Not much to say upfront without spoilers beyond: the Discovery finally catches up with Spock’s shuttle and Stamets tries to find a way to rescue Tilly from the mushroom-kingdom. It’s a cast reunion episode!
The ‘teasing Spock’ on Discovery has passed beyond a joke and is well into annoying. The Discovery finally catches up with Spock’s shuttle but inside is Captain Georgiou in her Section 31 uniform. Section 31 takes the term “black ops” so seriously that even their badges are black. Quite what she thought she was doing in Spock’s shuttle is never really explained as she doesn’t know where Spock was going either.
Captain Pike hands Georgiou back to Section 31, whose starship has stairs in it. In exchange for collaborating on finding Spock/solving the red-mothman mystery, Section 31 gives Discovery a new liaison officer…Ash Tyler.
All of the above is side-story. Before anybody has time to process their complex emotions on Georgiou popping back or their even more complex emotions about Ash-Actually-the-Klingon-Voq coming back, the Discovery is off to rescue Tilly.
Tilly meanwhile, is in the mycelium network, having being kidnapped by reconstructed memories of childhood friend May. May need Tilly to stop a monster who is wreaking havoc in May’s home and threatening the existence of her species.
I don’t know about everybody else but I was thinking “tardigrade!”
The Discovery meanwhile does a partial jump into the network, allowing Stamets and Michael to enter the fungus dimension. Unfortunately this is a process that means the Discovery starts getting eaten by fungi.
And the monster? It’s Doctor Hugh! Through a combination of technobabble and woo-woo life energy! They thought he’s dead but he sailed away on a wave of mycelium!
In short, one of those episodes were a clock is ticking, the heroes endanger everybody’s life to save one crew member but have to stop every few minutes to work out what is going on. It works fine. It’s tense and there’s some minor twists and it is suitably Star Trekkie and Discovery at the same time.
Ever since Hugh Culber died, the show has been teasing his reappearance. Casting information and credits all implied that he was coming back in Season 2 also. Even so, this is yet another episode in which Discovery tries to fix its past mistakes. Culber’s murder by Ash/Voq was shocking but in the end served no great dramatic purpose in Season 1. Undoing his murder? That’s just weird — although, I’m glad he’s back and it’s good news for Stamets obviously. Tyler is just a mess of trauma now, so quite what it implies for him isn’t clear.
The theme of the idealistic Star Fleet versus the morally-compromised Star Fleet is heavily underlined. Pike, Tilly and Stamets all in one camp, Tyler, Georgiou and Section 31 in the other. Michael gets to be a being of both worlds, as she is in other ways as well.
The angel theme ties neatly with this repeated motif in Discovery of characters who are messengers/heralds/mediators between two worlds.
- Michael is a human raised as a Vulcan
- Spock is a Vulcan with a human aspect
- Georgiou is from a mirror universe
- Stamets mediates the Discovery’s transition into the fungus world
- May speaks for the fungus world in our world
- Tilly becomes the envoy of our world into the fungus world
- Dr Hugh is whatever Dr Hugh is now
- Tyler is now an emissary from Section 31 to the Discovery as well as being a Klingon changed into a Human, as well as his prior Klingon-self Voq being an emissary for the Klingon ancestors
- More metaphorically, Captain Pike is an emissary from the show’s past
So an episode that’s good enough to keep the momentum going* but not much better than that.
Rankings
- An Obol for Charon (e4) – Classic Trek on a magic mushroom trip
- Point of Light (e3) – season one Discovery is back for revenge
- Brother (e1) – an action orientated fresh start for the Discovery crew
- New Eden (e2) – The Next Generation of The Next Generation
- Saints of Imperfection (e5) – Let’s get the old gang back together!
Bits and Pieces
- The bridge crew are getting more love than they did in Season 1 but not much more. An episode that’s light on the central characters would be nice.
- I’m very bored with Spock as a character – something I never thought I’d say.
- The Section 31 ship has “camoflauge” not a cloaking device. Quite what the difference is, I don’t know. This is the continuing issue with being a prequel: cool technology just creates continuity issues.
- Of course Section 31 is itself a retcon but one that makes sense. Star Fleet has ALWAYS been dodgy in each iteration of Trek — it makes sense it has a Special Circumstances division.
- I added “You did what now?” to Tilly’s dialogue where appropiate.
- Cora’s review is here: http://corabuhlert.com/2019/02/16/spock-is-still-missing-but-star-trek-discovery-offers-the-return-of-other-familiar-faces-in-saints-of-imperfection/
Camestros Felapton 
11 responses to “Star Trek Discovery: Saints of Imperfection (S2:E6)”
Michael wasn’t surprised when the wrong person stepped off the transporter pad. Oh no. Michael was surprised when the wrong person stepped out of the shuttlecraft. Don’t let anyone tell you Discovery doesn’t have fresh new ideas.
Culber’s death struck me, at the time, as not just heartless but also pointless, so it’s nice – I guess – to get a reset button for that particular incident. Though I suspect Culber will be another person who is very, very nervous around Ash Tyler from now on.
Yes, I admit it, I thought “tardigrade” as well for a moment… but the episode itself has a good old-fashioned “no creature is monstrous in its own environment” Star Trek theme, which I think is good. And there were some reasonably good tense bits as the ship was sinking into the mycelial ocean – I was genuinely worried that some poor sod on the bridge was going to topple into the waves and get twisted into a pretzel. But so far, apart from the Annoying Science Guy in the first episode, this season’s been pretty good about not sacrificing redshirts.
I think the episode was… passable, overall. Though its main function seemed to be to get the old gang back together (if, the next time they catch up with Spock, it turns out they’ve got Captain Lorca instead, I think my willing suspension of disbelief might snap.)
It has taken me this long to notice that Airiam is played by a different actor this season. So much for my perspicacity, then.
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I enjoyed this episode quite a bit while watching it, but once I thought about and did a write-up, the whole thing fell apart, because I suddenly realised that much of what happens doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
BTW, I also didn’t notice that Airiam is played by a different actor.
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I guess the difference between season 1 and season 2 is that season 1 episodes fell apart as you watched them whereas season 2 episodes fall apart when you think about them.
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@Cora
In one way, you’re right, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but I’m glad the powers-that-be realized that Culber’s death was idiotic and are trying to change course.
OMG, Michelle Yeoh is having so much fun playing Georgiou. I just love watching her. And Anson Mount is really growing on me as well.
I suppose this episode might be one of the lightweights of the season (although I suspect I liked it a lot better than you and Cam), but to me, it has the feel of the show finally beginning to find its voice.
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Oh, I’m happy to have Hugh Culber back, too, and also Ash Tyler and Michelle Yeoh is always a joy to watch. But that doesn’t change the fact that the writing team wouldn’t have had to twist themselves and the plot into pretzels to undo some of the worst messes of season 1.
I also agree that it feels as if Star Trek Discovery is finally beginning to find its voice, because season 2 has been a lot more consistent so far, whereas season 1 changed tone and direction every other episode.
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I agree – it’s working through a lot of its contradictions now and the writers are more confident
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Ok, on the other hand, here’s me being officially fed up with Discovery. Last week one of the British fan said that Discovery keeps trying to do the adult dark tv thing and then getting scared and walking it back. This episode was a walking it back feast. Ash had Important Reasons to leave Discovery, and now he’s back. He killed a beloved crewmate but Stamets only pauses for a moment when he sees him. He’ll be back dancing in the ship disco in no time, mark my words. Unlike everybody else, I thought that Hugh’s death, shocking as it was, was also realistic and powerful: people die randomly, unfairly, quickly, and that’s it. But no: reset button.
When people died in ST:NG or DS9, they died and stayed dead. That was what made their death count. ST:NG found ways to bring Tasha Yar back, but they never resorted to outright resurrection. Dax came back… but not Jadzia.
Also, Michael: one, don’t act so worried about the Terran Emperor, you were the one who had the great idea of bringing her back into this universe. Because you thought she was really your Georgiou. Well, I was mightly disappointed last season when they could have gone with “people in the mirror universe are not intrinscially evil, they are like that because they live in constant fear”. No, they decided to go with “they’re just evil because mirror, innit”. Now I am not buying good Emperor for a second and want to slap Michael for bringing her back. And two: TELL YOUR CAPTAIN. Fuck’s sake. TELL. HIM.
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I think my takeaway is that this was a fantasy story, set in a Star Trek universe.
No, it didnt make much sense, there was basically magic involved to bring Culbert back. But at l least it was somewhat consistent magic (I remember a Voyager episode about a race that aged backwards, but you didn’t find out until the end and thought all the time it were kids. THAT didnt make sense if you thought about it, this here was a mushroom trip). Science had nothing to do with it though.
I found it interesting how casual section 31 was with flashing their badges. In DS9 most Star Trek didn’t know that it existed, not even Sisko. They hide deep in the next sears.
Re camouflage: The ship looked like an asteroid, so there was something on the screen. I guess it can only fool so long and its easier to archieve than prevent anything reflecting from your hull.
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The existence and surrounding lore around transporters in Star Trek makes the possibility of reassembling a dead person as an alive person possible as well as duplicating a person (e.g. Riker). So, yes, basically a fairy-tale true-loves-kiss style story but magic that’s consistent with the usual Trek 😉
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Oh yes, transporters can do everything!
And this was even a magic mushroom transporter. One that moved Tillys matter to mushroomland (no human material found) but not Colberts funghi… Oh you know what, better wait for Spock to explain this. Maybe thats the reason he went mad.
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It was all very silly but I don’t really care as long as Culber is back. It was clear that he was in the network somehow back when he showed up to help Stamets trapped in it in Season 1, and as soon as May/mycellium went on about a monster, it was obvious it was him. (The tardigrade lives in the network — why would it be destroying its home and May and co. not know what it is?) At the last point, it looked like he couldn’t return and if they had done it that way, I’d have been okay with it as a goodbye, but I’m glad they’ve returned him. I’m not against having characters die and stay dead but the bigoted tradition of killing off gay characters made it a huge mistake. Voq should have killed a more minor character — same effect (but not my red-headed pilot.) Of course, if they get rid of the spore drive eventually, I’m not sure why Stamets and Culber would stay further, so this is getting kind of complicated.
I did enjoy the explore new species part. That for me is Trek — the discovery part, and yeah that includes them endangering the whole crew to rescue one — it’s tradition. Tilly’s connection with May fit everything very well. It just was annoying waiting for them to get through the rescue. Frankly, Tilly probably would have rescued herself and gotten Culber out without anybody’s help but May’s. And they should freaking promote her to lieutenant junior grade. She’s now saved everybody repeatedly, been the primary contact with a new species, and we’re getting into Wesley Crusher territory if they keep her as an ensign.
I was deeply surprised to see the Section 31 ship have cloaking, a decade before the original series in time, and the question is where they got it. It’s not inconceivable for them to have it, given the larger Trek cannon of tie-in books and such, but it again feels like badly hashed ret-conning. Discovery keeps trying to do a prequel but throwing in “new” tech stuff that shouldn’t be in a prequel. Which then forces them to come up with lame rationales, like that the holograms mess up the Enterprise’s systems and that’s why the Kirk Enterprise didn’t have them, etc.
I am not happy with the increasingly religious emphasis on the show. Culber’s resurrection, while given a whacky science gloss that was quite Doctor Who, was wrapped up in a good bit of religious imagery, as is the entire spore network. Pike keeps getting more religious, the winged red “angel” aliens and Spock as some kind of prophet figure, the Klingons’ obsession with religion which they really weren’t before, etc. For me, it’s not a good fit but seems to be an interest of the writers.
I would like the Section 31 folk to go off to their own show that we’re supposedly having. It seemed like a good solution — they can go off and deal with all the dicey dark stuff and Discovery can be a stronger ensemble Trek show. Still, I’m okay with Ash hanging around for a few episodes to attempt some closure, and the Mirror Georgiou and Michael exchanges were beautiful. Michael thought Mirror Georgiou would run off and make herself a criminal empire under the Federation’s watchful eye. To find that the Federation has instead made her their secret attack dog and sent her off after Spock has thrown Michael into full alarm, and worry about what Mirror Georgiou might do to still tortured Ash as well.
So that wasn’t bad, as reunions go. I prefer it to having Pike and the Enterprise head of security, who is a perfectly nice lady and perfectly useless and under-developed. Why is she there? Why not just make Lt. Rhys head of security? At this point, I’m really fond of the characters, but Discovery constantly goes off in weird directions that should have been edited in the writers room.
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