Disco Sliders and other post-S2 thoughts

It’s impossible to talk about the Disco finale without starting at the end, given the seismic shift involved. No matter what you think of the idea of jumping the show 1,000 years into the future, you have to admit, it’s the gutsiest move any Trek series has ever made. That’s one very big series reset button. So what will it mean? This calls for some of my unique, bold, mostly incorrect speculation.

Since Discovery has the technology and the know-how to do both time and multiverse travel, and since Control seems to have been destroyed, could the series be heading toward a Sliders-type scenario, with our heroes leaping around different time lines and universes trying to find their way home? They can’t actually make it, of course, because if they did, the whole retcon that wipes Discovery and her crew out of Federation history would be undone.

But here’s a thought: They could turn up in the Kelvin timeline, which has far less established continuity and is freer to play fast and loose with the characters’ back stories. This would be a great way to resurrect Kelvin, which at the moment seems to be destined for the scrap heap. It would be cool if Kelvin Spock has never had a sister, and Michael has to start a new relationship with a brother who never knew her. (I think this actually works, timeline-wise. According to Memory Alpha, the Kelvin timeline diverges in 2233; Spock was born in 2230, so the divergence occurs before Michael would have come into his life.)

Meanwhile, the question that’s been bothering me: Why did Discovery have to time travel once Georgiou had (suspiciously easily) destroyed Leland/Control? Sure, maybe they just couldn’t be certain whether the AI still existed in some form somewhere else; when the stakes are end-of-all-sentient-life big, it does seem better safe than sorry. But what if the whole thing was something Georgiou had set up from the start, because she wanted to get the hell out of Dodge into some other time zone, where there might be less nanny-state Federation thwarting her designs on galactic domination? A great story line next season would be the crew of the Discovery discovering (it’s what they do) that Georgiou intentionally set Control on its destructive path in the first place. (Do not take your eye off Philippa Georgiou. Can we all try to remember that she is not your edgy, snarky, leather-clad favorite aunt, but an evil super-genius from an evil mirror universe? Why has everyone gone all warm and fuzzy about the woman for whom Kelpian ganglia were snack food?)

I guess this is where I try to evaluate the season as a whole. But that’s really hard to do, because it somehow managed to succeed wildly in the same moments when it was also being kinda disappointing. Some character and relationship arcs were just crazy good, the kinds that your brain instantly files under “things I will mentally replay whenever I’m having a sleepless night, on a long flight, or am otherwise bored and incapacitated.” Others were left to languish or were treated haphazardly.

Michael/Spock shot to number one with a bullet on my list of all-time favorite Star Trek relationship stories. It wasn’t perfect – there were moments when they ran inexplicably hot and cold for reasons that can only be described as, “because the script said so” – but when it was working, it was riveting. Sonequa Martin-Green and Ethan Peck played the friction so well, so uncomfortably, that the emotional resolution felt like a physical relief. (Case in point, that moment in “Perpetual Infinity” when Spock gets Michael to live in the present and play 3D chess: “The board is yours, Michael.” Melt.) I absolutely love how much of the T’Pol dynamic they brought to Spock – how deep and scary a Vulcan in mental distress can be, and how difficult the struggle to come back must be.

Captain Pike’s story is another high point. It was an absolutely brilliant idea to show us the crew of Discovery through his outsider’s eyes and, at the same time, to let us watch him become one of them. Pike could have easily been an irritating, goody-goody Boy Scout, but the writing and Anson Mount’s portrayal made his fundamental decency and honor not just believable, but profound. And for a lifelong Trek fan, closing the circle on his storyline, with him reconnecting with Vina and then witnessing his own future, was worth the price of admission alone.

It was also a joy to watch Saru develop into a confident leader. Yeah, the story of how all that came about was kinda wonky, but Doug Jones played the hell out of it, winning me over by the sheer magnetic force of his total commitment to the character.  Nice doesn’t have to be meek. I love that.

I’m also crazy about minor characters who are so appealing that I start building a whole mental picture that’s mostly me filling in copious blanks, sure, but with just enough onscreen meat to put on those bones. These are often some of the most fun characters to think about because there’s not enough to disprove what I want to believe. Detmer and Owo, I’m looking at you. Also Kat Cornwell, whom I love so much that she could be the subject of a whole separate post. (Yeah, I know she’s not exactly a minor character, but she’s more blanks than fill-ins.)

But then there’s a whole range of bobbles and total misses:
• Georgiou lurking about, being oddly one of the team despite her obvious ulterior motives (see my speculation above), her actions and acceptance by others being basically utterly inexplicable.
• Ash/Michael just fizzled. We’re meant to see continued interest there throughout the season, but with so little onscreen time and development, it became unconvincing. It started looking more and more like a legacy S1 relationship that the writers now and then had to acknowledge with a quick will-they-won’t-they scene. L’Rell, too. What a waste of a truly excellent Klingon.
• Tilly devolving into a caricature of an insecure adolescent whose babbling and lack of professionalism is mysteriously tolerated, and who seems to now play the role of the weird kid sister everyone is fond of in the way one is fond of…well, weird kid sisters. I started out thinking she was very Bashir-like, but instead of growing into her role, she seems to be going the other way. I’m starting to wonder if she isn’t more intended to be an answer to the absurdly perfect Wesley Crusher (later TNG retcon notwithstanding). But if so, they seem to have leaned too hard in the other direction. Mind you, my Tilly love is hard to kill, so I fully hope and expect for her to come roaring back in S3.
• Culber and Stamets, whose relationship disintegrates unconvincingly and then is reconstituted even more unconvincingly.
• Jet Reno, whose promise of dry humor in times of crisis never fully pays off, and who winds up bringing just one trick to the party: “Hey look! It’s Tig Notaro!”
• The whole Airiam thing, which wasn’t awful, but which could have been so much better if her character development hadn’t been smushed into the one episode where they also killed her off.
• Sarek and Amanda. Seemed like they had a big role to play – but it turned out to be just a well done, affective, but not very germane farewell scene.

As to the season’s story line: It was entertaining, but I can’t help thinking, if you’re going all out to do a continuing story line in a season that’s much shorter than conventional American TV, shouldn’t making it tight, suspenseful, and well paced be a huge goal?  And yet too often, we got hand-waving or blind alleys. One of my biggest complaints was Control itself. This Big Bad kind of fizzled. By the end, it was just an enemy fleet led by a guy whom Michelle Yeoh could beat in a cool fight sequence, which made the whole escaping-to-the-distant-future thing seem a lot less pressing.

I could go on: the dropping of the entire Klingon empire from the story; the sketchy interference in Kaminar; the spore drive that we must not used except when the script calls for it; the reduction of the entire mycelial network to a plot device to torture Culber. I was really hoping that some of the plot wonkiness of season 1, which I figured had mostly to do with behind-the-scenes show-runner drama, would have been ironed out. But then, from what I read, there was still more behind-the-scenes show-runner drama in S2. Even so, the overall result was more satisfying than S1. (Nope, I am not letting go of the seemingly careful development of Lorca as a complex character, only to reduce him to the cartoon villain. Cannot get past that.)

There was more than enough to love in S2 to make me come down on the side of yay, but I can’t help wishing for that one mind-blowingly perfect season of new-golden-age-of-television Star Trek perfection, and this wasn’t it. I’m also not quite reconciled to the fact that Disco keeps making me say goodbye to characters I’ve fallen in love with (dear god in heaven, please create a spinoff with Pike, Spock, and Number One!) and story lines that don’t quite feel complete.

Thus begins the looooooong hiatus.

The Red Angel Wrinkle

In my last post, after expounding on how the Red Angel was probably Michael, what with her archangel name and all, I said, "Maybe Michael is more red herring than Red Angel?" And...yup. It was!

So I'm stopped at a red light, thinking about the Red Angel (which seems appropriate, I guess), who turns out to be Michael's long-lost parent, a scientist who got lost in time because of a science experiment, and it hit me -- the probable inspiration for the left turn this story just took: A Wrinkle in Time. Sullen, troubled Michael (Meg) and cranky, troubled Spock (Charles Wallace) set off on a crazy adventure to find the absent parent. There's even a dangerous Big Brother A.I. called Control (in Wrinkle, CENTRAL Central Intelligence and/or IT) controlling stuff and eventually destroying all sentient life if it can just get the right software upgrade. (ADDING: I suppose that makes Pike Calvin.)

Will the rest play out along these lines? Was Michael's mother lost and/or captive, as Meg's father was, or has she actually been controlling events? Will Michael have to save Spock as Meg does Charles Wallace? Will the message be about the importance of love and individuality over complacence and conformity? Fair warning: Whenever I come up with a brilliant literary basis for my speculation, I'm generally wrong. But still...I mean, think about it. Especially, Spock is Charles Wallace. He so is.

On the whole, not my favorite episode. Mostly, I was confused. Why did they have to trap the Red Angel? What exactly is Control up to and what is its relationship to the Red Angel? If they thought the Red Angel was future Michael, then wouldn't she know that they were planning to use her as bait, because she was there? But maybe that's exactly what Spock realizes -- that he has to stop anyone else from saving her, so that she would know he's going to do that, so she has to come back and save herself. (Don't you just love time travel stories?) Hopefully, some of those answers are coming, but I would have liked to have a clearer idea of the point of the trap they were setting.

Also, am I supposed to be warming up to Georgiou now? I interpreted her flirting with Stamets and Culber as an attempt to make them jealous and get them interested in each other again, which is...nice? I think? I really don't know how to feel about this, what with her eating Kelpians and all.

Also also, Burnham being all pissed off at Ash for being in Section 31 seems kind of harsh, given that he probably doesn't have a whole lot of options as a part-Klingon sort-of murderer.

One last thing: They need to stop this nonsense of all Tilly's scenes being about her inappropriate nervous babbling. It's not funny anymore, and they're just reducing her to a running gag. I will not stand for that. Just stop.

Oh wait, no, there was one other thing: Trembling lips and soulful singing at Airiam's funeral. Sob.

Post-Daedalus Project (SPOILERS!)

So far this season on It Started With Trek…my blogging ambitions have flagged miserably. But after “Project Daedalus,” the motivation is strong. Because holy shit, that was so good but so upsetting.

Poor Airiam. We hardly knew ya. And I mean that quite literally. As much as I liked this episode, it commits a sin that really, really bugs me – painting a character’s backstory in broad strokes immediately before killing them. This would have been so much better if her story had been revealed gradually throughout the season. But oh well, I still cried. Once again, proof that Jonathan Frakes is better behind the camera than in front of it. (But am I the only one who thinks Sonequa Martin-Green's stage-fighting always seems fake?)

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk Red Angel. I imagine everyone has a theory. Mostly, I’ve avoided them, but I have run across the most obvious: that the Red Angel is Michael herself, presumably from one possible future. And TBH, it’s hard not to go with this one, because:

a. Michael is the protagonist, so it makes sense for the Big Thing to be All About Her.
b. The Red Angel is clearly stalking Michael’s ship.
c. Spock says it’s human.
d. It seems to be benevolent. But mostly…

Archangel Michael Defeating Satan, by Guido Reni, 1636

e. The name. Michael. Y’know, the archangel? In the Old Testament, Daniel (Spock) has a vision of Michael (Michael), which he alone can see. It's an apocalyptic vision, and it leaves him very shaken up. Something about him battling something terrible in the End Time. Like maybe when all life in the galaxy is going to be wiped out? And in Revelation, Michael fights Satan (evil Georgiou?). I can’t be the only one who’s noticed this.
f. It’s mentioned that Michael Burnham "died" in the bombing of the Vulcan Learning Center by the Logic Extremists (OMG Logic Extremists! More on them later). So she’s been resurrected. Did I mention that the big battle led by the Archangel Michael involves resurrection?

NB: I’m always amazed by how many sci fi writers crib their stories from the Bible.

But with all that said…maybe Michael is more red herring than Red Angel? (HAHAHAHAHA. See what I did there?) Maybe Spock is the Angel. He says the angel is human, and he is acting awfully emotional and human at this point. Maybe future-human-identifying-Spock is trying to warn now-Spock that he mustn’t go down that path because it will lead to the apocalypse. The upshot is going to be that Spock must reject his human half and live as a Vulcan to save everything, resulting in the Vulcan-identifying Spock we see in TOS. And that’s why he never talks about his sister, Michael – because it was his childish love and worship of his big sister that led him down the human path, and it’s too painful for Vulcan-identifying Spock to think about her.

I feel compelled at this point to mention Sybok. I mean, Sybok had visions. Sybok rejected logic. Sybok wanted to make Vulcans more…well, human. OK, granted, I really have no idea how this would fit in with Sybok as we meet him in ST V (or as I like to call it, The Movie That Shall Not Be Named). But there’s too much religious mumbo-jumbo about Sybok to dismiss his relevance to the religious mumbo-jumbo here. Does it seem likely that Sybok is explicitly part of this story? Not really. But he sure is a flashing neon question mark in the background.

But anyway, the Michael = Red Angel theory does seem to have the most going for it. If I were a betting Trekkie, that’s where my money would be. And certainly, whoever the Red Angel is, they are trying to make sure Discovery achieves certain specific things. The kinds of things that will keep a time line chugging along as it should.

Hey...maybe the Red Angel is Crewman Daniels?

Back to the Logic Extremists. Who are they? What are they? Why are they?  A reactionary backlash against the Syrannites, of course! I mean, I really, really hope so. Firstly, because it makes so much sense. The Syrannites of ENT were all about reintroducing ethics, mysticism, and spirituality into the Vulcan way of life. The cold, pragmatic logic-extremist Vulcan admiral Parr is such a throwback to the Vulcans of ENT. And secondly, because this would be the perfect way to bring T’Pol (and dare I say, possibly even Trip?) into Disco.  PLEASE MAKE THIS HAPPEN!

One more thing: I need to resurrect a season 1 theory here. When it was revealed that the Section 31 HQ is a former penal colony, the alarm bells in my head were deafeningly loud: “Dagger of the Mind” was set in a penal colony for the criminally insane. Pike says that Section 31 is going to torture Spock at this location with some infernal device (sorry, I don’t have time to find the exact quote). In the TOS episode “Dagger of the Mind,” a “neural neutraliser,” supposedly a therapeutic device, is used to manipulate, read, and wipe minds. The thing is, in season 1, I was already seeing echos of “Dagger of the Mind.” I’ll just quote myself here and let you draw your own conclusions:

“Disco gave us an episode named "Lethe," which dealt a lot with Admiral Cornwell, prompting fans to speculate that she might somehow become the Lethe who was a character in the TOS episode "Dagger of the Mind" -- a woman on a penal colony for the criminally insane who describes her former self, before treatment with the neural neutralizer, as malignant and hateful. Seeing Emperor Georgiou snatched by Burnham and brought along for the ride to the Prime Universe, I speculated, mostly facetiously, that she, not Cornwell, seems more likely to become Lethe. Certainly, the words malignant and hateful describe MU Georgiou pretty well.
And then something hit me -- something I somehow had never noticed in my four-plus decades as a TOS fan.
The penal colony in "Dagger of the Mind" is on Tantalus V. The Mirror Universe device used by Kirk to destroy his enemies in "Mirror Mirror" is the Tantalus Field.
Tantalus is a figure from ancient Greek mythology -- he invited the gods to a feast and cooked up the body of his own son to feed them. ("Here, have my ganglia. You deserve a treat.")  This offended the gods, causing Zeus to hang him forever above a stream for which he eternally thirsted, but of which he could never drink.
Also from ancient Greek mythology, Lethe is one of the rivers of the underworld across which the dead were ferried by Charon. Emperor Georgiou's palace-ship is the ISS Charon.
That's a whole lot of coincidence going on right there, unless it's not. Could Emperor Georgiou actually become Lethe, and somehow her Tantalus V experience find its way back to the MU in the form of Kirk's Tantalus Field?
Crazy, right?”

Other random stuff:

1. While it makes no sense that Tilly would have gotten as far as she has without a bit more self control, I love her outbursts. When Admiral Cornwell appears on the bridge, and Tilly takes it as an opportunity to vent her anxieties and make it known that she is NOT a rule-breaker…I just want to give her a squeeze. (Tilly reminds me so much of one of my own kids.)

2. When Cornwell reassures Pike that he’s what’s good about the Federation, that he’s what they need to preserve, it’s endearing because it’s so rare to see the Man In Control look that insecure. In that moment, you can see him “let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding,” as the fanfic would say. He needed that reassurance from a powerful woman. So refreshing.

3. The fact that they have the Stamets/Culber relationship on the back burner in such a tense, unresolved state makes me so sad every time I see Stamets. Like, how does he keep showing up for work?

4. Cannot end without taking a moment to react to the “Previously on Star Trek” opening of “If Memory Serves.” SQUEEEEEEEEE. Sometime in the mid-1970s, having only just learned that the original pilot had been turned into the two-episode “Menagerie,” teenage Me sat in a NYC hotel meeting room with a bunch of other colossal nerds for a screening of “The Cage,” which had almost never been seen before by the public. Last week, I got just that excited about it ALL OVER AGAIN.