I actually found this episode quite difficult to review. And that’s to be expected I guess
as the series gains momentum, there’s going to be more interlinked episodes that rely
a lot on previous and future segments so looking at an episode like this on its own seems kind
of pointless. That being said, I’m gonna do it anyway.
Spoilers ahead. Hello, Ric here with the review of episode
nine of season 2 of Star Trek Discovery, Project Daedalus.
Admiral’s shuttle here reads 1031 on the side, so is this a shuttle from Discovery?
Anyway… The inclusion of “Control” as the Section
31 system for threat assessment has its roots in the DS9 novels of the same name. It sounds
like Discovery is adapting the extra-series sources for its use in continuity and I’m
alright with this, there’s a lot of good stories to be told buried beyond the confines
of what we see on screens. The control system in Discovery is a near-intelligent
system by the sound of it that formulates and collates data into making recommendations
for Starfleet and has long been a useful tool in their arsenal. But as Cornwell states,
the system has never been more than that, one of the tools the admiralty uses to make
an informed decision. As the audience, we know that something was wrong with this system
from Airiam’s “infection” and the mechanical nature of the altered probe from Discovery’s
future. So when she mentions that the Admirals that oversee section 31 have locked her out
and gone silent, it was safe to assume they were dead and that Control had gone rogue.
Cornwell assumes that Admiral Patar had usurped control of… Control which raises a question.
Why was Patar, a known extremist in a position where she could do that in the first place?
Of course that turns out not to be the case so the point is moot anyway and I guess Starfleet
has always had to deal with shady admirals that have their own agendas.
Airiam, the bridge crew and Nahn all get a lot of screen time here, but Lt Commander
Airiam most of all. So we finally get to learn that she was a human, or at least one of Trek’s
many human-proxy species that had been heavily converted with cybernetics to preserve her
life after a shuttle accident. It’s a harsh touch to her existence that her memory storage
is finite and she has to selectively remove superfluous memories every week to maintain
space and adds a very humanising touch that confirms that under it all, she is still very
much an emotional person. She keeps the memories of her friends while dumping the events where
nothing much happens. We learn that she is an excellent Kadis-Kat player, along with
Ensign Tilly, a Vulcan logic puzzle game. Humanising her before the end of the episode
was very much the struggle the series faces this time, in order to give her sacrifice
an impact. For me, this didn’t entirely work but it was a good start and I’d have
liked to have seen more from her. We get the sense that she is still overcoming the grief
of her accident and the presumed loss of her husband, illustrated by the conversation with
Tilly and only now is she comfortable bringing out reminders of her past. Ideally This could
have been a story arc set up previously and we get to see her grapple with her past over
the course of a couple of episodes. Though I’ll admit I struggle to see where this
could be implemented in the already quite crowded plotlines of prior episodes. As it
is, I had only just begun to actually empathise with her before it was over. Though I will
say she did dump all her memories into the Discovery’s computer systems to make room
for Control’s mission. So perhaps she’s not gone completely?
She seems unaware of when Control takes over he functions, continuing to perform as herself,
just with a subconscious motivations and its only by the time it’s too late that she
begins to notice something wrong with herself, asking Tilly to watch over her.
It’s also fun to see Pike’s morality once again come into conflict with the notions
Cornwell puts forth, painting him very much as an idealist when compared to Cornwell’s
pragmatism and a complete opposite Section 31’s pessimism. Cornwell diffuses the situation
easily by stating that Pike’s morality and the status of the Enterprise was the reason
they weren’t recalled for combat, Starfleet wanted to maintain its ethos on some level,
even during wartime. Pike seems a little taken aback at the high praise, fully prepared to
go off on morality lecture as he has needed to do in the past. The smirking glances among
the crew show that they are functioning like a proper group of friends and I’m reminded
of the “behind the back” smirks that Riker would give to others when Data was being Data.
Well here we have Pike being Pike. Nahn is very much an outsider to this crew,
being one of the Enterprise transfer members and as such is removed from the comradery
of these friends, which leads her to grow increasingly suspicious of Airiam. Again,
I feel like this plot seemed to only just begin to surface before it’s all cut short,
with Commander Nahn lingering in the background overseeing her actions and ultimately being
the one to space her. But I’ll touch on that scene in a minute. Also the minute Airiam
asked about her breathing apparatus, you just knew that was coming off.
Stamets is back to being grumpy again, first Burnham and Spock are too quiet, then too
distracting but he does serve to try to heal Spock and Burnham’s relationship when Stamets
asks him for his assistance. As for Spock’s emotional state, it feels
as if Burnham’s presence is exacerbating him, honestly it seems almost immature of
the pair for them to be acting out to spite each other in this super-passive aggressive
way. If this keeps up, I can see why the never talk about each other but there has to be
some form of reconciliation as it is affecting their working relationship also. Spock makes
many small jibes at Burnham, “It is quite an accomplishment to be uniquely mundane.”
I mean, ouch? Spock has the right of it when he points out
how Burnham attempts to tackle every problem herself thinking that there is a perfect solution
to every outcome. I mean she never attended Starfleet Academy so she probably never took
the Kobiyahsi-maru test. Just saying folks, this is why it’s an important lesson. But
they do tie this into her past experiences. Which brings me to the final scene where Airiam
is contained in an airlock but Control has her under its grip. Burnham is ultimately
asked to open the airlock by Airiam, Spock and her captain but cannot bring herself to
do so. I buy the performance that Martin-Green delivers here, but I really can’t recall
Burnham interacting that much with Airiam on screen so it did lessen the emotional impact
for me. As it was, I felt more for the people left behind and their grief and shock than
for myself. You could argue that that is the point of this tragedy, that everything involving
her was just getting started and was cut off unexpectedly, which it was. I didn’t foresee
Airiam being killed off. Also while the fight was going on and Airiam
was contained, not once did anyone think to check on the suffocating Nahn, understandbale
in the middle of a fight, but Pike just watched Burnham get her arse kicked and was like “Burnham!”,
meanwhile, your officer you brought with you is asphyxiating on the floor and nothing?
Okay fights over, maybe someone will help her? She even still alive? She’s not moving?
No? That trail of thought underpinned the scene for me and detracted from the focus.
The section 31 base itself was atmospheric , but they’d already given away that the
crew were dead so it wasn’t surprising to learn that Patar was one of the deceased.
I like the idea of mines that home in on shield frequencies so you travel in at no shields
and face other types of mine. But I have to say I thought they would be far more damaging
than they were. Discovery got hit by a lot, both with shields and without and it was only
Airiam getting a message to Control that allowed them to board. With Control attempting to
become sentient, the deaths of the Section 31 Admiralty and the increasingly shady operations
they are undertaking perhaps we are beginning to see the dismantlement of Section 31 leading
to the state it is in during Deep Space Nine. There’s a final reveal that the Control
program in Airiam considered Burnham a threat, likely because in its timeline she wasn’t
alive, or perhaps she really is going to be the Red Herring. I mean Red Angel and that
she should investigate a Project Daedalus. In mythology Daedalus was a craftsman who
among other things built the Labyrinth so I assume Daedalus is a construction of some
form of tech, maybe the time-travel suit that the Angel is using? And lastly, with Airiam’s
memories in the Discovery computer, could we be seeing the birth of Zora from the Calypso
Short Trek? Heard that idea first from Trekyards which could make all the Short Trek’s actually
relevant and not just fun spin-off stories. Anyway, that’s my summary and review of
episode 9. It missed the mark on several points, but that’s more faults of telling, not showing.
I needed more from Airiam to feel impacted by her death, as it was I was more sympathising
with the crew’s emotions at the end than feeling the loss myself. The state of Control’s
base and the Admiralty was telegraphed too early so I again, the reveal wasn’t as impactful.
So not a strong episode but with its nature as a bridge between episodes I feel that it
did the best with what it had. Thanks for listening to my review and I’m wondering
how it hit you? Do you agree with my assessment, or were you right there with the crew when
she died. Or perhaps you felt nothing either way and they missed the mark entirely. Let
me know and thanks again, I’ll see you next video, goodbye.