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Discovery Season 2 Revisited
I continued with my occasional Discovery rewatch, so you're getting some s2 thoughts.
I still like the season a lot, but looking back on all four seasons, I think overall s2 is the weakest one, writing wise. This has nothing to do with the factor(s) listed by both the "s2 is the best" bunch and those who dropped out for it, to wit, Pike and Spock. (They are a plus for me, so I would say that, yes, but hear me out.) The reason why I think s2 isn't as good overall as the other three seasons is that it suffers from a combination of weakest attempt at a Big Bad (I don't think I'm being controversial here when saying that Control as both antagonist and villain (doesn't have to be the same thing, and isn't always on Discovery) really isn't up to snuff when compared with what the other seasons offer), some rehashing of s1 plots and characters that wasn't necessary (Ash Tyler & Michael), less than convincing solutions for several by themselves interesting subplots (Saru's discovery of the truth of the "culling" and the subsequent big change for all Kelpians, the Ash/Voq & Hugh Culber confrontation, and Culber's season long post resurrection PTSD and connected enstrangement from Paul Stamets suddenly wrapped up in the final episode).
Now all seasons try a combination of an overall season arc with individual episodic development - in s1 it's the Klingon War that frames the season (it starts in the pilot and ends in the finale), in s2 it's the mystery of the Red Angel which turns out to be a stable timeloop (mostly) created by our heroes themselves in order to save the galaxy from the big bad, in s3 it's the mystery of the Burn and the challenge of rebuilding the Federation, and in s4 it's the mystery of the DMZ and the 10c. Now I have no problem with the "stable timeloop" part of the s2 overall arc, but with the "Control" part of it. I very much suspect the writers worked backwards from knowing they'd have to create a situation where Michael and friends would have to leave the prequel era and travel 900 years into the future (i.e. an era completely uncovered by any ST incarnation so far) without a possibility of return. Which I'm totally behind - I think that was one of the best creative decisions the show ever made. I even can understand that they wanted to do one more variation of that ST stalwart from the TOS days, the evil AI, especially since it sets up a good contrast to Zora the positive AI in the later seasons (and Zora was foreshadowed in the webisode "Calypso", produced between seasons 1 and 2, so they definitely knew they would be going there). BUT it's really hard to buy into the whole "Control can't be allowed access to the Sphere data because it would achieve full sentience" justification when Control is shown to all intents and purposes as already sentient in the second half of the season. Plus as solely evil, Control isn't just very interesting as an opponent.
(All evil Big Bads have their uses - but one of the many reasons why I thought "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" were by far the most interesting incarnation of the Terminator franchise was that in addition to good old Skynet we got not just Cameron but the AI posing as Catherine Weaver and John Henry, who was opposed to Cameron weren't reprogrammed but developed sentience without wanting to destroy humanity on their own.)
Bringing back Section 31 falls under the category "questionable, but I can't make up my mind whether I'm more against or okay with it" creative decision fo rme. Leaving aside the continuity problem (i.e. in DS9, Section 31 is supposed to be this ultilmate secret, in Disco, everyone knows it exist, and even if you assume that in the intervening century, this knowledge got deliberately hidden and erased, I just don't buy some older Starfleet personnel wouldn't renember), and also leaving aside that I suspect the main reason for reintroducing Section 31 to the tv Trekverse was the then planned spin-off around Georgiou which now in all likelihood will never happen, some aspects of how its used in s2 work for me - I can see someone like MirrorGeorgiou, whose entire previous existence was about achieving and then maintaining power, scheming and intrigue, initially honing on an intelligence service as the ideal way to do that in this new universe she's now stuck in, until her long term goal (presumably overtaking Leland and becoming head of Section 31, then using it to rule the Primeverse from behind the scenes) becomes derailed by season events and her growing affection for Michael. Also, one consistent trait Ash Tyler has both in his Voq and his Tyler personality is that he needs both people and an ideal to be loyal to and is then ready to do just about anything for them, plus it makes sense that in the Klingon Empire which has just finished a war that had whipped up xenophobia to extreme heights even for Klingons, his human appearance would be a hinderance rather than a help for L'Rell, and that hed then fall for Section 31's recruitment pitch.
Buuuuut even before Control takes over, I don't think the show could decide just how ruthless or not ruthless they wanted Section 31 to be. More to the point: one great Discovery quality that's evident in the show as a whole, with now four seasons to look back to, is that it's the go-to show when you make a case for the Federation and Starfleet instead of against it. (Looking at you, Picard.) It's basically a show long reply to Sisko's "It's easy to be a saint in paradise" line from DS9. Now, DS9 showing the darker sides of the Federation was (relatively, the very occasional TNG ep aside) new - in the 1990s. Three decades later, it really isn't anymore. So showing "this is actually why Starfleet ideals are good, and check out what the Federation does in anything but paradisical circumstances, how it's still about the members helping and being there for others, not about militarily defeating the Big Bad" is what this particular watcher wants and needs in a 2020s version of Star Trek. ST: Discovery doesn't make you root for the heroes to get away from an organization that's at best bureaucratic and at worst actively corrupted and do their own independent thing, it makes you root for the heroes bringing more people together in an organization that ensures people who otherwise get ignored or trampled on by the rich and mighty won't have to suffer alone. And that's why bringing back Section 31 from ye olde DS9 days is, like I said, questionable.
All this being said: there's a lot I like and love about season 2. Something that strikes me this time around is that Disco avoids a trap several other shows have fallen into which, like Discovery, had a big twist (or twist) and/shocking reveal in their original season, and ever after tried to replicate this with diminishing effect. Discovery doesn't do that. There's no attempt to do an equivalent of the Tyler = Voq, Lorca is actually from the Mirrorverse reveal in season 2 (or any other season). Instead, the season takes seriously that after the whole Lorca experience, the crew would need to relearn how to trust in a (good) Captain, and how to be explorers again after the Klingon War era on the Watsonian and that the viewers would need some lighter episodes before things get dark again on a Doylist level, and comes up with the "Pike as Captain for the season" solution. (BTW: since the s1 finale explicitly says our heroes are on their way to Vulcan to pick up their new Captain, clearly it was never intended for Saru to continue as Acting Captain at this point. Which given that his s2 arc involves finding out one of the key premises of his life was actually a lie and radically changing makes sense. As for Michael, Michael only got forgiven for the pilot actions, reinstalled from "Specialist" to "Commander" Burnham at the end of the first season - promoting her to Captain in s2 would not have made sense on a Watsonian level and would have shortened her long term arc on a Doylist one.) Could it have been an original to the show character instead, preferably a female one? Sure. But then they'd have had to find a justification why Temporary Captain of the Season won't continue with Discovery and would have been possibly gained fannish hostility, whereas it was clear from the beginning and long before a spin-off was a possibility that Pike would not stay on Discovery beyond the season, given his continuity ordained fate.
It helps that both writing and acting wise, s2 of Discovery Pike really works. Until then, Bruce Greenwood's Pike from the Kelvin Timeline had been my favourite incarnation of the character (sorry, Jeffrey Hunter). Here, Anson Mount's Pike quickly overtook him during the original broadcast, and this didn't change during rewatch. Brother, the s2 opening episode, is a great introduction episode for this version of the character, establishing his friendly, respectful approach to people (with the scene where he asks the Bridge Crew to introduce themselves doubling as the beginning of fleshing the Bridge Crew out somewhat in the show), commitment, sense of humor, and all this without trying to make him perfect (hence his mistaking Michael's intention when she shoots down his original suggestions for the rescue mission for the Hiawatha). Pike as the Captain in s2 also provided an opportunity to show Michael's growth outside the context of life or death and war situations. Note that while she doesn't tell Pike immediately about her Red Angel vision (believing it to habve been a hallucination due to the circumstances), she does so the moment she finds out someone else saw the same thing. Later, when the Quest for Spock becomes a thing, she doesn't try to go behind his back but keeps him on the level with the information she finds. This is a far cry from Michael as introduced in the s1 pilot even before the Klingons become a threat and she attempts mutiny (note that pilot!Michael ignores all safety agreements previously made to explore the Ship of the Dead). It's a different dynamic than she had with Prime Georgiou (because Pike isn't her adored mentor - they respect each other, but aren't as close), and not as intense as her relationship with Saru, and of course very different from her relationship with Lorca (pre reveal). In a less focused on way, this is true for Pike and the other Discovery crew members as well, and and just all around a good showing-above-telling example of ahow a functional Captain-and-crew dynamic works. As for Pike's own character, again just looking at the second season of Discovery, which was made before they could know a spin-off would be greenlighted, it takes a character who until then (in the Prime timeline) only had a failed pilot and a later episode giving him a tragic fate with seemingly no choices about it and not only fleshes him out as a person but provides him with an arc which does make his fate and the knowledge of it as something that is the result of his choosing to save others.
The other TOS character present in s2 is Spock. As I said in my s1 rewatch post, would the whole thing have worked if it had been new Vulcan character X instead who was Michael's enstranged foster brother? Sure - for Michael's story. Michael patching up her relationship with him, and her continued interaction with Amanda and Sarek could have happened with original characters and been as meaningful re: her own development - where being at peace with this family of hers needed to happen before the big time jump. But the reason why I'm so glad Michael's foster family weren't new characters X, Y and Z but hardcore ST legacy characters Spock, Amanda and Sarek is that adding Michael to the mix imo added something to each of them, and their relationship with each other. I've said it in the SNW episode review where Discovery's Amanda makes a welcome reappearance - I really love that Amanda in both shows gets to do more than have cameos (true for Amanda in TOS post Journey to Babel or be used to provide Spock with Angst (Kelvin Timeline), that we see her as a person. The scene where she talks/argues with Sarek not just about Spock but their marriage one third into s2 of Discovery is the first time an on screen incarnation of ST gave us such a scene, full stop. (The TNG episode Sarek in the powerful scene where Picard channels Sarek's emotion makes it crystal clear, among other things, how deeply Sarek loved Amanda and does love Spock, but not in all the decades and the many visual Trek incarnations did we get a scene (let alone severall) showing Amanda's pov of the choices she made by deciding to live Vulcan style with Sarek and raise thehir son this way, and what she does and doesn't regret. (Before anyone brings up tie-in novels, I'm talking about screen canon.)
Michael isn't free of the ST trend of letting the leading characters have Daddy issues (she has them with Sarek in s1), but Sarek aside, all her other parental and/or mentor figures are women - she's definitely the ST character with the most mothers. (Gabrielle, Amanda, and in aspects both Georgious. I'm not saying you can't interpret her relationship with the Philippas as shippy instead, but that there are parental overtones at the very least at the start of either relationship is, I think, undeniable.) And in a universe where mothers tend to get killed off sooner rather than later and mother-child relationships get not nearly as explored as father-child relationships, I really love that about Discovery. Amanda's increasing prominence in s2 (as well as the introduction of Gabrielle) is part of it.
I'm also impressed of how the show avoided simply repeating the emotional beats s1 had with Sarek and Michael in s2's storyline about Michael and Spock. Not least because sibling relationships are different. But also because having spent the previous season rebuilding herself remotionally after the shattering experience of the pilot, Michael is in a different place emotionally in s2, and while the guilt she feels re: Spock is part of her motivations through the first half of the season, it doesn't cripple her, and she can use what's she's learned so far to help them both. I adore relationships that are messed up but where we also see the participants making each other better instead of worse. (Also: ST V. infamously gifted Spock with a sibling, but what few scenes he and Sybok shared hardly served as exploring Spock in the context of a sibling relationship. Whereas Discovery's decision to make Michael Spock's sister in s1 does pay off in s2 by showing him in such a relationship, and then some.)
Lastly: in s1, Tilly's primary relationship was with Michael, and their friendship was the first thing that drew Michael out of her stoic self loathing. In s2, they're still close friends, but Tilly's primary friendly relationship developed throughout the season is actually with Stamets (their relationship was already shown in the second half of s1, but not as central as in s2), plus we also see her with Kayla Detmer, Airiam and Joann Owosekun. In retrospect, I do suspect one reason why Tilly got demoted to recurring in s4 was because by then, most of her original functions and relationships were shared or given to other characters. The "young ingenue science whizkid with a tendency to babble"/"has a firm friendship with Stamets" to Adira, evidently. But the closest confidant type of friendship she had with Michael also fades away (Michael has those type of scenes she used to share with Tilly with Book and/or Saru instead, depending on the context). This isn't yet a problem in s3 because s3 has Tilly develop a realationship with Saru and grow to (temporary) second in command level instead, with even acting Captain status in the s3 finale. But I very much suspect that between seasons, the writers realised they had Tilly basically already achieve everything s1 Tilly dreamed off (even, temporarily, the Captaincy) and didn't quite know what to do with her anymore, hence let her question herself and decide to go into teaching cadets instead. Rewatching the first two seasons heightens my regret re: this development, because Tilly is such a vivid presence on the show there, and Mary Wiseman is great in the role. But I can also see the problem in a show that, even for a ship that's explicitly a science vessel, has an overabundance of scientist characters, where Tilly couldn't always stay the young, unexperienced one (her growing up arc was great!), where's also no lack of competent First Officers (Michael or Saru as Captain and how the show deals with this is an s3 thing, see also older reviews there), and where with Stamets and Reno even the constant doubling of great engineers is a given. So I'm enjoying regular character Tilly for as long as I'm getting her during this rewatch.
I still like the season a lot, but looking back on all four seasons, I think overall s2 is the weakest one, writing wise. This has nothing to do with the factor(s) listed by both the "s2 is the best" bunch and those who dropped out for it, to wit, Pike and Spock. (They are a plus for me, so I would say that, yes, but hear me out.) The reason why I think s2 isn't as good overall as the other three seasons is that it suffers from a combination of weakest attempt at a Big Bad (I don't think I'm being controversial here when saying that Control as both antagonist and villain (doesn't have to be the same thing, and isn't always on Discovery) really isn't up to snuff when compared with what the other seasons offer), some rehashing of s1 plots and characters that wasn't necessary (Ash Tyler & Michael), less than convincing solutions for several by themselves interesting subplots (Saru's discovery of the truth of the "culling" and the subsequent big change for all Kelpians, the Ash/Voq & Hugh Culber confrontation, and Culber's season long post resurrection PTSD and connected enstrangement from Paul Stamets suddenly wrapped up in the final episode).
Now all seasons try a combination of an overall season arc with individual episodic development - in s1 it's the Klingon War that frames the season (it starts in the pilot and ends in the finale), in s2 it's the mystery of the Red Angel which turns out to be a stable timeloop (mostly) created by our heroes themselves in order to save the galaxy from the big bad, in s3 it's the mystery of the Burn and the challenge of rebuilding the Federation, and in s4 it's the mystery of the DMZ and the 10c. Now I have no problem with the "stable timeloop" part of the s2 overall arc, but with the "Control" part of it. I very much suspect the writers worked backwards from knowing they'd have to create a situation where Michael and friends would have to leave the prequel era and travel 900 years into the future (i.e. an era completely uncovered by any ST incarnation so far) without a possibility of return. Which I'm totally behind - I think that was one of the best creative decisions the show ever made. I even can understand that they wanted to do one more variation of that ST stalwart from the TOS days, the evil AI, especially since it sets up a good contrast to Zora the positive AI in the later seasons (and Zora was foreshadowed in the webisode "Calypso", produced between seasons 1 and 2, so they definitely knew they would be going there). BUT it's really hard to buy into the whole "Control can't be allowed access to the Sphere data because it would achieve full sentience" justification when Control is shown to all intents and purposes as already sentient in the second half of the season. Plus as solely evil, Control isn't just very interesting as an opponent.
(All evil Big Bads have their uses - but one of the many reasons why I thought "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" were by far the most interesting incarnation of the Terminator franchise was that in addition to good old Skynet we got not just Cameron but the AI posing as Catherine Weaver and John Henry, who was opposed to Cameron weren't reprogrammed but developed sentience without wanting to destroy humanity on their own.)
Bringing back Section 31 falls under the category "questionable, but I can't make up my mind whether I'm more against or okay with it" creative decision fo rme. Leaving aside the continuity problem (i.e. in DS9, Section 31 is supposed to be this ultilmate secret, in Disco, everyone knows it exist, and even if you assume that in the intervening century, this knowledge got deliberately hidden and erased, I just don't buy some older Starfleet personnel wouldn't renember), and also leaving aside that I suspect the main reason for reintroducing Section 31 to the tv Trekverse was the then planned spin-off around Georgiou which now in all likelihood will never happen, some aspects of how its used in s2 work for me - I can see someone like MirrorGeorgiou, whose entire previous existence was about achieving and then maintaining power, scheming and intrigue, initially honing on an intelligence service as the ideal way to do that in this new universe she's now stuck in, until her long term goal (presumably overtaking Leland and becoming head of Section 31, then using it to rule the Primeverse from behind the scenes) becomes derailed by season events and her growing affection for Michael. Also, one consistent trait Ash Tyler has both in his Voq and his Tyler personality is that he needs both people and an ideal to be loyal to and is then ready to do just about anything for them, plus it makes sense that in the Klingon Empire which has just finished a war that had whipped up xenophobia to extreme heights even for Klingons, his human appearance would be a hinderance rather than a help for L'Rell, and that hed then fall for Section 31's recruitment pitch.
Buuuuut even before Control takes over, I don't think the show could decide just how ruthless or not ruthless they wanted Section 31 to be. More to the point: one great Discovery quality that's evident in the show as a whole, with now four seasons to look back to, is that it's the go-to show when you make a case for the Federation and Starfleet instead of against it. (Looking at you, Picard.) It's basically a show long reply to Sisko's "It's easy to be a saint in paradise" line from DS9. Now, DS9 showing the darker sides of the Federation was (relatively, the very occasional TNG ep aside) new - in the 1990s. Three decades later, it really isn't anymore. So showing "this is actually why Starfleet ideals are good, and check out what the Federation does in anything but paradisical circumstances, how it's still about the members helping and being there for others, not about militarily defeating the Big Bad" is what this particular watcher wants and needs in a 2020s version of Star Trek. ST: Discovery doesn't make you root for the heroes to get away from an organization that's at best bureaucratic and at worst actively corrupted and do their own independent thing, it makes you root for the heroes bringing more people together in an organization that ensures people who otherwise get ignored or trampled on by the rich and mighty won't have to suffer alone. And that's why bringing back Section 31 from ye olde DS9 days is, like I said, questionable.
All this being said: there's a lot I like and love about season 2. Something that strikes me this time around is that Disco avoids a trap several other shows have fallen into which, like Discovery, had a big twist (or twist) and/shocking reveal in their original season, and ever after tried to replicate this with diminishing effect. Discovery doesn't do that. There's no attempt to do an equivalent of the Tyler = Voq, Lorca is actually from the Mirrorverse reveal in season 2 (or any other season). Instead, the season takes seriously that after the whole Lorca experience, the crew would need to relearn how to trust in a (good) Captain, and how to be explorers again after the Klingon War era on the Watsonian and that the viewers would need some lighter episodes before things get dark again on a Doylist level, and comes up with the "Pike as Captain for the season" solution. (BTW: since the s1 finale explicitly says our heroes are on their way to Vulcan to pick up their new Captain, clearly it was never intended for Saru to continue as Acting Captain at this point. Which given that his s2 arc involves finding out one of the key premises of his life was actually a lie and radically changing makes sense. As for Michael, Michael only got forgiven for the pilot actions, reinstalled from "Specialist" to "Commander" Burnham at the end of the first season - promoting her to Captain in s2 would not have made sense on a Watsonian level and would have shortened her long term arc on a Doylist one.) Could it have been an original to the show character instead, preferably a female one? Sure. But then they'd have had to find a justification why Temporary Captain of the Season won't continue with Discovery and would have been possibly gained fannish hostility, whereas it was clear from the beginning and long before a spin-off was a possibility that Pike would not stay on Discovery beyond the season, given his continuity ordained fate.
It helps that both writing and acting wise, s2 of Discovery Pike really works. Until then, Bruce Greenwood's Pike from the Kelvin Timeline had been my favourite incarnation of the character (sorry, Jeffrey Hunter). Here, Anson Mount's Pike quickly overtook him during the original broadcast, and this didn't change during rewatch. Brother, the s2 opening episode, is a great introduction episode for this version of the character, establishing his friendly, respectful approach to people (with the scene where he asks the Bridge Crew to introduce themselves doubling as the beginning of fleshing the Bridge Crew out somewhat in the show), commitment, sense of humor, and all this without trying to make him perfect (hence his mistaking Michael's intention when she shoots down his original suggestions for the rescue mission for the Hiawatha). Pike as the Captain in s2 also provided an opportunity to show Michael's growth outside the context of life or death and war situations. Note that while she doesn't tell Pike immediately about her Red Angel vision (believing it to habve been a hallucination due to the circumstances), she does so the moment she finds out someone else saw the same thing. Later, when the Quest for Spock becomes a thing, she doesn't try to go behind his back but keeps him on the level with the information she finds. This is a far cry from Michael as introduced in the s1 pilot even before the Klingons become a threat and she attempts mutiny (note that pilot!Michael ignores all safety agreements previously made to explore the Ship of the Dead). It's a different dynamic than she had with Prime Georgiou (because Pike isn't her adored mentor - they respect each other, but aren't as close), and not as intense as her relationship with Saru, and of course very different from her relationship with Lorca (pre reveal). In a less focused on way, this is true for Pike and the other Discovery crew members as well, and and just all around a good showing-above-telling example of ahow a functional Captain-and-crew dynamic works. As for Pike's own character, again just looking at the second season of Discovery, which was made before they could know a spin-off would be greenlighted, it takes a character who until then (in the Prime timeline) only had a failed pilot and a later episode giving him a tragic fate with seemingly no choices about it and not only fleshes him out as a person but provides him with an arc which does make his fate and the knowledge of it as something that is the result of his choosing to save others.
The other TOS character present in s2 is Spock. As I said in my s1 rewatch post, would the whole thing have worked if it had been new Vulcan character X instead who was Michael's enstranged foster brother? Sure - for Michael's story. Michael patching up her relationship with him, and her continued interaction with Amanda and Sarek could have happened with original characters and been as meaningful re: her own development - where being at peace with this family of hers needed to happen before the big time jump. But the reason why I'm so glad Michael's foster family weren't new characters X, Y and Z but hardcore ST legacy characters Spock, Amanda and Sarek is that adding Michael to the mix imo added something to each of them, and their relationship with each other. I've said it in the SNW episode review where Discovery's Amanda makes a welcome reappearance - I really love that Amanda in both shows gets to do more than have cameos (true for Amanda in TOS post Journey to Babel or be used to provide Spock with Angst (Kelvin Timeline), that we see her as a person. The scene where she talks/argues with Sarek not just about Spock but their marriage one third into s2 of Discovery is the first time an on screen incarnation of ST gave us such a scene, full stop. (The TNG episode Sarek in the powerful scene where Picard channels Sarek's emotion makes it crystal clear, among other things, how deeply Sarek loved Amanda and does love Spock, but not in all the decades and the many visual Trek incarnations did we get a scene (let alone severall) showing Amanda's pov of the choices she made by deciding to live Vulcan style with Sarek and raise thehir son this way, and what she does and doesn't regret. (Before anyone brings up tie-in novels, I'm talking about screen canon.)
Michael isn't free of the ST trend of letting the leading characters have Daddy issues (she has them with Sarek in s1), but Sarek aside, all her other parental and/or mentor figures are women - she's definitely the ST character with the most mothers. (Gabrielle, Amanda, and in aspects both Georgious. I'm not saying you can't interpret her relationship with the Philippas as shippy instead, but that there are parental overtones at the very least at the start of either relationship is, I think, undeniable.) And in a universe where mothers tend to get killed off sooner rather than later and mother-child relationships get not nearly as explored as father-child relationships, I really love that about Discovery. Amanda's increasing prominence in s2 (as well as the introduction of Gabrielle) is part of it.
I'm also impressed of how the show avoided simply repeating the emotional beats s1 had with Sarek and Michael in s2's storyline about Michael and Spock. Not least because sibling relationships are different. But also because having spent the previous season rebuilding herself remotionally after the shattering experience of the pilot, Michael is in a different place emotionally in s2, and while the guilt she feels re: Spock is part of her motivations through the first half of the season, it doesn't cripple her, and she can use what's she's learned so far to help them both. I adore relationships that are messed up but where we also see the participants making each other better instead of worse. (Also: ST V. infamously gifted Spock with a sibling, but what few scenes he and Sybok shared hardly served as exploring Spock in the context of a sibling relationship. Whereas Discovery's decision to make Michael Spock's sister in s1 does pay off in s2 by showing him in such a relationship, and then some.)
Lastly: in s1, Tilly's primary relationship was with Michael, and their friendship was the first thing that drew Michael out of her stoic self loathing. In s2, they're still close friends, but Tilly's primary friendly relationship developed throughout the season is actually with Stamets (their relationship was already shown in the second half of s1, but not as central as in s2), plus we also see her with Kayla Detmer, Airiam and Joann Owosekun. In retrospect, I do suspect one reason why Tilly got demoted to recurring in s4 was because by then, most of her original functions and relationships were shared or given to other characters. The "young ingenue science whizkid with a tendency to babble"/"has a firm friendship with Stamets" to Adira, evidently. But the closest confidant type of friendship she had with Michael also fades away (Michael has those type of scenes she used to share with Tilly with Book and/or Saru instead, depending on the context). This isn't yet a problem in s3 because s3 has Tilly develop a realationship with Saru and grow to (temporary) second in command level instead, with even acting Captain status in the s3 finale. But I very much suspect that between seasons, the writers realised they had Tilly basically already achieve everything s1 Tilly dreamed off (even, temporarily, the Captaincy) and didn't quite know what to do with her anymore, hence let her question herself and decide to go into teaching cadets instead. Rewatching the first two seasons heightens my regret re: this development, because Tilly is such a vivid presence on the show there, and Mary Wiseman is great in the role. But I can also see the problem in a show that, even for a ship that's explicitly a science vessel, has an overabundance of scientist characters, where Tilly couldn't always stay the young, unexperienced one (her growing up arc was great!), where's also no lack of competent First Officers (Michael or Saru as Captain and how the show deals with this is an s3 thing, see also older reviews there), and where with Stamets and Reno even the constant doubling of great engineers is a given. So I'm enjoying regular character Tilly for as long as I'm getting her during this rewatch.
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(Probably not, especially since poor Tilly would have to keep hush hush about anything she learned in the future, which presumably would be torture. But the AU where she never travelled to the future to begin with and stayed behind is definitely one exploring in fanfic!)
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I enjoyed your analysis, especially on why Pike (I've no idea how Anson Mount is so consistently likeable but he really is.) and how far back they were planning the jump to the 32nd century. Not had time/energy to do a rewatch of Disco but from my memories the chief thing about it was it seemed to be a reaction to 'this isn't star trek' crowd as the immediately try to fix the continuity about things like the holocommunicators/klingon ships etc ending with the hilarious 'let's us never speak of this again' ending.
While I joke it's to its credit that Disco continually does try and try to do new things and improve.
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That said, I agree that Pike and the Spock family were huge plus points - again, particularly during the first half of the season, where, as you said, the relationship between Pike and the Discovery crew had a great little arc of its own. I thought that was really well done and paced, with Pike on the outside for a while and with a learning curve from both sides; plus Mount as Pike was just great. (I have admit, though, I'm still a little sad they didn't change Pike's eventual fate. They had time travel and everything! From what I'm hearing, they're making some hay out of his knowledge in SNW, but all the Disco episodes/scenes where they went back to the TOS well felt anachronistic and dated, no matter how much they tried to add agency.)
I love Disco's Sarek and Amanda a lot, and Spock and Michael's relationship was great as well, they really felt like siblings. Spock himself is a bit more ambiguous, because the show somehow tried to make his desperate state of mind about logic somehow and him not being able to make sense of a simple time travel plot, where it would have been much more understandable to lean into the childhood trauma aspect of it. Not that they didn't do that at all, but the conversations about logic and faith and so on muddied the waters and didn't make sense to me in this context. (Spock's trauma reaction kind of reminded me of Michael's in the pilot actually. Given that I've long maintained that Disco, especially at the beginning, deals with the unconscious/trauma in a way other Trek shows don't quite, this seemed to fit.)
Totally agree with you about everything concerning Ash/Voq and especially Saru. Honestly, the rushed and ethically ill-thought-out Keminar episode still annoys me, not least because its beginning was great: Michael going with him to the planet, seeing his home, meeting his sister - I loved all that. And then they did what they did in the second half. Sigh. The earlier Michael/Saru h/c episode I loved as well, but in retrospect, and not least to your own Saru meta, I can't help but mourn the loss of one of Saru's defining characteristics for no actually good pay-off.
I remember that I particularly loved the New Eden episode, which felt very Trek to me. (I initially hoped they would do something with the planet, return there after the time-jump, but I guess that was one of the things left behind by the showrunner change.) Unlike others, it made good use of its theme, had a great one-off character, and painted knowledge as something positive, as opposed to the dangers of knowledge in the second half with the Control storyline.
Section 31 - yeah, such are the dangers of the prequel storytelling. I do like that the show at least kind of provided a reason for why post-Control Section 31 was such a changed, super secret organization, but its open existence/acceptance still kind of bugs me because of what it says about Starfleet; I much prefer the DS9 state of affairs.
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Verily, and I wouldn't give up hope yet, though if Pike's eventual fate changes, I bet we won't find out until SNW ends. Mind you, with "eventual fate", I mean that he stays on Talos IV and can't physically be helped. Him suffering through the accident in the first place and being brought by a mutiny-conducting Spock to Talos IV has been established as inevitable by SNW's first season finale, where a time-travelling older Pike from another timeline showed up and gave "our" Pike, who by then had decided he could try to figure out a way to save the cadets without being burned to a crisp (since he knows when it will happen), the unwelcome news that in his timeline, he did that and the result was that Spock suffered that fate instead and also the Federation ended up in a hot war with the Romulans. Older Pike then doubled down to say that he visited a couple of other timelines and in every single one where he, Pike survives unharmed, Spocks ends up in a coma, dead or burned and wheelchair-bound, so our Pike resigned himself anew.
All this Watsonian stuff aside, there is of course on a Doylist level the problem that medical research marches on. Now I can buy that even in Kirk's time, there are some injuries too deep to be repaired entirely, but they should be able to do better than what we see in The Menagerie. And even more problematic, what we see of Vina in her natural state is nothing a plastic surgeon in our own time couldn't fix, so her decision in the original episode to stay on Talos IV is even more... err, dated. (Though the s2 of Discovery episode provided Vina with a bit more agency as well, as much as the fixed narrative allowed.)
I have to say that I do want Spock to hijack the Enterprise from Kirk for Pike's sake as he does in The Menagerie, so that might cloud my judged about which event is a fixed point in time, to borrow a Whovian phrase....
Honestly, the rushed and ethically ill-thought-out Keminar episode still annoys me
Oh, same here, to the point where I couldn't bring myself to watch it again. I will say that s4 offers a little bit of pay off when letting Saru tell Book that when he first saw the Ba'ul in the future, he hated them, and he still has to fight the occasional impulse down, because it's not easy, but at the same time he thinks it's wondrous that the Kelpiens and the Ba'ul 900 years later live in peace and openness with each other on Keminar. This worked thematically with the whole 10c storyline and Book's part in it. But that s2 episode is still a hot mess and should have been rewritten a couple of times before filming.
The New Eden episode held up really well for me, and I loved it this time around, too.