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Star Trek: Discovery 2.14
And we have the second season finale in a row where I felt the build up was better than the execution, though for somewhat different reasons than I did re: the season 1 finale.
With the season 1 finale, my problem wasn't so much what happened, the individual plot points and emotional beats, which I was all for, but the writerly execution - the timing was off, for starters, but there were other reasons, more about them here. Whereas for the season 2 finale... where to start? No, not with Admiral Cornwell. I'm getting there. I'll start with the one related reason, i.e., the ideas, yay, the execution, nay.
Idea: the Klingons and the Kelpiens to the rescue, as the result of the connections our crew made. Yay! Otoh: the Kelpiens had zero experience in space travel, let alone combat (any kind, and most definitely space combat) just a few months ago. Biological change does not equal years of learning and training. As for the Klingons, while I can definitely see L'Rell signing up on a save the galaxy for sentient organic life battle, and Ash asking her for help, him being at the bridge with her when she very publically held up his fake head and pretended to have executed him as a key part of a show designed to reaffirm public faith in her made zilch sense.
Reasons unique to this season: Control as the villain in this endgame misses the point of what makes AIs not limited to one body other and terrifying when he's embodied in a (granted, cyberfied, ,but still) human being so there can be a hand-to-hand combat situation with him and Michelle Yeoh. I do love Michelle Yeoh in fight scenes, no question about it, and Georgiou delighted to watch Control-in-Leland's agony was a neat character touch to remind us this is a woman who ordered torture for breakfeast and enjoyed it. (That she called him Leland throughout, never bothering with the distinction the Starfleet guys made that Leland died a good while ago and this was just his body used by Control was also characteristic - triumphing over a machine doesn't have the same glee to it.) But like, say, the fisticuffs in "Star Trek: Generations" as well as Dukat and Sisko duking it out for Prophets and Pagh Wraiths in the DS9 finale, it just made me roll my eyes. I wish ST writers would stop this. Even my dislike of duking it out scenes as grand climaxes in ST stories aside, doesn't taking Control, however neutralized, with them into the future defeat the purpose of this little exercise? And again: all of Control in one formerly human body? No backup in all the other vessels? I think someone was missing the point with Skynet and the Terminators - Skynet was controlling them, they did not embody it. This just does not make any sense.
Then: Two thirds of the finale were action sequences. Maybe as the result of people complaining there was too little action stuff in the s1 finale? I know I complained about the timing of the later, see above, but the lack of combat scenes was never my problem, and it's a rare episode consisting mostly of space battles that manages to keep me emotionally invested. Sigh.
And now for the big one: there was absolutely no narrative need for Katrina Cornwell to die. I say this as someone who isn't of the "characters I love must never die!" persuasion. But, to make two ST comparisons: Prime Georgiou's death in the show opener was something that was absolutely justified, it needed to happen, and the entire rest of the show in very many ways depended on it having happened. The obvious aimed-for precedent for Cornwell's death, Spock's death in ST II: Wrath of Khan, also made sense to have happened in this movie, which deals in many way with mortality and characters facing it (or not). What's more, Nicholas Meyer's script provides a reason why Spock, realising the solution and why Scotty & Co. haven't taken it yet, sacrifices himself. Admiral Cornwell, otoh, is no engineer. There really is no need for her (as opposed to whoever is the current Enterprise expert for this kind of stuff) to be there to disarm the torpedo (or try to). I can see just about two possible Doylist reasons: a) the writers knew they'd move the cast to the future for the next season, and as Cornwell is a Disco OC and her fate thus isn't covered by canon the way Pike's and Spock's were, they wanted to wrap her story up, or b) she's supposed to be an illustration to Pike and the audience that the future can indeed be changed. (Since he assumed he'd be the one to do this according to that part of his vision.) Or, even more basic: they had no idea what more to do with Cornwell, who originally was supposed to be a three episodes character.
In which case: why not the obvious - let Cornwell be, for whatever reason, on Discovery, not Enterprise, and let her become the next Captain in season 3 once our heroes have reassambled themselves several centuries later?
Anyway. That was a gratitituous death of an interesting character if ever there was. This being said: her and Pike facing each other was very them, two honorable, responsible people in this kind of situation.
So did something work for me at all in this episode? While nothing unexpected happened (we knew she had to fulfill her own prophecy, and that he would/could not end up in the future), the Michael and Spock conclusion. This had been Michael's central relationship this season, and she managed to repair it; both siblings have brought each other healing. It's a good point to say goodbye to Spock, Pike and the Enterprise again. I don't expect Michael & Co. to stay in the future forever, but I very much doubt we'll see any of the Enterprise lot or for that matter Sarek and Amanda again in the next season, other than via flashbacks and hallucinations, if that.
Trivia: Spock reccommending treating Discovery et al as absolutely hush-hush as an explanation as to why in TOS no one mentions them amused me. I mean, yes, sure, works, but otoh Spock never tells anyone anything in TOS times anyway, and also, the Enterprise then proceeds to time travel repeatedly. (No wonder Dulmer and Lucsly grimaced at the mention of Kirk.)
Also: the visual effect on everyone once they start to time travel matches that of the Voyage Home, so good continuity there.
In conclusion: Moving everyone several centuries into the future was a good idea, not least since this, at last, will be a genuinely new territory for any incarnation of Star Trek for the first time in decades. How we got there in this particular episode, otoh, was cringeworthy.
With the season 1 finale, my problem wasn't so much what happened, the individual plot points and emotional beats, which I was all for, but the writerly execution - the timing was off, for starters, but there were other reasons, more about them here. Whereas for the season 2 finale... where to start? No, not with Admiral Cornwell. I'm getting there. I'll start with the one related reason, i.e., the ideas, yay, the execution, nay.
Idea: the Klingons and the Kelpiens to the rescue, as the result of the connections our crew made. Yay! Otoh: the Kelpiens had zero experience in space travel, let alone combat (any kind, and most definitely space combat) just a few months ago. Biological change does not equal years of learning and training. As for the Klingons, while I can definitely see L'Rell signing up on a save the galaxy for sentient organic life battle, and Ash asking her for help, him being at the bridge with her when she very publically held up his fake head and pretended to have executed him as a key part of a show designed to reaffirm public faith in her made zilch sense.
Reasons unique to this season: Control as the villain in this endgame misses the point of what makes AIs not limited to one body other and terrifying when he's embodied in a (granted, cyberfied, ,but still) human being so there can be a hand-to-hand combat situation with him and Michelle Yeoh. I do love Michelle Yeoh in fight scenes, no question about it, and Georgiou delighted to watch Control-in-Leland's agony was a neat character touch to remind us this is a woman who ordered torture for breakfeast and enjoyed it. (That she called him Leland throughout, never bothering with the distinction the Starfleet guys made that Leland died a good while ago and this was just his body used by Control was also characteristic - triumphing over a machine doesn't have the same glee to it.) But like, say, the fisticuffs in "Star Trek: Generations" as well as Dukat and Sisko duking it out for Prophets and Pagh Wraiths in the DS9 finale, it just made me roll my eyes. I wish ST writers would stop this. Even my dislike of duking it out scenes as grand climaxes in ST stories aside, doesn't taking Control, however neutralized, with them into the future defeat the purpose of this little exercise? And again: all of Control in one formerly human body? No backup in all the other vessels? I think someone was missing the point with Skynet and the Terminators - Skynet was controlling them, they did not embody it. This just does not make any sense.
Then: Two thirds of the finale were action sequences. Maybe as the result of people complaining there was too little action stuff in the s1 finale? I know I complained about the timing of the later, see above, but the lack of combat scenes was never my problem, and it's a rare episode consisting mostly of space battles that manages to keep me emotionally invested. Sigh.
And now for the big one: there was absolutely no narrative need for Katrina Cornwell to die. I say this as someone who isn't of the "characters I love must never die!" persuasion. But, to make two ST comparisons: Prime Georgiou's death in the show opener was something that was absolutely justified, it needed to happen, and the entire rest of the show in very many ways depended on it having happened. The obvious aimed-for precedent for Cornwell's death, Spock's death in ST II: Wrath of Khan, also made sense to have happened in this movie, which deals in many way with mortality and characters facing it (or not). What's more, Nicholas Meyer's script provides a reason why Spock, realising the solution and why Scotty & Co. haven't taken it yet, sacrifices himself. Admiral Cornwell, otoh, is no engineer. There really is no need for her (as opposed to whoever is the current Enterprise expert for this kind of stuff) to be there to disarm the torpedo (or try to). I can see just about two possible Doylist reasons: a) the writers knew they'd move the cast to the future for the next season, and as Cornwell is a Disco OC and her fate thus isn't covered by canon the way Pike's and Spock's were, they wanted to wrap her story up, or b) she's supposed to be an illustration to Pike and the audience that the future can indeed be changed. (Since he assumed he'd be the one to do this according to that part of his vision.) Or, even more basic: they had no idea what more to do with Cornwell, who originally was supposed to be a three episodes character.
In which case: why not the obvious - let Cornwell be, for whatever reason, on Discovery, not Enterprise, and let her become the next Captain in season 3 once our heroes have reassambled themselves several centuries later?
Anyway. That was a gratitituous death of an interesting character if ever there was. This being said: her and Pike facing each other was very them, two honorable, responsible people in this kind of situation.
So did something work for me at all in this episode? While nothing unexpected happened (we knew she had to fulfill her own prophecy, and that he would/could not end up in the future), the Michael and Spock conclusion. This had been Michael's central relationship this season, and she managed to repair it; both siblings have brought each other healing. It's a good point to say goodbye to Spock, Pike and the Enterprise again. I don't expect Michael & Co. to stay in the future forever, but I very much doubt we'll see any of the Enterprise lot or for that matter Sarek and Amanda again in the next season, other than via flashbacks and hallucinations, if that.
Trivia: Spock reccommending treating Discovery et al as absolutely hush-hush as an explanation as to why in TOS no one mentions them amused me. I mean, yes, sure, works, but otoh Spock never tells anyone anything in TOS times anyway, and also, the Enterprise then proceeds to time travel repeatedly. (No wonder Dulmer and Lucsly grimaced at the mention of Kirk.)
Also: the visual effect on everyone once they start to time travel matches that of the Voyage Home, so good continuity there.
In conclusion: Moving everyone several centuries into the future was a good idea, not least since this, at last, will be a genuinely new territory for any incarnation of Star Trek for the first time in decades. How we got there in this particular episode, otoh, was cringeworthy.
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