Star Trek: Discovery — 2x13 — Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 1
Synopsis
When the U.S.S. Discovery's crucial mission does not go according to plan, Burnham realizes what must ultimately be done. The crew prepares for the battle of a lifetime as Leland's Control ships get closer.
Remarkable scenes
- The auto destruct on Discovery failing to activate.
- The Enterprise firing on Discovery only for it to defend itself.
- The full crew of Discovery committing to join Burnham on her one way trip to the future.
Review
Discovery won't let itself be (easily) destroyed, so they decide to fight Control instead. It's pretty hard to take anything in this episode seriously given the absolutely absurd premise that it's impossible to run from Control even though they've got the spore drive which can teleport them instantaneously anywhere in the galaxy. Given that, the excessive number of tearful goodbyes in this episode is doubly annoying. They didn't earn them at all and even if they did it would still have been excessive to spend this much time on it.
Speaking of excessive, the return of Po is regrettable. She is so obnoxious. A child prodigy inventor queen exuding constant arrogance and snark which the narrative is clearly expecting us to find charming for some reason. Doubly annoying is Tilly and Po reveling in their little secret the whole time making in-jokes about Runaway while everyone else looks either confused or annoyed. Because puerile giggling is totally the proper way to prepare for war. Can you imagine Commander Adama and Admiral Cain acting this way preparing to attack the Cylons on Battlestar Galactica? Or Sisko and Dax acting this way preparing for battle with the Dominion on DS9? Even notoriously goofy Farscape reined it in more than this when the stakes got this serious. But not so on Star Trek: AvengersDiscovery.
Then once their preparations for battle are made, a completely ridiculous number of shuttlecraft appear from mallet space. People used to criticize Voyager for having a seemingly endless supply of shuttles, but at least you could explain that away as the crew rebuilding them. They're even shown to build a shuttle from scratch with the Delta Flyer. But here the Enterprise and Discovery somehow house a massive fleet of shuttles in their tiny little shuttle bays.
A few highlights: Sarek choosing not talk to Spock when he is aboard the ship preserves continuity with TOS: Journey to Babel, since that episode establishes that they have not spoken "as father and son" since before the events of Discovery. It also looks like the battle that will occur in the next episode will be pretty fun, for all that the setup is idiotic. Lastly the idea that Discovery may end up permanently in the future might give this show a place to go where it can do something new and original instead of constantly stumbling through canon making a mess as though it were in a drunken stupor.