Star Trek: Section 31 review

 rating: ****

the story: Georgiou is recruited by Section 31 all over again.

the review: My X (Twitter) feed is full of abject hate for Section 31, so it seems more important to just go ahead and review it here now than to rest on the hiatus the Companion has been on in recent years.  It doesn't deserve the hate.  It deserves very much the opposite.

When Michelle Yeoh's Georgiou was killed off at the beginning of Discovery, a lot of fans were surprised.  Few enough of them seemed all that interested when she returned, via her Mirror Universe counterpart, later that first season.  Maybe it's because you kind of had to be a fan of both Deep Space Nine and Enterprise (which, aside from me, seems somewhat impossible) to appreciate the Mirror Universe beyond its "Mirror, Mirror" introduction in the original series at that point, but this was a big deal for the series, and for the franchise.  In fact, the rest of that season took place in the Mirror Universe, and somehow Mirror Georgiou ended up sticking around, including being recruited by Section 31 and ultimately winning a trip back home (kind of) via the Guardian of Forever later in the series.

Now, the biggest hiccup anyone might have with Section 31 is how she happens to find herself at the exact moment in time as her archnemesis.  Probably Carl's doing (the Guardian).

The movie opens with Mirror Georgiou's secret origin, how she became emperor in the first place, via an extremely logical explanation of how things worked there, and even the kind of life one might expect there (one twit on X suggested that home Mirror Georgiou returns to was hardly what they thought the Terran Empire would look like...but what else would you really expect? aside from the twit watching anything but the opening seconds?).  We learn she had to make a series of brutal decisions, only the last two of which we witness, including what to do with her competitor, and lover.  

Then we catch up with her in her present, which is about halfway between The Undiscovered Country and Next Generation, which can also be determined in the life of Enterprise-C captain Rachel Garrett, the youthful career of which we catch up with here.  Mirror Georgiou is leading an assumed identity until Section 31 bursts through the anonymity.  We meet the crew of misfits (and what a fun bunch they are!), and plunge into the mission.

It's worth pausing here to relish all the franchise lore we're getting to feast on.  First of course Mirror Georgiou herself, whom regular viewers of Discovery got to experience as close to redeeming herself as such a figure could enjoy.  (Section 31 itself exists to finish the job as completely as forgiving fans will allow.)  After "Mirror, Mirror," Deep Space Nine caught up with the Mirror Universe in a series of episodes throughout its seven season run (second through final seasons, almost a visit a season), from how far the Terrans fell to how they finally pick themselves up again.  Enterprise, in its final season, explains the crucial decision that shifted Earth's fate to Empire (First Contact, but with Cochrane shooting the Vulcans).  Section 31, in part, fills in the remaining gap, how it wasn't as simple as Mirror Spock being the one man to make a difference.  The rest of the dominoes had to fall, too, and that's what we see play out here.

There's also, of course, Section 31 itself, another gift of Deep Space Nine, the black ops Federation organization that also popped up in Enterprise and even Star Trek Into Darkness, and then finally Discovery, where Mirror Georgiou first signs up (up until realizing the timeline wouldn't square, I still hoped to see Ash Tyler pop up one more time).  A lot of fans still cling to the idea that Star Trek, and Starfleet and the Federation by extension, should only focus on the hopeful ideals of humanity's perfect future, but that was never the case even in the original series, where Spock could be subjected to bigotry on a regular basis (up to and including McCoy's banter).  Anyway, Deep Space Nine was my favorite series in the '90s, and so anything that keeps its legacy alive is welcomed by me, and Section 31 is easily its most visible legacy.  Playing someone like Rachel Garrett off of that (the other nice thing, beyond a Tyler cameo, would've been seeing her in the classic uniform, which spanned Wrath of Khan through Picard's days at the Academy).

(A seeming throwaway background for another character additionally finally, finally satisfactorily explains the Eugenics Wars.)

The storytelling in Section 31 is highly engrossing, beyond what most of the current era has achieved, possibly because it's forced to be so self-contained.  There's the suggestion this was supposed to be a series, and that this was only going to be the pilot; if so it's the best pilot Star Trek ever managed.

In giving Mirror Georgiou so much material, including how effectively layered its big reveals are, it satisfies on levels most of the theatrical movies never could, a truly accomplished ending and showdown with the villain, someone who really matters to the hero.  (In contrast to pretty much every other Star Trek fan, I favor Into Darkness over Wrath of Khan in how it handles our genetic superman as something other than a random force of nature Kirk bumps into twice.  The only other time it's really this perfect is First Contact, in which we learn of the Borg Queen's existence and how much it means for Picard to settle with her, apart from all other considerations.)

I really don't know how else to try and sell the achievement of it, and besides, emphasize how fun the side characters are.  There's a lot here just to reflect how much closer Section 31 is to our reality, and much better use of some of the types the franchise has been using in recent years...At this point Section 31 is actually the best thing to emerge from the modern era, excepting Strange New Worlds' current highwater mark, "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow."

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Outlined sufficiently in review. 
• series - If accepted as part of Discovery continuity, explains itself.
• character - Mirror Georgiou takes her place among the great characters in franchise lore.
• essential - For any number of reasons, Star Trek is now effectively incomplete without Section 31.

notable stars:

Michelle Yeoh (Georgiou)

Jamie Lee Curtis (Control)

Star Trek: Discovery 3x10 “Terra Firma, Part 2” Review

rating: ****

the story: Georgiou’s fate revealed.

review: If the first part was all setup, the second is all delivery. If there’s any disappointment it’s that it doesn’t take up the whole episode.

So this is Mirror Georgiou’s moral reckoning. The delicious part is that you might expect her to succeed in turning the Mirror Universe around, but she doesn’t, and the biggest swerve is that just as when we see her die for her efforts, we end up back on the other side of...

The Guardian of Forever!

Yeah! That’s who Carl was all along! It’s a great bit of franchise continuity going all the way back to one of the first classics episodes, “City on the Edge of Forever,” and finally reclaiming the idea as a continuing piece of Star Trek lore. All the talk about temporal accords this season are of course also acknowledged. And the whole thing feels like classic material itself, how Carl’s presented, how he’s used, and what he allows Georgiou, and viewers, to experience.

The episode does allow us to spend more time just experiencing the Mirror Universe, reveling in the chaos the dastardly Lorca created in his wake, getting to see a few old faces (some in surprising ways!) along the way. We see the relationship between Mirror Georgiou and Mirror Burnham play out in ways that please and disappoint them both. A central relationship of the series thus receives closure, a number of ways.

If I have one quibble, the farewell Georgiou is given doesn’t address how different Georgiou must have seemed to anyone who didn’t know this one came from the Mirror Universe, which unless I’m forgetting something should have been...everyone, basically, except key personnel like Burnham and Culber. 

But if you’re going to have Michelle Yeoh in a TV series, eventually you give her her due, which is what all of this was about. And, I guess, giving her a way to get back to the possibility of that long-gestating Section 31 series, talked of since the end of the first season, but now at least two series fallen behind. And probably three, since we have seen far more rapid progress even toward Pike’s spin-off. Anyway.

criteria analysis:

>franchise - Mirror Universe fans should easily be able to eat this up. As well as fans of the Guardian of Forever!

>series - A kind of series wrap for the character(s) of Georgiou.

>character - A fine final series statement on Georgiou.

>essential - Absolutely. This was classic material.

notable guest-stars:

Michelle Yeoh

Paul Guilfoyle 

Rekha Sherma

Oded Fehr

Star Trek: Discovery 3x9 “Terra Firma, Part 1”

rating: ****

the story: Turns out Georgiou needs to return to the Mirror Universe.

review: Basically another of those stories the series essentially had to do, like finally concluding the mycelial network business (still had to look that up in order to spell it correctly) last season, which is to say, finally determining if Mirror Georgiou (y’know, the one we ended up spending the most time with) was actually worth spending all that time with.

To find out, she has to go back home, and be forced to decide whether she learned anything spending all that time in the prime universe or faced with a second chance if she would make different decisions.

And so basically “Terra Firma, Part 1” (and its concluding chapter) brings the Mirror Universe full circle, forcing someone from that side to decide to become a better person. Deep Space Nine, in its many visits, made strides in that direction, though it was mainly concerned with the long road of humans reclaiming a sense of self-determination. Enterprise, in its two trips, reveled in the atmosphere. Discovery was initially content to do much the same.

And “Terra Firma, Part 1” is much the same, though it hints at what follows. Instead it’s the setup, and as such allows us to see the Nirror Universe, once more, in its classic context, to see things like Captain Killy being Captain Killy (perhaps all the more interesting since Tilly meanwhile is finding her own command path). 

We also meet an intriguing figure who gets Georgiou there in the first place, memorable in this appearance alone, before we learn anything else (but that’s a good development from the second part, too).

criteria analysis:

>franchise - Any return to the Mirror Universe ought to at least provoke some interest, let alone one with some ambition.

>series - A story thread from the first season reaching its culmination...!

>character - At last Georgiou fully in the spotlight!

>essential - While the second part has big things to accomplish, and nails them, this one feels bigger, and is.

notable guest-stars:

Michelle Yeoh

Paul Guilfoyle

Rekha Sharma

Odes Fehr 

David Cronenberg 

Star Trek: Discovery 3x8 “The Sanctuary” Review

rating: ***

the story: Book’s brother is tangled up with a mast organization called the Emerald Chain.

review: This is the kind of episode that feels like it ought to work better, but it falls on the weak side since most of it is accomplished in perfunctory terms. On the one hand it’s not just a Book spotlight (he has been either absent outright or marginalized for long stretches of a short season), but a look into his family, even though the results don’t feel overly personal or pivoted around that family. It’s a clear example of the predatory nature of life after the Burn, but represented in the most generic way possible.

So yeah. Talking about “The Sanctuary” after a later episode in which the implied fallout has indeed occurred doesn’t even make it feel any more important. The Emerald Chain, and the green Orion lady representing it, doesn’t advance any further than what you see here. There’s nothing to ground it other than “they’re bad guys.”

And again, there’s so much the episode attempts to accomplish a first viewing of the results are underwhelming. Book is a unique character, and he bears the further unfortunate distinction of essentially filling the shoes of Ash Tyler, who if anything became far more interesting the longer he stuck around, and whose subsequent absence this season only grows harder to accept. If this were a Tyler episode, it just seems as if far more would have been accomplished. Book merely duplicates the same “I’m a really good guy doing really good stuff in very harsh circumstances” vibe we’ve already seen in, yeah, his first appearance.

Maybe a more concise summary will explain this better:

criteria analysis:

>franchise - I honestly don’t think there’s enough grounding here to entice a casual fan. That’s what’s missing here.

>series - On the other hand, if you’re a Discovery fan there’s plenty to enjoy.

>character - Even if you discount the effectiveness of Book’s material, there’s also additional emphasis on the Georgiou arc about to reach its crescendo in the next two episodes, which itself gives Culber more of that extra emphasis he’s enjoyed this season

>essential - And between any of that and the Emerald Chain indeed resurfacing a few episodes later, it’s probably well worth taking note of.

notable guest-stars:

Michelle Yeoh

Oded Fehr

Star Trek: Discovery 3x6 “Scavengers” Review

rating: ***

story: Burnham goes rogue to rescue Book and recover a valuable black box.

review: Some viewers will view “Scavengers” as needlessly rehashing Michael Burnham’s penchant for breaking bad. I would argue that Michael Burnham’s whole reputation is what it would look like if Jim Kirk weren’t a captain. There’s no functional difference. Even Kirk was demoted in the movies.

So we instead have an affirmation for Burnham’s willingness to sacrifice her own career for doing what she feels is right. (Incidentally, the first season of Picard had that guy doing it, too.) If anything, Burnham is affirming a Star Trek tradition. We even had the Maquis as a famous example. A lot of fans criticized Voyager for its rapid crew integration, but I always argue that they missed the point; many if not most Maquis, like Chakotay, were former Starfleet to begin with. It wasn’t a rebellion against Starfleet, or the Federation, but policy. 

Which, in this season of Discovery, is highly relevant. Burnham’s rescue mission turns into pretty classic franchise material, complete with an Andorian who needs rescuing (compassion) on a different level than Burnham originally anticipated. (In case you were wondering, like I was, this Andorian was not played by Wilson Cruz.)

What it really amounts to isn’t even a clash with the current version of Starfleet but a culmination of Burnham and Saru’s relationship. Saru finally decides he can’t have a first officer prone to going rogue. Saru himself is becoming an example of a textbook Starfleet captain, one that perhaps can be as respected as any the franchise has chosen as lead characters over the years, more often similar to Kirk but sometimes equally committed (as Janeway famously was) to standard Starfleet ideals.

criteria analysis:

>franchise - Ironically because fans seem prone to misidentifying Burnham’s instincts, this is maybe not an episode they’re likely to understand.

>series - And yet it resonates right back to the start of Discovery as it showed her as a true hero at every turn.

>character - So this is a great Burnham spotlight, and Saru, and even Georgiou, who this season has become a true highlight.

>essential - For fans of Discovery, absolutely.

notable guest-stars:

Michelle Yeoh (Georgiou)

Oded Fehr (Vance)

Star Trek: Discovery 3x5 “Die Trying” Review

 rating: ***

the story: The crew finds it difficult to reintegrate into the Starfleet it finds in the far future.

review: Five episodes into the season, and the arc of the crew finding themselves in a strange far future with a fractured Federation has steadily, and somewhat rapidly, advanced, with the help of one key plot device that has suddenly been turned on its head.

This is the kind of episode you can show the uninitiated that will help catch them up to speed. Key developments that aren’t necessarily essential to the episode, or season, itself, but rather the history of the series, are referenced, and the nature of the spore drive that has been a signature element is turned into an irresistible asset. In the far future the traditional warp engine fans have always known has been compromised. The unique spore drive the crew possesses, once thought if not irreconcilable then at least problematic, is suddenly the only thing the crew has that the Starfleet of this era can appreciate.

Of course, they have to fight tooth and nail to prove it, but it really boils down to a Star Trek staple: an admiral who doesn’t see eye-to-eye with a Starfleet crew. Fortunately, for a change there’s a happy ending to that relationship.

So we’re left with a few other things to dwell on. The first one is that, despite complications it’s nice to see everyone happy when they reach Starfleet headquarters. There’re Easter eggs in the ships (Voyager-J, one named Nog). Another callback is the conclusion of the Temporal Cold War that has left Starfleet paranoid about time travelers. Georgiou has an interesting conversation concerning the fate of the Mirror Universe. Nahn, part of the show’s considerable supporting ensemble, reaching an unexpected and emotional turning point.

And the series is perhaps settling into its oldest and best relationship: Burnham and Saru. Fans love to talk about Burnham’s earliest actions, which are never far from Saru’s thoughts, as well. Yet the two possess a complicated, trusting friendship, a partnership that increasingly feels level, with Saru unafraid to voice, in respectful tones, his hope that Burnham has grown since those early days.

All this and the first time the season tackles a typical franchise episodic element that feels natural, with a ship that has experienced a crisis and our crew needing to help set things right. Very familiar but executed well, and integrated into the rest of the story flawlessly.

criteria analysis:

>franchise - A thrilling chance to see what Starfleet in this time period looks like, with a surprising number of familiar touches.

>series - A nice moment for new and existing fans to catch up with what’s been happening and what sets Discovery apart.

>character - I would’ve wanted a little more individual work, or even sharper ensemble work, to put in a vote for this category. A lot of nice little moments, though.

>essential - There’s a soft emphasis on disfunction in the crew, which actually seems to help, and that’s a nice way to emphasize what sets this series apart, that it sees hope as being possible in such a context, even though Gene Roddenberry famously wanted everyone to just get along.

notable guest-stars:

Michelle Yeoh (Georgiou)

Tig Notaro (Reno)

David Cronenberg

Oded Fehr (Vance)

Star Trek: Discovery 3x4 “Forget Me Not” Review

 rating: ****

the story: Adira’s symbiont memories are unlocked.

review: Last season Discovery received a certain amount of acclaim with “Project Daedalus,” which revolved around background character Aeriam in an ultimately climactic and poignant manner. I myself considered the results underwhelming, believing that too little real investment, even in the episode itself, had justified calling too much attention to the character even then.

Well, “Forget Me Not,” for me, is that same basic story, done right. It’s an instant highlight of the season, perhaps the series, and perhaps the very franchise itself.

Harking back to Next Generation’s “The Host” and Deep Space Nine’s “Equilibrium,” “Forget Me Not” is an unexpected deep and very welcome dive into Star Trek lore that enriches it in the process. It’s the kind of experience that can be many things to many people, but most of all an elegant (a word I seldom favor seeing used, but here absolutely warranted, in the best recent tradition of the best Short Treks) example of finding a truly transcendent story and absolutely nailing it.

Part of the success of it is what always helps Discovery succeed, drawing on the rich depth of its characters rather than taking it for granted, as the last few episodes have. The biggest beneficiary of this is Culber, who is at last emerging as a three-dimensional figure, and a surprisingly insightful one at that. He opens the episode echoing Kirk’s monologue from Star Trek Beyond, where he wonders what a prolonged deep space assignment has done mentally to his crew. The movie itself has become one of my favorites for its ability to reflect the best parts of the franchise, and, I guess, “Forget Me Not” feels like the TV episode version of it, two modern touchstones that resonate with the beating heart of Star Trek’s ideals.

There’s a lot to love here, a disastrous dinner scene hilariously and tragically rife with haiku, echoes of Next Generation’s “Family,” Enterprise’s “Home,” the episode, basically, that absolutely needed to happen in order for the impact of what has happened previously to feel real, and even Georgiou settling into her new quip status (feeling very much like Worf at this point).

And yes, a love story that pushes traditional boundaries, but told in breathtakingly exquisite fashion. As someone on my Facebook feed adds to all their posts, “love is love.” There’s no reason to make a big deal about it, unless it makes you feel visible. The more I experience the more I suspect the tradition we all share is how untraditional we are. It’s just lives being lived, pushing forward, sometimes against incredible odds. That’s what this episode manages to explain for a season that has been floundering for such a statement. 

Yeah, you’ve gotta see this one.

criteria analysis:

>franchise - Perhaps the final word on how important the Trill are to Star Trek lore.

>series - Emphasizes all the right things about the season.

>character - Adira has entered what Gene Roddenberry might have called “beloved character status.”

>essential - Oh, yeah. Tragedy and triumph.

notable guest-stars:

Michelle Yeoh (Georgiou)

Star Trek: Discovery 3x3 “People of Earth” Review

 rating: **

the story: The crew find out what Earth is like in the far future.

review: I don’t know, this is the second episode that feels tepid and lethargic to me, all the more alarming because the season premiere was so filled with energy.

“People of Earth” at once dives right into the arc and meanders. As can be the danger of serialized storytelling, it feels very much as if the writers are concentrating on “what we need to see” without understanding how to make it compelling.

It feels blandly inevitable. Burnham and Saru have a perfunctory discussion about captaincy; Burnham puts on a Starfleet uniform for the first time in a year; she convinces Book to wear one as part of a ruse; we meet the human hosting a Trill symbiont; she has a conversation with Stamets that suggests she’ll be interesting.

And it all just happens. Earth is represented by a new governing agency, at conflict with marauders from Titan. This part of the story is given minimal attention. I saw hot takes that called the resolution a Scooby reveal, but it’s not worth dwelling too much on, as we’re given little reason to care about either faction except as an example of how things have changed.

The pacing of the season is totally off. We had one episode of Burnham adapting to her new life, and then here it’s supposed to, theoretically, feel as weird for the viewer as for Burnham to adapt back into her old life. This is an even bigger problem when Burnham’s new life looks even better in hindsight, and everyone just going through the motions in her old.

So for now I will just keep hoping things become...interesting.

criteria analysis:

>franchise - A bold statement on the fate of our favorite planet! This is what happens when the good guys aren’t around. It’s like Picard if Picard never went back into action.

>series - It’s a good bit for the arc, however ultimately handled.

>character - No one really gets a decent spotlight here.

>essential - The kind of episode that could be omitted from a viewer’s itinerary not out of poor quality but out of general blandness.

notable guest-stars:

Michelle Yeoh (Georgiou)

Star Trek: Discovery 3x2 “Far From Home” Review

 rating: ***

the story: The crew of the Discovery winds up in the far future.

review: Honestly, in hindsight I would probably prefer this being the season premiere and “That Hope Is You” coming second. “Hope” is a kinetic, exhilarating episode, against which it’s hard for “Far From Home” to compare. It’s the same basic story with a resolution that’s so abrupt it’s almost disappointing, when the crew finds Burnham on the other side of a mysterious hail. In “Hope” we have no idea when Burnham was going to reunite with them. Here we’re quickly told she waited a year. Unless the third episode glosses over that year, that’s another awkward jump.

And because it becomes so inevitable, it’s just going through the motions, and there’s no single compelling narrative in the whole crew to keep things interesting. There’s a half-hearted Stamets and Culber thing happening (neither character deserves to be eternally relegated only to that relationship, and Stamets in particular is far less interesting when he’s not being a caustic engineer, a glimmer of which we see opposite Reno). Saru butts heads with Georgiou (whose best moment quickly redeems the episode just before the last minute), and encourages Tilly. And this is all kind of odd, since some of the best stuff last season was getting to see this exact crew being brilliant in group settings. 

By the time they’re learning the harsh realities of the far future, there’s a space pirate making things incredibly uncomfortable for them, and Georgiou gets a pitch-perfect comeuppance for him, the first time I personally have found Mirror Georgiou pitch-perfect. I mean, if ever there was a good use for her it was exactly this moment. So there’s that!

criteria analysis:

>franchise - I’m going to say there’s precious little here to interest general fan interest.

>series - It was probably necessary to see how the rest of the crew made it to the far future, certainly, and perhaps the whole experience proves how necessary Burnham is to the series.

>character - Mirror Georgiou in a true shining moment.

>essential - As it plays out? Not especially, it seems.

notable guest-stars:

Michelle Yeoh (Mirror Georgiou)

Tig Notaro (Reno)

Discovery 2x14 "Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2"

rating: ****

the story: Burnham makes her leap into history.

review: This is kind of instantly the high water mark for epic Star Trek TV storytelling in a single episode (though it obviously continues and contains elements from previous episodes).  It's a bombastic sendoff for the Discovery crew in its original timeframe, and a nifty packaging for why we don't hear about any of this in later (earlier) incarnations of the franchise.

Okay, so that last part might be a point of debate for some fans, who will naturally feel dismissive for any number of reasons.  What a cheap way to explain it! they'll say.  But forget them.  This has been a series that has consistently enmeshed itself in familiar lore while carving a separate destiny.  Now it seems it's reached the point where the unknown will truly be embraced, and all we have to do is wait for next season.  This is how season finales are done, folks.  This is one of the best I've ever seen.

So of course there's lots to appreciate.  We get flashes of that brilliance Discovery has so enjoyed celebrating about Starfleet officers.  We get callbacks to all the signals the crew followed throughout the season (and how the whole of it feels so satisfying in summary).  We get Burnham and Spock in a bittersweet farewell.  We get Stamets and Culber finally reconciling.  We get Tilly's queen friend saving the day.  We get Control being defeated.  We get Georgiou being truly heroic.  We get repair droids! 

Just a lot of good stuff.  The episode ends with Pike, Number One, and Spock (shaved! in uniform!) on the bridge of the Enterprise (and the credits featuring the original theme!), nudging us to what Star Trek was when it began, and it feels right.  So often fans have struggled to identify Discovery with the original series, so it seems appropriate that a season that spent so much time with familiar elements concludes on such a note. This might be the kind of experience Enterprise tried to capture in its final episode, with a holodeck simulation aboard Picard's ship of Archer's crew.  Then again, it might be equally controversial.  But then, again, forget the fans who will view the results that way.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - A rewarding way to bridge the Enterprise with the Discovery.
• series - Setting the Discovery definitively along its own destiny.
• character - Burnham becomes the symbol of what Spock later finds in Kirk & Bones.
• essential - An affirmation of Discovery's place in the franchise.

notable guest-stars:
Ethan Peck (Spock)
Michelle Yeoh (Georgiou)
Tig Notaro (Reno)
Rebecca Romijn (Number One)
Shazad Latif (Tyler)
Wilson Cruz (Culber)

Discovery 2x13 "Such Sweet Sorrow"

rating: ****

the story: Deciding on a final course of action to thwart Control.

review: "Such Sweet Sorrow" is an excellent follow-up to "Through the Valley of Shadows," and an even better way to smooth over the rough patch of discovering the identity of the Red Angel while also building on it, and as the second season has been doing so well, emphasizing the strengths of its characters and how they embody the franchise tradition of utilizing brilliant minds in concert.

And blowing up a ship?  Almost!  And saying dramatic goodbyes?  Yep!

My biggest criticism of the season is that it began to overplay the dramatic moments.  Once Saru nearly died, it was hard to top.  What "Such Sweet Sorrow" does so brilliantly is not play things the same way, but rather circle back to the tradition of optimism in the franchise, crews supporting each other, defying fate (lookin' at you, Pike!) and the odds.  Once the solution to the Control problem becomes, once and for all, time travel, Burnham volunteers to carry it out, even though it becomes equally clear that she can expect to be lost in the future as a result.  But just as she decides to walk this course alone, everyone rallies around her, at least to help her reach the point where she'll get to make the jump. 

Two notable exceptions: Pike, of course, who the season has made clear has a specific destiny, and nothing done here is going to change that, and Tyler.  Burnham and Tyler have been on a rollercoaster ride across Discovery's two seasons.  One might expect Tyler, of all people, to finally commit to Burnham.  No doubt we'll learn more of what follows for him, and for them, later (I have to chuckle at my early season efforts at prognostication, believing Tyler and Section 31 to have a limited role in it), whether in the season finale (next episode) or at some point in the future.

This is a series that keeps its cards close to the vest, and yet sometimes it allows a wink or two to escape.  "Such Sweet Sorrow" gives us a literal wink, perhaps, when Georgiou finally tells Pike who she really is, and he winks back to her.  Does that mean we'll see more about that later?

Anyway, the episode also features a lot of great visuals, and even a redemption of the seemingly vapid Tilly Short Trek.  Plenty to enjoy.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Our first look at the Discovery version of the classic Enterprise bridge!
• series - A dramatic setup to the season finale.
• character - Burnham's arc reaches a satisfying climax.
• essential - Where does she goes from here?  I think the question itself is raised eloquently.

notable guest-stars:
Ethan Peck (Spock)
Michelle Yeoh (Georgiou)
Rebecca Romijn (Number One)
Tig Notaro (Reno)
Shazad Latif (Tyler)
James Frain (Sarek)
Mia Kirshner (Amanda)
Wilson Cruz (Culber)

Discovery 2x11 "Perpetual Infinity"

rating: ***

the story: The Red Angel's backstory is explored.

review: If "Red Angel," the preceding episode, was underwhelming despite being hugely significant to the season, the follow-up needed to deliver.  But "Perpetual Infinity" is, if anything, equally maddeningly underwhelming.

Just at production level (I don't often discuss this, as it's assumed, unless I'm commenting on something particularly good, that the execution itself is adequate), the actress playing Burnham's mom is not compelling.  And that's a huge chunk of the impact missing right there. 

The episode, the story itself, is not at Discovery's compelling best, either.  Discovery has hit some pretty high notes, whether in these first two seasons or even the Short Treks in between ("Calypso").  When all cylinders are firing, this is just about as good as it gets in the franchise.  "Perpetual Infinity" is instead undercooked, with too much held back to stretch out the story.  At times like this you yearn for the good old days of this sort of climactic material being saved for those episode season finales/premieres, not for the sake of turning back the clock to episodic storytelling being the norm, but serialized storytelling, when used, being used to maximum effect.

Instead we just get another "Wait, there's more!" but without any big reveals yet to remain, because at this point if there were, they might begin to feel like cheats.  Instead it's just the bad guy getting away for plot convenience.

Which wastes one of those moments that does feel impactful, Tyler's apparent death and his subsequent transmission about what's really happening.  Instead we get more of what Discovery has revealed as one of its crutches from the original series: fight scenes that just sort of exist.  Even if the choreography has improved from fifty years ago, they're still just window dressing, just as they felt in the first season when Burnham was facing the Klingons and it felt like the producers wanted fight scenes without really justifying them.  It's not just having these scenes that's supposed to be impressive, but knowing how do execute them, no matter how technically flawless they are.  They have no heart.

Even if Leland has transformed into the true threat of the season, and even if the fans speculating that the whole point is to provide an origin for the Borg (and the definitive reason they're obsessed with humans, like an updated V'ger after all), the whole thrust of the emergency weakens when the arc refuses to admit there are obvious franchise holes in its logic.  Time travel became an increasingly detailed phenomenon in later incarnations, to the point where Starfleet in later centuries took on the protection of the timeline as part of its duties.  And yet nowhere is this acknowledged.  The logic of the storytelling becomes too finely centered on artificial moments meant to derive emotional impact, if all we're meant to care about is Burnham agonizing over the sudden revelation that her mom was alive all along, and has spent a long time trying to solve one problem, and failing miserably. 

Part of what made Deep Space Nine so compelling is that there were characters who showed up to cover every conceivable vantage point.  Discovery has cobbled together an impressive repertory of familiar faces, but holds too many of these cards close to the chest.  This might produce endless possibilities in shock reveals, and often plenty of wonderful character moments, too, but in the end it's the storytelling, when all's said and done, that has to hold up. 

Bottom line, you have to nail big moments like this, and "Perpetual Infinity" doesn't.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - You truly have to be a fan of Discovery to enjoy these results.
• series - It's not an insult to say that, but it would be nice to believe anyone could appreciate them.
• character - This is about as big as Burnham's gotten, and there's a nice moment in which her differences with Spock are finally put aside, too, and that's gratifying.
• essential - The elements themselves are mandatory viewing, it's just the execution that's lacking.

notable guest-stars:
Ethan Peck (Spock)
Shazad Latif (Tyler)
Michelle Yeoh (Georgiou)
Wilson Cruz (Culber)

Discovery 2x10 "The Red Angel"

rating: ***

the story: At last, the identity of the Red Angel is revealed!

review: So, obviously a big moment for the season, and as we learn by the end, and as explained in the next episode, a big moment for the series in general.  But it somehow manages to underwhelm.  So let's explain:

This kind of storytelling, where big moments have to happen throughout an entire season, can begin to overwhelm, especially if many of those moments are set up as parallel to each other, or in literary parlance, foreshadowing.  Whether you're thinking of Tilly's arc from the first half of the season or Saru's in the middle, or the hunt for Spock that accompanied both, all of its fed on the same basic arc of big revelations and momentous character developments, and they all led to this big reveal.  "Red Angel" has a red herring, in that for the duration of the episode we're led to believe that the eponymous individual is Burnham herself, some future version on an epic quest.

But that final line, and a sparing glimpse, reveals otherwise.  But more on that next episode.

Instead, my thoughts on "Red Angel" itself rests on the crew's plan to in effect stage Burnham's murder, which ought to feel like one of the worst possible experiences any of them could possibly endure.  But we already had that with Saru, and that was a moment that could never really be topped.  So instead of setting this moment up, the show instead sabotaged it.  The results feel convoluted instead, thoroughly acceptable in its storytelling logic, but...less than they should have been. 

Last season had this sort of experience, too: even if basically everything we knew about Lorca confirmed what he was all along, it was still disappointing for viewers who nonetheless had grown fond of him to see Lorca unceremoniously dispatched well before that season concluded.  Gene Roddenberry had realized that effect when he coined the term "beloved character status" for Saavik when Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was in development.  Saavik, who had been featured prominently in Star Trek II and III (Wrath of Khan, Search for Spock), was intended to be among the conspirators in VI, but Roddenberry vetoed the idea, on the grounds that this was a character who had firmly established herself as one of the good guys.  No manner of plot necessity would've truly justified betraying that status, and would've tarnished her rather than make for compelling material.

That's essentially what Discovery seems incapable of preventing itself from doing in these season-long arcs.  It never seems to know when it's pushed too far.  In the rush to keep viewers engaged, it forgets that at the end of the day, the whole thing will be taken into account.  Some fans will complain that Spock himself has been poorly handled in all of this, but his material has been the strongest, and it's obvious that the writers were most concerned about his role in the arc, and kept it most protected. 

If only they had been so careful with the rest of it.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - The constant pitfall of serialized storytelling in established frameworks like Star Trek is that they run the risk of becoming too insular in their logic, which is where "Red Angel" seems to leave this arc.
• series - The overall importance to Discovery itself can't, however, be denied.
• character - The focus once more swings to Burnham.
• essential - Even if the execution is suspect, the content speaks for itself.

notable guest-stars:
Ethan Peck (Spock)
Michelle Yeoh (Georgiou)
Wilson Cruz (Culber)
Shazad Latif (Tyler)

Discovery 2x8 "If Memory Serves"

rating: ****

the story: Burnham and Spock go to Talos IV.

review: "If Memory Serves" opens with clips from the original Star Trek pilot, "The Cage" (later refashioned into the two-part "Menagerie").  The episode establishes that these events happened in Discovery's past, and so it ends up serving as a sequel (I suppose the second one).  Burnham brings Spock there thanks to the Red Angel mystery, and because she hopes the Talosians will help awaken Spock from his fractured state of mind.

Long story short, this is the episode where Spock finally gets to be Spock again.

Not only that, but Burnham and Spock, as adopted siblings, have a dramatic memory of their childhood revisited, and I'm stating now that it's one of the great scenes of franchise history, a must-see for fans of either character, and hopefully as of now, both.  They are now inextricably intertwined.  (The only thing that could make all this better?  Bring in Sybok.  But what're the chances of that happening?)  You know how the Abrams movies put a hard focus on Spock's difficult formative years, how he struggled to reconcile his human and Vulcan sides, and how his Vulcan peers made things worse?  That's the level of material we get here.  Burnham's younger self attempts to distance herself from Spock in the most logical way possible.  In a lot of ways, the results are what define Spock for years to come, his obsessive devotion to his Vulcan side over his human half that resonated so strongly in all the classic material. 

But that's not all!  There's more Section 31 drama, not just the emerging power struggle between Georgiou and Leland, but Tyler still trying to be taken seriously by Pike.

But that's the least of Tyler's worries!  He also has a big confrontation with Culber, who's having a difficult time adjusting to his return from the dead, finally even pushing Stamets away.  It's by far the best material Culber has ever gotten (a different era would've given him a whole episode to himself, and maybe that still happens later in the season?), given something other than his romantic relationship with Stamets to distinguish himself. 

It's a strong character episode all around, because of course even Pike gets in on the action, with a complicated reunion with Vina (we know that by the end of "Menagerie" they'll get a more satisfying one).  It was absolutely the right call to do this, if they were going to use Pike at all.  This might be the essential episode of the season, and an overall series highlight.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Talos IV's legacy continues to expand, and of course Spock.
• series - Spock becomes thoroughly a part of Discovery mythos.
• character - There's strong work in this regard everywhere!
• essential - Absolutely!

notable guest-stars:
Ethan Peck (Spock)
Wilson Cruz (Culber)
Michelle Yeoh (Georgiou)
Shazad Latif (Tyler)

Discovery 2x7 "Light and Shadows"

rating: ***

the story: Burnham finally finds Spock.

review: "Light and Shadows" feels like an episode that will be interesting to return to.  It might be something truly special.  For the moment, I will treat it as a transitional episode, though this alone makes it exceptional in the annals of the franchise.

The story of "Light and Shadows" doesn't attempt in itself to accomplish much.  This might sound as if it's perhaps ultimately a waste of time that you don't really need to see, but that would be an overly reductive conclusion.  Star Trek has traditionally been episodic, which this season has attempted to replicate, even as the series continues its dedication to the new serialization dynamic favored by TV shows today.  Yet it's rare for episodes even in this time just to spend time with the characters without trying to accomplish something big, which is of course much of what Discovery has become known for, big reveals at nearly every turn.  This makes "Light and Shadows" a rarity, a curiosity, and just perhaps, a hidden treasure in the making.

The thought of how the episode feels might best be demonstrated by the elaborate visual sequence of Burnham landing her shuttle on Vulcan as she prepares to visit Sarek and Amanda.  It's one of the more striking images of Vulcan we've seen over the course of its sporadic appearances throughout the franchise, comparable best to the revised scenes from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, director's cut.

The other distinctive element of the episode is how it treats time anomalies, again visually rather than strictly storytelling. This is well-trod Star Trek territory, and yet we've seldom seen it done this way. 

Add in some of the more developed insights of Section 31 in this series, including all three representatives (Tyler, Georgiou, and Leland), and there's a lot more to unpack here than it might seem.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - The search for Spock concludes!  And this is once again time to talk about time.
• series - A moment that has been developing all season.
• character - This is indeed Spock as we've never seen him before.
• essential - Perhaps a topic to be revisited later for a remarkably subtle episode.

notable guest-stars:
Ethan Peck (Spock)
Shazad Latif (Tyler)
Michelle Yeoh (Georgiou)
Mia Kirshner (Amanda)
James Frain (Sarek)

Discovery 2x5 "Saints of Imperfection"

rating: ***

the story: The mycelial network is finally cleansed.

review: Hey!  I just wrote "mycelial" in a Discovery review for the first time.  The mycelial network in question is responsible for the spore drive that allowed the ship to make miraculous jumps throughout the first season, and gave Stamets a dramatic arc during it, and Tilly hers in the current, second season.  "Saints of Imperfection" effectively closes a story begun with the introduction of the ship itself.

The show's approach to the network has been comparable to the Prophets in Deep Space Nine or the Caretaker in Voyager; whether it goes in the latter direction or the former remains to be seen.  Voyager retired its original driving force in its second season, while DS9 kept its for all seven seasons. 

"Saints" turns expectations on their head, shifting the focus from Tilly back to Stamets by rediscovering his romantic partner Culber within the network.  The episode features a handful of reunions, between Burnham and Georgiou, Burnham and Tyler, and even Pike and Section 31 agent Leland.  Obviously all of this is leading up to the inevitable reunion of Burnham and Spock later in the season. 

It's a more satisfying climax within a season than the first season's unceremonious dumping of Lorca (I still hope that, too, can be revisited), and some of the most dramatic storytelling of the series to date, a nice response to the previous episode, "An Obol for Charon," in a completely different fashion.  For a series that has been attempting to tell big dramatic moments as frequently as possible, it's a considerable achievement to still be doing it so well, and arguably better than ever.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Section 31 has become a matter of fact in Star Trek at this point, and this is a moment to really let that sink in.
• series - Resolving a longstanding arc.
• character - Tilly and Stamets are squarely in the spotlight.
• essential - It's an episode that can't be missed.

notable guest-stars:
Michelle Yeoh (Georgiou)
Shazad Latif (Tyler)
Wilson Cruz (Culber)

Discovery 2x3 "Point of Light"

rating: ***

the story: Amanda visits, Tilly's ghost is explained, and we revisit the Klingons.

review: "Point of Light" was an episode attempting boldly to accomplish three things at the same time (four, really, but we'll get back to that), and the whole was less than the sum of its parts for it. 

The lead story, ostensibly, was actually the first plot point I reference above, Amanda's visit.  Amanda, of course, is Spock's mom, Sarek's wife, and Burnham's adoptive mother, and we've seen her a number of times over the years, and a few times in Discovery itself, but this might be her biggest spotlight to date...The problem is that because she has so much to compete with, she ends up the loser of the bunch.  Like "Lethe" last season, the Sarek spotlight, we get to find out more of what it was like to be Spock and Burnham's parent, not only relation to them, but the effect on the parent.  But where Sarek got a strong focus and a definite resolution, Amanda has to settle for a serialized tale.  It's been my observation that while serialization can work wonders, the best storytelling always knows when parts of a story need to work on their own.  This one is going to need other episodes to justify it, not just because it's part of an overall mystery, but because Amanda herself doesn't get to complete her statement.

But the good news is we quickly get a kind of resolution for Tilly's arc this season, even if it clearly has further room to blossom.  In this instance, Discovery did a classic bit of Star Trek storytelling (some kind of alien intelligence was messing with our people) in a thoroughly Discovery manner.  This part works for all the reasons the Amanda part doesn't.

Revisiting the Klingons means Ash Tyler and L'Rell, last seen in the first season finale ending the war and uniting the houses.  But Klingons being Klingons, there's an attempt to sabotage L'Rell's position as chancellor (or, Mother, as she dubs herself at the end of the episode).  More importantly, it's a chance to revisit Tyler, and he's got a new samurai look and seems far more comfortable than he ever was last season, and that's good.  And spending more time with the Klingons also lets us see where Discovery's depiction of them melds with other versions, even if the seeing them with hair doesn't work for all of them. 

But that part of the episode also sees the return of Georgiou, who'll be getting her own series, so this episode also serves as a backdoor pilot.  I'm not as sold on Georgiou as a compelling character as I am Tyler, so it's good that he's apparently going to be joining her adventures. 

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Feels less like something casual fans will be wild about and more for Discovery faithful.
• series - After two episodes that were for casual fans, it feels about right to go in that direction.
• character - Lots of focused storytelling, obviously.
• essential - Lots of important stuff happening, too, in ways that feel more organic than Discovery can sometimes feel.

notable guest-stars:
Shazad Latif (Tyler)
Mia Kirshner (Amanda)
Michelle Yeoh (Georgiou)

Discovery 1x15 "Will You Take My Hand?"

rating: ****

the story: Burnham races to stop Mirror Georgiou's genocide against the Klingons.

what it's all about: The first season finale ends happily for Michael Burnham.  She finally earns her way back into Starfleet's good graces.  All it requires is for her to end the Klingon war, a war she started in the first place.  Not a bad bit of work, really.

Once she realizes Mirror Georgiou's plan against the Klingons involves a weapon of mass destruction (this is kind of the first time I can think of where a Hiroshima/Nagasaki analogy is not only made but thwarted by the good guys; it's much more common for bad guys to deploy these things, or attempt to), Burnham finally decides to act against her, despite a reluctance tied to her guilt over what happened to her Georgiou.  That just about wraps up everything the season was about, right there, in a thoroughly Discovery fashion.  The logic of the storytelling all season has been contingent not so much on individual beats but how they work in concert.  If you've bought into the majority of it, it's kind of impossible to say this wasn't the only way the season could end.  Particularly, the Klingon arc itself ends perfectly, L'Rell essentially being given the ultimate bargaining chip to end the conflict and the Empire's internal strife.

I wasn't particularly happy, previously, with Lorca's fate.  Tellingly, Mirror Georgiou receives a far different one, and that's one of the intriguing twists of the episode.  Burnham arranges a kind of Starfleet pardon for her if she agrees to walk away.  Some will argue that this was another wildly reckless move on the part of Burnham and/or Starfleet, and yet Mirror Georgiou is now entirely on her own.  Even Khan needed lackeys.  Alone, the former Empress is far more vulnerable, as she had been in the Mirror Universe before Burnham made the decision to bring her back to hers.  It's hugely likely we'll see Mirror Georgiou again, which will be a can't-miss Discovery event when it happens, sort of like if we ever see Mirror Lorca's counterpart, now that we know the Lorca we followed came from the Mirror Universe all along.  This is a series that has already shown a remarkable propensity for exploiting every juicy plot twist available to it.  These are inevitabilities, really.

What wasn't inevitable?  The biggest twist of the episode, at the end, when the crew is asked to respond to a distress call...from Pike's Enterprise.  Aside from a handful of original series appearances (officially, the two-part "Menagerie," which cannibalized the first pilot "The Cage") and the Kelvin timeline movies, which never showed anyone past Pike himself, this will be a truly historic opportunity to revisit the franchise's origins.  And Spock?  Burnham's adoptive brother, after all.  And a member of Pike's crew, as we all know.  Needless to say, but any such prospects immediately became more enticing than Mirror Georgiou's future or the prospect of seeing a different version of Lorca. 

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Ends a major conflict with the Klingons.
• series - Wraps up a season's worth of serialized storytelling.
• character - Burnham truly comes full circle as we see how events have hinged on her decisions at every turn.
• essential - Burnham's argument about Starfleet's ideals is illustrative of everything the franchise has always been about, regardless of the contents of the storytelling.

notable guest-stars:
Michelle Yeoh (Mirror Georgiou)
James Frain (Sarek)
Mia Kirshner (Amanda)

Discovery 1x14 "The War Without, the War Within"

rating: ***

the story: The crew strategizes against the Klingons.

what it's all about: For me, this is a considerable rebound from the previous episode, which took some dramatic leaps I wasn't entirely comfortable with.  In a lot of ways, "The War Without, the War Within" is a thesis statement, explaining the overall philosophy of the series.  We'd known all along that lead character Michael Burnham struggled against the perception others had of her, as we followed the exact events that caused her problems.  As the season has progressed, we've seen other characters mirror that journey.  If Lorca seemed to leave without redemption, it now seems all part of that tapestry, the problem of perception and reality, and the need to reconcile them.  Because after seeing what happened to Lorca, the story now pivots to Tyler and Georgiou.  We know why Lorca chose to overlook Burnham's faults.  Can she manage the same with them, and why?

With Tyler, Burnham is experiencing firsthand what she did to Georgiou, and how the rest of Starfleet grew to see her as a result.  She doesn't know how she moves forward with him.  With Mirror Georgiou, she's compromised by her guilt over what happened to her Georgiou; she's incapable of being objective about her.  And yet in both relationships, her reactions and thought process are hugely subjective, and it's hurting everyone involved.  Tyler desperately wants to find himself again, just as Burnham had at the start of the season.  Mirror Georgiou has no such doubts.  She's as eager as Lorca had been to use circumstances to her advantage, and doesn't care who's hurt in the process.  We see a glimpse of Stamets being that cold, to Tyler, but at least with him we can sympathize to an extent.  Every character, every scenario, it's all calculated in this series, reflecting each other.

The greater arc of the Klingon war becomes less important, in all this, even while we see Admiral Cornwell return, totally overwhelmed by things, so that the certainty and even doubt the main characters are experiencing seem infinitely more appealing.  Even Sarek feels ineffectual, too easily manipulated, disconnected from the intricacy of the moving parts in the web the series has been weaving.  It's one thing to be caught up in Mirror Georgiou's machinations.  Lorca operated much the same way.  What sets the main characters apart is that they have an ability to use their doubt against these plans. 

criteria analysis:

• franchise - This one's for Discovery fans. 
• series - It speaks directly to the heart of the arc we've followed all season.
• character - Motivations become clearer, and how Burnham is caught in the middle.
• essential - It's an explanation that's essential to understanding the series.

notable guest-stars:
Michelle Yeoh (Mirror Georgiou)
James Frain (Sarek)

Discovery 1x13 "What's Past is Prologue"

rating: **

the story: Burnham confronts Mirror Georgiou and Lorca.

what it's all about: Well, it had to end.  My enthusiasm for Discovery had been riding pretty high.  It would have been truly remarkable if that had been maintained through the end of the season.  Turns out it didn't.  The very serialized storytelling that's been working so well is actually what did it.  "What's Past is Prologue," to my mind, once again indicates there are limits to this style.

Even though Deep Space Nine in part reached its greatness thanks to its pioneering use of the style, and Enterprise received its only acclaim from employing it, serialized storytelling itself is not automatically good.  Storytelling is still storytelling, and must be judged on its own merits, not the way it's presented.  Today it's called "binge" storytelling, and there are a lot of people who seem to like it for the mere fact of its addictiveness. 

Which is to say, each episode still has to stand on its own, and must be able to justify what adds or doesn't add to the overall storytelling arc.  "Prologue" attempts to once again twist the knife of constant twists in this series.  For me it doesn't work.  And it works, as presented, about as poorly as anything has in Discovery (read: "Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum").

As with a lot of Discovery material, the viewer is expected to carry previous events in mind, and judge the new material based on these previous memories.  This is the third episode in thirteen in which there's a big action sequence with Burnham being asked to confront the villain.  And this time, inarguably, the villain, for the first time, is someone we should reasonably be expected to care about.  With the two times it's happened with Klingons, we've known both times that it didn't matter, because we still had the Torchbearer, we still had (and as of this episode, have) L'Rell.  In a manner of speaking, that dynamic remains, because we still have Georgiou.  Well, Mirror Georgiou, anyway.  But that only makes things unnecessarily complicated.

Because the villain this time is Lorca.  We've just discovered that a character we've known throughout the season has been someone else all along (and hardly the only character like that), that he was from the Mirror Universe.  "Prologue" not only confirms this, but confirms that he's as bad as anyone has ever been in the Mirror Universe.  This feels like a development that can't be judged, entirely, on one episode, that it might be counterbalanced, once we see where Tyler/Torchbearer settles.  We can't use Burnham as the control element, because she's the only character in this series being allowed to operate on more than one level at a time.  Which turns out to be unfair, and part of what's slipping off the scales of what keeps Discovery feel like traditional Star Trek, despite everything else.

Because the episode ends with her believing she has a chance at redeeming Mirror Georgiou.  And not because Mirror Georgiou is redeemable, but because Burnham feels guilt about what happened with her Georgiou at the start of the series.  The series wants us to believe we care about what happens to Georgiou, any Georgiou, more than what happens with Lorca, and yet this is not really a Star Trek question at all.  If all we care about is Burnham, and whether or not those wacky people around her stop stumbling into dramatic situations, sort of tangential to her adventures but constantly defining them (Stamets and the spore drive has basically been confirmed to be a Maguffin)...

Sorry, I don't want to be flippant or negative.  My point is, "Prologue," even in that title, desperately wants to be evocative and climactic.  If you accept it to be a dramatic conclusion to Lorca's story, and that alone, it probably works the way it wants to.  If you wish Mirror Georgiou's arc concluded here, too, as I do, then it probably doesn't.  To my mind, it doesn't work because it weakens Burnham, and it strains the credibility of the storytelling.  Burnham's guilt doesn't outweigh Mirror Georgiou's character.  We don't need another episode to decide this.  Suggesting we do is a slap in the face of "Prologue" itself, which is all about reconciling the facts and what we want to believe.  Except in the matter where it really matters.  That's not good serialized storytelling.  It's deliberately prolonged storytelling, and not because it produces good storytelling.  Far too much serialized storytelling is like that.  Until now Discovery had avoided that trap.

Well, hopefully the rest of the season can make up for this.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Reflects poorly on Star Trek ideals.
• series - Regardless of its merit, this is relevant Discovery material.
• character - And relevant to Burnham and certainly to Lorca.
• essential - The death of a major character has rarely been this disappointing.

notable guest-stars:
Michelle Yeoh (Mirror Georgiou)
Rekha Sharma (Mirror Landry)