This is a transcript of our eleventh season two recap, available here.
Gabrielle Burnham: People think time is fragile precious beautiful sand in an hourglass. But it’s not. Time is savage. It always wins. So, this is meaningless
re:Discovery theme plays
Carla: Hello and welcome to re:Discovery. The Star Trek recap podcast that won’t try to kill you. Let’s face it that’s all we can promise at this point in time in Discovery (both laugh). I’m joined by my Science Officer Ben McKenzie. Ben are you tempted to have further augmentation with nanobots?
Ben: No. No no no no no.
Carla: Nan no bots?
Ben: No no bots! That’s what they are.
Carla: It’s Episode 11 and moving towards wrapping up Season Two’s storyline and a lot of elements of Season One. But not before some more twists and turns namely the Red Angel does not know anything about the Red Burst.
Ben: What!!
Carla: This episode addresses many other things I was confused about. But let’s back it up to a flashback. We meet 11-year-old Michael with her parents on Doctari Alpha. We are shown that, yes Michael’s mother used the time travel suit to get away from the Klingons, sending her 950 years into the future. A future where no sentient life exists. Michael comes to in sickbay, Hugh has been reinstated as a medical officer and is treating her. Michael believes it’s all a dream and is desperately shocked to find out it wasn’t. Her mother is unconscious on Essof IV. She begs to see her but is too unwell. Cut to Section 31 and Leland is being held captive by worker robots that Control’s direction. Control reveals to Leland that it now needs a corporeal presence in order to complete its mission – get the Spheres data. Leland is injected with nanobots that overtake his body and effectively make him a puppet for Control. This is going to end badly. Michael’s mother gains consciousness and is wild with fury. She begs to be released so she can continue her mission to stop Control. She has battled the timeline with over 800 missions, every attempt to change the outcome of total sentient annihilation unsuccessful. Dr Burnham begs Pike to delete the Sphere archive, it is the only way that Control cannot evolve. She has the worn bitterness of someone who has been alone too long and seen too much. She has no patience for chit chat and does not want to see Michael. The crew try to delete the Sphere’s data, but it is too heavily self-protected. They decide to transfer the dash to the suit instead and send it far into the future where it cannot be accessed by Control.
Ben: Spock discovers one of Gabrielle Burnham’s logs explaining that his unique human Vulcan psychology and his dyslexia made him the only person she could successfully communicate with and he and Michael discussed their shared past. They asked Pike to let Michael talk with her mother and he agrees. Since the energy holding her in the present will soon run out and she’ll be snapped back into the future. But Gabrielle remains bitter and stubborn. Only she can save all life from Control and she tells Michael to let her go. Controleland meanwhile had sent Tyler to Discovery to steal the Sphere data claiming he has a secure location in the Section 31 ship’s computer and that he knows Gabrielle Burnham is dead, so is suspicious of the Red Angel. After the data encrypts itself Tyler refuses to go through with the plan and Control Leland surprisingly backs him leaving him aboard Discovery. Instead sends Georgiou to intercept the transfer of data to the suit. Georgiou and Dr. Burnham discuss Michael – mother to mother. But when Gabriel describes Control’s attitude to her using the exact same phrase Control Leland years earlier Georgiou realizes what’s up just as Michael and Stamets arrive with phase two of their plan – using dark matter to power the transporter and free Michael’s mum from the tether back into the future. Georgiou sends Tyler to secretly check on Leland and he discovers Control has taken him over, but too late to avoid being stabbed with a shard of glass.
Ben: Tyler sends a quick warning to Discovery as Controleland beams down and tries to take the data by force. He’s not slowed down by phaser fire, so Georgiou engages him in melee. Gabrielle begs Michael to let her go, there’s no time for the transporter part of the plan. They have to destroy the devices keeping her here so the suit her and the data are taken out of Control’s reach. Burnham, Stamets and Nhan, shoot the emitters and the suit. And Dr Burnham sucked back into the future. Seconds later Discovery beams all crew back aboard and destroys the base with photon torpedoes. But it seems Controleland escaped, leaving behind only an escape pod with Tyler inside.
Carla: Poor Tyler.
Ben: He’s had a rough day. Feeling defeated as Control now has about half of the spheres data., Burnham is comforted by Spock who assures her that what they do now can affect the future and that they can win through a combination of instinct and logic. Carla what’s your instinct about this episode?
Carla: (laughs) I don’t know. I was just grateful to have so many question marks that I had, wrapped up, from last episode about, you know, Hugh what Hugh is doing. What happened to Michael. The thing that we don’t know that’s still leftover is Michael’s dad…
Ben: Yes.
Carla: Big question mark there.
Ben: We don’t know if he’s alive or dead. That’s true.
Carla: And also, I still don’t understand how, I will just refer to as “the suit” because it’s no longer the Red Angel, it doesn’t have an official title Project Daedalus suit or whatever.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: I still don’t understand how the point 950 years in the future is the snap back point.
Ben: Well this is kind of what we were talking about last episode, so we knew that she had have gone into the future and my, and I think what happened was the first time she used it, it went wrong somehow and now it’s doing what it’s supposed to do which is tethering itself to its origin point. But unfortunately, that origin point is the point 950 years in the future.
Carla: Okay.
Ben: Yeah. So, which look I mean whether I get a lot of questions about the logic of how they’ve decided the suit works has because I actually have to say a little bit disappointed by that element of this episode although everything else was great. I thought some of the logical stuff how they point out it works I’m like “that seems a bit dodgy to me”. But look you know I worked it worked for the drama, so I won’t complain too much and still I have I have some questions.
Carla: All right well why don’t you, do you want to ask them what do you wanted to believe it until we see some more episodes?
Ben: I think well I look they might they may well answer them for me. I don’t know but I do. Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know. I will say though if we go right back to the flashback at the start of the episode the whole thing where Michael’s like “they never told me that they worked on a space suit like that that Section 31 and time travel” they’re discussing it openly in front her.
Ben: I mean you know she doesn’t know what “crystal” or “suit” means I guess but still yeah those are I guess they could be things that her parents’ other scientific disciplines are about still. Yeah, I don’t know.
Carla: I thought that was interesting, you know. But I also think that you know it harkens back to the overall theme of this which is trauma and so trauma really warps your ability to recall information like some information you remember like you’re still there and other information just is not. She’s also a child. She doesn’t really have.
Ben: That’s true.
Carla: You know much, I would just say it’s not that she doesn’t have the understanding but she’s a child. She probably has little interest in what her parents are doing together at work. So, it just didn’t register.
Ben: Yeah, she’s really interested in the supernova.
Carla: Yeah.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: And being a kid, science kid, weird, weird, nerd science kid.
Ben: Yeah, I can identify with that. But also, she you know she doesn’t have the context. She doesn’t know anything about time crystals or Project Daedalus. So yeah. But I was I was a little bit weirded out that it’s just in the next room in a hidden alcove. Yeah that was a bit that was a bit intense but that’s all right.
Carla: What other things do we have ticked off? Oh yeah. Leland alive.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: Puppet for Control.
Ben: Yeah. So, I think we were both right. Like he wasn’t injected with something. Yeah. He was just stabbed in the eye. But also, he wasn’t dead, and he did get injected with something this episode. So, it’s kind of like both of us were I quite liked that outcome, but awful. Like presumably he’s dead now.
Carla: Yeah, I think like…
Ben: Do you think he’s still in there somewhere?
Carla: I don’t know, I don’t think so. Depends on when Control stops controlling him, I guess such a bad word. We can’t talk about it without it becoming like Dr. Seuss book.
Ben: Yeah. Yeah. I like when I was coming up with a portmanteau for his name Controleland does works.
Carla: I think it’s called a “couples name” Ben (laughs).
Ben: It’s yeah. Okay. Well they I’m shipping them. No, I definitely don’t ship them. Wow. No one should know when you know it first of all no should be shipped by something called Control. That’s that’s red flag 101. But yeah, I don’t know. I have a lot of questions about Control too. I find it very confusing now.
Carla: Hang on I just want to back it up one second.
Ben: Yeah go.
Carla: What I thought was it was happening with the needle was confirmed to me with the first scene that we see him that I was like “okay so if Control, you know, presumably has Control of everything, it’s making these little robots that are like making modifications to the ship in the background”. And so, by seeing these little robots like having him pinned down and all that kind of stuff I’m like “Yeah this is what he’s doing here”.
Ben: Okay.
Carla: We don’t know what I’m saying who we don’t know how far developed Control is already, you know what I mean?
Ben: Yeah, I interpreted that a little bit as the Discovery era equivalent of an emergency medical hologram like it’s a, it’s a medical robot. That Control has taken Control of it, but I don’t know if that’s true. I’m might be just making that up. And it also it’s made these nanobots Where did it get nanotechnology from. That’s pretty advanced business.
Carla: This is what I mean about. We don’t know how much Control knows.
Ben: Yeah. And also, we don’t know what kind of technology Section 31 one’s got access to. I mean we know they got comm badges. They got they got Terran memory stealing technology. They’ve got advanced computer artificial intelligence stuff here. I mean they’ve got all kinds of stuff.
Carla: I think it’s safe to say it’s got the most knowledge in the universe because it’s this confluence of so many different cultures knowledge that has been stolen or appropriated or given to them, you know mostly stolen I assume.
Ben: It’s a bit of a worry.
Carla: Tortured out of people.
Ben: I do I am a little annoyed that we don’t have any kind of motivation for it. I don’t know. It’s kind of implied that it agrees with Leland’s sort of attitude that it must, he wants to bring order to the universe. You know even if he has to be a bit brutal about it and that he’s going to take Control says it’s going to take that to its logical conclusion you’re like “why?”. I mean is that what you were built for is that is that your sort of directive. And are you going to take it so far. It’s like Skynet, like waking up and going “Yeah okay. So, my job is to make sure humans don’t kill each other. There’s only one way to do that which is if I kill them all”. That’s like… It’s sort of that kind of we assume that the evil artificial intelligence is just going to kill all non you know artificial intelligent life.
Ben: But this is my big question about Control, and I think actually that first scene where it’s talking to Leland really brings it up. Is that the whole point of it wanting the Spheres data is so they can achieve real consciousness. But what we see of Control does not in any way seem like it doesn’t already have consciousness like in what way does it not?
Carla: Yeah because it has like, it has motivation.
Ben: Has motivation, has memories, it has personality.
Carla: Mm hmm. I’m sure about personality.
Ben: Maybe not a personality of its own but it doesn’t need one to achieve its aims. So, what’s the big deal about it being conscious?
Carla: It has motivations and desires which is a cornerstone of sentience, I guess. Really. I’m not sure if it’s about becoming sentient, I think it’s about having the technology to be able to fully realize its plans.
Ben: Right.
Carla: Yeah.
Ben: Okay. Well I guess that does make sense but also, it’s a bit confusing as to where this motivation is coming from because there’s Control in the present. Right. And then there’s the… because Airiam wasn’t being controlled by Control in the present Airiam was being controlled by the future A.I. sending information back through time, although that was only from 500 years in the future.
Carla: That right, that’s kind of the midpoint.
Ben: Yeah but it’s not clear when exactly the devastation takes place. We know that it happened sometime before 950 years in the future. And we know that it was localized in the Alpha Quadrant. And that bit of space where the Federation is because we find out here that Burnham’s mum, seems feel safe 50000 light years away on what would eventually be called Terralisium. So yeah that was I don’t know. I still have a lot of questions about it, so I just don’t know. Like you. Who’s calling the shots? Control, future Control. It’s a bit it’s a bit murky and I’m hoping that I hope that it gets cleared up. I have a feeling it won’t. I have a feeling that they just sort of like happy to go “it’s all Control” Control whether it’s now or in the future and I’m like Yeah, I think there’s a distinction to be made.
Carla: I think I’ve mentioned this before, but it just really does seem like, I mean this kind of A.I. robot conscious robot trope really does seem to reflect our anxieties about who we are as people.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: Because they only learn from us, right? And that human race is inherently destructive in the way that we treat each other, and we treat the planet. So, there’s always this kind of moralistic overtone of you know “the best human is a dead human” you know, to an A.I. So, it kind of feels trope-y in that way. It also just feels like they just find humans irrelevant. So, they should just all be gone, eradicated.
Ben: And in this case not just humans you know but and…
Carla: Oh yes that’s right.
Ben: Vulcans, Klingons and everybody else.
Carla: Meat Sacks.
Ben: (laughs) Yeah.
Carla: All meat sacks.
Ben: All meat sacks. Because Control not the only person who shows up to reveal their secrets this episode. Because this is where we finally meet the Red Angel, properly, and learn what they’ve been up to all this time. How did you feel about this?
Carla: Oh, I felt it was a bit ham fisted.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: It felt a bit blunt. You know.
Ben: Yeah, I would agree.
Carla: I was a bit clobbered over the face with how stubborn she is like Michael blah blah blah. But also, at the same time you know 800 missions. It’s got to do something to you.
Ben: Oh yeah. I mean we don’t know. We don’t know how much personal time has passed for her but it’s clearly a lot. And she’s done a lot of things although not all of the things the same. It is a bit intense. I mean I liked the logs and they’re sort of a shorthand way to explain a few things like the Terralysium colonists, although why she saved them? I mean I it’s like one sentence, but I gathered that the point was she wanted to preserve some vestige of life in the future. And because she’s 50000 light years away and there’s no pre-existing technology on the planet. For some reason that means she can’t be discovered. But why she moves them there like in the past rather than to where she is. I’m not 100 percent sure what…
Carla: So, my interpretation of that was like also it was like an Easter egg. You know for eventually like no matter how sort of time travel was uncovered or you know Control was uncovered or whatever it was it’s kind of a deliberate Easter egg as well that you know how could these people be there blah blah blah mysteries of the universe that kind of thing.
Ben: Yeah although I have to say now that I think about it that also doesn’t quite make sense because this is the reason that she’s safe on that planet is that it had no pre-existing technology but she put pre-existing technology there because she transferred all the colonists all those, all those survivors. It’s also not really said how or if I mean the suits got some pretty crazy powers my way as well like it can bring back the dead with a tachyon burst, it can transport an entire church full of people across time and space.
Carla: Yeah, I don’t know how that works yeah yeah.
Ben: Like it’s yeah it does it’s a bit of a McGuffin really isn’t it? I can do anything you want it to do. That’s not really what the McGuffin is but you know it’s a it’s a plot device is what it is. Yeah it does whatever the plot needs it to do. And in this episode one of the things it does is it can’t stay in one place. Now I thought we talked about this last episode. I thought they had cut the strand and she was now stuck here but it turns out that no they’ve just caught her and the strand, you know the gravitational beam through the wormhole is still open and stretched back. But then what did they close last episode to stop the transmissions getting through if that’s the case? I don’t know. It’s, it’s…
Carla: And can a human being survive being jetted through a wormhole, without the suit? What’s the point of the suit?
Ben: I know. And where is she going back to? This is the other thing that I was a little unclear on at the end of the episode you know. Is she going back to 950 years in the future?
Carla: That’s what I thought.
Ben: I mean I thought that was the case but then yeah. Does that mean that they didn’t manage to reprogram the suit? I mean I thought it was a bit weird that they were able to reprogram the suit to go really far into the future past the 950-year mark. When the whole point of it was it always just goes back to where it came from and it can’t go anywhere else. So yeah it was a bit weird.
Carla: Yeah, it’s a mess.
Ben: It is a bit of a mess. It’s a bit of a mess. I mean look at exciting and dramatic mess.
Carla: Sure.
Ben: I really enjoyed the ending particularly with you know Georgiou and Leland just fighting to smash in each other.
Carla: Oh my God.
Ben: That was great.
Carla: Michelle Yeoh just marry me like have everything I have.
Ben: Just well I don’t go that far.
Carla: Or just kick me in the face.
Ben: Just be my TV smash people in the face all the time. She’s really good at that.
Carla: My favourite was Georgiou and Tyler forming an alliance.
Ben: Oh, that was great.
Carla: That was amazing.
Ben: I did like that. Yes.
Carla: Because. Yeah, they’re two completely outcasted freaks. They should have an alliance.
Ben: Yeah. Yeah. And I like that. Yeah, they sort of they were very chummy about it like they seem to have developed an understanding.
Carla: Yeah.
Ben: And I think their understanding is really forged just did a mutual distrust of Leland. Which I thought was nice and very you know obviously it’s not Leland so much that they need to distrust what he has become. He didn’t seem very bothered by being shot with phasers, did he?
Carla: No. But he you know he’s gotten all of that extra Klingon physiology.
Ben: No, I meant Leland. But yeah, I did think that was my first thought when Tyler got stabbed and he’s like you were I’m like “oh you’ve stabbed him thinking he’s human you’ve forgotten he’s like a killing on his organs are in different places”.
Carla: Yeah.
Ben: But I don’t know I guess we’ll find out if that’s the case.
Carla: Is that because the nanobots were just like repairing everything as time goes as has, he gets shot?
Ben: I don’t know. I guess so. I mean that’s one of the benefits of having nanobots right they can do, and you do all kinds of jazz.
Carla: Can I ask one more stupid question?
Ben: You can ask as many as you like. I think this episode has given us lots of scope for that
Carla: Limitless. Yeah like I don’t understand this whole 950 in the future thing. no sentient life. But there’s life of some kind? There’s still…
Ben: No, I don’t think so.
Carla: Plants and stuff?
Ben: Oh, there might be…
Carla: What is she living on?
Ben: There must be plants and stuff but then it does say…
Carla: That’s my question is she living on if there’s no creatures? How is she eating?
Ben: Yeah, it’s a good question and they keep talking about how well all the civilizations home worlds have been completely destroyed.
Carla: Yeah.
Ben: And presumably all sentient life means everybody else. But if you destroy the whole planet while you’re destroying all life.
Carla: Yeah.
Ben: So yeah, I don’t know. Maybe she’s just nicked stuff when she comes back.
Carla: That’s what I though she’s going to get some Macca’s. See you later.
Ben: Yeah. Like there’s all these undocumented appearances that the Red Angel where she’s just like stealing somebody’s takeaway.
Carla: (laughs) But then also how is she like creeping on Michael all this time?
Ben: Yeah. What’s the deal with that? I don’t know. Like it’s not exactly subtle. The Red Angel Suit when it shows up.
Carla: She’s just peeping through the window.
Ben: Even when there’s not a red burst like it’s an angel floating in the air going (sound) “Waaaaaaaaaahhh” and there’s like tachyon detection., but you know all this kind of stuff that you would think the Vulcan science directorate, if nobody else, would be like “now wait a minute”.
Carla: Yeah yeah yeah.
Ben: But it doesn’t happen. So, I don’t know?
Carla: And so, then that goes back to my whole thing of me, last episode going “I don’t understand the whole Red Bursts thing”. And so at least now I know that doesn’t make sense.
Ben: Yeah well not yet anyway.
Carla: So that’s “watch this space”. What – that’s actually like a huge question mark. I’m like “what is going to happen there?”
Ben: It’s clearly a big clue as to the answer.
Carla: Yeah.
Ben: I feel like Michael is going to end up inside the suit because I also felt I was very “hand wavy”, where they’re like “yes definitely you. This signature definitely matches your brain pattern. Oh, but also there’s a big similarity between moms and daughters”. I’m like “guys” where Michael wakes up Michael’s like “hey you said it had to be…
Carla: Especially with mitochondrial DNA didn’t you know Ben?
Ben: I didn’t know what that’s got to do with a bio-neural signature.
Carla: Me neither.
Ben: But then it’s all just weird isn’t it. It’s all just words…
Carla: Isn’t mitochondrial, mitochondria is this stuff in the brain, it’s electricity in the brain that clears out all the cells and keeps everything functioning.
Ben: Well mitochondria there is mitochondria in your brain but there’s mitochondria in everywhere.
Carla: Everywhere, in every cell.
Carla: So yeah, it’s like it’s like the little tiny sort of cell that was once a separate organism that was captured by the kind of cells that we have. And yeah. And the idea is that you know that the DNA does get carried down the generations without much change.
Carla: But we have 50/50.
Ben: Not in mitochondria you don’t.
Carla: Oh, is that… okay…
Ben: Yes.
Carla: Alright, there you go.
Ben: I might be wrong about that plays right into my wrong there’ll be a show note about it no doubt.
Carla: Of course.
Ben: How you feel Michael fared this episode. I mean it is intense for her. Obviously.
Carla: It felt, actually felt like an episode about her.
Ben: Yeah. And she went through a lot of stuff. I mean how harsh was it that “oh here’s your mom. She’s actually alive. She’s been gone for 20 years. Now you find out she’s been tried travelling and trying to save you and the entire universe. And she doesn’t want to talk to you”.
Carla: Yeah.
Ben: Like that’s pretty rough.
Carla: Sure.
Ben: I did, I did hear somebody I know I think was sort of complaining that I felt she’s gotten real whiny and I’m like “if there’s any excuse” like come on this is intense. And I thought she rallied pretty well like she had – this was really rough episode for her but she still managed to get in there and do the job and yeah, sure, she was lying on a bed feeling pretty awful and then sorry for herself at the end of it but well who wouldn’t like, “jeez”, it was rough and then and Spock gives her a bit of a rallying speech and she gets up.
Carla: Yeah. Which is nice. Spock could have gloated quite a bit around that like “taste of your own medicine hey”.
Ben: Oh rough.
Carla: He feels, he’s got the touch of Sarek to him you know like he’s got the Vulcan diplomat about him. Let’s put it that way.
Ben: That would that would cut him to the quick. He would not like that at all. I’m just looking at my notes here. I see. Oh look. That was the other reason that she says she is. She’s trying to establish that she can change the past, Burnham senior, and that’s why she saved those people from World War Three as much as anything else to prove that the past could be changed. I think. But you’re right. Well have you changed the past. And she clearly has changed the past because she says that she was the one who put the Sphere into Discovery’s path so that they would find it and hopefully they would get its data and then Control wouldn’t get it. Which you know means that there must have been an original timeline where that did happen. But for whatever reason she hasn’t been able to go back and stop all this from happening.
Carla: Well there’s been like 800 timelines where Control always wins.
Ben: Yeah yeah. And it’s not clear where she can and can’t go. Like she can’t go back an hour before the Klingons come to kill her husband because of something she mentions a “time storm” at some point which is never explained but also it seems like she can’t go back in time and just stop Control from being created in the first place.
Carla: Right.
Ben: But I guess if she can’t be there for very long, she can’t do very subtle things she has to sort of do something…
Carla: It’s all so…
Ben: Blatant.
Carla: And also, that she said that Spock has been the only person who’s been able to communicate with her and understand her. So obviously she’s tried to communicate with many other different people, beings, aliens and not gotten anywhere.
Ben: Yeah yeah. Which I thought was interesting although I got to say I don’t know that I feel very comfortable with the way that they basically present dyslexia as some sort of superpower in this episode. It just doesn’t make any sense. It’s like only you can understand my time travelling ways because you are both logical and emotional and also you have dyslexia.
Carla: I don’t understand this whole thing.
Ben: It doesn’t make any sense. It’s very flimsy.
Carla: It’s strange.
Ben: Yeah. I mean unless I mean the only way, I can see it really making sense is if it’s not the dyslexia that helps him. It’s the whatever exercises or mental discipline or whatever he’s been doing to overcome it which means he’s used to looking at things that I don’t quite fit because of how he naturally perceives them and has a system or a method for reassembling them into a way that does make sense. Maybe that could explain it. I don’t know but I. But even he like his brain got messed up by it.
Ben: But then again, they represent they’re presenting that is like some mind-bending thing that you can’t understand the Red Angel because like it travels through time and it’s not. And I don’t think they’ve made it really clear why. Like I sort of I’ve come to the idea in my head that the reason is she’s existed across all these different timelines. And so, when he mind melds with her, he doesn’t just see visions of the past and future. He sees all these conflicting visions of the past each year.
Ben: But that’s not presented in the text of the story. That’s me like making that up to make that make sense. But I think that’s what’s going on and like in the episode where the Talosians has put his mind back together it’s really just said that it’s seeing the past and future in a weird order. And I’m like “I think it’s got to be worse than that because nobody else has this problem when they finally get to talk to the Red Angel”. They’re not like “Oh mum you’re alive. My brain is exploding. No, it’s totally fine”. So yeah, I don’t know. I don’t. It’s a bit flimsy I feel.
Carla: Yeah. There’s a lot of question marks.
Ben: Yeah. So, I guess I guess what I’m saying is that on some levels I really enjoyed this episode and, on some levels,, it just left me a bit these explanations are not very satisfying.
Carla: Look I have to say it’s been a very shabby season. Like I mean not shabby maybe shaggy is the word. Like it’s been pretty all over the place. And the way that it’s been that is there feels like a valiant effort to kind of try to thread it all back into some kind of much like Spock’s brain or something into a coherent narrative.
Ben: No don’t mention Spock’s brain.
Carla: Yeah but I have confidence that you know like it’s all going to whether or not it’s satisfactory or not it’s all going to make sense and the next final three episodes that we have and they’ll put a bow on it and be like “Okay that turbulent time in Star Trek Discovery history is over and we’re going to move on with the third season and it’s going to we’re going to make sense from day dot”.
Ben: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well it’ll be really interesting to see where they go with these final three episodes, I think.
Carla: Shall we go to Short Chats?
Ben: I think we shall.
Carla: All right. Now it’s time for re:Discovery Short Chats, where we talk news trivia, and anything related to Discovery and or sci-fi it seems. We will also be taking questions I haven’t heard from you guys in a while so shoot us through a question.
Ben: Surely, you’ve got questions because I know I’ve got loads. (both laugh)
Carla: So, do get in touch with us now on our socials. What do you have today Ben?
Ben: Well I just got a couple of little things really. I saw some nice echoes in this episode of things from other sci-fi stuff that I love. Yeah. And one was the idea and I have to be I can’t write exactly where I’ve seen this before but I love the line that Gabrielle Burnham has when she’s talking to Pike and she says “you’re a ghost to me” because you know she’s from the future.
Carla: She’s seen everything.
Ben: Everybody’s dead as far as she’s concerned and that’s kind of echoes back, I think it’s in the Doctor Who “New Adventures” novels that this idea comes up. So, this was a series of novels if you’re not familiar with them listeners, which were written after the TV series Doctor Who got cancelled back in 1989. They continued the story in these novels and the novels were very definitely aimed at the adult fan audience. So, they gotten quite dark. And there was all kinds of crazy shit that happened in them. They’re not considered canon now although they were for a long time. The Doctor in them becomes quite manipulative and dark. They explore these weird. I mean it’s a bit grim dark people in their 20’s writing “Yeah this is how you do proper science fiction”. When I look back at it was all happening in the sort of late sorry in the 90s it was happening in the 90s. So, it was at the same time as you were saying like the big spiky pole runs on superheroes and everybody wearing pouches and getting all grim backstories.
Carla: Okay.
Ben: It was it comes out of the same kind of milieu but with Doctor Who. But yeah there’s a there’s a few times where the Doctor sort of has this kind of people accusing him of thinking of everybody as ghosts because he’s lived so long. He travels through time that everybody’s dead to him and I think there’s a similar line that crops up in the TV series and the Christopher Eccleston era from memory. But yeah, I just thought that was it was kind of interesting and it really was a nice shorthand way of showing how grim she’s gotten and how this time travel has affected her.
Carla: Well yeah and this is also analogous to you know many cultures gods – they’re painted as grumpy, intolerant, immersed in godly matters because she’s almost like a god like she you know…
Ben: She got godlike power, right?
Carla: She exists in all space and time and has witnessed you know as far as we know at least a millennia, of our quadrant of the universes, history.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: I only have a couple of things one is it’s been confirmed that Pike and Spock are leaving Discovery at the end of Season 2 which is understandable they’re going to go back to the Enterprise.
Ben: They’ve got other shit to do.
Carla: So that actually makes me excited about sort of thinking forward to the third season like who’s going to be the captain what kind of missions are they going to go on.
Ben: Will they go back to Vulcan where they were going to pick up then you can find out who it is?
Carla: Maybe that’s a good point.
Ben: What if Sarek was the captain?
Carla: No no no he’s not in Star Fleet. He’s just an ambassador.
Ben: He’s very definitely not in Star Fleet. He’s very angry about his kids being in Star Fleet. One of them in particular anyway, yeah no that makes sense.
Carla: Yeah that makes me excited.
Ben: As could be anybody. I think it’ll be a new character.
Carla: I hope so. Actually yeah. What about you?
Ben: I think it will be. I think it’ll be good. I think there’s a lot of people who probably wish it would be a prime universe Lorca re-emerging but I…
Carla: Or even Georgiou.
Ben: What Prime universe Georgiou.
Carla: No no. Terran Georgiou.
Ben: Oh yeah yeah. She’s going to be busy with…
Carla: Oh, that’s right Section 31.
Ben: Because now Leland is practically dead. Probably anyway certainly. He’s can’t be trusted.
Carla: Maybe it will be Captain Saru?
Ben: But I think he’s he would’ve earned it. I think so too.
Carla: Yeah yeah. And Michael can be first officer again.
Ben: Yeah that would work out. Yeah. I’d be into that. But yeah, I’d also be totally open for it to be a new character. I think that would be fun. We’ve never had a we’d never had a show before where the main like the captain of the ship changes every season and I think that’s kind of awesome.
Carla: Yeah, I do too.
Ben: It gives us a lot of scope. I mean presumably though if everybody goes back to the Enterprise from the Enterprise will also lose Nhan.
Carla: Yeah. That’s. No, I’m not into that at all.
Ben: Well she never knows she might stay. She might stay on board Discovery. She’s pretty cool. It’ll be interesting to see what happens. Yeah.
Carla: Do you have another thing?
Ben: Yeah. There’s the other thing. Weirdly that this episode reminded me of was “Back to the Future” because they keep talking about how they’re going to need a power source. Basically, this is in the flashback like when they’re doing the time travel experiment and they need “only the power of a supernova could power this” and they’re like “oh if only we knew where a supernova would happen. Oh, we do. Look here’s this thing. Save the star system now”. But it just reminded me of that. Not terribly accurately perhaps but yeah, I thought that was fun.
Carla: I have one more thing and I mentioned that last episode to talk about goes to Phillips who’s the costume designer.
Ben: Oh yeah yeah.
Carla: She’s amazing and I don’t really have anything to say about her apart from the fact that she’s amazing and also that there is done a tonne of press and interviews about like linguistically how she sort of took translated or you know yeah translated the original series uniforms into to where she wanted Discovery to go and then there’s another great interview about her talking about developing the Discoveries uniforms and how basically she kept the same cut from the Discoveries to the new TOS uniform so they looked almost exactly the same it’s just you know the different colouring. I’ll chuck up a couple of different interviews with her in with her and you can have a look because it’s I find that stuff super interesting.
Ben: Yeah, it’s cool and I would love to. Hopefully she talks also about some of the casual outfits on the show like and some of the Vulcan fashion particularly because there’s cool stuff going on there.
Carla: She’s done so much so many interviews I’m sure there’s that specific something out there which is one amazing interview where she was talking specifically about how her and the set designer worked together too. They work together. She stylistically have a meta frame for the design linguistics but then like with the Terran universe she’s talking about how when she created those uniforms then the set designer then took the patterns from their uniforms and made it into wallpaper so there was kind of like referencing each other and just sounds like such a great process.
Ben: Yeah sounds great. Yeah, I’ll be I’ll be really excited to read that because I have to say the design in all aspects of Discovery has always been top notch.
Carla: It’s amazing.
Ben: Everything from the sets to the costumes to the makeup to the special effects to the sound on it. We had that one nice. We always talk about the spinney directing stuff.
Carla: Yeah.
Ben: It had that one shot this episode where it starts off upside down with Stamets at the display and then slowly rotates 180 degrees until he’s the right way up and I actually really enjoyed that for some reason. I don’t know why, it just really really tickled me in a way that you know spinning around people doesn’t always fit me. I mean sometimes I feel like it does ramp up the tension and sometimes it feels like you just shoot somebodies face?”.
Carla: Or just for just slow it down like it does don’t even have to give it up. You could just slow it down to the point that I don’t feel like I’m going to puke.
Ben: I luckily have not had that problem but I, but I get I get where you come from.
Carla: All right. Anything else.
Ben: There is one other thing I should talk about Carla as I am doing a comedy festival show. It’s on this week as this comes out from the 1st to the 7th of April at Campari house in Melbourne’s here in Melbourne a comedy which sometimes
Carla: Science informed comedy as well.
Ben: It’s true we sometimes do talk about psychology here on the show and I’m doing this show with Alanta Colley who’s also a science comedian and it’s called “You Chose Poorly. It’s all about the psychology of decision making and why we’re so poor at making good decisions. So, I feel like maybe Michael and Spock sometimes could learn from some of the stuff I’ve been reading. Certainly, her mum as well. Maybe I don’t know yeah, it’s just this episode had some real highs and lows for me, and I just had mom’s so harsh, so hard.
Carla: Understandably though.
Ben: Like the first thing she says to her own daughter is “no, no”. That’s rough. Come on.
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