This episode was equal parts effective
and frustrating. It's also a bit of an event episode, so SPOILERS
from here on out.
On the one hand, it's great to finally
get some genuine exploration of Airiam's character. Having been seen
in the background since the first episodes to take place on the
Discovery, her nature has
been raised questions among viewers. Although she's obviously
artificial to some extent, just based on her appearance, no one knew
if she was an android, and alien, some kind of enhanced human... we
just couldn't say. Now, at last, we know it was the last option.
Airiam turns out to have a tragic superhero backstory: she and her
husband were caught in a shuttle crash on their honeymoon, killing
him and seemingly leading to her being rebuilt as a cyborg.
Basically, she's Starfleet's science-Robocop.
Hannah
Cheesman is brilliant in this episode, now that she finally gets to
do something with the character. She makes Airiam one of the most
human characters in the show, no mean feat behind the thick mask that
she wears in every scene save flashbacks. Her obvious anguish as the
virus takes her over and she fights for her free will is powerful,
and at the times when she is under the control of the programme,
she's really quite frightening (the moment when she pulls Nhan's
breathing mask off is brutal). It makes the viewer want to see more
of her character – and then they kill her off. Now, it's a very
well-written and performed death scene, but it lacks the impact it
should have because we've only just gotten to know this character.
It's as if the TNG writers
had only given Tasha Yar three lines of dialogue before writing her
into “Skin of Evil” to kill her off. Or perhaps more comparably,
if Data, one of the most fascinating characters of the series, hadn't
received any character exploration until halfway through season two.
Given that Airiam had already become a fan favourite based solely on
speculation, making her into an actual character just so they could
have a death with some impact comes across as a very cynical move.
That's
a shame, since on its own merits, Airiam's storyline here works very
well. It's also entirely possible she'll be back – she uploads her
memories to the Discovery computer
before she goes, so she'd be one of the easier characters to bring
back to life. Her nature as a (partially) artificial intelligence
ties into the reveal of the Big Bad for the season. It turns out that
Section 31 is not only taking tactical information from Control, it's
super-intelligent mainframe, but is under its, well, control. I'm of
two minds about this revelation. On the one hand, a malevolent AI is
a sci-fi cliché, but this is Star Trek and
we're allowed to to enjoy the odd cliché along the ride.
Essentially, Control is SkyNet, or the Architect from The
Matrix (I said the enhanced
probe monster looked like one of the bots from that franchise). It's
fighting to achieve true sentience, and to wipe out all organic life
in the process. We know that it's capable of this, since we've
already seen that future can come to pass, and it's this that the Red
Angel has returned to prevent.
On the
other hand, it makes Section 31 a bunch of heels. It's rather like
the rugpull with Captain Lorca last season. Both seasons have set up
an interesting villain that raises serious questions about Starfleet
and its ethics in wartime. Cornwell even essentially says that
Section 31 are there to do the dirty work when war's underway or on
the horizon, just as she questioned what it had done to Lorca last
season. In both cases, though, the truth is far less interesting.
Lorca wasn't the “real” Lorca, he was a moustache-twirling
villain from a comically evil parallel universe. Leland and Section
31 aren't really trying to justify their journey down a dark path,
they've just been duped by an evil computer. I don't mind the silly
cliché plots, but they're being used at the expense of something
genuinely interesting.
Cornwell
drops other hints as to what might really be going on. At first it
looks like the Vulcan Admiral Petar is masterminding events, and
Cornwell reveals that she's a logic extremist. This would tie into
the backstory of Spock and Burnham, and put an existential crisis at
the heart of Starfleet. It's genuinely interesting that not only
could an extremist rise so high in Starfleet, but that it's
apparently common knowledge, at least among fellow admirals. But no,
Control had her killed offscreen, and there goes that plotline.
This
was an entertaining episode that could have been a truly great one,
but for all its effective moments, as a whole it's ultimately just
unsatisfying.
General observations:
- The Discovery writers don't know the difference between ultraviolet and infrared. And why would video screens intended for human eyes emit either the ultraviolet or infrared signatures of their subjects in the first place?
- Airiam, Detmer and Tilly play a kadis-kot, a game which was mentioned several times in Voyager (Seven of Nine and Naomi Wildman used to/will one day play it). It's a bit unclear in Voyager whether the game originated in the Alpha or Delta Quadrant, but this episode makes it clear it's an Alpha Quadrant invention.
- It's confirmed that Lt. Nhan, the new security chief, is a Barzan (the race from the TNG episode, “The Price”). This is interesting, as they still don't have their own space travel in the 24th century, although they're in diplomatic contact with warp-capable civilisations.
- A Starfleet AI achieving sentience isn't a first, but it could be tied into Zora, the evolved version of the Discovery computer who starred in the Short Trek “Calypso.”
- Although it could still be Burnham, I'd lay 2/1 odds that the Red Angel turns out to be a resurrected Airiam.
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