Star Trek Discovery Episode 2.11

I’m still catching up so don’t tell me about 2.12 yet and I’ve only just digested 2.11!

*** Beware ***

*** Spoilers ***

*** Below ***

Hmmmm…… am not sure I’m okay with where the writer’s room is going …..

Leland has been taken over by the Control AI and it sure looks Borg-ish! Don’t think they really need to go there. Maybe they will pull back from it but the visual style sure looks Borg-ey!

Techno-boo-boo alert: In the previous episode, Leland had to LEAVE the bridge to over-ride the computer so they can get more power to close the wormhole???

That would be very poor starship design. Have never seen any other crew member leave the bridge to over-ride the computer! Of course, the scriptwriters had to get him off the bridge so the Control AI could poke him in the eye!

Dr. Burnham (Sonja Son) was well acted. Her half-defeated, half-defiant demeanor would make a lot of sense for someone who has been time traveling to fix the impending disaster only to find whatever she does actually doesn’t change the outcome. Playing time-line whack-a-mole is something Sisyphus would understand.

This ground was well trodden in the Terminator series of movies. In the original, machines send Arnold, the Terminator, back to the past to kill Sarah Conner to prevent the eventual rise of human rebel leader John Conner. The terminator fails. The timeline is not altered.

In Terminator 2: Judgement Day, the machines send a T-1000 (Robert Patrick) to kill Sarah and John Conner (still a youth at this point). John from the future sends Arnold, the Terminator, this time a good guy to protect John, the youth. The T-1000 is defeated. Additionally, Sarah and the team destroy the technology behind Skynet to prevent the rise of the technology thus “changing the timeline.” “No fate but what you make” is one memorable line from the film.

However, in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, the machines send a female terminator to kill John Conner and future wife Kate Brewster. Once again Arnold, the Terminator, as a good guy once again is sent back in time to protect them. But in this case after defeating the female terminator and before being destroyed himself, he gets John and Kate into a nuclear fallout bunker because Skynet goes live and nuclear destruction ensues. Skynet happened but it just took a few more years.

I have seen ads for additional Terminator films but haven’t seen them and have no idea what they are about.

All of which to say, Dr. Burnham is trying to stop Control for ever happening and found she can’t seem to stop it much like how Skynet can only be delayed but eventually causes the near destruction of humanity. All of which to say again, her performance was fantastic.

At the end of 2.11, Dr. Burnham is sucked back to the future along with the Red Angel suit but since the Red Angel suit is damaged, there will be no more time travels for her. Spock tells Michael at the end of the episode it is now up to them to stop Control in their timeline with no help from the future. The emotional wrap up is nice.

However, I think the scriptwriters made a techno-boo-boo: Mama Burnham reports seeing Michael at many key moments in her life. We are told that in her many travels in the Red Angel suit, she saw Michael many times. However, when she travels in the Red Angel time suit, a wormhole opens up and she enters the timeline. From the end of the last episode, it is pretty hard to miss the appearance of a wormhole and the arrival of the Red Angel! She has many hundreds of mission logs and NOBODY ever saw the wormhole appearance? Nobody ever saw the Red Angel arrive (with the exception of Spock apparently and those whisked off to New Eden in Ep2.2) or moving through space - shown dramatically at the end of episode 2.10? And of course, the wormhole re-appears and sucks the Red Angel back 950 years into the future and again that was pretty hard to miss! Thus, with every time jump, there are at least 2 times the wormhole appears -- and nobody ever saw it?

Anyway, 3 episodes left to wrap up season 2.

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