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Just one other thing... With Spock joining them on their mission to the future it absolutely means they are going to retcon the entire Discovery timeline.
For Michael to go back and create the signals that have been leading them around all season means that either the time crystal isn't exhausted by the jump in next week's episode, or they find another way which is what I suppose genius Queen is sticking around for. Either Burnham will die with her parents, or they will all live happily ever after and she will never meet Spock.
I’m calling it now - Spock is in the undetonated torpedo we saw in all of the flash forwards. He will need to get back to the Enterprise to do something vital and transporters will be down.
We know Discovery ends up in the future and self-aware from Short Treks. It also seems to me they’ve spent a lot of money building sets for a Constitution-class starship (which, by the way, looks absolutely f**king rad). I reckon Discovery ends up in the future, the crew somehow survives and they are given a new, Constitution-class starship to continue with next season.
What time are the new episodes available here in Australia? Usually I watch when I get home from work but with tomorrow off I don't want to wait that long.
What time are the new episodes available here in Australia? Usually I watch when I get home from work but with tomorrow off I don't want to wait that long.
Only a minute in and I'm starting to see where they inserted the extra episode. This urgency to build the red angel suit doesn't gel at all with last week's non stop parade of goodbye speeches.
What a mind numbingly geniused end to the season!!!
There was so much bullshit in this episode I could go on for days, so for now I will just say this.
These writers are ABSOLUTE SHIT.
Admiral Cornhole.... Wow.... Just.... wow. So get this, right. This show went out of it's way to put women in all roles of power. Just about every crucial action taken, every important discovery, was the result of a woman. But in this episode, the f**king female ADMIRAL takes a complete backseat while the lesser ranked captain and a commander deploy the fleet and decide on tactics. Her ONLY involvement was to rush down to the torpedo and try to defuse it without success. Then she has her own Holdo moment (minus the purple hair) where she takes one for the team and just stands there while it blows up.
And what happens LESS THAN TWO MINUTES LATER?
THEY f**kING BEAM SPOCK ONBOARD!!!!!!!!!!
WHAT THE ACTUAL f**k!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
To top it all off, Michael Burnham WAS the red angel after all!!!
I'm sorry guys, but this show fails miserably in the writing department. It looks great, it sounds great, the CGI is well done, the costumes look fantastic, the characters themselves are great. But the writing is AWFUL. It's just f**king plain BAD.
I thought they would come up with some ingenious way to erase Discovery from history, but nope, they are all just sworn to secrecy. EVERYONE that ever knew about Discovery can never speak of it again despite the fact that just about everyone knows about Discovery because of its importance in the war with the Klingons. Ash Tyler is now the leader of section 31? Why???? Why did killing Leland completely disrupt Control when it was able to do shit before it possessed him AND OTHERS?
About 3/4 of the way through this episode I started yelling at my f**king television. I've never been so disappointed with a single episode of Star Trek before. This was WORSE than the Enterprise finale. For me it ruined the entirety of Discovery season 2. What an absolute pile of miserable, loathsome shit!
I have a really bad feeling about the Picard series if the same people are involved in it.
To be honest I didn’t have the same level of problems that you did. Well, I had a serious issue that a blast door with a glass window could withstand a torpedo exploding six inches away, but on the whole I thought it was ok. The battle scene was insanely well done, eclipsing ‘Sacrifice of Angels’ for best trek battle for me. I had no real issue with Pike directing the battle ahead of Cornwell - it’s pretty firmly established in canon that he’s one of the best tactical captains in Starfleet history.
I had no dramas with Tyler now being the senior Section 31 man as control had killed its entire leadership, and the crews of all of its ships. He’s probably last man standing.
My one gripe was the ending. It was a fantastic ending - if the show was about Pike’s Enterprise. It really seemed as though that was setting up the Pike spinoff which is gathering a lot of steam.
To be honest I didn’t have the same level of problems that you did. Well, I had a serious issue that a blast door with a glass window could withstand a torpedo exploding six inches away, but on the whole I thought it was ok. The battle scene was insanely well done, eclipsing ‘Sacrifice of Angels’ for best trek battle for me. I had no real issue with Pike directing the battle ahead of Cornwell - it’s pretty firmly established in canon that he’s one of the best tactical captains in Starfleet history.
I had no dramas with Tyler now being the senior Section 31 man as control had killed its entire leadership, and the crews of all of its ships. He’s probably last man standing.
My one gripe was the ending. It was a fantastic ending - if the show was about Pike’s Enterprise. It really seemed as though that was setting up the Pike spinoff which is gathering a lot of steam.
If I'm looking at this episode completely independently of the rest of season 2, then aside from a few situations that are inconsistent with what is generally expected in the Star Trek universe it would be a pretty average episode. But this is the first real Star Trek attempt at a true serial drama series. Sure, we've seen season arcs in DS9 and season 3 of Enterprise, but those seasons were still padded out with plenty of status quo ante episodes that don't really contribute anything to the arc.
Discovery has been developed as an entirely continuous story unfolding sequentially, building to a resolution at seasons end, and in many ways I thought this episode failed at executing that concept in a truly satisfying way. It didn't have the cleverness of something like Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Westworld (S1 only) or Stranger Things. It came across more like the writing of something like The Walking Dead or The Punisher. Even when compared to old Star Trek series it still falls flat because they used thought provoking situations in those shows to tell interesting stories with different characters as opposed to constantly being centered around Michael Burnham's angst and mindless action scenes. What characters were really developed this season? Apart from Pike, Spock and Burnham there was little development and growth at all, and in the case of Airiam they got rid of her in the same episode they actually bothered to do some exploration on exactly who was this weird robot looking chick that was always lurking around in the background. I could have done with one or two less kung fu fights to show a bit more of the relationship between Culber and Stamets instead of just talking about it.
As I said before, there's still a lot to like about this show. It's visually stunning. The costumes and creature FX are first class. The CGI is the best we've ever seen in Star Trek and I would include the films in that statement. Most of the acting has been excellent. The nostalgia cash in was done in a respectful way (with the exception of the way Discovery and crew has effectively been written out of the in-series timeline).
I just wish this show had better writers that, when setting up these pivotal situations, at least attempt to explain why Discovery couldn't use weapons to clear a path through a minefield, why transporters suddenly don't work to beam someone out of a room but work seconds later to bring Spock onboard, why there's a manual control on only one side of a bulkhead, why the spore drive suddenly can't be used to get away when they need 12 hours uninterrupted to charge a crystal, why the crystal that was only supposed to produce a one way trip suddenly gets used at least seven times in a short space of time with no recharge, if they only have limited time to build this suit why are they giving these long speeches saying goodbye to each other in one episode and then furiously trying to put it together in the next, why... geez, the list is endless without even getting into stuff like characters that can do absolutely anything like Burnham (basically an expert in every discipline imaginable) and the Queen chick that can science like nobody else. I can ignore this stuff happening every now and then, but not in every single episode of what is essentially an action oriented show and not a character driven one.
Firing show runners in the middle of season is always a sign of trouble, and I really do think it showed in the latter half of this season.
You said before that if Michael ended up being the red angel it would be a cop out. What do you think now that old Mrs. Burnham was just a swerveball with Michael being the red angel after all? They kept up that ruse for only one episode before dropping the information that old Mrs. Burnham knew nothing about the signals. The episode that convinced me it was Michael was the one where the red angel turned up on Saru's home planet, and it ultimately turned out that it was indeed her.
If I'm understanding the origin of the signals properly, they all appeared once at the same time to Starfleet, then appeared again one by one. They also appeared to Spock as a kid.
But old Mrs. Burnham had nothing to do with them and this latest episode only covered how they appeared after Starfleet already knew about them.
I just watched the two parts of the finale back to back to see if there was something I was missing in all of this and came away with the impression that it was WORSE than I originally thought. Here's just a few other issues I picked up on:
1) Ash Tyler. He literally beams off Discovery as the Control ships arrive and surrounds Discovery and Enterprise. Somehow he gets away and alerts the Klingons who are then able to assemble a fleet that arrives in time to assist dispatching Control. On top of that, in an earlier episode he was effectively banished from the Qo'noS and announced dead to protect L'Rell's legitimacy as ruler of the Klingon empire, but now he appears by her side in the battle?! It completely undermines her speech about Tyler dishonoring her and betraying the Klingon empire.
2) Jet Reno. Honestly, what the f**k is the point of her presence on Discovery? In watching the finale again I realised that despite her engineering skills she actually contributed absolutely nothing to figuring out how to send Discovery into the future. All she did was stand there while the crystal was charging and then take it to Michael while being accompanied by Tilly. Her head did not explode when she saw visions of the future, just like Burnham's and Pike's didn't. Tilly or Stamets could have done the exact same thing. All of the genius behind charging the crystal came from the Queen chick and Tilly, and it was never explained why Reno was so pivotal to the final battle that it warranted a signal being set to go pick her up.
3) Saru's sister. So let me get this straight. Control disrupted subspace communications so Discovery couldn't talk to the rest of Starfleet, but Saru was able to get a message to his home planet? How the f**k does that work if they only have ship to ship comms? And conveniently she's able to pull together a fleet of Kelpian and Ba'ul ships in an amazingly short amount of time AND Ash Tyler goes to them for help instead of anyone else?
4) Sarek and Amanda. So let me get this straight again. The Klingons, the Kelpians and the Ba'ul recognised the threat to all life in the known universe and threw down to help out, but the Vulcans didn't? Sarek and Amanda were somehow about to track down Discovery and go onboard just to... say goodbye to Michael? They don't try to alert Starfleet or even send a fleet of their own Vulcan ships to help out? Holy shit this makes no sense.
5) Leland. So previous episodes established that Control had taken over the Section 31 base and killed everyone there, and had also hijacked Airiam who was doing their bidding BEFORE it injected Leland with nano-whatevers and hijacked him too. In a previous episode Michael said "Control isn't just contained to Leland anymore" (WHEN IT NEVER f**kING WAS TO BEGIN WITH) "it has the ability to co-opt people and entire ships without being detected." It can communicate using holograms of dead people. It blocks communication. It blocks tri-corder scans. It can control ships and ship functions. So HOW THE f**k does killing Leland bring down Control as though he is its central nervous system?
6) Michael Burnham. Right after Control attempts to hijack Burnham and fails, Spock says to Burnham that "Control has identified (Michael) as the true threat to its objectives" and is "the one variable it cannot account for." Yet during the space battle this seems to have been completely forgotten about as Spock and Burnham are basically allowed to go about their activities completely unimpeded with the exception of a stray photon torpedo. I mean, come on... Seriously? Control had dozens of Section 31 ships with hundreds of drones each and they all ignore the "true threat" to its existence?
7) Time crystal. So the big problem with the time crystal was that (and I still don't understand the waterfall analogy behind this) it was going to be useful for a one way trip to the future. But then as shown in the finale it turned out that it could be used for multiple jumps into the past before jumping with Discovery into the future, at which point it was used to jump into the past again! So what the f**k is the point of sending the sphere data into the future then? It would seem that the data is dangerous in ANY time period and they are just pushing the problem 1000 years down the road. Why not jump back into the past and stop the sphere from being able to pass the data on to ANYONE, particularly since the time crystal seems to have no problems visiting the past?
8) Sphere data. Okay, correct me if I am wrong here, but wasn't the reason Leland was having trouble finding the sphere data after boarding Discovery because Georgiou transferred it somewhere else using the quantum signal amplifier? Let's ignore the fact for a moment that the device was meant to eavesdrop on a data transfer and wasn't storage (it would self-destruct after the transfer finished, remember), why couldn't the data just been transferred into Michael's new suit with its infinite storage just as was intended in the original plan?
9) Discovery. Considering that Control had its paws all over Discovery through Airiam, Leland, Ash, Georgiou and Admiral Cornhole, isn't it dangerous taking Discovery into the future anyway? If Control can co-opt ships completely undetected then why wouldn't it just do that to Discovery? Wouldn't it know where old Mrs. Burnham was in the future?
10) Seven signals. Given how Burnham eventually ended up creating those signals, how the f**k did Starfleet know there were seven of them before they'd even visited the first one? They had to wait around for them to appear individually before knowing where to go. How the f**k did Spock have nightmares about them and come up with his own map of them independently of Starfleet and long before they appeared?
11) Treason. Honestly, this is the biggest cop out of them all. Anything would have been better than "first rule of Discovery club is you do not talk about Discovery club." Michael Burnham's name was synonymous with the Federation-Klingon war. it wasn't just Starfleet officers that knew about her and Discovery. It wasn't just Starfleet officers that knew about the spore drive. What a f**king mess!
And that's before we even start talking about how every munitions expert is too busy to disarm a torpedo that threatens the entire ship, bulkhead doors only have manual release mechanisms on one side, transporters don't work for intraship transport, photon torpedo blasts can't penetrate glass windows, etc...
The last few episodes of this season were a f**king mess. The finale was supposed to pull the entire season together in a clever, credible way and it utterly failed on all fronts. This isn't Star Trek, this is something else entirely with the Star Trek name plastered on to exploit an already established fanbase into subscribing to a streaming service. It's nothing more than nostalgia, bright lights, kung fu fights, big explosions and stupid quips ("yum yum".... what the actual f**k?!) with insanely bad, incoherent writing.
f**k Discovery. f**k Michael Burnham. f**k Alex Kurtzman. f**k the Picard show. I'm not interested anymore. I'm out.
Edit: While watching the finale I was thinking to myself that it was Transformers level bad. I just looked at Kurtzman's credits and surprise, surprise, he wrote Revenge of the Fallen. What a f**king hack. This franchise is doomed with him in control. He's worse than Brannon Braga.
Super late edit: Holy f**k. Akiva Goldman wrote Batman Forever, Batman & Robin, Transformers: The Last Knight and The Dark Tower. This show is run by absolute morons.
I know I keep going on and on, but I can't get this stupid show out of my f**king head! Every now and then something else that doesn't make much sense will pop into my mind...
Like how can Terralysium be a secret safe harbor after having its location basically broadcast to the entire galaxy not once, but twice? I'm assuming that's where the seventh signal was sent from, seeing as it was said to be 50,000 light years away and also in the beta quadrant. Everyone knows where it is!
The sphere data again... Ok, if Georgiou had time to copy the data into the spore console, then why couldn't they copy the data into the new red angel suit and have Michael take it into the future by herself just like in the original plan with her mother? They could have used the spore drive to jump away, charge the crystal uninterrupted, copy the data to the red angel suit and then have her f**k off without even having to worry about Control.
Watch the ending closely again... Michael opens the wormhole and Saru gives the order to enter it while Leland is on Discovery and still alive! Georgiou literally kills the dude right before they enter it. The dumbasses risked taking Control into the future with them!
On that last point, it's awfully f**king convenient that Leland somehow became the central nervous system for all of Control, because it conveniently stops any of the Control ships from being sucked into the wormhole (remember the split screen conversation between robot eye chick and Number One?) with them.
Seriously though dude, don't you think they kinda wrote themselves into a corner by placing Discovery pre-original series and had no idea how to get out of it without hitting the giant reset button? I really don't have a problem with them veering away from existing canon (like the zillion fighters and repair drones we've never seen before) but they can't even keep up with their own Discovery canon!
The behind the scenes drama with Bryan Fuller getting the axe and then the showrunners that replaced him getting the axe really became obvious in the latter half of the season. The final scene with Spock basically retconning Discovery from existence sends the message "yep, we know we f**ked up, so we're going to the future where we can do whatever we want."
Maybe if you're watching this week to week it's not so obvious, but before the finale I went back and watched the entire season again so everything was fresh in my mind and the plot holes were so obvious I couldn't enjoy it at all.
They should have just rebooted the whole f**king franchise. I could at least respect that. But they wanted to have it both ways.
