Admiral Cornwell enlists Discovery’s aid in taking Control…

A few weeks ago, someone commented about Discovery that it was a shame that they hadn’t followed the lead of other Star Trek series in giving us stories about some of the less well known bridge crew, rather than purely focusing on the captain(s) and lead officers – those who get their real names in the opening credits. This season has given us insight into quite a few of these characters, but Airiam has remained something of a mystery… although the fact the actor playing the robot-looking officer was changed suggested that perhaps something was up. The various lingering glances on her by the camera over the past few weeks following the encounter with the ancient vessel has added to that… all leading up to this episode.

As with so much of this season, it’s impossible to discuss this episode further without getting into spoiler territory – and this one more than many, because the core thing to talk about is the actual ending.

Spoilers follow.

By chance I rewatched Doctor Who’s Season 19 story Earthshock last week; for those who don’t know it, it concludes with Adric, one of the Doctor’s companions, dying when he’s desperately trying to prevent a huge explosion. The end credits roll with no concluding music.

Sound familiar?

We’re meant to be fully engaged with Airiam by the end of this episode, and it’s very clear that the crew themselves definitely are – little moments from her memories and her downloads make that obvious (although you do have to wonder why some of these weren’t seeded throughout the season if this is where things were always intended to go). There’s no question that anyone on Discovery wants Michael to do what she has to do at the end – even if someone else does take the decision finally. We don’t get the “next time” trailers on Netflix, but apparently Airiam’s funeral is a centrepiece of next week’s episode, so it seems unlikely there’s a cheat. Michael once again loses a friend in the worst circumstances.

And that’s coming only a few hours after her brother has torn her apart emotionally with a devastatingly accurate critique of her psyche and her motivations. The scenes between Spock and Michael have been a long time coming, but they have been engrossing throughout, with Ethan Peck and Sonequa Martin-Green pushing their characters to the limit. This is the Spock we’ve seen lose control before (well, okay, for him, later, but let’s not get too picky), the Spock of All Our Yesterdays, of Amok Time. As has been said, I believe by Peck, this is part of the journey to Spock becoming the character that we see in The Original Series… and maybe we can see why he may have failed to mention a sister. (There’s another good potential reason as well, given the events of Calypso… and even that I’m wondering about with regard to this week’s episode.)

All of our key cast has a role to play in this episode – we learn more about the reasons for Enterprise not taking part in the Klingon War; Anson Mount’s Pike once again shows why his crew is devoted to him (which we already know from The Menagerie), Stamets gets and gives something to think about; even Ash Tyler does, without uttering a word! Jonathan Frakes’ direction is spot on for both action and emotional beats (as if anyone could expect otherwise ever since First Contact, if not before), and Jeff Russo knows when less is definitely more with the score.

Verdict: If we had known a little more about Airiam prior to this episode, it would probably have landed even harder than it did, but Project Daedalus is another classic piece of Star Trek. I can’t mark it down for its predecessors’ failings so another 10/10

Paul Simpson