The Benevolent Society of Angry Misanthropes: Star Trek: Discovery

This episode was a real land of contrasts. It was half great, half terrible. There was a lot of really good character stuff in there, but then the plot got in the way, and that ending - ugh. Just the worst. But I'll get to that. Let's start with the good bits.

Airiam (the robot woman) always has this stupid, pointless HUD in her vision, apparently.

You know those characters who hang out on the bridge and have absolutely nothing to do and no reason for being on the show? They actually got some attention in this episode and it was great. I want a whole episode of this. Instead of making the entire show about Michael, give us these characters, and show us what they're like when they're not in the middle of a catastrophe.

This episode also does a lot to make Tilly less annoying and explain why her coworkers actually like her so much.

When I think of TNG, the stuff I always remember is the casual interactions between the crew, both on duty and off. It's what gave the characters depth. And this show just doesn't do it. There's been this episode, and that one party back in season one, and that's it. We also got Michael and Spock working on a problem together and that was good too.

3D chess, because you can't play regular chess when it's the future and you're in space.

All the characters benefit from this, even the ones who aren't suffering from a terminal lack of screen time; Michael, Tilly and Stamets all get some great development here and it's a real shame it all gets interrupted by some dumb action scenes. The minefield surrounding the Section 31 base just seemed to be there because there hadn't been enough explosions lately.

I think there are also a couple of dudes who are always on the bridge and still haven't had a chance to do anything.

Speaking of which, they trace the transmission that was sent last week to the Section 31 top secret HQ and go there only to find that everyone's dead - including an admiral who they just received a message from. While Michael Airiam and the third cyborg woman (whose name I don't know - and why are there so many cyborg women on Discovery?) investigate the Section 31 base, Saru figures out that the message was a hologram Starfleet's AI, Control, sent because it's trying to upgrade itself and take over. It also faked the footage of Spock killing those doctors. This doesn't explain where those doctors are or what happened to them though.

It's never a good sign when you arrive on a space station and everyone's dead.

It also turns out that Control was the one who hacked Airiam, and is now controlling (ha) her. So there's a fight between her, Michael, and Cyborg #3. Cyborg #3 gets taken out and Michael's getting her arse kicked as well. Tilly tries a big emotional appeal and it doesn't work. Michael does get Airiam trapped in the airlock, but she can't bring herself to eject her into space (which is what everyone is telling her to do), but then Cyborg #3 recovers and does it for her.

Hopefully one day I'll have a reason to learn your name, Cyborg #3. And hopefully it won't be because you just died.

And they try to play it like it's this big tragedy that we should all feel sad about, but literally all of Airiam's character development happened in this one episode. There was just no time for us to get attached to her. She seemed cool in this episode, but up till now she's basically just been furniture. And much as I liked the character building in this episode, I'm worried that it was literally only there so they could have this ending happen and next week it'll be back to completely ignoring anyone who isn't directly interacting with Michael or Stamets. But they've shown that they can do this now, so all I can do is hope that they will.