threats in the first place? Like, how is it fed data?

If they wanted to make "Control" a critical part of their main storyline, they should have set it up BEFORE the villain reveal!

 

[Cyrus]

Ash having a Top Secret Section 31 discussion over comms with Controleiland in a public corridor while officers are walking/rolling past kills me.

Would have been a perfect time to introduce the Control’s “Cone of Silence”.

 

[Mechanoid1]

Is it really any worse than Voyager?

Yes

 

[plynch]

^^^
Sorry, I never get this line of thinking as given the nature of EVERY TV show like Star Trek, the audience KNOWS in the end the ship, main characters, etc. will survive and triumph at the end of the story. Are you REALLY believing "OMG! everyone will die!" when you watch an episode?

muh point exactly; of course I don't; because they never do; so writers, stop using that as the dilemma, we know it's false. "They're all going to die." Snore. I'm ready for a new peril after 53 years, one that might actually happen. And a show that lets serious bad things happen, so when the stakes are high, the bad effect might come to pass. I want a lot, I know. I liked it when Yar and Jadzia got offed. Both suddenly and not grandly. That's how it would happen, yes? Not that I need characters to die. What if the hero ship in DSC did get trashed and they all had to change ships and "discovery" became a metaphor? At least I'd be more on my toes as the show went on.

As to the good ship Nondescript, that's what Big E was in TOS; Kirk was always outranked when encountering another Connie. Then Ent-D became the flagship and Picard the lead captain of the fleet more or less. Voyager was a pretty run-of-the-mill ship, though. I'm fine with that if the crew goes about doing good, having fun sci-fi adventures. In fact, being nondescript allowed the E to run up against Commodores or renegade older captains and be the underdog.