Discovery 2x07: If Memory Serves

[rivendellrose]

Here is your discussion post for Discovery 2x07 "If Memory Serves."

Be aware as always that there will be spoilers in the comments.

Comments

My review

[selenak]

It's reunion time all around.

Starting with the minor: you know, "justice for Vina" wasn't the first thing I thought when I realised the show would take us back to Talos IV, but good on you, Disco, for providing Vina - within the fixed parameters of previous canon - with a bit of agency. If I recall The Cage correctly, in this one the Talosians were the ones to tell Pike Vina couldn't/didn't want to live with her badly repaired body self and that she prefered the illusions, and either Pike or the Talosians (but not Vina) then decided to give her an illusion!Pike to live with. Here, Vina gets to speak for herself, and while Discovery didn't change her basic decision, the show lets her converse with real Pike and be aware that what she's living with is an illusion, not to mention that Vina here isn't used as a toy/means to test someone as she was in The Cage but as a liason of the Talosians to communicate better with Michael, Spock and then Pike.

The Talosians are generally more into consensual hospitality, though they still have their inner voyeur to justify the audience finally finding out what happened between Michael and Spock in ye olde Vulcan days. Incidentally, go figure that in the Mirrorverse, the Emperor had them wiped out as soon as she realised what they can do. As I welcome any reminder that MirrorGeorgioiu isn't just a ruthless action heroine but counts genocide among her hobbies, I'm glad they worked that into the dialogue.

On board Discovery, Hugh Culber is doing as badly with the ressurected life as Buffy Summers ever was in season 6 of BTVS, with additional trauma of having to life on the same ship as his killer. I was wondering how the show would justify Pike not simply asking for a transfer and another liason officer from Section 31, because he strikes me as considerate enough, but with the ship being on the run now, that option is out. Otoh logic would suggest to dump Tyler somewhere anyway, but they won't because a) he's a regular and b) the audience knows he is actually innocent of brainwashed sabotage this time. (Sudden thought: what if Tyler with his own identity issues becomes the Spike to Culber's Buffy? That would piss off several sets of shippers at once.)

This is the first episode to present Spock in a coherent state in the present, with the beard still easing the transition. So far, I think I buy him as a younger version of the TOS character. As for child!Michael inadvertendly causing him to seal off his humanity and try to be more Vulcan than Vulcan for years when she rejected him in order to stop him from running away with her and/or be bombed by extremists, okay, I buy it as well. Their sibling dynamic in the present is already more interesting than the thing with Sybok in ST V., and I'm not trying to damn with faint praise. I like that Michael doesn't let her guilt allow him to browbeat her with stealth insults. Pointing out flaws in someone's logic is what you do when you were raised on Vulcan the way she was, and the beard omment was A +. :) Also, Spock's respect and affection for Pike in the final scene are very much in tune with him risking all for the man in the future.

Though I'm glad we're no longer questing for Spock but to save the galaxy, because of course the galaxy is at stake. New speculation about the Red Angel: I'll have to rewatch to be sure, but I think Spock referred to the Angel as "she", not "he". Since he mindmelded - or attempted to - with the Angel, he ought to know. He's also sure the Angel is human, and time-trravelling via technology alone, not mind power. Since this reveal was intercut with Michael attempting to speak to Spock, my money is now on the Angel being Michael, flung several far into the future by a later plot device and attempting to get back (and save the galaxy) via whatever technology she picked up. So far, all the Angel's appearances are events Michael i the present either is involved in or learns about (like the colonists), which would explain why the Angel picks those events - it's a causality loop.

Lastly, as to who the galaxy-destroying ships are: please not the Borg. They've been overdone. And thankfully there appear no cubes droning on, pun intended, involved. Still, they seem to have some tech basis. I'll have to rewatch the minisode Calypso set several centuries in the future again, there might be a clue?

Re: My review

[lynnenne]

go figure that in the Mirrorverse, the Emperor had them wiped out as soon as she realised what they can do. As I welcome any reminder that MirrorGeorgioiu isn't just a ruthless action heroine but counts genocide among her hobbies, I'm glad they worked that into the dialogue.

Same!

Re: My review

[gatheringrivers]

Paraphrasing a couple hilarities:

Saru: "Starfleet has no protocol for a human with a klingon grafted to his bones and a man who's returned from THE DEAD."

Leland: "You could have warned me about that, you know..."
Emperor: "And miss watching you explain it to the admirals?"


*gigglesnerks*

[lynnenne]

I loved that they used original-Trek footage for the "Previously on" trailer. It was a clever, fun way to introduce Pike's backstory with Vina and the Talosians.

I'm enjoying Ethan Peck as Spock. His voice is quite similar to Leonard Nimoy's, and he has the same sense of understated, playful humor that made Nimoy so loved. Also, I buy the strained sibling relationship between him and Michael.

Poor Hugh! He's having such a hard time being newly resurrected. Watching him and Tyler exchange blows, I couldn't help but feel that the two of them might devolve into hot, angry sex at any moment. Yeah, I ship it.

[ironed_orchid]

I thought the recap at the beginning was perfect.

[lynnenne]

It was fun and campy and brilliant. I loved it.

[nostalgia]

I liked the recap because I've never seen much of TOS so I would have had no idea what was going on, rather than a vague idea which was a start :)

[lizbee]

I'm so happy with how things played out in this episode: Vina has more agency, but is still more than slightly batshit; the Talosians are still creepy perverts; Airiam is the least stealthy AND YET; I'm ... slightly shipping Ash/Hugh, which, okay, let's see what happens; we have a new female Admiral for Kat to date.

Also, like all family dramas, the Michael-Spock rift was caused by ... something very small, which really everyone should have gotten over years before. (I once told my brother that he ruined my life, and also allegedly tried to kill him by pushing him off a veranda, though I don't remember that.)

[selenak]

It's the kind of thing where anyone but the people concerned think it should have been outgrown. Which, as you say, is very true for family drama! (When my dad was introduced to his future brother-in-law, he was a 14 years old kid and made fun of the guy. He also promptly got into a cake-eating competition with him. This resulted iny future Uncle and his parents insisting my father was not to be allowed to attend the wedding, which resulted in my grandmother declaring then she wouldn't come, either, and a family feud for years.)

[tree_and_leaf]

Vina is batshit, but in this version of her, it seems more like a more-or-less plausible response to trauma and isolation (apart from the creepy pervert aliens, who can't be helping), and less like the writers not being quite sure if women are human or not.

[lynnenne]

I'm ... slightly shipping Ash/Hugh

I'm also shipping it, more than slightly.

like all family dramas, the Michael-Spock rift was caused by ... something very small, which really everyone should have gotten over years before

I kind of thought so, too, but then I remembered how emotionally STUNTED this family is, and how they never learned how to cope with normal human emotions in any useful way. In that context, rending a sibling bond because of something so silly makes a whole lot more sense.

[jazzfic]

My knowledge of past treks doesn't include much TOS, so the previously on was interesting but didn't inject a whole lot of feels for me (apart from a nice transition into Anson Mount's captain unfathomable face). I liked the singing leaves (and reuse of mirror rebel outpost quarry as the set).

I made very dumb noises when 1) Melissa George appeared (!), and 2) Tilly and Ash's little convo, which was cute and made me happy. And I really dug Ash's emotional honesty in that scene with Pike when he was talking about Michael.