Spock’s story on Star Trek: Discovery may be over — as far as we know — but that doesn’t mean there isn’t still more story to tell! Announced today from IDW Publishing, a new three-issue Discovery comic series will follow everyone’s favorite Vulcan after the USS Discovery departed the 23rd Century in “Such Sweet Sorrow.”
Star Trek: Discovery — Aftermath will kick off a three-issue run this August, with a central focus on Spock after returning to the Enterprise and moving forward from the disappearance of his sister, Michael Burnham.
Unravel the Mysteries of the Season Two Finale in Star Trek: Discovery – Aftermath
IDW Publishing’s New Comic Book Miniseries
Explores Spock’s Past with Michael Burnham
SAN DIEGO, CA (April 22, 2019) – Following the shocking events of the Season Two finale, the thrills of CBS’s wildly popular Star Trek: Discovery continue in a new three-issue comic book miniseries from IDW Publishing, Star Trek: Discovery – Aftermath!
This riveting new comic book, under license by CBS Consumer Products, reunites co-writers Kirsten Beyer, Mike Johnson, and artist Tony Shasteen (who previously worked together on 2018’s Star Trek: Discovery – The Light of Kahless) for a storyline focused prominently on Spock.
In the aftermath of the 2019 finale, everything in Discovery has changed, and as L’Rell and Pike try to negotiate a fragile peace, Spock finds himself grappling with the fallout from what happened with Michael Burnham – and the mysteries about her still left to unravel.
It may be until 2020 until we know where the Discovery ended up, but for now this miniseries will at least serve to carry on their memories in those left behind. We’ll have much more information on the Star Trek: Discovery — Aftermath saga as August approaches.
The long-gestating Jean-Luc Picard Star Trek series — still lacking an official name — has launched active production in California this week, announced executive producer Michael Chabon on social media today.
Filming in southern California (rather than in Toronto, home of Star Trek: Discovery), the series will feature the return of Patrick Stewart to the Star Trek franchise, in a new ten-episode season set some two decades after the events of the last Star Trek: The Next Generation film, Star Trek: Nemesis.
Past that, little is known about the series, though as the weeks and months progress we expect to learn much more about “the Picard show” as we move closer to its expected late-2019 premiere date.
Keep checking back to TrekCore for all the latest news about the show as it breaks!
Star Trek: Discovery wrapped its second season last night with an as-advertised ‘game changing’ jump to the far future, leaving Captain Pike, the Enterprise, and everyone else the from the last two years behind.
After penning the Airiam-centric “Project Daedulus”earlier in the season, Paradise teamed up with Kurtzman co-writer Jenny Lumet to bring this year’s Discovery story to a close in the two-part “Such Sweet Sorrow” — and we caught up with her this week to talk about wrapping up Spock, those Borg parallels, Admiral Cornwell’s fate, and a whole lot more.
TREKCORE: Before we dive into the finale, could you talk a little bit about the journey that brought you to the Star Trek: Discovery team this season?
MICHELLE PARADISE: Well, I had been on The Originals for five seasons prior to this — I had done other shows before that, but I was on The Originals from day one to when that show finished up. Then I heard about this opportunity on Star Trek, which was such an amazing — I mean, what an amazing thing because I grew up watching Star Trek and to have an opportunity to write for the show was just incredible.
I came in, and I interviewed, and I got the job, which was wonderful. So I joined halfway through Season 2 and I’ve been working quite a lot with [executive producer and showrunner] Alex Kurtzman. I was working on some of the other episodes in addition to “Project Daedalus,” and then he asked me to write the finale with him and Jenny [Lumet], which was also just such an amazing experience.
We just get along really well and work very well together — and then he asked me to [be co-showrunner for Season 3]. I mean it’s the biggest no-brainer in the history of the world!
TREKCORE: Was it difficult to jump in to Discovery mid-stream, with how much of this year’s story was such a big puzzle?
PARADISE: You know it’s interesting — quite a few things, in terms of the larger mythology, were already set in motion by the time I arrived. They already had a handful of scripts by the time I came in, and some outlines [for later episodes], so they were definitely on a path.
But what was great is that there were still some larger decisions that were still being figured out — and there was a lot of the story yet to be told. Like, when I came in, Spock hadn’t even been introduced yet. We knew he was coming [later in the season] but the character itself hadn’t been introduced… so there were still quite a few larger questions to explore at that point.
Once I got up to speed on where they were [with the story], and where they wanted to go by the end of the season, I felt like I slotted in pretty quickly. And, of course, I was familiar with Season 1, so I know all of the characters, and what experiences they had had.
Being able to take all of that information and jumping into apply it to Season 2 was a really enjoyable and fun thing for me to do.
Burnham becomes the ultimate Red Angel.
TREKCORE: Speaking of larger questions, the big mystery of the season gets answered in the finale, in that we find Burnham actually created the Red Signals to form the coalition to fight Control. How much of that final outcome was locked down at the beginning of the year, and how much came together as the episodes progressed?
PARADISE: I think it was an evolution of things — it was known from the beginning that we were going to a place where the Discovery was going to need to jump into the future.
In terms of the signals and the Red Angel, we knew that we needed to resolve all of that, what those things were specifically and how they would land, but some of that road map was still being worked out at the time I came on board.
It was really exciting to be a part of those discussions, because sometimes when you come into a show mid-season, a lot of things are already kind of set in place, and there was a lot that was already answered when I joined, but to get to be part of some of those larger discussions was really cool — because I got to the end of the season and I did feel like I had missed out on participating.
TREKCORE: Let’s get into the episode itself — Control finally gets taken down after that long fight with Georgiou and Nhan. How did you decide that magnetism, a rather low-tech solution, would be the key to stopping the advanced AI?
PARADISE: Well, by this point in the story — and we had set this up in “Through the Valley of Shadows” — the Control nanobots were known to be highly advanced, but they were still made from a metallic alloy; Spock is able to magnetize the floor on the Section 31 ship to stop the nanobots when Burnham is trying to get away from them.
We talked about how Control could essentially infect and inhabit a human form, and how the nanobots would do that — and it really just a matter of deciding what they would be made of, and how we could defeat it. So we wanted to use the thing it was made of against itself, the metal material.
Georgiou enjoys Control’s destruction.
TREKCORE: And it certainly gives Georgiou a hero moment for the season, after being such a villain last year…
PARADISE: Yeah, and I just have to say that the moment [where Leland is defeated], Michelle [Yeoh] just plays that character so beautifully. The moment where she’s watching him die, and she just smiled… I never cease to be delighted by that moment.
TREKCORE: As Control evolved throughout the season, some viewers started to see some similarities to one of Star Trek‘s biggest villains, the Borg; there was a lot of speculation that we were actually seeing how the Borg were created, though obviously that didn’t come to pass. Was that intentional parallel?
PARADISE: It’s interesting — we weren’t thinking Borg at all. I mean, we talked about all sorts of different things in the room, but there was never any intent on our part to parallel that in any way. I can certainly understand why people started to think we were going in that direction, but it was never where we intended to go with it.
TREKCORE: Stepping back a bit to that big three-way fight with Leland, Georgiou, and Nhan, that special rotating set to simulate the gravity failure…
PARADISE: We had lots of discussion about that rotating set – I’m very familiar with it! I missed when they were filming on that by one or two days [when I visited the sets]… they would have never let me do this, but I really wanted to go in and try it out!
We built that section of the corridor as a massive, rotating set, so you are actually seeing the actors walk up walls and ceilings as the set is rotating around them — it was just an incredible engineering and construction feat. If I remember correctly, I think that was [director Olatunde Osunsanmi’s] brainstorm. It was such an amazing idea, we couldn’t not do it. It was incredible.
Leland and Nhan fight as gravity shifts around them.
TREKCORE: It’s really impressive to see something of that scale being done for television. Obviously, Discovery has a significant production budget but it’s something that generally would be done with wirework and greenscreen…
PARADISE: It really is exciting — and that kind of vision and scope, Alex drives that for the series, for every episode. His feeling, and all of ours, is that we want to blur the line between film and television. He really is a visionary in that way, encouraging us all to think like that — and to me, this finale is a perfect example.
From the rotating set to the incredible amount of visual effects in the episode — Jason Zimmerman and our VFX crew, our entire post crew and sound mixers… everybody comes together and makes that happen. Movie-quality and movie-style post work on a television schedule. That’s true of the directing, the acting… the fact that [Olatunde] accomplished what he did in this finale, on a television schedule, is amazing.
TREKCORE: Speaking of that scheduling, “Such Sweet Sorrow” was originally planned to be a one-hour finale — what lead to the decision to break it into to episodes, and expand the story?
PARADISE: We got to the end of the season, and as we were breaking the finale, we realized that to do the story justice, to do the characters justice, to answer all of the questions… it required a large story, and that just wasn’t one episode. We’re so thankful that our network partners heard that and gave us the opportunity to do it in two, because if we had tried to tell all of that in one episode, we really felt like a lot would have been left out.
We would have had to make the kinds of sacrifices that we didn’t want to make — and while the season was building to an epic finale, it wasn’t just in terms of fight sequences and battles, but an epic emotional moments too. We had to pay off the Burnham and Spock relationship, which deserved the time it got.
Plus, our bridge crew, and Captain Pike — a huge addition to the season, along with getting to see the Enterprise in all its glory… paying off that character, and all of the moments in between, we really needed the second episode. And we were very fortunate to have been given that opportunity.
Burnham and Spock connect, for the last time.
TREKCORE: Before we get to the big ending, let’s do a bit of a character lighting round.
PARADISE: Yeah, sure!
TREKCORE: I have to ask, did Nhan survive that fight with Leland? The last time we saw her was face-down in the corridor…
PARADISE: Well I can’t say anything about that, but I will say that Rachael [Ancheril] is incredible. She pops in a big way, and the work that she did in the finale was absolutely wonderful. Even just watching as a fan, I loved watching her and Georgiou together, and the whole battle with Leland leading up to the rotating corridor was fantastic.
She’s been a wonderful addition — you know, she had a huge role in “Through the Valley of Shadows,” and other great moments along the way, so I’m not surprised that people have responded to her so well.
TREKCORE: You can really tell that she’s just having fun being there, which really comes across.
PARADISE: Oh yeah — and I have to say that all of our actors are like that; they’re all so supportive of one another and they really seem to enjoy being there and encouraging one another. It’s a great group of people.
Admiral Cornwell’s final moments.
TREKCORE: Well, the one character we do know the fate of is Jayne Brook’s Admiral Cornwell, who sacrificed herself to save the Enterprise. What lead to the decision to end her story?
PARADISE: It was a really difficult decision, but the thing we talked about is that you can only really tell the strength of an adversary by how they impact your heroes. As Control was getting stronger and becoming a more formidable foe, we thought about how that would impact the Discovery crew — and you saw the first casualty back in [“Project Daedalus”] with Airiam.
Once that happened, and the crew lost someone who was close to them, it put in relief how much more powerful this thing was than they expected — and to have this big battle [in the finale] and have no one die, it didn’t feel realistic.
It’s one thing to see characters that we don’t know or that we’re not familiar with lose their lives, but the real measure of how difficult the battle is — how much danger we’re in, how strong our opponent is — is if we lose someone close to us. We talked about who that might be, and we couldn’t think of a more appropriate person than Cornwell to step up and sacrifice herself for the greater good.
The way she played that moment, the strength she brought to it, Jayne just could not have been better — and having a character step up in that way, in such a crucial moment… she saves the Enterprise, so the ship can later go on with Captain Kirk, Spock, and all of those other beloved characters.
So if it had not been for her, that couldn’t have happened — so it’s not just this battle, but her place in canon is really cemented in that moment in such a big way, and we couldn’t imagine a better send-off.
Number One — aka Una — ready for warp.
TREKCORE: Rebecca Romijn’s Number One went by ‘Commander’ or simply ‘Number One’ for most of her time on-screen, but it sounded like Pike did call her ‘Una’ one time during the finale — the character’s name from the Star Trek tie-in novels. It wasn’t in the captions, so can you confirm we heard that correctly?
PARADISE: Oh yes, it was Una.
TREKCORE: There was an actor credited as ‘Yeoman Colt’ in Part 1, a character from “The Cage” – the original episode with Captain Pike – but she wasn’t called out by name that we noticed. Was she in a scene that ended up being cut, or…
PARADISE: No, she was one of the Enterprise bridge crew. We had Lt. Mann, Lt. Nicola, Lt. Amin, and Yeoman Colt.
TREKCORE: Was she the alien character with the spiked face? In the original pilot, she was a human…
PARADISE: Yes, I believe that was her. Amin was at the helm, Mann and Nicola was a bit further back, so yes, that would have been Yeoman Colt.
Lieutenants Mann, Nicola, Amin… and a new look for Yeoman Colt.
TREKCORE: So, this big time jump. It certainly seems to be the end of an era for Discovery, assuming the trip is as one-way as the crew believed it to be. We see the crew fly off to the far future, but the episode doesn’t follow them through the wormhole, instead sticking around in the ‘present’ to follow those left behind.
PARADISE: We absolutely wanted to wrap up the Discovery storyline for the season, to answer all the questions that were lingering for viewers: the Red Angel and signals, and Burnham and Spock’s relationship. But we also owed answers about canon, and pushing Spock’s character forward to the person he eventually becomes when he meets Captain Kirk.
As we were talking story, it felt that not following the Enterprise to see what happens next would have left way too many open questions, and we really wanted to finish answering those questions that viewers have been asking about: why has Spock never mentioned a sister, why haven’t people heard of Discovery’s spore drive.
All of these things had to be addressed to tie Discovery – the show – back in to canon, and using the last act of the show to do that, and to follow Spock’s journey, felt like the right way to go. It also allowed us to come back and see the Enterprise in all her glory, and reveal Spock [in his classic look]… it’s really the culmination of his story, and Pike’s story, and the Enterprise story.
It felt really important to do that for viewers — and for us.
Spock takes his station on the Enterprise.
TREKCORE: Spock suggests to Starfleet that everything about Discovery should get buried, classified, and hidden away to address some of those questions — but will all the time-travel elements that were part of this season, was there ever a thought to “erasing” Discovery from the timeline, or something like that, as an alternate solution?
PARADISE: You know, we talked about what the best way to handle that would be. Time travel is inherently tricky, but to us it felt that the strongest way to go was to make it a conscious choice on behalf of Spock, and Tyler, and Pike. For those to have been there, that they were choosing to keep this secret for the safety of the Federation.
Because if there are still bad elements out there, they don’t want another version of Control coming up and threatening the Federation – so to have them do it as an act of defense, an act of love, and act of courage, no matter how hard it may be…
For Tyler to never talk about Burnham again, for Spock to never talk about his sister, I mean, these are huge emotional sacrifices for these characters — and for Pike, the Discovery crew became family to him — to speak about them as if they’re dead.
Having these characters choosing to hold their secrets felt like the strongest choice, and a choice that comes from love for those people, and for the Federation. Doing anything [with time travel] to make them any less involved in that decision would have felt like we weren’t doing those characters justice.
The Discovery flies to the future — and to Season 3.
TREKCORE: I know Discovery as a show isn’t going anywhere; you’re already hard at work on Season 3 in the writers room. How are thing going so far, as you’re getting into the next chapter of the Discovery story?
PARADISE: We are in great shape, and we have a very good sense of things, and where we’re headed. I obviously can’t say anything specifically… except about the musical episode where everyone puts on roller skates. [Laughs] That one’s not ever going to happen on the show, just to be clear!
But we’re in really good shape. We have an incredible team of actors and writers; Alex is just an amazing visionary force and we’re really excited about where we’re heading, and to let people see it whenever Season 3 comes out.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
The final moments of Star Trek: Discovery’s Season 2 finale rocketed the ship and crew away from the pre-Original Series era into a distant future beyond any explored in Star Trek history — and in a new, extensive interview, Star Trek franchise boss Alex Kurtzman confirms that yes, we’re in for a whole new universe next season.
The Discovery crew time-warps into an uncertain future. (CBS)
After strapping a supercharged time crystal to her back and guiding Discovery through a massive wormhole, we’ll rejoin Michael Burnham and friends in the 31st Century when the show returns for Season 3 — nearly 1,000 years ahead of Captain Pike and the Enterprise — Kurtzman told The Hollywood Reporter.
We are jumping 950 years into the future for season three…
It’s fun to explore nooks and crannies of the universe that people haven’t fully explored yet. That being said, we felt strongly that we wanted to give ourselves an entirely new energy for season three with a whole new set of problems. We’re farther than any Trek show has ever gone.
I also had experience working on the [J.J. Abrams] films where we were stuck with canonical problems. We knew how Kirk had died, and we wondered how we could put him in jeopardy to make it feel real. That’s what led us to go with an alternate timeline [for the Kelvin films]; suddenly we could tell the story in a very unpredictable way.
That’s the same thought process that went into jumping 950 years into the future. We’re now completely free of canon, and we have a whole new universe to explore.
Say goodbye to everything you knew about the Alpha Quadrant. (CBS)
As for the rest of known Starfleet history, the Kirk and Picard eras aren’t going anywhere — after all, there’s a whole new series about to start shooting based in the late 24th Century — but Discovery will now be so far beyond known Trek events that we shouldn’t expect any character crossover next year, cautioned Kurtzman.
There will be canonical references to everything that has happened in the various shows; we’re not erasing that. But we’re so far past that point that all of that is a very distant memory.
We’re very excited to see how you put the elements of Star Trek in an entirely new universe.
Regarding any loose ends from Season 2, Kurtzman noted that the crew won’t have to worry about Control any longer, but there’s plenty of stuff that they’ll need to deal with once they land in the future… including who will finally get to keep Discovery’s center seat.
All I can tell you is that Control is officially neutralized, but there will be much bigger problems when they get to the other side of that wormhole…
We will definitely be exploring who inherits [the captain’s] chair. Obviously, there’s a very loaded look between Saru and Burnham. They’re both qualified in very different ways, and that’s something we’ll explore.
Lieutenants Bryce (Ronnie Rowe Jr.), Owosekun (Oyin Oladejo), and Rhys (Patrick Kwok-Choon) stuck around for Discovery’s trip to the future. (CBS)
The time-traveling crew isn’t just Burnham, Saru, and the series regulars, of course; the entire Discovery secondary Starfleet cast was along for the ride, from Tig Notaro’s Jett Reno to Emily Coutts’ Keyla Detmer — and as part of this group of out-of-time refugees, Kurtzman says they’ll each get their due in Season 3’s storytelling, along with the show’s headliners.
Our bridge crew is so capable. Every single person is so wonderful and really rose to the occasion this year. What we discovered is we and the fans delight in stories being told about them. We’re going to be using all of them much, much more. Especially because this crew has forfeited their lives for each other. They’ve jumped 950 years into the future for each other. If we didn’t service them, we’d be doing something very wrong.
[The Discovery crew] were very, very close in season two. But now all they have is each other. Their families are 950 years in the past. It will be very interesting to see the consequences of the choice they made. Saru said, “We all signed up for this, and we knew what we were doing. We love each other, respect each other, and need each other enough to know we’re going to make this decision as a group, as a family.”
But it doesn’t mean that it won’t come with emotional consequences. That’s something we’ll explore in season three.
For more of Kurtzman’s comments on the Star Trek: Discovery Season 2 finale, along with a reiteration of the current plans for the ongoing Star Trek franchise expansion, head on over to The Hollywood Reporter’s full interview.
Our Star Trek: Discovery Season 2 wrap-up coverage is only just beginning, so be sure to watch for our next update soon!
The Discovery season finale is still cooling after a red-hot series of final surprises, but that hasn’t stopped CBS from opening the floodgates on a big wave of additional photography from “Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2.”
Dropping just minutes after the finale concluded on CBS All Access, these new photos highlight some of the unexpected moments in tonight’s episode, including the to-the-rescue arrival of Chancellor L’Rell (Mary Chieffo), and the serious injury suffered by Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp).
Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and the Red Angel suit. (CBS)
Spock (Ethan Peck), Burnham, and the Red Angel suit. (CBS)
Stamets (Anthony Rapp) is gravely injured. (CBS)
Jett Reno (Tig Notaro) holds a time crystal. (CBS)
Number One (Rebecca Romijn) in command of the Enterprise. (CBS)
Chancellor L'Rell (Mary Chieffo) is prepared for battle. (CBS)
Tyler (Shazad Latif) and L'Rell on the cleave ship. (CBS)
L'Rell in command. (CBS)
Ash Tyler is debriefed by Starfleet Command. (CBS)
They also give us a great look at the new beginning for Captain Pike (Anson Mount), Spock (Ethan Peck), Number One (Rebecca Romijn), and the Enterprise crew as she warps off to a bright future of exploration and adventure.
Captain Pike (Anson Mount) back on the Enterprise. (CBS)
Pike and Number One (Rebecca Romijn). (CBS)
Spock (Ethan Peck) is ready for duty. (CBS)
Spock arrives on the bridge. (CBS)
Spock looks to the future. (CBS)
Spock looks to the future. (CBS)
The crew of the Enterprise. (CBS)
Spock considers his next step. (CBS)
The crew of the Enterprise. (CBS)
The crew of the Enterprise. (CBS)
The crew of the Enterprise. (CBS)
This isn’t the end of our Star Trek: Discovery coverage – not by a long shot! Keep checking in at TrekCore over the coming days for more news on the events of tonight’s finale (and where the show is headed next), exclusive interviews with the Discovery production team, and our final Canon Connections column of the season!
In the second half of Star Trek: Discovery’s season finale, both the battle against Control and the partnership between starships Enterprise and Discovery come to a close — and with that conclusion comes what may be the biggest shakeup to a Trek series, well, ever.
Picking up right where last week’s cliffhanger left off, “Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2” begins with the battle raging — Discovery and Enterprise on one side, and Leland/Control’s Section 31 fleet on the other. Meanwhile aboard Discovery, work on the new Red Angel suit wraps up as Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) makes the final mental, emotional, and technical preparations to follow in her mother’s footsteps across time and space.
The action and events of the two-part “Such Sweet Sorrow” story are so continuous that it seems like the decision to split the episode across two weeks had more to do with broadcast requirements than narrative ones. I love a good classic Star Trek two-parter, but I’m not sure “Such Sweet Sorrow” really needed to be one. Given how much of last week’s runtime was dedicated to extended goodbyes — and how much time “Part 2” spends on unnecessarily detailed flashbacks — the episodes would have worked better as a single, leaner 80-minute block instead of two episodes drawn out to 113 minutes.
With the battle raging and the time suit finally complete, Michael is ready to head out to the wormhole location. In a last-minute decision, Spock (Ethan Peck) insists on accompanying her in a shuttlecraft. While it made for a nice visual callback to the flight Michael makes to the Klingon sarcophagus ship in “The Vulcan Hello”, it’s not clear to me why she had to fly out to the wormhole point in the suit instead of hitching a ride in Spock’s shuttle (since they end up landing on a piece of debris anyhow).
As the two of them head out to the wormhole point, Section 31’s fleet of ships and drones continues to overwhelm Discovery and the Enterprise. The Enterprise does everything it can to protect Discovery — including launching around 200 attack fighters which somehow fit inside their shuttlebay — while Discovery in turn does everything it can to protect Michael.
Just when things are looking especially dire for the two ships, help arrives in the form of Klingon Chancellor L’Rell (Mary Chieffo), decked out in full battle-queen mode aboard the almost-forgotten “cleave ship” — T’Kuvma’s secret weapon last seen at the Battle at the Binary Stars, which surprised and destroyed the ill-fated USS Europa all the way back in the pilot.
Leading a squadron of newly-constructed D7 battle cruisers — with former companion Ash Tyler (Shazad Latif) at her side, L’Rell shouts and snarls and proclaims that today is a good day to die and is just generally awesome. Showing her victorious in battle is the Season 2 send-off L’Rell deserves. (On a side note, for some reason the Klingon cleave ship looks exactly like a sphinx moth caterpillar — aka tomato worm — and for some reason I love it.)
In a surprise it seems no one saw coming — including Discovery’s acting captain Saru Doug Jones), clearly stunned at the sight — a fleet of Ba’ul warships, piloted by Sirannah (Hannah Spear) and her ‘warriors of Kaminar’ warp into the middle of the foray to lend their assistance to the two Federation ships. It’s a nice moment and I am, of course, happy to see the Kelpiens prospering as a people, but I find myself continuing to wonder when exactly the show will address the impact the events of “The Sound of Thunder” will have on the Ba’ul.
In the few moments Discovery takes to lower its shields to let Michael and Spock head out on their mission, Control-controlled Leland (Alan Van Sprang) beams aboard Discovery and begins wreaking general havoc while searching for the sphere data — which leads Agent Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) and Commander Nhan (Rachael Ancheril) to begin pursuing him throughout the ship, incensed at his attack and feeding off each other’s desire for revenge.
Several hand-to-hand encounters, phaser battles, and snappy retorts later — including a nifty variable-gravity fight in a corridor set built on rotating gimbals — Georgiou manages to lure Leland into the spore drive’s jump chamber. Turning the chamber into a makeshift agonizer booth, Georgiou magnetizes the interior surfaces, causing Control’s nanites to slowly and painfully exit Leland’s body and then cease functioning — a trick first performed by Spock back in “Through the Valley of Shadows.”
I’m not sure if leading Leland to engineering was Georgiou’s plan all along, or if she just got lucky after her desire to taunt Leland instead of killing him quickly got the better of her, but either way Control appears to be dead — and without the word “Borg” coming up once, thankfully. (No word on the fate of Nhan, however, last seen face-down in a corridor.)
I’ve been underwhelmed by the show’s use of Number One (Rebecca Romijn), a character I’ve been wanting to see more of since the first time I saw “The Menagerie” as a young girl Romijn’s performance has been perfectly good, but the writers throughout the season haven’t given the iconic character much to do.
When a photon torpedo lodges — undetonated — in Enterprise’s hull, it appears that Number One will finally have her moment to shine as she accompanies Admiral Cornwell (Jayne Brook) on a mission to disarm it. Instead, the efforts of the two women take place almost entirely off camera — the action cuts back to them only when they need to announce that nope, that didn’t work either — and Number One is eventually called back to the bridge after spending her time typing on a padd without success.
Couple this with Number One’s testy request that Kayla Detmer (Emily Coutts) repeat her navigation plan “in English please,” and I really didn’t feel like this incarnation of Number One was the highly capable ‘walking computer’ of a Starfleet officer Majel Barrett portrayed back in 1964 — a characterization that was eventually given to Spock.
Captain Pike (Anson Mount), playing roulette with the timeline and assuming that his time crystal vision of the future precludes the torpedo from detonating while he’s standing next to it, replaces Number One at Cornwell’s side. Realizing that the torpedo absolutely cannot be disarmed, Cornwell orders Pike out of the room and makes the ultimate sacrifice, staying behind to manually close a blast door, something that can only be done from the inside.
Moments later, the torpedo detonates, killing Admiral Cornwell and taking a big chunk of the Enterprise’s saucer section along with it.
While all this has been going on, Michael has been traveling through the past to send the five signals necessary to set the events of the present into motion. Unable to set future coordinates for the time suit, Michael realizes that she must first “seed” the past. The visual effects for each jump are quite cool, especially the first one which looks like a less psychedelic version of astronaut Dave Bowman’s journey into the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Unfortunately, each jump also features an overly long flashback sequence replaying the Red Angel’s actions at each signal. Nothing is added to the events by seeing them unfold from Michael’s perspective, bogging down the episode — and even add more confusion to the season’s mystery: how did she blow up all the Ba’ul on Kaminar, or create the first seven signals that kicked off the season to begin with?
Once Burnham has returned from sending the first five signals, it’s time plot a course for the future. Due to battle damage sustained by his shuttle, Spock is suddenly unable to make the trip through the wormhole. Michael’s parting advice to a Spock who feels he’ll be adrift without his sister makes for one of the most touching and successful moments of the episode.
Encouraging him to find and embrace his opposite, Michael sets Spock up for the most important friendship of his life: subtly foreshadowing the deep relationship with James T. Kirk yet to come, Michael’s words add special significance to her character’s role in Spock’s life, something executive producer Alex Kurtzman alluded to back in January.
[What] got me riled up about it is the idea that if we can take Season Two of “Discovery” and understand how his relationship with Michael informed how he became the Spock we meet in TOS — that without that relationship, he would never have been prepared for Kirk — that’s a new and interesting spin and something really worth talking about, because people haven’t seen that.
Given that Michael is someone Spock will never speak of — for reasons we now know — having Michael and Spock’s relationship be the catalyst for the iconic “holy trinity” of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy gives Michael a solid reason to be written as Spock’s sister, and creates the sense that Spock carries his connection with Michael with him throughout his life despite the silence surrounding her.
After her final goodbye to Spock, Burnham opens the wormhole and triggers the sixth signal to guide Discovery through; after a few moments of the bridge crew sliding into the future — along with Georgiou and Jett Reno (Tig Notaro) — that’s it. We never see them again.
Instead, months later, we see Ash Tyler and the crew of the Enterprise dealing with the aftermath of Discovery’s disappearance back During debriefings at Starfleet Headquarters, where they each tell the same coordinated lie: Discovery and its crew were lost in battle against Control’s forces.
For reasons of galactic security, Spock suggests that details about Control, the sphere data, Discovery and her spore drive, and everyone aboard become a highly classified information, never to be spoken of again, lest they incur the rather harsh penalty of treason. Ash Tyler, the only Section 31 agent to both survive Control’s purge and not be flung forward into the future, is appointed the new head of Section 31, and is tasked with reforming the agency.
(Quite a promotion for a guy who’s been with Section 31 for maybe six months tops, after spending last year as a brainwashed Klingon agent.)
Classifying Discovery’s entire existence may not be the most interesting answer to the question of how exactly this ship, crew, mission, and propulsion system fit into the larger context of Star Trek’s future history, but it’s FAR more satisfying than reset-buttoning it out of the Trek timeline altogether. Falling back on Voyager’s “Year of Hell” scenario — in which an entire year of the ship’s activities are erased from history due to a time paradox —seemed like a distinct possibility, and one that I’m truly glad not to see employed here.
The decision to end “Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2” without so much as a glance at Discovery’s future is a bold choice for a show that’s relied on drawing out dramatic arcs, almost to the show’s detriment. After stretching narrative and character arcs across the season, the fate of the crew has finally snapped taut and we’ll just have to wait and see what the future holds — literally — for Discovery.
Both seasons of Discovery have ended with the Enterprise; last year, it was a tantalizing cliffhanger, and in tonight it’s a warm gesture toward storylines that have been with Star Trek since its very beginning. It’s easy to hope the final minutes of “Such Sweet Sorrow,” especially those featuring a shaved-and-uniform-clad Spock, are setting us up for a new series following the exploits of Pike, Spock, and Number One — I’ll admit, it was at the forefront of my mind — but I strongly doubt that’ll be the case.
I’m going to miss Anton Mount’s Captain Pike dearly though, and I’ll be the first to cheer his return to Star Trek should it happen.
A few stray observations that dropped out of subspace:
When recalling her to the bridge, Pike calls Number One “Una,” said to be the character’s surname several of the Star Trek novels and comics of recent years. However, still other novels have given her legal name as “Number One” and later in “Such Sweet Sorrow” she states her name during the official debriefing to be “Number One.” Ultimately, I’m not sure we’re any closer to knowing which of the two appellations is the nickname.
The DOT-7 repair bots that popped out of the Enterprise’s hull looked like something much more at home in either WALL-E or the Star Wars universe than Trek, and made for an oddly cartoonish few seconds in the middle of an otherwise intense battle sequence.
During the debriefing at Starfleet Headquarters, the camera was very careful not to show the face of the person doing the questioning. I wonder who this person could be, and why director Olatunde Osunsanmi chose to play so co with his identity?
It seems Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz) had a last-minute change of heart and stayed aboard Discovery, a revelation he shares with a badly injured Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp), as Culber treats him in sickbay when Dr. Pollard (Raven Dauda) is called away.
Whatever Reno saw when she exposed herself to the unshielded time crystal last week must not have been very profound, since there was never any follow up to that ominous moment. I guess sometimes time crystals show you a horrific fate, sometimes they show you spending a future Saturday sitting around in your sweatpants eating Bugles.
Composer Jeff Russo put on a great musical show in tonight’s finale, including a rather jaunty mash-up of classic Star Trek and Star Trek: Discovery themes in the closing credits.
Since “Such Sweet Sorrow” gives us nothing much to speculate about as far as where Discovery’s third season will take us, I’m left thinking instead about what I might like to see from a production standpoint.
Between Discovery’s roller coaster turbolift mechanics, the Enterprise’s seemingly-endless capacity to store hundreds of fighter drones somewhere, and the show’s increasing tendency to trim warp travel time between wildly distant locations to just a few hours, I’m a little concerned that the focus of the writing is more on what’s needed for “right now,” rather than what makes sense when you pause to think about what just happened.
To be fair to Discovery’s writers, Star Trek has always suffered to some degree from over reliance on deus ex machina, but a little more forethought in future seasons would be much appreciated. (But please, no more turbolift roller coasters. I implore you.)
The appearance of the seventh signal in the show’s final moments lets those of us left in the 22nd Century that that Discovery is made it somewhere, somewhen, in the future, but we don’t know if they actually hit their target of Terralysium circa 3180 CE. Given the logistics of Michelle Yeoh’s announced Section 31 show, I’m inclined to think Discovery didn’t end up as far in the future as they planned, or that she’ll manage to travel back to a more reasonable time in which to set her series.
I’m excited at the idea of Discovery moving into the future, and I hope that whenever we find the the crew next year, the show remains in that still-unknown era long enough not to make all the effort to get there for naught.
In the meantime, however, the world of Star Trek will be far from quiet over the next several months, as the Picard series launches production, more Short Trek adventures are on the way, and convention season kicks off with San Diego Comic Con in July where we’re sure to learn more about the future of the franchise.
It doesn’t have a formal title yet, but the upcoming Jean-Luc Picard Star Trek series cast continues its expansion today, as CBS has announced three more additions to Sir Patrick Stewart’s crew.
Additionally, British actor Harry Treadaway also beams aboard the Picard show, coming off lead roles as Dr. Victor Frankenstein in Showtime’s Penny Dreadful and the television adaptation of Stephen King’s Mr. Mercedes — so no stranger to genre productions here.
Lastly, relative newcomer Isa Briones also joins the show; the Londoner’s most recent television credit is a guest spot in FX’s American Crime Story: Versace last year, but the 20-year-old has just wrapped up her time as one of the leads in the touring production of hit Broadway show Hamilton.
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The roles these new additions to the cast will be playing are still being kept under wraps, of course, as the frustratingly-still-untitled Picard series heads into production this month in southern California – though Brione’s Instagram comment about ‘fight training’ suggests she’s got a pretty physically-active role in the show.
After three months, the second season of Star Trek: Discovery is about to conclude the story of the Red Angel, the Seven Signals, and Captain Christopher Pike — all part of the “game-changing” Discovery season finale, “Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2.”
As the combined might of starships Discovery and Enterprise prepare to take on Control’s Section 31 forces, Captain Pike (Anson Mount), Number One (Rebecca Romijn), and Admiral Cornwell (Jayne Brook) lead the Federation flagship into battle.
Captain Pike (Anson Mount) leads the Enterprise in a fight against Control. (CBS)
Captain Pike leads the Enterprise in a fight against Control. (CBS)
Captain Pike leads the Enterprise in a fight against Control. (CBS)
Number One (Rebecca Romijn) on the Enterprise bridge. (CBS)
Number One on the Enterprise bridge. (CBS)
Admiral Cornwell (Jayne Brook) on the Enterprise bridge. (CBS)
Meanwhile, back aboard the Discovery, Commander Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) prepares for her dangerous flight into the future as Section 31’s Agent Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) hangs on tight during the tumultuous fight against Control.
Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) prepares to become the new Red Angel. (CBS)
Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) hangs on tight. (CBS)
Georgiou catches her breath. (CBS)
And in case you missed it, here’s the video preview for the episode, which features the return of Number One and the USS Enterprise as the starship joins the Discovery in a team-up against Control and its Section 31 assets.
SUCH SWEET SORROW, PART 2 — Season two finale. The U.S.S. Discovery battles against Control in a fight not only for their lives but for the future, with a little help from some unexpected friends. Spock and Burnham discern vital new connections between the red signals while Burnham faces one of life’s harshest truths: the right decisions are often the hardest to make.
The episode features a story Michelle Paradise & Jenny Lumet & Alex Kurtzman, and is directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi — the same team as last week, as this finale expanded from an originally-planned one hour to two.
* * *
In addition to these photos looking ahead to Thursday, we’ve got some new behind-the-scenes photos from last week’s visit to the USS Enterprise bridge set, thanks to a few members of the guest cast — and a moment of humor between Anson Mount and Sonequa Martin-Green in the Discovery cargo bay.
Star Trek: The Next Generation alum Jonathan Frakes has become an integral part of the Star Trek: Discovery directing roster over the past two years — helming three episodes of the series to date — and today he’s confirmed that he’ll be running at least four more hours of upcoming Trek in the future, including the still-untitled Jean-Luc Picard series.
In a new interview with TrekMovie.com, the former Enterprise first officer clarified some statements from earlier this year, where Frakes had intimated his involvement with the upcoming Picard show, now clarifying he’ll be taking on the third and fourth hour of the ten-episode season.
I’ve been booked for they call the “second block,” which is episodes 3 and 4…. There are going to be ten episodes, with five blocks… [Hanelle Culpepper] is about to start shooting, and then I start prepping after she starts shooting for a couple of days.
Frakes (center) directs Sara Mitich (Nilsson) and Mary Wiseman (Tilly) on the ‘Discovery’ set. (CBS)
The production seems to be following a rather interesting shooting process for the first year, as the director indicated that the ten-episode first season will be shot in five two-episode ‘blocks,’ which may indicate that there may only be five directors working during the first year. Frakes notes that he believe’s it’s due to “amortization” — that is, for a cost savings in the production by spreading each set of episode’s costs across two hours.
In addition to the Picard series, Frakes also confirmed that he’s already back on the schedule for Season 3 of Star Trek: Discovery, which is in pre-production now; according to the TrekMovie.com interview he’ll be helming Episode 303, as well as a later entry in the season yet unspecified.
For more on Frakes’ thoughts on the upcoming Picard series, as well as his thoughts on the progression of Star Trek: Discovery, you can read the full interview here.
Last week’s “Through the Valley of Shadows” gave us a cliffhanger with the Star Trek: Discovery crew preparing to rendezvous with the Enterprise and then destroying Discovery. But that plan didn’t work, and we have yet another cliffhanger to end “Such Sweet Sorrow” promising what appears to be a once-and-for-all, surefire solution to finally get rid of Discovery and the sphere data Control desperately needs.
How many more of these failed plans does the crew have to endure… and how many more do we have to endure as viewers?
Let’s not forgot the plan from just a few weeks ago where Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) had to “die” in order to bait her Red Angel mother into capture. That plan was only partly successful as the crew was unable to propel the needed sphere data into the future via the Red Angel suit.
Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Pike (Anson Mount) brief the crew on the plan. (CBS)
It’s a good thing we’ve made it to the last chapter of the season, because I’m not quite sure how many more of these ideas for destroying Control we can sit through. Let’s hope that next week’s season finale delivers on its epic promise, and actually gets Burnham and the ship into the future — whenever that may be — and give her and the crew a win for a change.
Of course, much of this first part of “Such Sweet Sorrow” is spent on long, heartfelt goodbyes and service appreciations as the crew prepares for Burnham to take a one-way trip to a future-somewhere. Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz) and Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp) get a quiet moment together to try and resolve their differences — and say more accepting goodbyes — while Captain Pike (Anson Mount) and Ash Tyler (Shazad Latif) seem finally ready to give themselves fist-pumps for all the good they’ve accomplished.
I admit to being a bit of a sucker for these slower character moments because when Star Trek does the emotions well, it really does them well, especially when they’re well-placed and the performances are spot-on. And many of the bonding moments in this episode nicely expand on the camaraderie effectively, albeit briefly, displayed in last week’s episode.
Sarek (James Frain) and Amanda (Mia Kirshner) pop by for what may be a final time. (CBS)
But a lot of it falls flat here because, again, the show to this point hasn’t really allowed us to get to know the more secondary characters, some of whom get their own farewell-letter scenes. And as well-performed and touching as it was, the scene with Sarek (James Frain) and Amanda (Mia Kirshner) felt needless and overwrought — especially as the pair seemed to appear out of nowhere, travelling from Vulcan to the Discovery in the blink of an eye.
The real star in this episode, again, is Pike. As usual, he may not have had much to do, but Anson Mount continues to sell his performance. Speaking of little to do, Spock (Ethan Peck) was almost MIA in this one, which was perplexing. It seemed like everyone, except him, had something critical to offer to the time-jump proposal, and that includes Jett Reno (Tig Notaro), who finds herself playing a pivotal role at the end of the episode.
It’s fun to see Po (Yadira Guevara-Prip) back, newly confident as queen of Xahea, and working with Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman). Her return, however, was not completely unexpected. After all, this is someone who was introduced in her Short Treks episode as having the expertise to recrystallize dilithium. Do you honestly think she wasn’t going to play some pivotal role in the series, and for that matter Star Trek, with that expertise?
Tilly (Mary Wiseman) and Po (Yadira Guevara-Prip) work in engineering. (CBS)
Let’s talk about what the episode did right, and I want to stress that this episode was certainly not a dud. The bridge of the Enterprise, in its updated form, is stunning, and director Olatunde Osunsanmi effectively heightens the tension during critical scenes there. Composer Jeff Russo also needs to be recognized for his work in this episode as well, especially in goodbye scenes.
There are still have two red signals left to be revealed and the question of when Burnham and Discovery will end up, assuming the plan works in its execution, to be answered. Is it possible she could end up only a week ahead in time with the ship, or a few hours, especially if the time crystal fails to perform as well as hoped.
Since her mother was able to jump to the past as well as the future, is it possible that Burnham finds herself going back in time instead of forward. The implications for the time jump, whenever that is, are intriguing. Let’s just hope the build-up to the finale was worth our patience.
Captain Pike (Anson Mount) prepares for a final stand against Control. (CBS)
Next week wraps up the season for Star Trek: Discovery, with “Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2” taking the series into an uncertain future, as the long wait for Season 3 is about to begin.
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