Review

Another fairly banal offering, but not too bad. The increasingly annoying mystery of just what Airiam is and whether or not she is a continuity error is resolved satisfactorily. She's not an android, but a person who suffered a traumatic injury and had extensive implants installed in order to survive; sort of like a more extreme version of what happened to Detmer. A compelling concept for a character. But this satisfactory resolution to the potential continuity error comes just in time to kill her off and waste all of this character development, in the classic Star Trek tradition of bad episodes conspicuously shining a lot of attention on a minor character only to swiftly kill them off a short time later.

The main plot driving the story involving Control spinning out of control is less effective. It is curious why Starfleet would allow Patar—a logic extremist; a member of or at the very least a sympathizer of a terrorist group—to be an admiral and wield such extraordinary power over critical decision-making. It's also remarkable how sloppy a job Cornwell did in her supposedly extensive checking into the validity of the video depicting Spock committing murder when all Saru had to do to prove it was fake was check the non-visible light sensors to show that it was made using holograms. It's also astonishing that after Airiam was trapped in the airlock, Nhan—who was literally suffocating on the floor—was totally forgotten for several minutes, left to retrieve her breathing apparatus on her own. Burnham didn't spare a single moment to help her. Nobody else noticed either.

What worked better was the several scenes depicting Burnham and Spock banter. They continue to be credibly presented as siblings with believable sibling rivalry tinged with Vulcan cultural quirks. Watching them snipe at each other out of both frustration and love simultaneously is good fun. So was the space battle with the mines. But that's about it.