The grand two-part finale arrives... except that there are two more episodes to go. Initially the series was set for thirteen installments, and this certainly plays like a finale, ending on a stonking cliffhanger that will, in fact, be resolved next week.
Nonetheless, this is a lot of fun and a satisfying bit of pulp drama. That's how you have to watch it. These episodes are wild nonsense. This is Star Trek at the fighting-and-explosions end of the spectrum, not the philosophy-and-debates end. The best episodes combine the rough-and-tumble with the clever stuff. There's not much of the latter here. This is rayguns-and-fisticuffs through and through.
Essentially every fan theory/rumour about Discovery has turned out to be true, with the exception of the idea that this is another divergent timeline rather than the "true" Trek universe, which might actually come to pass, what with the history-nobbling Klingon victory revealed at the end. So, Lorca is in fact the evil Mirror Lorca! This isn't a massive surprise - there were clues along the way, after all - but still, it's less satisfying than just having him be a hardass bastard of a captain who does well during wartime. Given that this is Mirror Lorca, and that he has been grooming Burnham to be his right-hand woman (and possible replacement ladyfriend) and also grooming Stamets to develop the spore drive that allows interdimensional travel, you have to wonder what his actual plan was. After being zapped to the Prime Universe when an ion storm hit while he was transporting (just like Kirk and co. back in "Mirror, Mirror"), he then sets out to get himself back... and then, what? Get himself locked in a torture chamber for days? Being bloody lucky the Emperor doesn't just blow his head off as soon as she looks at him?
Still, it worked out well for him, for a while at least. The reveal was just grand: Lorca's apparent inability to recall a lost lover's name because he has never met her, turning out to be nothing more than epic trolling on his part, to get him to the point when he can murder his jailer and escape. And let's be fair, Jason Isaacs playing a full-on evil villain is always worth the entry fee. He's clearly having fun here (Lorca and Isaacs). It's a shame he dies, really, falling through that very Star Wars-like chasm into a broiling hyperspace engine. Unless, of course, he's been zapped into another dimension... (no, he's dead.)
Wonderful to have Michelle Yeoh back, playing a slightly more three-dimensional (although not much) evil villain. I can't imagine that Burnham's saving her will end well. They do have some good chemistry, as much as two stoic and grim-faced women can. I love that the Emperor carries a sword and that it's not just for display purposes. Burnham's awesomeness reaches peak absurdity in the second part, as she uses her Vulcan martial arts to take down whole platoons of Imperial Starfleet troops and escapes time and again. True, neither the Emperor or Lorca actually wants her dead, but still, she's basically at superhero level here.
The Terran Empire is less a dark reflection of the Federation here, and more the equivalent of the Klingon Empire. There are parallels throughout in the ways the two empires are represented. Their fascistic, xenophobic, convinced of their own superiority as a race, needlessly cruel and they even eat their opponents (although the Terrans come of worse here: the Klingons eat Georgiou's body because they're adrift and starving; Mirror Georgiou reverses it by eating Kelpien slaves just for pleasure). There are no decent people in the Imperial Starfleet, it seems, and we don't see any non-Starfleet humans in that universe. There's no Smiley O'Brien to remind us that even the worst cultures can have some decent individuals. No, they're all bastards. Weirdly, after all the continuity points between TOS and Enterprise and Discovery, the Terrans are revealed to be a genetically different race, with a physical weakness to bright light. There's no way this could have been taken as a clue to Lorca's origins, because there was no hint of it before in any Mirror Universe episode, and it makes the existence of parallel versions of the same people even more unlikely. The best way to take it is a poke at how the Mirror Universe is literally a darker version of Star Trek, but it's still silly.
But then, Star Trek has never had the most stringent or believable approach to science. The mycelial spore drive, for example, isn't much more ridiculous than teleporters or quantum fissures. I had expected it to be destroyed by the end of this season, and while it looks like its been depleted, it is apparently still there. I can imagine Starfleet putting a ban on spore drive travel due to its environmental impact, but it's hard to believe that no one else in the Galaxy will ever discover the possibilities. Especially as its impact stretches across universes and through time. It's a bit vague whether the Empire understands what spore drive is: The Emperor doesn't seem to know about it until Burnham tells her, but there's some kind of spore system driving her gigantic flagship, the Charon.
The mycelial network is pretty much a magic plot contrivance, doing whatever any given episode needs at the time, but that's no different to any of the other magic space phenomena seen throughout the series (in particular, it brings to mind the Nexus from Star Trek Generations). It does allow us to have some of the best Stamets scenes in the series so far, putting him with both his less moral Mirror self, and his lost love Hugh Culber. Does this mean that there might be a way for Culber to come back? Given that Stamets might not even survive the end of the series (each spore drive jump taking its toll, after all), maybe we'll see the couple reunited in fungal afterlife. I hope he does survive, though. He and Tilly - who have some lovely interplay in the second half - have quickly become my favourite characters on the series.
Our alien friends don't get as much attention in these episodes, although Saru does get some strong material when he takes command of the Discovery and revitalises the crew's spirit with his "no-win scenario" speech. It's a nice nod back to the old Kobayashi Maru test from The Wrath of Khan and later the 2009 movie, and a strong sentiment, although the characters do go on to labour the point a bit. On the same note, it's good to see more of the other crewmembers, who have mostly been in the background till now, such as Owesukun (Oyin Oladejo), the cybernetic Airiam (Sara Mitich) and Detmer (Emily Coutts), perhaps unique as a character who's sexier in the Prime Universe than she is in the Mirror. Voq and L'Rell get some material in the first part that seems to be leading up to a major make-or-break moment for their characters... and then disappear completely for the second half. I imagine the Discovery's brig is getting pretty busy now.
This was an exciting climax to the Mirror Universe storyline which was threatening to run out of steam. There are still plenty of unanswered questions: what happened to the Mirror Discovery? Is the Prime Lorca alive in the Mirror Universe, or was killed on the Buran? How come Kirk doesn't know anything about the Mirror Universe when he's zapped there in ten years time? Just what will happen to the Mirror Georgiou in the Prime Universe? How many people on the Discovery are actually who they say they are? Maybe Saru's secretly the dictatorial overlord of another universe's Keplien Empire.
Nonetheless, this is a lot of fun and a satisfying bit of pulp drama. That's how you have to watch it. These episodes are wild nonsense. This is Star Trek at the fighting-and-explosions end of the spectrum, not the philosophy-and-debates end. The best episodes combine the rough-and-tumble with the clever stuff. There's not much of the latter here. This is rayguns-and-fisticuffs through and through.
Essentially every fan theory/rumour about Discovery has turned out to be true, with the exception of the idea that this is another divergent timeline rather than the "true" Trek universe, which might actually come to pass, what with the history-nobbling Klingon victory revealed at the end. So, Lorca is in fact the evil Mirror Lorca! This isn't a massive surprise - there were clues along the way, after all - but still, it's less satisfying than just having him be a hardass bastard of a captain who does well during wartime. Given that this is Mirror Lorca, and that he has been grooming Burnham to be his right-hand woman (and possible replacement ladyfriend) and also grooming Stamets to develop the spore drive that allows interdimensional travel, you have to wonder what his actual plan was. After being zapped to the Prime Universe when an ion storm hit while he was transporting (just like Kirk and co. back in "Mirror, Mirror"), he then sets out to get himself back... and then, what? Get himself locked in a torture chamber for days? Being bloody lucky the Emperor doesn't just blow his head off as soon as she looks at him?
Still, it worked out well for him, for a while at least. The reveal was just grand: Lorca's apparent inability to recall a lost lover's name because he has never met her, turning out to be nothing more than epic trolling on his part, to get him to the point when he can murder his jailer and escape. And let's be fair, Jason Isaacs playing a full-on evil villain is always worth the entry fee. He's clearly having fun here (Lorca and Isaacs). It's a shame he dies, really, falling through that very Star Wars-like chasm into a broiling hyperspace engine. Unless, of course, he's been zapped into another dimension... (no, he's dead.)
Wonderful to have Michelle Yeoh back, playing a slightly more three-dimensional (although not much) evil villain. I can't imagine that Burnham's saving her will end well. They do have some good chemistry, as much as two stoic and grim-faced women can. I love that the Emperor carries a sword and that it's not just for display purposes. Burnham's awesomeness reaches peak absurdity in the second part, as she uses her Vulcan martial arts to take down whole platoons of Imperial Starfleet troops and escapes time and again. True, neither the Emperor or Lorca actually wants her dead, but still, she's basically at superhero level here.
The Terran Empire is less a dark reflection of the Federation here, and more the equivalent of the Klingon Empire. There are parallels throughout in the ways the two empires are represented. Their fascistic, xenophobic, convinced of their own superiority as a race, needlessly cruel and they even eat their opponents (although the Terrans come of worse here: the Klingons eat Georgiou's body because they're adrift and starving; Mirror Georgiou reverses it by eating Kelpien slaves just for pleasure). There are no decent people in the Imperial Starfleet, it seems, and we don't see any non-Starfleet humans in that universe. There's no Smiley O'Brien to remind us that even the worst cultures can have some decent individuals. No, they're all bastards. Weirdly, after all the continuity points between TOS and Enterprise and Discovery, the Terrans are revealed to be a genetically different race, with a physical weakness to bright light. There's no way this could have been taken as a clue to Lorca's origins, because there was no hint of it before in any Mirror Universe episode, and it makes the existence of parallel versions of the same people even more unlikely. The best way to take it is a poke at how the Mirror Universe is literally a darker version of Star Trek, but it's still silly.
But then, Star Trek has never had the most stringent or believable approach to science. The mycelial spore drive, for example, isn't much more ridiculous than teleporters or quantum fissures. I had expected it to be destroyed by the end of this season, and while it looks like its been depleted, it is apparently still there. I can imagine Starfleet putting a ban on spore drive travel due to its environmental impact, but it's hard to believe that no one else in the Galaxy will ever discover the possibilities. Especially as its impact stretches across universes and through time. It's a bit vague whether the Empire understands what spore drive is: The Emperor doesn't seem to know about it until Burnham tells her, but there's some kind of spore system driving her gigantic flagship, the Charon.
The mycelial network is pretty much a magic plot contrivance, doing whatever any given episode needs at the time, but that's no different to any of the other magic space phenomena seen throughout the series (in particular, it brings to mind the Nexus from Star Trek Generations). It does allow us to have some of the best Stamets scenes in the series so far, putting him with both his less moral Mirror self, and his lost love Hugh Culber. Does this mean that there might be a way for Culber to come back? Given that Stamets might not even survive the end of the series (each spore drive jump taking its toll, after all), maybe we'll see the couple reunited in fungal afterlife. I hope he does survive, though. He and Tilly - who have some lovely interplay in the second half - have quickly become my favourite characters on the series.
Our alien friends don't get as much attention in these episodes, although Saru does get some strong material when he takes command of the Discovery and revitalises the crew's spirit with his "no-win scenario" speech. It's a nice nod back to the old Kobayashi Maru test from The Wrath of Khan and later the 2009 movie, and a strong sentiment, although the characters do go on to labour the point a bit. On the same note, it's good to see more of the other crewmembers, who have mostly been in the background till now, such as Owesukun (Oyin Oladejo), the cybernetic Airiam (Sara Mitich) and Detmer (Emily Coutts), perhaps unique as a character who's sexier in the Prime Universe than she is in the Mirror. Voq and L'Rell get some material in the first part that seems to be leading up to a major make-or-break moment for their characters... and then disappear completely for the second half. I imagine the Discovery's brig is getting pretty busy now.
This was an exciting climax to the Mirror Universe storyline which was threatening to run out of steam. There are still plenty of unanswered questions: what happened to the Mirror Discovery? Is the Prime Lorca alive in the Mirror Universe, or was killed on the Buran? How come Kirk doesn't know anything about the Mirror Universe when he's zapped there in ten years time? Just what will happen to the Mirror Georgiou in the Prime Universe? How many people on the Discovery are actually who they say they are? Maybe Saru's secretly the dictatorial overlord of another universe's Keplien Empire.
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