Star Trek Discovery Ep210 “Angels and Demons”

Sadness abounds as the crew of the Discovery eulogize their fallen comrade Airiam. Just try holding back your tears when Saru sings a Kaminar song of remembrance.

Later, as Admiral Cornwell, Captain Pike, Michael, Saru and Spock discuss finding the AI virus Airiam was carrying and could still be loose, Tilly interrupts the meeting with some startling news. As she was reviewing some scans from Airiam’s system she found a file called Project Daedalus implanted in Airiam by a digital parasite. The file had a bio-neural signature of the Red Angel revealing the Red Angel’s identity to be…Michael Burnham! Say what? Michael is the Red Angel? Is Burnham at the center of every major event of the 23rd century?! Personally, I would have preferred it to be anyone else…even Wesley Crusher.

The Discovery finds that a Section 31 ship is on their tail and Leland and Georgiou beam aboard. Leland reveals that for the past 20 years Starfleet has been in a race with the Klingons to develop time travel and the Red Angel suit is a result of Project Daedalus, Starfleet’s attempt to harness time travel. With Leland so forthcoming with this information, couldn’t he have mentioned it a little earlier? The cloak and dagger antics of Section 31 seem to be a little messy.

When Michael confronts Leland in private she makes him spill the beans on the truth about her parents. For most of her life she has carried the guilt that she was responsible for her parents’ death because she wanted to stay behind to see a star go nova. But Leland informs her that that her parents, specifically her mother, were the ones working on Project Daedalus and came up with the Red Angel suit. Leland tells Michael that he was the one responsible for their deaths. Michael lets loose and leaves Leland bloodied on the floor.

There is a lot of witty dialogue in this episode even if the story is a little uneven in parts.  My favorite scene is watching Georgiou coyly play matchmaker for Paul Stamets and Hugh Culber. Michelle Yeoh is delightfully wicked as the Terran version of Philippa Georgiou and CBS All-Access has given the go for an untitled as yet spin off series featuring her and Section 31 coming off the events of Star Trek Discovery season 2.

After figuring out how the Red Angel appears and suddenly disappears and why, the Discovery teams up with Section 31 to build a “mousetrap” and capture the Red Angel. Which, of course, becomes a life and death matter for Michael. As the episode winds up, Star Trek Discovery does what it does best as it veers off! And the captured Red Angel steps out of the suit to reveal…not Michael Burnham!

To Boldly Go  Throughout the many Star Trek series we have lost many characters… Commander Charles “Trip” Tucker III (Enterprise), Commander Sisko who moved on to join the Prophets of Bajor (Star Trek Deep Space Nine),  Enterprise D Security Chief Lt. Tasha Yar (Star Trek The Next Generation). In the finale of Star Trek Voyager characters such as Chakotay and Seven of Nine die and even the future Admiral Janeway seems to sacrifice herself to get her ship and everyone aboard home safe. Did she die? It’s all a timey-whimey thing. And who can forget the sacrifice of Spock in Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan?  He was resurrected in Star Trek II The Search For Spock only to die at a ripe old age in the Kelvin time line off screen due to the real death of actor Leonard Nimoy. On Star Trek Discovery we have had the murder of Dr. Hugh Culber in season one only for him to be brought back to the land of the living in season two. It’s a dangerous job working in outer space and now we say good bye to Airiam a character we barely got the chance to know.