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Who saw that coming? If season one of Star Trek: Discovery went into overdrive towards the end, then season two is even more of a last-minute rush. The sheer amount of plot and drama – and twists, oh so many twists – squeezed into the most recent two episodes sets up a fascinating season finale for what’s shaping up to be a truly great entry in the Trek franchise. WIRED’s James Temperton and Andy Vandervell talk it out – and try to find clues as to what lies ahead.

James Temperton: Let’s get straight to it: of course it was the Borg! Did you see it coming?


Andy Vandervell: I didn’t and I’m kind of annoyed I didn’t. I don’t know if that’s because I’m especially stupid, or the show disguised its destination quite well.

JT: I think a lot of that is down to how long it took season two to show its hand. There was a lot of plot in those last two episodes. The Red Angel is Michael. No it’s not, it’s Michael’s mum! Control is the Borg! The writers really packed it in, which was a nice change of pace at the end of what had been a pleasingly slow-paced series up until then. So lots of plot – but my question: does it make sense?

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CBS/Netflix

AV: Sort of? I get the feeling someone is going to pick this season apart and drive a massive truck through some plot holes, but it wouldn’t spoil my enjoyment of the season as a whole. "Perpetual Infinity" felt a little rushed, which made it hard to process the details, which is always difficult with time travel plots. There was a classic Star Trek moment of science gymnastics that ended with Spock’s brilliant "I like science" line. I think that was the writers saying, "Yeah, we know, just roll with it," and I was happy to do so.


JT: Yes, Discovery definitely has a bit of a habit of solving and creating complex problems by saying a lot of meaningless science words. But it’s fun, and it doesn’t detract too much from a tightly-written, clever storyline.

And on science, it’s interesting to look back at the trail of Borg breadcrumbs dropped throughout season two. In "Light and Shadows", when Pike and Tyler hop in a shuttlecraft to investigate time anomaly, they’re confronted by an upgraded version of the same probe they just sent into the anomaly to investigate it. That’s a wonderfully mind-bending moment and gives us a glimpse of how Discovery will expand on the fascinating Borg origin story. How do you think they’ll make this Borg origin story fit into the rest of the Star Trek history? Inconsistencies already seem to be creeping in...

AV: So we know from Star Trek: First Contact that the Borg have been evolving for millennia, which means they’re either retconning this new timeline or some kind of time travel get-out clause is necessary. Quite how they’ll explain Starfleet never joining the dots between Control and the Borg in future series is beyond me.

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JT: I think the brains behind Discovery are super keen to hook it into the "proper" Trek timeline, which was always going to be a challenge given how close these events are to The Original Series. As you say, time travel is always a handy get-out, but it looks like they’ve blasted that opportunity into an unspecified and very distant realm, along with Burnham’s mum. And the only remaining full copy of the sphere data. So we now know that Leland is the first Borg – and he’s also escaped into some unknown part of the universe. Ash Tyler, meanwhile, has escaped.


What we do know from the Borg’s timeline is that they do evolve, but that they never succeed in evolving sufficiently to destroy all sentient life in the universe. At least not yet. It would be weird for Burnham’s mum to just be a "gotcha" plot twist, so I’m certain we’ll see more of her. But maybe not until season three. Though I can't help but feel season two has spent a bit too long dithering around the edges and failed to get to the real meat of the storyline until the final few episodes. Which is sort of what happened in season one.

CBS/Netflix

AV: Yes. I enjoyed a fair amount of dithering around the edges. I don’t want to say it would benefit from a longer run because that has its own pitfalls, but the speed at which this episode moved was dizzying.

As for the Borg, based on current lore I imagine Leland/Control will escape to the outreaches of the Delta Quadrant to where the Borg will be born and get up to Borgy things. I do like this as an origin story for the Borg, though. It echoes our IRL concerns over AI and explains, somewhat, why future Starfleet doesn’t have more advanced AIs hanging about doing the work of useless fleshbag humans. Also, Leland was a pretty tedious character so he’s no great loss.

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JT: But let’s talk about those red signals. What were they all about? Burnham’s mum says she knows nothing about them – yet they were a crucial part of the storyline for most of this season. Are we to assume Burnham’s dad is dead? Or is he, somehow, controlling those signals? Or is it Burnham’s mum, again, stuck in the distant future, using some unknown technology to guide her past self to save the universe from the Borg? That’s the problem with time travel, it’s a total mindfuck. But also a handy plot device when you want to do stuff that doesn’t really make sense.

AV: My best guess is that the red signals could have been an intervention by a Federation temporal agent, like Daniels in Enterprise, to point the crew of the Discovery in the right direction.

JT: One final thought: if the red signals end up being Q then I’ll be really annoyed.

Updated: 30.03.19: This article has been updated to reflect this not being the finale of Star Trek: Discovery season two. Yes, we’re idiots.

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