Synopsis
Burnham goes to Vulcan in search of Spock, where she unearths surprising family secrets. In researching what is left of the Red Angel’s signal over Kaminar, Pike and Tyler end up in battle with time itself. Georgiou has a few tricks up her sleeve for Leland and Section 31.
Review
The rollercoaster that is Star Trek: Discovery season 2 continues in dramatic fashion. With “Light and Shadows” the overall plot of the season gets a dramatic kick up the bum with the arrival of the much discussed Spock.
The discovery of Spock hiding on Vulcan did happen a bit like a slap in the face. For what has essentially been five episodes the crew of the Discovery has been chasing after him. Despite some interesting stories the show manages to make all of that running around unnecessary very quickly here.
Had Burnham just gone to visit Amanda and Sarek earlier in the season we could avoided for wasted screen time.
The discovery that the mysterious red angel is a being from the future has also little a fire under the overarching narrative. Although this episode still suffers from the pacing issues of previous episodes there is now a sense of purpose. The looming threat of this future being will certainly keep the story going for the remainder of the season.
It also leaves us as fans and viewers plenty of room to speculate as to whether an alien from past series could be making a return to the show. It’s a clever idea on the behalf of the writers. Whether you agree with the way the show is written or not the curiosity remains.
In the second string storyline of the episode Pike and Tyler venture into a temporal anomaly which appears next to the ship. The Discovery is still parked at Kaminar by the way.
This is where the visual impact (read: budget) of the episode lies. There’s some funky stuff which goes on inside that anomaly and not just with the jittery images. Think “Timescape” from TNG season 6 on speed.
These scenes clearly took some inspiration from The Matrix as the probe which came back through the anomaly looked (and acted) eerily like a Sentinel.
Whilst this story provided the action this week there wasn’t a whole lot of substance to it. But, for once, that isn’t a bad thing. It balances out the dialogue heavy story with Spock to ensure the episode doesn’t become a chore to watch.
Verdict
“Light and Shadows” doesn’t quite live up to the dizzying heights of the previous episode. But it does move the plot of the season along considerably and gives us much more of a goal to focus on for the remainder of the season.
6/10
On the next episode…
Star Trek: Discovery is produced by CBS Television Studios in association with Alex Kurtzman’s Secret Hideout, Bryan Fuller’s Living Dead Guy Productions and Roddenberry Entertainment. Alex Kurtzman, Bryan Fuller, Heather Kadin, Gretchen J. Berg & Aaron Harberts, Akiva Goldsman, Rod Roddenberry and Trevor Roth serve as executive producers.
The series airs on CBS All Access in North America and Netflix internationally.
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