Star Trek: Discovery – Perpetual Infinity

Following the last two weeks of build up we finally delve into some action and whilst elements of the plot are resolved new questions arise.

The episode had me on the edge of the seat, the knowledge that the showrunners are willing run fast and loose with the canon means that literally anything can happy. As an avid Star Trek fan its hard to surprise me with lore, this episode certainly surprised me.

It is nice to continue to see Burnham become more human, she is starting to realises her limitations and not try and be the cure all for every problem, well she still tries but at least she fails. Most of the cast get something to do in this episodes and the action sequence were much needed for a change in pace.

We got character development from Burnham, Spock and most interestingly Georgiou. Last week I mentioned my discomfort with Georgious attachment to Burnham but this was smoothed over as not just being a plot device but something that is really there as evidenced by Georgious conversation with Micheal’s mother. Georgiou does have a soft spot for Burnham and what I like is that this is just as much a surprise to her as it is to us. There is a chink in the Terran emperors armour and it makes her all the more interesting. It was too limiting to always play the moustache twirling double crossing bad guy.

Now I have to address the unimatrix sized elephant in the room. Leland’s take over by Control was very similar to a Borg assimilation process, and those definitely looked like nano-probes. I m going to leave who tied Leland up as I haven’t a clue, that does not make sense.

Now bear with me because I can see a way that this all works, 1. The laziest approach is that Leland ends up travelling 100’s of years into the past into the Delta Quadrant to become the canon establishment or 2. A more convoluted plot occurs. This is how I see it. Control needs a way to more effectively access systems and control people. It was tried taking over computer systems like at S31 headquarters and it has tried trojaning cybernetic crew, neither were successful, what it needs is a way to directly interface with people themselves.

We know that Control was fed databases and information by Starfleet and the Federation for risk assessment, surely this would include the curious events of Enterprises episode ‘Regeneration’. Here Enterprise encountered Borg that had been frozen after the events of First Contact, the film. Whilst these Borg were all destroyed who is to say there weren’t other ‘survivors’. During First Contact the battle of over the deflector dish resulted in several Borg being jettisoned into space including a partially assimilated Hawk. Perhaps his body was recovered and analysed by S31 in the future, they wouldn’t know about the Borg nor what the nano-probes were. Control however would have this information and perhaps saw the nano-probes as a possible vector for getting it into control of Leland. Alternatively we know the Space Probe travelled widely and for millennia, perhaps it had already encountered the Borg and part of the information transmitted by Airiam contained that knowledge that Control turned to its advantage. Either way the Borg connection can be explained.

I enjoyed the character of Gabrielle Burnham, she was a strong and resolute woman with a world weariness as a result of time travel and the frustration of her quest. She had some of the best lines and really added some meat to the Burnham backstory.

The next three episodes are sure going to be a wild ride with Leland to catch, Control to beat and to discover who sent the Red Signals.