Star Trek Discovery: The Red Angel!

Star Trek writer Marc Zicree discusses the Red Angel, the death of Michael -- and the death of Spock!

[Beer_Dad]

If they kill of Michael, I'll do a little dance. Nothing against the actor, she's very good and I loved her in The Walking Dead before I gave up watching it - but the character Michael is just so unlikeable. So much of this episode was just talking, talking, talking - and not well written dialogue either, just dull pontificating, technobabble and infodumping. Also they spent several episodes going on about how the Red Angel's tech was so far beyond anything they have... and now it turns out it was actually built by Section-totally-dumb at least 20 years before the current time period - WTF???!!! Damn, this show sucks. I've said it before, but I really think the writers never get together in one room to discuss this kind of stuff so we end up with these insane plot holes, ret-cons literally from one episode to the next and so on.

[bobbobbinson]

Being old enough to see the hate for each iteration of star trek play out on a grand scale is frustrating and quite predictable. -Spock (If he lived today)

[kirkdarling]

The writing is simultaneously intriguing and sloppy in this episode. Intriguing is that Spock identifies the very character flaws in Burnham that have driven many of us so crazy--the writing is almost meta-aware for a few moments.


It's intriguing that Spock and Burnham do apparently realize the logic fault of the group plan to trap the Red Angel, which is why between them they realize that Burnham must truly die without rescue in order to draw the red angel regardless of its future knowledge that it's a trap. That's why Spock says that if it doesn't work, he'll be accused again of murdering a Starfleet officer...he already knew he must disobey orders to prevent Burnham's rescue.


What's sloppy: Even when Tilly says the data planted in Airiam was planted by an unknown "parasite" everyone immediately accepts it as valid anyway. Even though Pike has misgivings about the Control AI being defeated, everyone brushes that aside because Section 31 (which supposedly none of them trusts anyway) claims to have cleaned it out of their systems...despite the fact that the Control AI had had front-door access to all their security systems (and probably designed them), and despite it clearly having moved beyond Section 31 facilities (such as the psychiatric facility). They don't believe the data could be faked, despite Cornwell having been unable to detect the holograms as false even when she checked for it.


So let's hi-diddle-diddle straight up the middle anyway.


What's also dumb: Why catch the Red Angel? The more they learned about the Red Angel, the more they discovered it was less a threat and more an ally. Why stop it? Why piss it off? Oh, wait--Section 31 deems it a threat. Wait, didn't that assessment come from the Control AI? Tyler had specifically stated that the Control AI had been setting their threat projections.


Sheesh.

[Kajico]

This weekend I rewatched all of the TOS films, except for V because reasons. The death of Spock, no matter how many times i've rewatched these films, it always moves me. I know he comes back I know he'll be fine etc. but it's still such an well produced scene that it will always get an emotional reaction from me. There's nothing hollow about it, nothing artificial. everyone goes out of their way to invest themselves into a great performance. To your point though, all of this emotion is made possible because we have had a lot of invested time with the character, not just us the audience, but the cast as well. Spock's eulogy wasn't very long, it doesn't last but a few minutes, but it doesn't need to be. It doesn't need to sell you on his virtues, or his character or what he meant to others because we the audience already lived through all of that.

I believe the series is going to end with Michael sacrificing herself, becoming a martyr to save the crew. It's the only logical conclusion I can come up with, or she somehow gets erased from history. Like her time traveling ghost parents kidnap her as a child and thus erasing her from our timeline, but if they would do that why haven't they already. Time travel in sci-fi is so messy and often leads to huge plot holes and terrible outcomes when executed poorly. I don't have confidence in the writers to pull it off successfully. Anyway, if Michael does sacrifice herself, it'll be the last checkbox in the Mary Sue check list.

[STho]

Edith Keylor was on screen for 30 minutes before Kirk and Spock had to participate in her death. Miramani...same. Data's Daughter...same.

However Arium was the retiring cop on a Dirty Harry movie. All the exposition two minutes before the mobsters come in and blow him away.

[spacedinosaur]

The Red Angel is Mikey Spock's mom, her parents stole a "time crystal" from the Klingons. Did they meet Marty at the Twin Pines mall? Are the Discovery writers/directors taking Vraxoin?

[mrbratac]

About the trapping the future-Michael-Red-Angel by killing her present self, thus summoning the future-Michael to save herself - It seems that the writers do not think through how the time works.


If they succeeded to kill off Michael in the preset, there will be no future Michael to come to the rescue.
Then again, if the future Michael somehow survived to be alive *in the future*, then from her perspective, what happened in the past (the present for us) has already happened long time ago and obviously she survived somehow.
You cannot summon changes into/from the future by taking action in the present. When the future arrives, any action or inaction you decided to take in the past have already been done.


I like how similar situation was solved in Harry Potter.
Harry of the present sees somebody (he believes his father) performing the Patronus spell. Some time later, being in the other side of the lake, he realizes suddenly that it was in fact himself who cast that spell, so now he knows he *must* perform the spell to close the loop.

[torenatkinson]

STRONGLY agree with the extended Airiam memorial not being justified by setup.

The whole thing with the plan of setting up Burnham's death to summon the red Angel was problematic because they had a back-up plan to save her life so that she was never in any real danger it was just an opportunity to have her be in great pain. But I was happy to see Spock was the one to see the fault of this logic, and take the last-minute rescue option OUT of the equation. Otherwise there would be absolutely no stakes.

[sternencolonel]

I have the feeling they will pull a "Philip J. Fry " on Michael, something like her mother is her mirror self that travel back in time by accident.

[dramonmaster]

Yes! Thank you for saying what I was about Ariam's death.


And the revelation about the Red Angel felt anticlimactic because while I KNEW it wasn't going to be Michael.

[LeandroLima]

Your commentary is always appreciated!

[wotaj]

Even if she isn't Michael, would not a Time Traveler be able to see through their trap well enough to avoid it?

[destinycaptain]

It’s hard to watch you review this. It’s clear that you’d like to say things about the writing, but it wouldn’t be prudent given the community you work in. I’ll say it. This show sucks. The writing is poor. The plots are pathetic. The writers lack of understanding of the genre limits their ability to write in it. The writers lack of familiarity with Trek in even the most basic level limits their ability to write in it. There are almost always more interesting and thought provoking choices to be made in the story setups. They frequent choose silly and pedestrian plot points and motivations to story and characters. It’s the weakest Trek to ever carry the name.

[TentaclePentacle]

Of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, STD was the most....empty.
The plot makes 0 sense, why is the biometric data supposed to be michael and yet it's her mother? Oh I got it, michael burnham is so awesome that she gave birth to her self. Brilliant STD brilliant. And not to mention section 31 invented time travel with the help of a "time crystal". Next episode we are going to find out the red angel suit is made out of unobtainium.

[Kingramze]

Another well-reasoned critique tempered by experience and delivered with grace the way a sage would try to impart wisdom to an apprentice. I especially enjoy your reviews because you delve into the art, structure, and style of storytelling and give perspective on exactly why scenes or arcs didn't work and give comparisons to better works. Many reviewers focus solely on the negative and leave trite condemnation where you tend to offer constructive criticism and guidance with praise for what DID work.

You touched on many of the same issues I had trouble with for this episode. The funeral scene definitely felt unearned. I immediately thought of Spock's funeral, but I also remembered all of the other crew on ST DISCO that had died and did NOT get this type of funeral - even Dr. Hugh Culber didn't get a send-off with a heart-felt speech from his partner, Stamets.

We get this wonderful back-story for "robot girl" who then puts on an incredible performance for someone in heavy make-up, and then we waste so much potential by killing her. They shoe-horn in flashbacks of her and the crew spending time together to kind of cobble together a story that she was close with her crew mates, but we never saw any of that in the past 2 seasons. We're TOLD they were close and are given a few snippets as evidence, but we don't feel it. It doesn't sell us on that story to make us invested in her character enough to mourn her death. I really think it was a waste. Perhaps ST DISCO is paring down its cast and/or cost for make-up for next season, but I don't see the logic in killing a character they could have fleshed out over multiple seasons before giving a more emotional departure.

As for the red angel, they specifically stated her bio-neural signature matched Michael's and could not be faked and MUST be her, then later state that mitochondrial DNA is similar between mother and daughter... as if that explains anything. Mitochondrial DNA isn't the same as a bio-neural signature. If Michael doesn't get into that suit at some point, then we have a major technobabble gaff.

Speaking of tech, it's as if ST DISCO conveniently forgets it has other solutions to problems that can be made with known tech when it suits the plot. Other series were careful to establish rules and state when transporters could not be used -- too deep into a structure, rare minerals that shield against transport, shields, ions in atmosphere that make transporters too dangerous, transporters damaged or offline, etc. etc.... but ST DISCO never says why they didn't beam "robot girl" out of the airlock into a holding cell or even from space into a med bay the second she was ejected so she could be recovered and treated.

And yes, the logic of including the person whose future self you wish to trap into your plan to trap them was... dubious at best. No one raises the very obvious, logical questions one would expect a bridge crew to offer in such situations! In ST TNG, I'd expect #1 to request to speak to the captain in his ready-room and have a long talk about what it might mean to divulge the plan to the one they want to capture & maybe even form a secret backup plan should they proceed.

Even though DISCO S2 is headed in a much better direction than S1, it's still making very basic mistakes that most fans pick up on immediately. I just can't fathom how they don't have proper consultants in the writing room to help prevent these glaring mistakes.

[catbertz]

This show would have a fighting chance for goodness if they reboot the writing staff and dial back the overemoting by Michael and Tilly. Oooh and shave Spock please. He looks ridiculous. 😂

[rufust.firefly]

Enjoyed the episode overall, but I had a huge problem suspending belief when they never noted that if it is Michael, why she would not take measures to prevent from being captured since her past self is there helping capture her future self.../facepalm.

[DarrinBell]

I also thought "wouldn't Future Michael remember that this plan is to capture the Red Angel?" But then it occurred to me: we've seen them conduct "memory wipes" in Star Trek before. Presumably, they would've wipe Michael's memory of all this sometime after they captured the Red Angel. I wish they'd explicitly stated that in the episode, but I'm ok assuming that's what they would've done. Viewers filling in plot holes is a Trek tradition (which everyone seems to have abandoned only when it comes to Discovery).

[TizBaz]

Hey Marc. You're very insightful on this channel. Have you ever thought about reviewing The Expanse from the perspective of a Star Trek fan and writer?

[RonMar]

Under the best of circumstances, writing a story with a time travel plot can be a challenge even for a seasoned writer. Enter the STD writers, and, specifically, the writers of TRA, Maranville and Silvestri. Maranville only has 4 writing credits (including STD) -- 2 for short subject videos and one for an episode of Monk. As for Silvestri, TRA is his *first* writing credit!

How does CBS's flagship streaming show have an episode written by a couple of novices? And, based on what I saw, it was clear they had no knowledge of Star Trek or, evidently, any interest in making an actual episode of said franchise. The massive illiogical scenes and canon breaks in this episode and the show at large are truly mind blowing.

I'm mystified that CBS continues to bankroll this show.