Story: The Red Angel
Written By: Anthony Maranville & Chris Silvestri
Series: Star Trek: Discovery
Year: 2019
Tilly discovers, through Ariam's memory banks, that Burnham is the Red Angel. This is initially a disappointing conclusion...because it is far too obvious and boring. And for a good chunk of this episode I was sort of bothered by this revelation. Michael is clearly the star of the show, and that is fine, but I felt the idea of the Red Angel also being her felt lazy and puts too much weight on the importance of her character to the universe. Look, she has been on the verge of that since the launch of the show. At least last week had Spock undercut that by pointing out that she does seem to act like the center of the universe. This revelation had me a bit bummed.
The episode spends time having Burnham deal with this, and they come up with a plan to trap the Red Angel (who is assumed to be a future version of Michael) when Spock realizes that Burnham in danger is the variance in where the Angel appears along with the signals. They plan to try and kill Burnham and hope the Angel shows up to save herself.
Then in the end we find out the Angel is Burnham's mom. Decent twist on that I suppose. But the earlier revelation by Leland that her parents were actually Section 31 agents and he disregarded their safety and sent them on the mission that got them killed had me rolling my eyes. I guess it relieves Burnham of her own guilt over their deaths...but my god I am sick of Section 31. It is too prominent in the universe now. Sure it can go underground more, and by the days of DS9 end up a more hidden entity. But the big problem with all the Section 31 stuff now is that it makes Trek like every other damn show now. Part of what attracts me to Trek is that it shows a less grimy future, one where things are achieved through working together and problem solving.
Section 31 now represents that the Federation has sneaky villains doing criminal activities in other governments. It just feels as gross as our current world. It doesn't give me hope for the future. It just means we will forever be full of assholes who think they know whats best for the universe and impose that on others. Oh joy. I think Discovery is, in some ways, missing the damn point. At times I think they totally get Trek and want to make it work in the modern world. At the beginning of this season it felt like they had cracked it. And now it feels like some of the issues of Season One are back in full force.
Again, I don't hate this show or even this episode...but as Section 31 has been my main complaint of the year, this episode just has more of that then I need. The organization needs to fade away. I like the way it was used on DS9, but I wouldn't mind if it got struck from the universe completely. At least it seems that Leland died, maybe? I think at the end it was an AI that killed him and used his voice to help Tyler close up the Angel's time traveling vortex. Oh I forgot that I am also sick of Tyler in general, but in particular his relationship with Burnham.
I think the episode does what it needs to do, it gets us to the Red Angel reveal...which the show needed to get to at this point. Now the show can explore this for the next four episodes and wrap up this storyline and season. I wish the Red Angel had been something more intriguing.
NEXT TIME: Michael's Mom
Written By: Anthony Maranville & Chris Silvestri
Series: Star Trek: Discovery
Year: 2019
Tilly discovers, through Ariam's memory banks, that Burnham is the Red Angel. This is initially a disappointing conclusion...because it is far too obvious and boring. And for a good chunk of this episode I was sort of bothered by this revelation. Michael is clearly the star of the show, and that is fine, but I felt the idea of the Red Angel also being her felt lazy and puts too much weight on the importance of her character to the universe. Look, she has been on the verge of that since the launch of the show. At least last week had Spock undercut that by pointing out that she does seem to act like the center of the universe. This revelation had me a bit bummed.
Then in the end we find out the Angel is Burnham's mom. Decent twist on that I suppose. But the earlier revelation by Leland that her parents were actually Section 31 agents and he disregarded their safety and sent them on the mission that got them killed had me rolling my eyes. I guess it relieves Burnham of her own guilt over their deaths...but my god I am sick of Section 31. It is too prominent in the universe now. Sure it can go underground more, and by the days of DS9 end up a more hidden entity. But the big problem with all the Section 31 stuff now is that it makes Trek like every other damn show now. Part of what attracts me to Trek is that it shows a less grimy future, one where things are achieved through working together and problem solving.
Section 31 now represents that the Federation has sneaky villains doing criminal activities in other governments. It just feels as gross as our current world. It doesn't give me hope for the future. It just means we will forever be full of assholes who think they know whats best for the universe and impose that on others. Oh joy. I think Discovery is, in some ways, missing the damn point. At times I think they totally get Trek and want to make it work in the modern world. At the beginning of this season it felt like they had cracked it. And now it feels like some of the issues of Season One are back in full force.
Again, I don't hate this show or even this episode...but as Section 31 has been my main complaint of the year, this episode just has more of that then I need. The organization needs to fade away. I like the way it was used on DS9, but I wouldn't mind if it got struck from the universe completely. At least it seems that Leland died, maybe? I think at the end it was an AI that killed him and used his voice to help Tyler close up the Angel's time traveling vortex. Oh I forgot that I am also sick of Tyler in general, but in particular his relationship with Burnham.
I think the episode does what it needs to do, it gets us to the Red Angel reveal...which the show needed to get to at this point. Now the show can explore this for the next four episodes and wrap up this storyline and season. I wish the Red Angel had been something more intriguing.
NEXT TIME: Michael's Mom
Comments
Post a Comment