Well now that I’ve fixed my website again …
Time to catch up with the next episode which, from the preview, seems to involve some time shenanigans …
L’ak and Moll poison a dealer who double crosses them with the money they hand over, and I have to wonder how awkward this would have been if the guy was like ‘yep, all good here’ and didn’t double cross them … oops?
Meanwhile, their bug skuttles across Tal’s ceiling and melds into the ship, as they arrive at the coordinates, but find nothing around. Raynor shuts down Rhys’ speculation of why they’ve not heard from L’ak and Moll, prompting Burnham to have a talk with him in her ready room – they beam there, even though it’s like … a five second walk from the bridge …
Burnham explains that on her shi[ she encourages the crew to speak up, which Raynor doesn’t like, feeling it unfocuses from the directive. Burnham tries to connect with Raynor’s burn-influenced perspective, but Raynor snaps back at her ‘bullshit’ – to his credit, he immediately realsies his place and apologises, but stands his ground that he feels his way is better. It’s an argument, and one I am sure the show will volley back and forth over the two captaining styles.
Staments spots the bug in engineering and … seems very casual about it, simply watching it in confusion. Staments, you are a senior officer and a commander in Starfleet, do not just casually watch the weird unknown thing scuttle across one of the most highly sensitive areas of the ship!!! Sadly Staments doesn’t hear me and the ship glitches in space and Burnham and Raynor take the turbolift to the bridge (oh, my mistake then – I thought the ready room was next to the bridge … should … should it not be???). Arriving at the bridge – the crew is wearing their 2254 uniform as it chases the Red Angel as they time travel to the future for the first time – as gets pointed out, a very interesting point to time travel back to (when the ship is time travelling to the future).
Raynor and Burnham jump in time again, which makes me very happy – time travel episodes are great, they are even greater when it’s in multiple time zones! They arrive at drydock as Discovery is being constructed, so this would be …. sometime 2240-2256? Raynor wonders if something is messing with their brain, which I guess is possible but then that wouldn’t explain them seeing things they wouldn’t know about or seeing the same thing. That’s not the reason Burnham uses to dismiss it however, and they jump back to the fight against Control. Raynor makes a very accurate guess that they must’ve been hit by a chronophage, a time bug from the Krenim (from Voyager‘s Year of Hell – really nice callback!). It will naturally run out, apparently, but it’ll take weeks. Raynor again accurately guesses that Moll and L’ak planted it on one of the crew (I guess the show doesn’t want us to waste any time on the mystery of the situation ahaaha!) and that they now know where the ship is. Raynor … rule of three I guess .. guesses the bug is in engineering. Burnham recalls that Staments lives out of time due to his tardigrade DNA (Raynor’s reaction to this is spot on), and they plan to find him. True enough, Staments does know what’s going on – unfortunately he’s been impaled.
They arrive during Osyraa’s attack – a past Reno saves Raynor from one of her men, and they banter a bit, so I guess that’s him connecting??? Another jump takes them 27 years into the future into a dust-covered Discovery, with music playing hauntingly in the distance ….
Burnham calls out, and Zora responds, wondering if it’s a dream, as the crew died decades ago. Conveniently Zora cannot remember the rest of the plot, but does say that the outcome they were worried about happened with the Progenitor’s tech falling into the wrong hands. Zora opens the viewscreen, and a destroyed Federation HQ floats in space. There is a Short Trek episode called Calypso, featuring an abandoned Discovery run by Zora – is this how that happened?
Well Zora explains this is a consequence of the chronophage not being deactivated by the crew of the Discovery, so presumably not, as this is not the final episode of the show and I assume the remaining ones aren’t just more of this time jumping (as … cool as that might actually be). It was the Breen who got the tech and attacked, presumably after bidding for it from Moll and L’ak. Burnham considers her dust-covered seat, and Raynor asks how she made the journey from prisoner to captain. “Never gave up,” Burnham responds, resolved.
Burnham and Zora do some future-data-maths and get a pretty space-time graph. This tells them how long they have in each time period.
Staments, in 3189, discusses a solution to a ‘hypothetical’ time schenningans problem with Reno which is funny as it is awkward, before finally Burnham and Raynor reach him. Staments bulls something about a spore breach and evacuates so he can talk openly with them. They catch each other up and Staments points out where the time bug is. Unfortunately, it needs to be removed properly, after being nullified. Burnham has the data he has been too busy to get.
In another time jump, they make a plan, but it involve splitting up as one of the components is in the Captain’s Quarters which only Burnham can get to. And awkwardly, Booker is still there …. urghhhhh okay, let’s push through this awkwardness. Booker gives Burnham some inspiring advice before Burnham is able to get away.
They all meet in engineering where everyone has been cleared out (except one poor science officer who walks in, is shouted at simultaneously by three officers to ‘GET OUT’ and literally turns on the spot and walks out, and that was much funnier than it should be!). When Burnham tries to nullify the bug, a shield blocks the attempt, and they time jump again. Fortunately the device comes with them, so they don’t need to do that fetch quest again! The shield works by having super-accelerated time, so anything entering it ages to dust. A warp bubble protects a ship from relativity, so by using that, they can reduce the effects to be less fatal (I like that Burnham understood this without explanation – she was, afterall, a former CSO). Unfortunately they only have one shot – their changes to the future do not stick if they negate the bug before a reset. I mean an obvious safeguard here would be to wait until another jump past their original time which … statistically must happen? But also, they have no idea of knowing when that is. They decide to do it now as they have the longest time cycle they may have in a while, but it’s also Lorca’s ship (conveniently, Lorca is on a mission with Landry and Saru, so we probably won’t expect guest appearances from them (unsure if the previous appearance was stock footage or not), increasing the risk, especially as Burnham isn’t an officer of the ship at this point. Personally, I would have rather chosen less time for a much safer environment than going now … but that’s not gonna happen. Staments and Burnham share a moment at the realisation they will see Airiam (I wonder which actress we’ll be seeing play the role!) is on the bridge at this time.
Raynor points out the issues with trying this in this time period, but they still resolve anyway. Linus meets Burnham on the bridge, has literally zero qualms about her future Captain’s uniform, compliments her on the colour, and swaggers off like a boss.
And then Burnham meets herself.
Burnham!Past, to her credit, nearly immediately calls for security which Burnham! … uh … future? Present? Our Burnham, belays and pulls her in for a chat.
Burnham!Past kinda …. makes says out loud the bit about ‘do you expect me to believe a mutineer could wear Captain Pips’ and gets back into a fighting stance.
Burnham fights her old self, before managing to get a Vulcan pinch in. She then wastes a few seconds giving her unconscious past sense an inspirational chat about having hope. But in any case, as we have no definitely changed the future, I assume from a meta-perspective we will definitely be surviving.
Staments does an impression of his Season One self by simply telling everyone he is grumpy and needs to be left alone and I can believe this happened a lot back then, as everyone just leaves without a single look of confusion. Staments takes a few moments trying to sort out in his brain between the old systems and the new systems (which – I can actually relate to), causing Raynor to gruffly tell him to focus, prompting Staments to take the time to call him, telling him he’s under a lot of pressure. Raynor takes his words and asks how he can help.
Staments tells him to do something on the other console (if the systems are that different that Staments, having extensive experience on both is struggling, how is Raynor who has never used it meant to …), and Raynor drops gruff for a encouraging comment, pleasing Staments.
Burnham arrives at the bridge, startling the old bridge crew (except Tilly, bless her, who is full of nothing but love!). Everyone reacts but to their credit, not too rash, giving Burnham the space to make her case, especially after proving with the computer there are two Burnhams. And Burnham does it in the best way possible, by bringing up details about her crew she only knows from connecting. The crew aren’t convinced (especially after Burnham discloses she is Discovery’s captain), so Burnham brings out the nuke – she tells Airium some details about her death, including her motivations. This convinces Airium, and they make arrangements for the the warp to occur. Unfortunately past Burnham and Rhys arrive and warn them away.
Burnham cannot come down to inspire-talk Burnham!Past out of it (not that that really helped), so it’s up to Raynor to connect (the very thing he has been stubbornly refusing to do is now the only way to save everyone – it’s a simple plot device but an effective one). I cannot tell if Burnham’s actions here are true to her character or not, it’s true that Burnham grows, but even in Season One she was fairly open-minded about things, but I do think the show likes to pretend sometimes she was worse than she actually was. Raynor is able to disarm Rhys slightly by mentioning the one thing he allowed Rhys to tell him, and tries the same with Burnham, able to get into touching distance of her phaser. Raynor accurately discerns what Burnham!Past is feeling and talks her into standing down, and the plan is a go. The ship breaks warp, Raynor plugs the bug, and the timeline resets … apart from Raynor’s hand is now a bit older. Raynor reflects that they only survived through connecting. We call back their discussion in the teaser, with Burnham drawing a bridge to and admitting that familiarity can be risky through complacency, but still maintains their way is better, and Raynor appreciates her patience, and compares himself to her past self. The two officers celebrate their teamwork. Having filled in the crew, they laugh over the incident, and Raynor compliments Rhys on his previous theory, which was proven true, mending that bridge.
Like I said, time travel episodes in Star Trek are always a thing of beauty, and this one was no less!
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