Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2

DVD, Discovery S2 (Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2)

I don't recall what the length of the longest episode in Season 1 was, but this finale may well be longer than any of them at sixty-two minutes, and it feels like it. It's a strange one which for much of the running time I thought I'd be saved from having to write much in my review by the fact that so much of the goings-on were the kind of mindless spectacle that you could easily turn your brain off for, the kind of thing prevalent and prevailing throughout the Kelvin Timeline films, but partly due to its length, and partly due to lots of things happening that require detailed discussion, I wasn't saved from a lot of writing, and unfortunately, neither was the episode saved by an ending that attempts to tie up as many loose ends as possible. But the ending with Spock (mainly), being the one to sort out all the inconsistencies with canon, his discussion on the various intricacies of Burnham, her mission, and the USS Discovery, culminating with taking his place on the Bridge of the USS Enterprise, was undoubtedly the high point and pushed the episode up a star in the ratings, which would otherwise have been rock bottom for me. While they labour to sort out the canon quandaries posed by Burnham and her ship, the physical problems remain just as large - I can't accept that this is the same Enterprise, these are the same people and this is the same universe I've always known and loved.

My new theory on the core of the series, where it's coming from and what its aims are, doesn't help me to appreciate it. While many will love the feminisation of Trek, it's gone beyond even the point of political correctness as it's basically all women doing everything of consequence. This may not be a bad thing for some, but it doesn't engender my respect and admiration, nor does it encourage or delight me. In short, it's not my cup of tea. The role of the male characters seems to be merely to throw a paper-thin shroud over the reality that the women are the ones with agency. I counted up everything that was going on, and I don't usually do this, but it was so in your face that it stuck out: Pike is commanding the Enterprise, true, and Saru, the Discovery, but they're essentially just there in the background while the real work is done by the female members of the crew in every respect! Whether it be the typically male attributes of hand-to-hand fighting with a villain (Fake Georgiou and Naarn taking on Leland in inexplicable physical confrontation instead of using their weapons); or even the skilful side of bravery, attempting to disarm the torpedo lodged in the Enterprise's forward hull (Admiral Cornwell and Number One, who curiously, we never heard the name of as I was expecting), and sacrifice (Cornwell staying to the end as the only solution). The trope of allies from an unexpected quarter swooping in to provide cheering assistance at a moment of dire need is fronted by Siranna of the Kelpiens leading the charge and L'Rell of the Klingons. Even the shields have to be saved by Tilly going up some ladder amid explosions, and her friend Po, the Queen of Xahea (can't imagine what her bodyguard must be doing, unless her approach is not to have any retinue, further deviation from realism), is the one to provide the plan of action!

Pike, Saru and Tyler are relegated to standing or sitting on their respective Bridges as they watch things unfold, powerless to do anything, it seems! Even Spock, who's intellectual process enables him to provide the necessary advice to Burnham, is stuck in his shuttle and is merely the mental and emotional support for Burnham, who's doing the real work out in her time suit. It is truly bizarre the way they've turned things around from the traditional Trek way, and I'm sure feminists the world over are cheering with joy at the coup achieved by 'DSC.' Even amid all these cold observations, I felt the episode would have worked reasonably well as a permanent ending for the most sorry excuse for a Trek series I could have imagined. It does sort out the hanging questions of how this ship and its unique propulsion method in the spore drive were never heard of again in 'future' Trek, or why Michael Burnham was never spoken of. That it is Spock who respectfully suggests all information regarding Discovery, its drive, its crew and the time suit, should be erased from the records and considered treasonous to even speak of to prevent tampering with time, is, I suppose, the only reasonable way to deal with all the painting themselves into a corner they've done from the genesis of this, essentially, reboot of the Trek universe, and legitimises it in the same way that Leonard Nimoy's presence in 'Star Trek XI' did the same, and if there is one bright thing in this whole season, it is that Ethan Peck did a creditable job in the role.

Nevertheless, ending the series here would have been preferable. They do mention a nine hundred odd time jump into the future, but it's far from being clear (as is common on the series), what this means exactly, and only from news about Season 3 would I have understood that they were going to the 32nd or 33rd Century (I forget which), further than any Trek has gone before. That's a big problem, not being able to be clear on such important points and leaving it to minor lines of dialogue for people to understand the big things that are happening as I don't think it would have registered with me on first viewing if I hadn't already had prior knowledge. Knowing their destination I did wonder if the ship would only be in the future for a season, considering that each season is a separate story, and also that Fake Georgiou is set to head up the 'Section 31' series that is unfortunately still to plague us at some point in the near future. But jumping ahead or behind a thousand years is nothing for this series, another reason it feels so much like the film series that it has clearly taken much of its inspiration from, not having a sense of propriety or moderation, respecting boundaries. Or it could be that with the popularity of Pike and Spock, they quickly developed a plan to leave the 23rd Century to them and 'S31,' while 'DSC' can ruin the distant future with gay abandon.

Either way makes no odds to me because I realise, and have realised on an ongoing basis, that this new 'golden age' of Trek is unlikely to have anything in it for me, because everything is so far from Trek's rulebook and believability, its patient, careful building of a cohesive universe that has endured for so long. Until it was sabotaged by the film series. They claim that it's all 'Prime Universe,' but you can't do what they've been doing and be true to the past that they've chosen to treat as a malleable commodity. The trouble is they don't have the writers, production personnel or even the man at the top with the dedication to Trek history, and even where they do, it's only in part. For example, Kirsten Beyer is the champion of Trek past in the writers' room, but she's a 'Voyager' lady, writing the novels continuing that series even today, so her heart is obviously in the 24th Century. We haven't got that generation of people who grew up in the Seventies on 'TOS' and the subsequent films and venerate its history and production. The Okudas, the Doug Drexlers, the Ron Moore's to name a few. We haven't had this base of Trekkers in a position to keep the torch burning brightly and things on track. Instead we have a younger generation whose only exposure to Trek may have been the Kelvin films and its emphasis on thrills and spectacle and a disconnect with Trek continuity, not just in fictional terms, but in purpose and goal, and this can only hurt Trek's storytelling potential and integrity.

This episode felt the closest to one of those Trek films than anything they'd done before on the series, and to a casual observer I'm sure it was a rip-roaring success with a big battle, countless drones, robots and quick cuts, flashing fury of light and sound, sassy, snarky dialogue and brief suggestions of weird alien faces. Like that red harpy on the Bridge of the Enterprise - how I wish Michael Westmore's genius was still in evidence, a considered brilliance that was as much about a race's culture and character as it was throwing bizarre shapes and colours onto the screen, which is how most other humanoid aliens are done in sci-fi in general. It's very much the 'Star Wars' way of a suggestion of depth in a room full of alien faces rather than the Trek way of feeling out a race rather than being just for show, creating reality rather than suggesting one like a bag of colourful sweets flung in the viewer's face. It shouldn't be surprising that if this new era of Trek is following the Kelvin rules and attitudes, it would also be very similar to 'Star Wars' because those films were JJ Abrams' attempt at pulling off a 'Star Wars' film without it being one and before he even knew it, it was an audition for him directing real 'Star Wars' (well, it's debatable that the recent trilogy can be called that, but like Trek, it can't be denied that it's 'real,' just that it's any good!).

Hence we have space battles full of the debris of tiny ships, fighters, drones and blasters blasting. I wonder if we'll ever get back to that idea of starships as these huge lumbering sea-faring vessels that don't turn on a dime or swerve around like jet fighters, nor do they carry a compliment of drone weapons in case of war. Starfleet was always very hands-on, things were done by people, not left to robotic claws, but that's another instance of the changing of Trek's attitude. Here, we see drones zipping about on the hull exactly like R2-D2 and his fellow droids fixing things. It's antithetical to Trek's approach of humans doing things for themselves and is another clear indication that this current regime do not understand the property. And so it has become 'Star Wars,' and as I said, this episode is the closest to being like an actual film. It's presented in cinema screen ratio as all episodes have been this season, it's full of special effects and every cliche you'd expect, whether that be the allies suddenly showing up to join a losing fight at just the right moment, to a villain needing to be dealt with in person in the bowels of the ship… It gives the modern audience what they expect and there isn't really anything beyond that, other than the sheep's clothing of characters like Spock and Pike that are known from the past. I'm guessing this is the one that was called a clips episode as it shows Burnham going back to various places the Red Angel had been seen through the season, and it's really only clips from those episodes. So it's not in the category of 'Shades of Grey,' but I'm guessing they did that to save money - even this shiny modern Trek is trying to save money (though probably more from wasting it on the wrong things than austerity)!

Burnham becomes what she was meant to be from the start: a comic book superhero. She melds into her time suit, crystal-ed up and ready to strike a pose as the female Iron Man, to lead her ship into the future and get that Sphere data out of the clutches of the odious Control. I will even say there was one good moment in all this, where she launches out into space to get to a place where she can initiate the time jump, or time vortex, or time whatever, far enough away that other ships won't be pulled in. It struck me right at the start of the episode when they were running through the recap that it might have been more sensible for them to go backwards in time as Control wouldn't exist, whereas in the future there's no guarantee that it isn't still out there somewhere (and I hereby predict that Control, in the form of Leland, will indeed make a 'surprise' return at some point, just as all super-villains do in comic books). I think part of the point was for her to rescue her Mother, who was in the future, so maybe that was the rationale, but in that case she's risking everything for her Mum when she should have gone back in time to be certain the Sphere data wouldn't fall into the enemy AI's digital control. The real point, of course, is to excite the audience with thoughts of the possibilities of this future, but for me it just makes me fear that they'll be unable to craft a believable future since they were unable to resurrect the 23rd Century and had to completely redesign and redefine its parameters for it to fit with today's audience, an action which negated the point of its existence in the first place - literally no point in going to different eras if you ignore the limits that make them unique!

I wouldn't be surprised if it was also a bit of a suggestion that future Trek will tie together for some big, overarching mission when the time is 'right,' since 'Star Trek: Picard' had been announced before this season was released and everyone was anticipating the arrival of an era they really wanted to see, instead of continual prequels for the last twenty years. Since 'Picard' is set in the future, wouldn't it be a thrill for Jean-Luc and Burnham to team up, again like the mega-successful (and totally soulless and boring), comic book films of the Cinematic Universe age we've had to endure. They've since said there are no plans to do that, and they might be right going by the negative reaction I've heard appearing to greet 'Picard' on its debut season, but then again, perhaps to boost subscribers (it's no longer about ratings, but it is about subscribers so the old rules do still apply after all!), they'll need to tie the arms of the franchise together (maybe they could also tie the legs, gag it, and throw it down a well while they're at it, as it would be a more humane end to a storied franchise than what they've done to it!), and don't forget they're copying the film side of things in every respect - remember "Benedict Cumberbatch is not Khan"? Well, they said Spock wouldn't be showing up, too. So you can't trust what's said, because just as in other parts of the media it's about inflaming passions, whether they be good or bad, it doesn't matter, as long as people are reacting rather than being ambivalent.

And how they have followed the films in style, content and intent: you don't even need to look at the cinematic approach or the battle scenes or the 'Star Wars'-ification of fighters and drones and pew-pew-pew. We need this precocious teenage girl to tell us how to win, old Captain Pike obviously too stupid to be able to work out a plan of action for himself. Some Captain he turned out to be, and yet people are clamouring for a TV series based on his adventures! His "Get it done," sadly has connotations that I suspect the writers and more than half the audience either never knew or had forgotten (remember irritating Captain Ronny Cox on 'TNG'? That was his catchphrase - what's with this urge for a Captain to have one anyway?). As soon as Fake Georgiou suggests Saru invite Leland aboard which will stop the fighting, I knew why she said that, or at least why the writers wrote it. Because, as I've said before, her role on the series is twofold: to be bad, and do and say the things our 'pure' Starfleet heroes won't, and because Michelle Yeoh is a martial artist more than she is an actress. So it's imperative that she gets her shot as much as possible at doing what she does best. Even when it's irrelevant to the Trek universe or the story. So as soon as she said that I knew it was an excuse to bring her and Leland together for the same old cliched fight, and lo and behold, that's exactly what happened. Okay, not exactly, Leland beams himself aboard, but the intent of the 'story' was the same.

Fake Georgiou's fine sentiments are given yet more airing: "I leave very little to chance - especially when it comes to revenge." We're supposed to like this character, that's how they always present her, as this loose cannon, irreverent and fun. To me she's objectionable and the biggest slap in the face on the series where it comes to Trek's morals and outlook. I've said it before, but the statement of intent made by killing off her Prime counterpart, a Picard-like diplomat, wise and caring, in exchange for the truly evil, violent and vile offender, a multiple murderer, a tool that Starfleet has used through Section 31, is abhorrent. We're supposed to react with glee as she finally gets the nasty Leland into the spore chamber and laughs as he suffers - torture your enemy, let's hear him scream, it's okay because he's evil. To me that's the opposite of Trek's message and once again follows the new 'traditions' laid down by the Kelvin films, in this case enjoying the destruction of your enemy, just as Kirk and Spock did at the end of 'STXI' where they kick Nero into a black hole or something. Yes, Georgiou is alone when she does this thing, even Naarn, her ally in the fight, is absent (did she survive, I can't remember?). And yes, we've often had other characters look askance at her attitudes. At the same time she's still allowed to participate and they are even happy to use her talents when it suits them. It's as if that 'Voyager' episode ('Nothing Human'), with the Cardassian Dr. Crell Moset, never happened! I've sometimes thought of Garak in 'DS9,' but even he would balk at some of the things Fake Georgiou has done. Or maybe he wouldn't, but he'd have the approbation of Dr. Bashir and the others, and there would be consequences.

When Trek did go into the dangerous area of ends versus means, it was for a specific story (the greatest and most notable being 'In The Pale Moonlight'), but we always knew the rights and wrongs of it. Morality is very blurry on this series, right often coming across, through Pike, as a blind obedience to rules and regulations, and the bad being the looser ones who justify easier ways, but even then it's not that simple. The confused morality is something else I largely attribute to the films, though even in 'Enterprise,' thanks to reaction to the 11th September attacks, they added in a harder edge to their Captain, without the complexity shown in 24th Century Trek series'. I experience Trek as a malaise now, that doesn't really know what it wants to say, other than elevating political correctness and injecting size and shininess where once was rational design and development. I've often likened the Kelvin films (especially the first two), to being Trek as if it had been treated with steroids, an artificially inflated, muscular Neanderthalism. In 'DSC' they've often taken that, though they have managed to drip in a few tiny snippets of Trekness, more so than the films did, for sure, more on which in a moment. But they even nicked the space jump - as I said, that bit was one I liked thanks to all those drones and shuttles piling round Burnham like a protective cocoon, holding off the constant blasts as she's the most important to the mission. But it's all too little. In general the whole battle and all that happened on the action side of things was a laughable parody of action drama.

So to the little scraps of Trekkiness that squeeze through amidst all the sorrow that is not sweet: Spock is injured and you see a few specks of green Vulcan blood, as you should - see! See! They can do little details right when they choose to! There's an exploding console - check, which knocks over the crewmember and their chair - check. There are some actual Phaser beams (I should really start calling them Actual Phaser Beams, it's so rare to see them in operation), though like the films, they emanate from tiny cannons coming out of the ship's hull (ugh). They even demonstrate how effective a beam is at quickly eliminating threats when they zap, zap, zap the little dead drones that no longer have Control's, er, control. So you didn't need those bullet pulses of Phaser energy after all! (And it looks so much cooler, what is wrong with you people?). There's the time jump when Burnham goes off in her suit which went all 'The Motion Picture,' just like the Thruster Suit Spock wore in that film. And who could forget "Today is a good day to die," ringing out on the Bridge of the Klingon ship! We even get a new hairy Klingon and from the end credits you can see it was Glenn Hetrick, one of the head makeup guys, giving himself a cameo. More interestingly, he was called K'Vort, and so must have an important future since we know there were Klingon vessels in the time of 'TNG' that were K'Vort-Class. Nice little Easter egg, but it would have been nice to hear his name obviously spoken on screen and not have to get it from the credits (same with Yeoman Colt - again credited, but I never caught a mention of her).

It could also be said that Burnham's advice to Spock about "…A galaxy full of people who will reach… for you," was a reference to the hippies in 'The Way To Eden' which Spock 'reached' ('we reach, brother'), as a real deep catch. It could also be taken that Burnham's words were what encouraged Spock to form friendships with Kirk and Bones ('the furthest from you, let them guide you'), as otherwise it just sounds like pointlessly self-important waffle without any real meaning except to display Burnham's affection for her brother, and her emotional state (what? Burnham getting emotional? Again? Was she raised by 'Enterprise' Vulcans, or what!). And I really am tired of her trickling down tears every episode, or stopping what she's doing to get something off her chest at a critical moment when haste is required and people are dying: Oh Spock, I don't want to lose you, boo hoo, blah, blah… Do your duty woman, and get on with it. Mind you, even Cornwell (whom I will not be mourning the loss of, remaining ambivalent to her), stopped what she was doing to shake hands with Number One before she left from trying to disarm the torpedo, so Burnham hasn't had the greatest influencers around her. There's some pedigree in dealing with a torpedo wedged in the ship, off the top of my head I can think of two key episodes, one from 'DS9' ('Starship Down' - Quark has to use his Ferengi instincts to gamble and comes up trumps), and one in 'Voyager' ('Before and After' and/or 'Year of Hell' - a time crystal torpedo, in 'DSC' parlance!), so that's fun, but still laced with stupidity in this case.

If I can go into the nit-picky for a moment I will point out some of the wrongheadedness of this current generation of Trek makers: zips. We don't have zips in the future, in fact on 'TOS' they made a point to conceal zips from view so clothing had a more futuristic appearance to it - how does it go on or come off (well, with Kirk it's usually ripped off in a fight, but…), we don't know, adding to the mystique. In 'DSC,' though everything is either not explained or not very clearly, a fudging I get the impression is there to disguise the writers' own lack of surety, they do choose to show some things that old Trek was wise to avoid (it's also highly possible they don't actually know these things). And so we do get Burnham zipping up. In contrast, her Iron Man suit magically folds around her in some kind of post-24th Century way that doesn't fit with Trek's established methods, but that's by the by, the same way everything has to be BIGGER. But it's the consistency episode to episode that has been as much at fault as the choices they've made. I mentioned in other reviews about contradicting themselves as if they're unsure what they're doing, and this time it's revealed that the time crystals show possible futures rather than the definite article. Cop-ooooooooooout. In the same episode Chris Pike wants to stay with Cornwell in the torpedo room because he thinks that his future is certain from what he saw on Boreth. While we're there, I'm sure it's nice how the Admiral bravely and calmly faces her death, but if I was her I'd be working on that off switch to the very last second! Just me? Plus the Enterprise has been badly designed if you need to bring down the blast door from the inside! Matt Jefferies, what did you do? It wasn't his fault? Oh.

Still on the subject of clarity, if I hadn't known better I would have got the intimation that this was where the accident with Pike was due to happen. Obviously that was a number of years down the line, but the way things were set up, even I was wondering if they were actually going to do it early and blame it on the time crystals or something, because he leaves the Bridge to go down to the torpedo room and it just has that ominous feel, much like when Spock left the Bridge to save the ship in 'Star Trek II.' Instead, he's just going down to offer his services to Admiral Cornwell. The Captain of the ship isn't the best person to be attempting to deal with something like this, where are all the Engineers, busy? It makes even less sense for someone of Admiral rank to be dealing with an unexploded bomb, surely they have people for things like this, and she's the most important person on the ship. It's all so artificial the way she's the only one that can be there, and then it comes down to something as simple as closing the door from the inside. Any Engineer half as good as Starfleet's best would be able to rig something so that wasn't necessary, but it's all in aid of giving Cornwell a 'hero's' death. Unfortunately, it was a pointless and unearned one. And talking of people being in the wrong place, like last season, I don't know about the soundness of the ethics of Culber treating Stamets, it's obviously done so they have some screen time together, but it's debatable whether Culber should even be back in a medical uniform after what he went through. The series is consistent in its unreality.

The whole silly fight between Fake Georgiou, Naarn and Leland/Control, with it's snarky women trading barbs with the villain, was silly, but at least it had some originality with the shifting gravity in the corridor. It's not a patch on another weird Trek fight (I love the time-slippage one between Archer and Silik in 'Broken Bow' - truly something I'd never seen before), but it did feel different. Until I thought of 'The Matrix Revolutions,' and then even 'Star Trek Beyond' had an elaborate version of it, so I'm afraid even the series' best ideas are nicked from other productions. My biggest confusion, though, came from the fact that if Georgiou has Leland/Control trapped and defeats him by, er… doing something with the spore room (how does she know what to do, she doesn't seem a very scientific type?), isn't it problem over? Do they still need to go into another time? Or is Leland only one host of Control, and there are many more it can jump into? And why is it that everyone interviewed has to lie about Discovery 'exploding'? This is Starfleet, are they the bad guys? Is the idea we should never trust Starfleet? Is it because of the close links to Section 31, that notorious 'secret' organisation - the guy interviewing them, who isn't worthy of a name or face (it seems Starfleet prefers to do things this way, since Burnham was convicted by superiors hidden in shadow at the start of the series - this time it's just not shown to us, as if saying he's a faceless representative of Starfleet). If so, then they even say that 31 needs a radical overhaul and more transparency. Erm… a top secret intelligence agency needs to be more transparent? This is the same 31 that we learned about in 'DS9,' the one that had been operating autonomously since the founding of the Federation, is it not?

I could go on and on - we get Siranna showing up with the Ba'ul ships, and no explanation of how and why. Are the Ba'ul allied with the Kelpiens now? Did they steal the ships? How long did it take this technologically backward race to learn how to fly them? It's all very ill thought-out, but that's what it's designed to be. They don't want you to think about anything deeply, they want to impress you with melodrama and pretty effects and move on. It must be the first Trek that actively discourages thinking, and that's quite an achievement! Burnham will be forever forgotten, never spoken of by Sarek, Amanda and Spock. How harsh! Is that really going to make any difference, and wasn't she the 'hero' at the end of last season, rewarded in front of all of Starfleet, along with her crew, who are also missing now. And everyone's just going to swallow this fake story about the ship blowing up? I was never really bothered about Burnham being part of Spock's life, and his family's life, because we never knew about Sybok until the film where he appeared - Vulcans are a secretive lot, but to put this as the reason we never heard of her? If she does ever come back to the 23rd Century (and I can't really believe Discovery will remain in the far future), then that undoes that, but was it logically necessary? And although I don't think Number One is too bad, she is far from the restrained, Vulcan-like character we met in 'The Cage,' just as sassy and sarky as all the other women on the series, almost as if it had all been designed by women. Funny that.

I will say it was nice to see a drydock, just like 'TMP,' but now, thanks to all those ridiculous robots and drones I have to ask why they would have these worker bees and humans doing any of the work? Ill thought-out. That's the very nature of the series, to give you something that reminds you of what it's connected to (like a fun spot of lock rerouting to open a door), while at the same time happily doing everything it can to feel off from that universe. Couldn't they have given us the old rubber band stretch for the Enterprise going to warp at the end, just this once? It's incredible how close it is to the Kelvin films, they've certainly achieved something there, except it's the opposite of what I hoped a new Trek series would achieve! Two-dimensional comic book heroes to suit the comic book action and mindlessness, a strong 'Star Wars' influence, zips and bings, and bangs and booms… I had actually forgotten how little I esteemed 'DSC' by the end of Season 1, and by the time I got around to viewing the DVDs I was genuinely interested to see how they'd improved it. With all the talk of course corrections it sounded as if they were finally going in the right direction, but it turned out these were very minor - the Klingons remained stupid and mainly ugly, even with hair, the Enterprise was a major disappointment in keeping strictly to the huge, shiny aesthetic with its massive window, and even Pike wasn't quite the revelation the series needed, too often reduced to a lesser, regs-spouting stereotype of 'old' Trek and overshadowed by the format's need for Burnham to be the decision-maker and fulcrum everything rests upon. Even the proposed theme of science/faith was forgotten, and even in a fourteen episode season they failed to keep a (mildly), compelling serial going. Instead they descended more and more into anti-intellectual feminine fantasy and only made me look forward to returning to genuine 'Star Trek,' and to realise that's all there is going to be, we're never going to get what Trek was and should be, the door of setting a precedent having been kicked wide open to the detriment of true Trek. At least there's enough real Trek for a lifetime's re-watching.

**