Star Trek: Discovery 1.13

[selenak]

Well, about the only thing I correctly guessed this time around was that while Lorca's second coup is successful, he doesn't remain in power long, and by the time the dust settles and our gang leaves the Mirrorverse, neither Georgiou nor Lorca rule the Terran Empire. I certainly never would have anticipated a) Lorca dying in this episode (early on when the show was in its third or fourth episode, I thought he might die in the season finale, but that was for other reasons), and b)MirrorGeorgiou ending up in ours!

More about this in a moment. First, on a silly note, what I should have guessed is that you don't hire Michelle Yeoh without giving her at least one major martial arts scene, and since PhilippaPrime never got this... :) It was suitably epic, too. Though I have to say, both Lorca and MirrorGeorgiou clearly never studied the Evil Overlord rules and truly suck at the one that says "death is not too good for my enemies". I mean, what with Georgiou keeping Lorca's entire army alive so she can torture them for a year, and Lorca himself when Michael originally presents him, and Lorca not killing Georgiou immediately once he has the chance (not to mention that Michael bringing Georgiou is the exact same ploy he himself used earlier with Michael, good grief!). Yes, Georgiou evntually wisened up with Lorca but not before losing her empire. And clearly no one in the Mirrorverse ever learns in that regard, given Mirroverse shows in future series...

On a unsilly and entirely serious note, while bringing MirrorGeorgiou into our universe was a bold move on the writers' part, full of potential, and an entirely understandable, emotionally speaking move on Michael's part, I do hope the show is up to a storyline like this. Because yes, she's hot and can fight, but the woman is an unrepentant mass murderer on a scale the Alpha Quadrant up to that point hasn't seen. "Genocidal" doesn't begin to cover it. In addition to all the murder, there is also torture on the same nth scale, and that's before we get her habit of eating sentient beings. Now I remember how back in the DS9 day, around season 4 with such episodes as Return to Grace, the writers of the show were divided into those who wanted to go ahead with a Kira/Dukat romance and those who were against it; Nana Visitor, who played Kira, put her foot down and declared that never would Kira ever, and not only did the show follow suit re: romance, but, starting with Waltz mid season 6, Dukat ended up as an eviller than evil villain complete with world destroying crazy. While I still have problems with the writing for post Sacrifice of Angels Dukat, I can understand the earlier decision re: Kira/Dukat very well, and think it was the right one...

...Mirroverse Georgiou's personal responsibility for murder, torture and oppression makes Dukat look like a fluffy kitten by comparison. At his worst, he never came close to that scale. So while I understand Michael did not want to see another Georgiou die, especially a version of Georgiou willing to fight for her, I would strongly object to Michael now treating her as if she were Philippa with a different taste in clothing and some regrettable eating habits. The show so far has been really good in letting Michael truly live those Star Trek ideals, no matter how hard it is to her, and how easy it would be to make another choice. Not just excusing mass murder is one of those, too. So whatever happens next with Georgiou, here's what I don't want: Michael simply letting her go by the end of the season (see above, re: unrepentant mass murderer.

Back to this particular episode. If this is the last we'll see of Gabriel Lorca (any version), I'll be very sorry indeed, because Jason Isaacs has been fantastic in the role, but I wouldn't call it a wrong storytelling decision. Lorca as Michael's future arch nemesis would have worked, but Georgiou could be that, too. And he did have a clearly drawn arc from the moment he recruited Michael to her defeating but not killing him. (And MirrorGeorgiou killing him in the exact manner PrimeGeorgiou was killed in the pilot brought things full circle there, too.) Other than not having read the Evil Overlord rules when it comes to leaving your enemies alive, his decisions made sense in terms of what he wanted to achieve, and there wasn't a Pagh Wraith in sight. (Thank you, Star Trek writers.) Otoh, this is> Star Trek, so of course I see various options, among them:

a) PrimeLorca might not have been blown up with either Buran when the switch occured but managed to escape, to be retrieved from the Mirrorverse at some future point

b) Lorca (Mirrorverse version) fell into the Mycellium Network, as opposed to being (like MirrorStamets) shot before falling into the network. True, he was stabbed through the heart with a sword, but hey. It's the source of all life. If the show writers want to bring him back at some future point, they could handwave mushroom miracles.

c) Time Travel (which we're clearly heading towards anyway, see below): in order to save the Federation, our heroes might have to travel back to before just before they left the Primeverse

d) Multi dimension time: after all, that TNG episode where Worf hops through a lot of different realities and time lines shows there isn't just the Mirrorverse out there but lots of other parallel dimenions. Maybe the season cliffhanger will be a scene where our heroes think they've saved the Primeverse but realise they themselves were never in it to begin with (their original universe was actually one where the Klingons won the Klingon/Federation war), but through their actions (whatever these will be) have created a new timeline (the Klingon/Federation conflict ends in a truce and a decades long Cold War situation until late TOS time, i.e. the timeline that applies to all other ST shows), the Primeverse as we know it... in which a Lorca who never exchanged places with his counterpart does exist?

Or, you know, he could simply be dead, never to be seen again, ditto for all other possible doppelgangers. In that case, ave atque vale. (A Roman farewell seems appropriate.) You were a magnificent manipulative bastard, and I'll miss you, from a safe distance. Not least because at times you've reminded me of that other magnificent manipulative bastard into recruiting heroines under false pretenses for his dastardly schemes while also being sincerely fond of them, Arvin Sloane. (Really, you two should talk. Or not. The universe might not survive.)

In other news: Saru has grown fantastically well into his captaincy, complete with delivering that true hallmark of a Starfleet Captain, the motivational speech at a point of terrible odds. Picard, Sisko and Janeway would be proud of you, Saru.

Tilly and Stamets science team up for the win, and I love that they get to save the day. For now. Since Discovery is now nine months into the future, where the Klingons won the war. (Meaning Torral and Lorca weren't kidding about Discovery being instrumental to the Federation winning.) Now that we've done the Mirrorverse, the next popular ST trope is time travel, and it's a safe bet our heroes will have to return to a point where they can prevent this particular scenario. The question is: which point. Because despite what I wondered above, I don't think it will be as simple as going just after Lorca had the Discovery jump into the Mirrorverse. Nor do I think it will be something like the Rebootverse that engineers a different-to-all-other-Trek timeline for the show from this point onwards - but it might result in the timeline proper.

All of this makes me a bit more confident that Voq-in-Tyler isn't entirely gone despite L'Rell currently believing this. I'm back to my old speculation that Voq and L'Rell will be instrumental in eventually securing peace between Klingons and the Federation. And you know, it would make sense that one way this might happen is to confront them (especially L'Rell) with a future where the Klingons did win... but which also has the Klingons lose what she treasures about her people and become a nation of Kols.

Or I could be wrong. I honestly don't know what will happen next. (Other than "there will be time travel of SOME sort".) And I love not knowing!

Comments

Just a start; more later...

[monanotlisa]

God, I love it when shows manage to surprise me. This was so good, Selena!

"what I should have guessed is that you don't hire Michelle Yeoh without giving her at least one major martial arts scene"

THAT one I foresaw! Because yes, criminal waste otherwise. (I am really better at the Doylist than the Watsonian reasons.)

" I certainly never would have anticipated a) Lorca dying in this episode (early on when the show was in its third or fourth episode, I thought he might die in the season finale, but that was for other reasons), and b)MirrorGeorgiou ending up in ours! "

Me neither -- well, a little like you, I WAS wondering about Lorca dying, perhaps with Prime!Lorca waiting in the wings, but really only since the Grooming Reveal: that, I felt, was the marker of Does Not Deserve To Live, in a US television show.

Never ever did I see the Mirror!verse's Philippa Georgiou being rescued/kidnapped so brazenly by Burnham. Man, I LOVE the writing for her; the showrunners could easily run into issues by writing someone who so strongly identifies with the Federation and is so Serious About Everything -- Michael Burnham is the opposite of every quipping space traveler ever, and of course Tilly as her wingwoman doesn't help, at all. The closest, really, is Stamets, or perhaps Lorca. Anyway, back to Michael Burnham: But she does surprise us, in the end, because she does contain multitudes, and while her reasoning is what gets her through the day, at the end, there is emotion, too, and she knows it.

Re: Just a start; more later...

[selenak]

You know, I like my antiheroes as much as the next postmodern viewer, but they are so common these days that Michael Burnham, unabashed and unironic idealistic heroine in terrible circumstances, feals like a breath of fresh air. Also, Tilly and Saru, Stamets and Culber, Katrina Cornwell - these people, different as they are from each other, really all share that basic idealism. And this is what the show's writers get about Star Trek which J.J. Abrams in the first ST Reboot movie did not. If you recall, when Reboot Kirk and Spock are about to defeat the Nero, the film's villain, Kirk makes a perfunctionary surrender offer, Nero of course doesn't accept and he and Spock don't bother to disguise their relief and glee, with an ironic shrug to the audience, because of course they'd rather kill him/ the audience wants to see him dead.

Whereas when Michael doesn't kill Lorca because that's who she is, she's 100% sincere, and that's the way the episode plays it. (Just as MirrorGeorgiou killing him anyway is true to who she is as wel, as has been set up, of course.) It's not Michael being naive or underestimating how dangerous Lorca is. She knows that, but she doesn't kill if she can avoid it. And that's the ST I love.

Re: Just a start; more later...

[thalia_seawood]

Just a quick post for now:

I enjoyed that episode very much: totally did not see Lorca dying and Georgiou being shifted to Prime Universe.

Love that the show now deals with another favourite theme of mine: time travel and future universe with big problems. :-)

The Mycelian network is a brilliant trope for having so many options: parallel universes and time jumps give the writers the chance to bring back actors/characters as parallel versions.
Hope Jason Isaacs will get more to do regardless of MirrorLorca‘s fate - and as you pointed out, he ended up thrown into the network which would allow reviving him.

Saru: Oh, his speech. :-)

Great points on ST idealism: Yes! And our heroes are not portrayed as stupid for being idealists. Feels so refreshing nowadays to have a show with strong, smart idealistic heroes. (Even our Klingon antagonists believe in something bigger than themselves.)

Voq/Ash and L‘Rell and the medbay: The one point I missed in that episode. A brief mention would have sufficed, e.g. the mention of Voq still being unconscious and L‘Rell staring at the prison wall. Will be great to see what they will do.

(A thought: Could Voq/Ash be the first Klingon with the ST Original Series‘ more human Klingon look? :-) And then he sets a fashion trend and they all redo their DNA? :-)))

Re: Just a start; more later...

[zahrawithaz.livejournal.com]

Now that you mention it, the Grooming Reveal was really, really creepy. It felt like the show passed over that beat too quickly; I for one would have liked to see more time spent on Burnham's character reaction, given how that might play with her already considerable Sarek baggage.

Re: Just a start; more later...

[monanotlisa]

Same here; I wish we had had the time to let Michael just react. The plot moves at breakneck speed, of course. Sonequa Martin-Green would have done great — and did great with what she had: her face when a stabbed Lorca wanted to fall into her arms!

Hadn’t considered the Sarek baggage. I feel that it is sufficiently different, though?

[zahrawithaz.livejournal.com]

I am generally a viewer who zones out during action scenes, but wow, Michelle Yeoh was amazing in that. It was both clear what was happening and fun to watch! And I really, really enjoyed Lorca's death. I actually clapped. Burnham refusing to kill him and Emperor Georgiou doing it was so perfect, as was the poetic justice idea rebounding on him with the fall into the orb.

I'm sure they will bring him back in some way, but at this point, that feels MUCH cheaper to me than him being from the Mirrorverse, because they totally won me over on how thoroughly that latter twist was earned. I think they also established him as a dangerous enough villain that having him out in the multiverse without being a primary antagonist would cheapen him. (At least it was plausible that Q periodically disappeared between bouts indulging his Picard obsession.) Given that he spouts vile racist rhetoric but is beloved by the fanbase, I'm actually much more worried about the show giving him undeserved forgiveness than evil Georgiou. The latter is clearly set up as Burnhams's Tyler/Voq 2.

So I think Burnham--oh I love Burnham, and oh I hate how much hate she gets on the web!--bringing evil Georgiou back was a really good twist—totally embedded in character but not one I saw coming at all, especially since Georgiou having her one redeeming moment was such a great and unexpected honor for a thoroughly evil character. And now Burnham's actions have undone it, and their relationship, in one blow. (The transporter jump was also a recall of L'rell jumping on Voq/Tyler, which is an interesting parallel--two characters who originally loved each other but divided because one of them is literally now a different person.)

(Actually if they are going to undo the deaths of Lorca and Culber (which irritates me), I wonder if they will undo prime Georgiou's too. It would make a certain amount of sense in terms of Burnham's arc.)

My main complaint about the episode is that at the end, with the Klingon reveal, I thought, oh, now Tyler will become relevant again. And then I realized he hadn't appeared all episode and I hadn't missed him, and that troubled me in terms of the pacing. But I am excited to see what happens next!

[selenak]

Let me reccommend spacefungusparty to you as a place on the net where everyone loves Michael Burnham.

Re: Lorca getting undeserved forgiveness, I don't think you need to worry. Check out this interview with Jason Isaacs about his character. (BTW, Jason Isaacs has been fun on twitter, too, suggesting to a fanboy who complained about the "lack of support for POTUS" on Isaac's part that he should try the KKK's website.)

I'm now very curious what MirrorGeorgiou and L'Rell will make of each other. Especially given that they see each other as lower life forms and, as you say, have lost someone they loved only to find them again as literary another person. BTW, I wouldn't be surprised if it would turn out MirrorGeorgiou killed her Michael, because they've yet to explain why she has MirrorBurnham's combadge.