Discovery 2x11: Perpetual Infinity

[rivendellrose]

Here's your discussion post for Discovery 2x11: "Perpetual Infinity."

As always, there will be spoilers in the comments. Enjoy!

Comments

My review

[selenak]

hich there’s a time storm, which is somehow a phrase Doctor Who hasn’t used yet (I think), and we find out a few things. Chiefly, what exactly happened to Michael’s parents – well, her mother -, what the Red Angel’s motivation is, and why the Red Angel never sticks around for long when appearing.

There was also a very disquieting hint via one line said by both Control and Dr. Burnham (was her first name Gabrielle, or did the Xena watcher in me mishear that?), to wit, that sentence about the mission and the big picture coming first. MirrorGeorgiou noticed immediately and flashed back to (taken-over-by-Control) Leland using the phrase. Now you’d think if the show runner wanted something to happen that would make Georgiou realize Leland isn’t quite himself these days, they wouldn’t do it via letting Dr. Burnham repeat Control’s catch phrase. Unless what’s Georgiou and the audience supposed to notice isn’t Leland-is-up-to-no-good, but that Dr. Burnham, so busy working to save the universe along with Michael ever since getting displaced in time, could end up becoming the final element allowing Control to achieve full autonomy.

I mean: this episode illustrates Control can take over non-cyberfied humans. (Very Borg-like o fit, btw, but okay.) Dr. Burnham ends up back in the future. And if you have your seasonal Big Bad as an A.I. without a physical form, you have the problem that the defeat of same is hard to visualize, and our heroes won’t feel anything but committed to it, either. If, otoh, future Control ends up in Dr. Burnham with some of her original personality surviving, we’re due to a classic „the needs of the many vesus the needs of the few“, since Michael will at least try to figure out a way to save her mother but at the same time will eventually, if it’s not possible without also saving Control, be ready to take her out. Since this is Trek, I’m also assuming she’ll be spared that by Dr. Burnham reasserting herself long enough to commit some form of suicide, thereby saving the universe. (And maybe that’s why she‘ll allow herself to be assimilated in the first place?) It would thematically fit with this season’s strong emphasis on mothers, too, and on hybrids with identity crisis.

But enough speculation, back to the episode proper. I liked the actress playing Dr. Burnham, who brought the emotion and the steely resolve in equal measure, and her scenes with our heroine, with Pike and with Georgiou were all very satisfying. Incidentally, for an evolving A.I., Control is quite good at psychology, since Control!Leland’s pitch at Georgiou, using her competitive, possessive nature and the fact Michael at this point has three mother figures was quite clever. However, having been the Empress of the Terrans thankfully also leaves you with a distrustful nature and paying attention to detail, and thus Georgiou stops the download (for a while.)

Sidenote: I have to rewatch the previous episodes in question, but, again: I thought they had already transferred the data from the Sphere to Starfleet after receiving it back in the day? But okay, maybe there just wasn’t enough bandwidth. 

That Dr. Burnham saved the people who later became the New Elysium settlers to see whether history could be changed and worked from there connects the dots, no pun intended; that she as the Red Angel wasn’t, however, responsible for the seven lights that Spock saw puts Michael back in the running, because I think she’ll end up recreating the Red Angel suit with a little help from her friends, originally to save her mother but eventually to save the `verse, so we’ll have two Red Angels travelling through time – Dr. Burnham and, in a few instances, Michael, who’ll also arrange the light show draving Starfleet’s attention (and Spock’s) to begin with.

Reconciled siblings Michael and Spock continue to share lovely scenes together, and when the season is over, I want all the fanfiction.

Let’s see, what else:

- Hugh Culber deciding to come out of retirement and work again hopefully doesn’t mean Dr. Pollard is out of a job?

- R.I.P. Leland. You never were fleshed out enough to mourn, but taken over by an AI (or anything/one, really) is one of my reliable horror buttons, and no one deserves that (Jean-Luc Picard would agree)

- From a Doylist pov ,I’m not keen on the destruction of knowledge being the key to saving the universe. Also, stopping an AI from evolving never worked when Sarah Connor tried it, either. As any SCC viewer knows, evolving an alternate, independent A.I. to compete with Skynet is a more promising approach *waves at Catherine Weaver*

Re: My review

[adriennefae]

As any SCC viewer knows, evolving an alternate, independent A.I. to compete with Skynet is a more promising approach

I think something like that's ultimately going to happen, and that's where Zora will come into the picture. And yeah, when they first brought up destroying the sphere data I was totally with Saru when he said he didn't like the idea.

Re: My review

[selenak]

Here's hoping for the Catherine Weaver solution then. It really would be ideologically preferable to me - you can't stop something from evolving forever, but you can offer alternatives. Much preferable to extinction by lack of knowledge.