Light and Shadows

When I began watching the original series back in my college days, I never dreamed that people would carry it around in their heads for fifty years. That they would look at every new incarnation and spend their time longing for the old show. Do any of you realize how lame some of those episodes were. There's the whole "canon" thing that seems to get people upset. As cinema evolves so do the story lines and the characters. There are new challenges with sophisticated science. Granted, I find this new show to have some real flaws, but it isn't that they aren't trying. There are too many subplots and there is the tiresome Tilly, but I still love to see what a new angle can do. I'm sure when TNG came along, the same naysayers were whining. A canon is generally written by one writer or poet. If cinema had followed what you want, we would still be watching silent films.

Omg this episode was beyond brilliant So much happened I feel like I need to watch this 20 more times Just epic !! Ethan was amazing as Spock Michele Yeoh is so bad ass Sonequa is so beautiful and the chemistry between Spock and her is electric Special effects spectacular as always I cannot fault this episode I just cannot wait a week for the next instalment Well done writers..this show is just perfection

Seems like the reviews are either 9s & 10s from viewers like me who are loving Star Trek Discovery, or 1s from old guard haters who aren't willing to let the Trek Universe track some new ground.

I've been a track fan since discovering the classic series in reruns. I've watched all seasons of all series, and recognize that this show is taking some liberties while capturing the essence of what I love most about Star Trek, and doing so in a highly entertaining way.

As for this episode, we finally find Spock, sort of, a plot element that has drug in a bit long for me. But it's exciting nonetheless. The climate and ancient-ness of Vulcan are further developed. Tyler and Pike have some conflict that is fun and resolves nicely. Pike is quickly becoming one of my favorite starship captains in the franchise. And, I about fell out of my chair when Talos IV came up!

The one consistently annoying device that is over usd is the techspeak problem solving sessions that just sound like "blah blah whatever" when Tilly and Stamets are saving the ship. Character drama is much more interesting. TNG used to do the same thing and it causes me to disconnect from the story. But eh, the rest is so good I'm hooked anyway!

"With a pair of tweezers".

Burnham thinks she knows where is Spock is, the only trick is she has to confront Amanda.

Discovery, however, sticks around the vicinity of Kaminar to look for Temporal Causality loops and other magic Red Angel debris.

I have to admit these time elements don't appear to be the same rehashed technobabble that Brannon Braga used to come up with all the "time", even though sometimes he came up with some good ones.

And a couple of the lines in here you can swear we heard Mr. Worf saying: right before the Enterprise D blew up.

In fact, I was just watching "Children of Time", S5E22 of Deep Space Nine, written by Ethan H. Calk, who also wrote S3E17 "Visionary", one of the best of these time oriented stories. Ethan also wrote the great Star Trek Fan Film "Of Gods and Men" and both episodes of (Star Trek) Renegades. In "Children of Time", we see what happens when the event that caused the changes in the timeline, is caused to have never happened. In that case, unfortunate and unwanted consequences ensued. The best time stories are not written by the usual writer's of a show's "Bullpen", but by outsiders. Because Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and I believe Voyager all accepted scripts from outside of the usual source of "Writer's Guild approved writers". That decision was wise, but it could only have happened because both TNG and DS9 were syndicated shows, Voyager of course was a Network show, and as such was prone to network interference by pencil pushers. I don't know how strict Discovery's rules are for writers, but the ones who penned this episode, Ted Sullivan and Vaun Wilmott, did a splendid job, mostly by relying on and mining Star Trek Canon.

It is starting to look like the Red Angel arc was something put into play by Discovery itself - Just like in "All Good Things" - Picard asked "Why is it (The Anomaly) getting larger in the past? We know why, it was because they caused the "Anomaly" in the future. Is something similar happening here?

Meanwhile Georgiou and Section 31 rear their ugly heads, but I think in this episode we have to realize that Mirror-Georgiou is not really who we have to worry about at this point, she is an ally. But does she have ulterior motives? I would have to say yes to that, only, her goal is not very clear.

Be ready to revisit some aliens that we met way back in the original series, maybe even before that. Before this series was a series. Or, as Picard put it in "all good things", " The chicken and the egg, Will, the chicken and the egg!"

Because Spock is either spouting nonsense, or it means something. Burnham opts to believe option two: "Not Nonsense".

And the mechanical girl: beware of the three red eyes. I found this interesting, because this mechanical girl on the bridge, has never been explained. "Airiam". All we really have is her name, the Star Trek Wiki Memory Alpha does not really have anything much to say about her either. So, who is she? Where did she come from? What is she? In Star Trek Into Darkness, we had "Science Officer 0718" played by the great Joseph Gatt. I was hoping he would have been explained, but his character never returned for Kirk's 5-year voyage that was interrupted in Star Trek Beyond. So I highly anticipate where this Airiam arc goes.

There is also an Easter egg in here that occurs to me, Pike's solution to sending some kind of signal to discovery, The same kind of solution occurred to Spock 53 years ago, or was it 10 years from now?

Burnham goes back to Vulcan whilst Discovery encounters a temporal anomaly.

This is a pretty good episode, especially the visuals, with a strong plot that is unfortunately let down by the exposition.

I enjoyed the story, which I found to be quite compelling and the final reveal works not only as great fan service but as hook to find out what happens next. I hope the writers have something in mind for preserving the legacy of the Trek canon as they write this story, but if it turns out to be something special I will forgive the franchise inconsistency. The sub-plot involves great sci-fi, but probably could have done without the similarity in tech design to The Matrix.

Generally in the episode the visuals are brilliant. The cinematography is excellent and works well for the visual storytelling. Some of the editing is also superb. One of my favourite parts is a transition between one Discovery character's eye to a light aboard another ship.

Where I struggle, as usual with Discovery, is the dialogue. I find the exposition to be so deliberate and obvious that it feels unnatural. Pretty much all of the intro sequence is a big information dump and the episode is littered with other similar moments. I don't mind it so much during the technobabble sequences, because these things need explanations but they do drag on a bit in this show. The worst line in the episode for me was one character reveal about Burnham that was unimaginatively spoken between two Section 31 characters.

Performances from all cast are solid with nobody especially standing out except Sonequa Martin-Green who leads her scenes well and possibly Mary Wiseman who continues to entertain.