[5.5/10] I first started watching Star Trek (specifically, The Next Generation) when I was only 5 or 6. I have to imagine much of it went over my head, but I still enjoyed the drama, the spectacle, the friendship that was on display. And as much as I still enjoy revisiting those old episodes and think plenty of them hold up to scrutiny, I wonder if I wouldn’t have been able to invest in some of those stories in the same way if I had seen them when I was older.
I say that because this episode is, if not ruined for me, then at least severely weakened, by my certainty that Michael Burnham wasn’t going to die here. It’s still early in the run, so maybe Discovery could turn Game of Thrones and decide to kill off its main character a few episodes before the finale, but it wasn’t bloody likely. As a (curmudgeonly) adult, I’m painfully aware of how the rules of T.V. work, which meant that all the teary goodbyes and final confessions and heartfelt moment had little impact on me when I couldn’t buy into the mortal peril the show wanted to present.
Now it doesn't have to be that way. Situations where the audience doesn't buy into the heightened risk can still have meaning so long as they accept that they characters do. Most Marvel Cinematic Universe fans are sharp enough to understand that the events at the end of Infinity War are unlikely to be permanent, but the emotional response of the characters, the talents of the performers, the way the script delivers the weight of those events on our heroes, gives it a force even if things seem destined to be undone.
And even apart from the false stakes that Discovery tries to establish here, it’s just not good on a scene-by-scene basis. An show has to work doubletime to make the character interactions feel realer, the scenarios more potent, when the big event that everything’s building to has no actual risk given the realities of semi-network television. Instead, we get some of the most weakly-written, weakly-performed bits in the show so far.
Because “The Red Angel” basically alternates between overwrought one-on-one conversations and exposition dumps until it’s time for the fireworks. The exposition dumps are clunky but fine, if not exactly organic. We learn, very very quickly, that Section 31 knew about The Red Angel the whole time because they invented the time suit in an arms race with the Klingons. We learn how, via some of the usual treknobabble, Stamets and Tilly and others can construct a trap to capture the Red Angel. And eventually we even figure out that the angel is a genetic match for Burnham, so that they can lure the angel in by putting Burnham in (supposed) danger thereby provoking the angel to try to avoid the grandfather paradox.
That is all adequate, if still a lot to throw at the audience at once. Despite the persistence of the whole Red Angel arc, Discovery has kind of blown through plot points this season, having extended info dumps when necessary to try to keep the audience up to speed. It doesn't make for the smoothest ride, but it’s part and parcel with Trek’s M.O., so I can live with it.
What I can’t live with is the reveal that Leland was stealing a time crystal and inadvertently got Michael’s parents killed while they were secretly working on the red angel project. Discovery is no stranger to crazy twists, but this one is just too contrived for me. It feels far too convenient that the Section 31 baddie that Burnham and friends have already been jostling with turns out to be the guy indirectly responsible for her parents’ deaths. And while it’s meant to seem very much like clockwork, the last minute reveal and centrality of Burnham to all of this is another convenient instance of the universe seeming to bend around our main character. It’s just too much, in a way that makes the story seem like it’s twisted and stretched to fit around our character rather than the other way around.
I also couldn’t buy any of the supposedly emotion-filled moments between Burnham and/or Culbert and the other characters. There’s a lot of reckoning that’s supposed to be happening here, but there are so many bad platitudes and dry cool action lines that any genuine sentiment in these scenes completely evaporates. Culbert’s therapy session with Cornwell is trite and atrocious. I was never invested in Burnham/Tyler so that did nothing for me. Even Michael’s moment with Geougiou, which was at least more understated, still felt propped up.
Hell, the years-long estrangement between Burnham and Spock is seemingly (at least temporarily) patched up in a single conversation here. At least Spock feels more like Spock here, with his dry witticisms and pure rational utilitarian perspective in the moment. I don’t care about any of his relationships with the folks on Discovery (except maybe Pike?), but at least he seems more familiar as the character we know and love in this one.
That said, “The Red Angel” features what may be the worst Trek scenes ever. The moment where there’s awkward tension between Stamets and Culbert, only for Georgiou to come in and make a big deal about her and their sexuality, felt like something out of a bad CW teen drama. To be frank, a lot of this episode did. But the acting and tonal problems were particularly glaring there, with break-up discomfort and mean girl taunting that may as well have been pulled from Dawson’s Creek.
The least I can say for “The Red Angel* is that those final fireworks, while mostly devoid of real stakes, have a good rhythm. I never doubted that the red angel would emerge to save Burnham, but the show at least makes the viewer work for that, and has Georgiou and Spock, Burnham’s adopted family, showing a bit of their true colors just before a member of her biological family appears. That twist seems like another convenient shock for shock’s sake, but the sequence to get there shows the series’s ability to pace these bits of action well even when the result is a foregone conclusion.
I think I would have been twice as thrilled with it if I had been watching this as a five-year-old. (Though given the amount of death and modern prestige sturm und drang here, it’s probably for the best if five-year-olds don’t.) Maybe the character conversations that seem cheesy now would seem profound. Maybe the supposed peril that seems entirely hollow now would seem true and full of danger. Maybe the signposted themes of not blaming yourself for things beyond your control would land. Alas, I’m a grown-up now, and I expect better from my prestige sci-fi shows than this.
Let me see if I got this straight: "Present day" Michael knows about the plan to capture future Michael, and this knowledge somehow doesn't propagate to future Michael. But Michael's death-without-future-intervention does? That's a sloppy, inconsistent theory of temporal mechanics.
Oh boy, I cannot tell you how many times my gaze went to the ceiling and I had to resist the urge to stop watching.
This has become so messed-up in the span of this one episode, it's hard to believe they will find a way out of this that doesn't send shockwaves throughout the community, that will make the ones from season one feel like a gentle rumble.
I don't care which rabbit they pull out of the hat or if Kurtzman is still insisting this is canon Star Trek - IT IS NOT !
Well I've run out of ways to bag this rancid mug of hot garbage juice, so I will recommend two amazing shows you could watch instead.
The Expanse and The Orville. Both of which have worst episodes better than the best episode of this waste of 45 mins a week.
(As with Aeron, and probably many others I am only watching this cause I'm a completionist and have Nutflux anyway which at least lets me watch in 2x speed)
The premise of this episode is so lame that it had me all episode rolling my eyes so hard I almost passed out.
Starting with the horrible way they discover and reveal at the begging the identity of the red angel. Seriously? So cheap and not earned... Also, why didn't the robot lady killed her at first sight, The terminator way?
And then they come up with the most stupid plan to capture the red angel, with the full knowledge and participation of "past red angel" (that will know of it in the future)... Oh, and a fake death... So no real danger...
All is horrible. I haven't yet finished the episode (paused to comment this on minute 37) but it doesn't matter... No matter how it ends the premise, the plan and all the setup is so stupid...
Somehow they managed to combine all the usual recent disappointments in this episode.
Generally: Besides Saru no character of the first season managed to improve. The season't plot isn't better either. It's pretty rare that a second season falls behind the premiere season.
That really didn't make much sense, did it? Not a great episode at all, especially considering the good stuff this season has been doing. I did not expect that ending, though, that pushes things down a more interesting path.
Opening scene is a six minutes long sequence of speechess (and the song) about a character that no onen cared, even the writing staff. Six minutes, I suppose that is a total screen time that Airiam got in these two seasons.
The beginning of this episode dragged. If they wasted that much time on every dead officer there'd be no time left to get work done. We hardly knew Half Data girl.
I enjoyed Michael punching Leland. The actress did a fine job throughout and was enjoyable to watch. Her kicks are decent.
Time crystals! Fuck time crystals. They decide to double down on a returning stupid issue from the first season. I'm still not sure if any of this show qualifies as canon. The whole idea of time crystals changes major canon on future time travel. We've seen many types of time travel and there was never a crystal to be found.
As for the big reveal. It was a stupid plan.
We think it's Michael from the future. We'll put Micheal in fake danger (that more like torture because we don't plan to let her die). This will fool Michael from the future because she won't know plan??? That makes no sense. It turns out to be Michael's mom. I'm half way glad.
Now we just have to figure out how to use the time crystals to erase this abberation.
Boring Hollywood soap opera filled with emotional nonsense. Predictable ending and shitfull of plot holes as always when useless and unintelligent writers cram timetravel into their stores because they are to stupid to come up with a decent plot. This season is a total trainwreck!
The fact that I was was finding it extremely satisfying to see Burnham dying a painful death speaks to how well the writers have ruined the character for me -- and to how the actress has helped them by playing the role so well as written. There must be something that keeps bringing me back, though, and it's certainly not Hugh and Paul. Or Ash. Or Tilly. Good gawd, certainly not Tilly. I guess I'll give credit to Pike.
Just kill Michael already. Or kill the show, either is fine.
This is not a bad episode of sci-fi, it's good and crazy fun despite a number of very dumb things. But this is also the worst attempt at anything labeled Star Trek since last season's "Choose Your Pain." Discovery isn't as self-important and insulting towards the legacy of Star Trek as, say, William Shatner's novels, but dammit it's still trying.
All of the progress and improvements to Discovery made at the beginning of the season has been undone at this point. All we're left with is shock drama that wants to be anything but a TV show about anything but Star Trek. It's even subverting the few things it did well in season 1 (like turning Tilly into a stupifying, cringy characature of herself). The best line of the episode was Rhinestone Barbie telling her to "Stop talking."
I'm officially continuing to watch because I'm a Star Trek completionist, and because it's free with my Netflix subscription. I feel so bad for people who paid a separate fee just for this.
8.5/10
Sensational
YET ANOTHER AMAZING EPISODE AND I LOVED EVERY SECOND OF IT AND WHAT A FANTASTIC IDEA TO CATCH FUTURE MICHAEL AND THE REASON WHY FUTURE MICHAEL STILL GOT CAPTURED EVEN THOUGH SHE KNEW IT WAS A TRAP WAS EVERYTHING HAS TO PLAY OUT EXACTLY THE WAY IT DOES ARE THE FATE OF THE UNIVERSE WILL NOT BE SAVED, EVERYTHING IS HAPPENING THE WAY IT'S SUPPOSED TO.
THE RED ANGEL WILLINGLY GOT CAPTURED SO MICHAEL WOULD BE EXACTLY WHERE SHE NEEDS TO BE WHEN THE TIME COMES,
IT MAKES PERFECT SENSE AND IS PERFECT WRITING.
THAT ENDING WAS JUST
OUTSTANDING, I SWEAR THEY
ARE KNOCKING IT OUT THE DAMN
BALL PARK AND QUITE FRANKLY
THIS SEASON TWO IS THE GOAT
OF ANY STAR TREK SHOW.
THIS EPISODE WAS AWESOME
AND SO TENSE, YOU CAN FEEL
HOW HIGH THE STAKES REALLY ARE.
I WAS ON THE EDGE OF MY SEAT ALL THE WAY THROUGH.
I GET WHY WE DON'T HEAR ABOUT TIME CRYSTAL'S IN THE FUTURE BECAUSE THEY ARE ULTRA RARE LIKE ONLY A FEW ON 1 PLANET IN THE UNIVERSE, I TELL YOU NOW THIS SHOW CAN DO NO WRONG AND IS PERFECT IN EVERY WAY AND THIS WAS ANOTHER AWESOME THRILLING EPISODE TO PROVE IT.
AMAZING STORY TELLING AND HIGH VALUE ENTERTAINMENT FROM START TO FINISH.
(very very touching at the beginning).
I Can't Assimilate This Phenomenal
Flawless Masterpiece Of A Show
Quick Enough.
This season is mindblowingly inconsistent. After two solid episodes where it appeared that they finally found a groove we are again in rodeo territory.
It's like they threw all the story ideas together but didn't read through the script again since nobody noticed notice all the plot holes and inconsistencies.
Loved all the reveals in this episode. The scene with Georgiou, Stamets, Culber and Tilly was fantastic!
Every scene was stupid or silly, often both.
I'm both sad and glad that Anson Mount got out/fired. He was great as Pike (albeit a bit too cuck to be good). Ofcourse we all remember Rebecca Romaine who had a whopping 3minutes of airtime this season in one of the few extra shoots to appease the fanbase they have alienated so much (and failing at it in the process).
I'm holding my heart about how "Picard" will be, and everything else they have planned.
Fun Fact:
At the end, Lieutenant Nilsson takes the old position of Airiam on the bridge!
Sara Mitich who plays Nilsson also embodied Airiam in the first season. (Hannah Cheesman for
season two).
of this Phenomenal
show.
(Sara was having an
Allergic reaction to all
the makeup, so they
brought her back as
Lieutenant Nilsson).
The problem with time travel is that when done wrong, it fails spectacularly. And that is just what happened in this episode. Ugh.
A very uneven episode with some bright spot and cool sceneries.
"What just happened!?" Best line ever!
This episode was a trainwreck....er starship wreck.
damn, spock's ass is hot!
As the title says, the red angel
Review by Marc FriedolinVIP 6BlockedParentSpoilers2019-03-22T06:37:16Z
The characters reasoning in this Episode makes 0 sense.
They figure out, that the Angel is Michael. OK!
Now they want to trap it using a plan Michael cocked up, thinking the Angel would appear to protect her. That kind of makes sense. But as long as the safety net (The Doctor standing by to recessitate her, should the Angel not appear) is there, why would someone not wanting to be captured appear?
It isn't necessary. I certainly wouldn't.
There is a reason former Star Trek writers shyed away from crossing own timelines (With the exception of DS9 and they were really careful not to make too long story archs - and that was a show about beings living outside of time...).
You really easy fuck up - and the fuckups here are countless.
Also, what the f*** is up with Section 31?
In ST:DS9 their mere existence was a very well kept secret. Yet here we are decades before where everyone seems not only of their existence, but also about their missions.
Not even mentioning their AI System, which kept and analysed Data for the Admiralty aiding their decision making.
I will get really angry if the staff of this show keeps mentioning the word canon. They blatantly disregard it every turn - canon-wise this Season is even worse than the one before.
It's still an entertaining show, but they really should rebrand it as something other than Star Trek as it clearly ain't anymore. It's some random Sci-Fi Show using the trademark...