The end of the season, and things are heating up. Spoilers after the jump.
The biggest complaint I have with this season is all the episodes that feel like a lot of mechanics to get from A to B. In this case from the end of the previous episode to the big reveal at the end of this one. This is probably the worst case of it so far.
The scenes with Burnham and Gorgiou didn’t do a lot for me. Burnham revealing the mirror universe thing to Georgiou was a very big risk. I can see that personally she had little choice, but she was taking a big chance for the Discovery at the same time. It’s interesting to see the reflection of the relationship, but hard to get much of a grip on without seeing the mirror Burnham.
The twin Stamets scenes are a tour de force of acting. Hundreds of tiny adjustments to differentiate two characters. And it was nice to have one last scene between Stamets and Culber. But really that was a lot of time spent for ‘Stamets wakes up, and mirror Stamets is up to no good.
Sigh, now for the TyVoq plot. So Tyler really is Tyler, but Voq has been implanted on top? Fine, but then why were there massive surgical changes? It’s really making very little sense. And then L’Rell can just use shiny magic fingers and it’s fixed? I worry that this wasn’t very well thought through. And it all seems so pointless so far, it’s added really nothing to the overall plot of the season.
The best answer of what it was for is that it was misdirection to what I was almost seeing in an earlier review – Lorca is from the mirror universe. Potentially interesting, sure. But where are they going to go with it? I feel like this season has been a lot of very interesting setups, but much more mixed on using them to do something good.
Quick thoughts:
– One of the flattest teasers of the season – three minutes of plot mechanics in a shuttle. Not really the greatest way to grab attention.
– Yes, the emperor has a big ship. Didn’t need to see it that many times. And the set designer has seen a few too many episodes of Flash Gordon.
– The ‘eating Kelpian’ scene was a clever way to capitalise on the sympathy that’s been built for Saru.
– Seriously, what are the rules on the mirror universe? We can get a Burnham who’s the same person despite having very different adopted parents?
– On trusting the Emperor – seriously, what part of *mirror* universe is unclear here?
– Has the ‘people from the mirror universe are sensitive to light’ ever been a thing before? I don’t recall it, but can’t rule it out.
751 down. Three to go in Discovery Season One.