40. Write an alternative ending to Discovery (or just the summary of one).
So, I love that this implies Discovery is fanfiction because, yes. It absolutely is. Every Star Trek property made after TOS states “based on Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry”, they are ALL transformative works of the original series. And they are mostly made by fans – certainly the large majority of Discovery’s crew and cast are vocal about how much they love and are inspired by Star Trek. And that is wonderful and I applaud it. But I also think it is partly responsible for my issues with the season finale, and I welcome this chance to address them.
I want to preface this by saying that all my criticism of Discovery (which I do think had an above par first season), and Star Trek in general, comes from a place of true love. Star Trek made me the stubborn idealist I am. It’s their fault I want the world to be better and I want fictional portrayals of the future to be more representative and less based in imperialism and American exceptionalism. And as always, this is just my opinion.
My brother described the season finale of Discovery as “the second half of a TNG two-parter” and that is wholly apt. After an interesting set up that pushes boundaries, it is rushed, vague, includes a moralising speech/scene, and resets the status quo.
The first thing I would do is make the finale longer. Given the series is on a streaming service there is no reason it needs to follow the rules of broadcast television. Last season’s Game of Thrones had feature length episodes. Or I’ve suggested cutting Mudd since he actually had no connection to any of the larger plot (I kept waiting!) and it bothers me that the many good character moments of “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad” are part of a timeline that didn’t happen. But my point is this finale needed more time.
We should have gotten more of Emperor Philippa playing Captain Georgiou. That is a great set-up that went nowhere. What could have been playful and tragic – Detmer’s smile when Georgiou is announced is heartbreaking and full of unrealized potential, which basically sums up Detmer the entire season not that I’m salty about it (I am completely salty about it) – is reduced to one scene where the fake captain literally licks her lips because she wants to eat her first officer and tells the crew the Klingon homeworld isn’t a home because Klingons aren’t people. And then Michael starts quizzing her in order to trap her in a lie as if the people on the bridge would even know where Georgiou grew up anyway? I know the computer says she’s one of the best captains in Starfleet history but she died a year and a half ago so she’s not taught in classes yet, and Saru and Detmer are the only other ones who served with her before and Saru knows the truth. Both Emperor Philippa and Michael are super clumsy in that scene and it doesn’t make sense for either of their characters.
We are lead to believe this is Emperor Philippa’s plan. She pitched it to Sarek, he brought it to Command, Cornwell puts it in motion. I assume, since we don’t see any of that. I don’t think we need to, in this case, but as we go on, you will see that “we don’t see any of that” is my main complaint and why this story needs more time. But if it’s her plan, why is she so bad at it??? Why does she jump immediately to speciesism and absolutes and acting like a Terran when she knows this crew has experienced the Terran Empire? And is on guard because they literally just got rid of a fake captain from the MU?! Like. Try harder Pippa!
And Michael is way too smart and way too strategic for that ‘where did we go on vacation’ nonsense. I guess we are supposed to believe she was thrown off her game by the Emperor’s Starfleet approved deception but I think that would make her hold back more, not fumble around.
I would have had a scene with Emperor Philippa enjoying herself playing Captain Georgiou to the hilt. A caricature of what she thinks a Starfleet officer should be. Bending over backwards to appear “good” and being extremely tongue in cheek about it. It should be creepy, yes, but also fun. Funny even. This kind of performance might have happened, in between the last scene of the previous episode and the first scene of the last episode, since some time has happened (they’ve reached Qu’nos, Cornwell’s left the ship), but – we don’t see it. Again, not a necessary scene, but I think a better one. Then when Emperor Philippa pulls Michael off the bridge she would morph into her true self, show that it’s been exhausting to pretend, just like it was for Michael in the MU, and it would be even creepier but also, paradoxically, humanize the Emperor a little.
“Gabriel must have found something interesting laying around in this universe.” Okay, but, why wouldn’t Starfleet have compounded literally everything “Lorca” “owned”???? I guess they didn’t have time. But here I’d love a mini montage of Emperor Philippa, Michael, Ash|Voq, and Tilly getting on their leathers and looking through Evil Lorca’s evil man cave for treasures.
I also would love to see more of the black market, the Klingons and the Orions, but the Qu’nos section is a good length as is. We get a taste of the way it is there, Michael and Ash|Voq have a good scene, there is action, humor, sex, drama, and finally The Reveal.
But after that is where everything starts to fall apart for me.
There is a lot that I like about the scene in which Michael confronts Admiral Cornwell. Katrina looks completely terrible, selling how much she hates this plan even as she tries to justify it. Saru being the first to support Michael brings their relationship full circle and that’s beautiful. Detmer being second makes me cry (and salty again) and the whole thing is as inspiring as they want it to be.
However, as beautiful a sentiment as “We are Starfleet.” is, what does it actually mean? What are the principles of the Federation that must be preserved? According to this scene/episode/narrative it’s “not genocide” which is a pretty low bar. Star Trek fans (like the writers) know what Starfleet stands for. Star Trek fans know that Our Crew will stand up to The Bad Admiral and save The Oppressed, as well as Starfleet’s Moral Superiority, with Rhetoric. Our Crew is Starfleet, not The Bad Admiral, because Starfleet is Good, regardless of how many (how every?????) Starfleet Admiral is Bad.
Michael tells Kat to ask herself why she put a Terran in charge of this mission and that is a great question that is not addressed. The identity arc I am always going on about, the one that forces the Federation to look at itself from an external perspective and own up to its flaws does not happen. Instead, Admiral Kat, who I guess is in charge of Starfleet now, hands over control to Michael and her band of rebels because their internal perspective is that Starfleet are the heroes so if they are acting like villains it doesn’t mean they’re flawed, it means they’re not Starfleet. And that is not even untrue! But it is disingenuous and shallow and I want depth.
There is also a lack of tension since we know Michael won’t let them blow up the planet, the only question is how she fixes it – and the answer is a bit O.o
Having been handed control, Michael and her band of rebels then give it to the one and a half Klingons they know. And somehow, that works. It is kinda absurd that L’Rell is able to unite however many warring Klingon houses with her Federation iPad connected to a world-killing bomb. They literally laughed in her face. And remember how like 500 episodes of TNG and DS9 are dedicated to the Klingons being completely incapable of agreeing on anything for more than an hour (not to mention every Klingon interaction on this series)? But L’Rell can force enough of a unification to call back every fleet from Federation space immediately? Why would conquerors do this? They can just colonize Earth, it looks like a nicer environment than Qu’nos anyway. I’m being facetious there, of course the Klingons don’t want their planet to blow up but a) why do they immediately trust that L’Rell is telling the truth? b) why do they believe she would pull the trigger? Is it really that convincing a show of strength? Couldn’t someone just steal the iPad? c) why do they withdraw? L’Rell’s honor? I guess that’s a thing. There are also 500 episodes of TNG and DS9 and even Voyager about the rigors of Klingon Honor. But, like “we are Starfleet”, her Klingon Honor is super vague.
Speaking of vague, why does Ash|Voq choose to go with L’Rell? Does having a human-ish companion make her argument stronger? Not that we see. I think he does it out of guilt – Michael tells him about when the Klingons killed her parents and he feels extra terrible about the whole situation. I, sort of, get it. Which is, btw, how I feel about the entire Ash|Voq storyline: I, sort of, get it. But here’s the thing. Ash|Voq leaves with Ash’s assaulter. He says because he’s decided Emperor Philippa, another abuser from a universe of abusers, was right about him. In his previous scene with Michael he explicitly states that the Federation are better than the Klingons. I can accept that he leaves because he thinks he belongs with the Klingons, or that he thinks he can bring some of that “we are Starfleet” to them (though he’s not in the “we are Starfleet” scene). But as with everything, his motives and intentions are murky.
What’s clear is that L’Rell the assaulter is rewarded – elevated to the most powerful position in the Empire – and Ash|Voq the assaulted is punished – I don’t know what exactly would have happened to him in the Federation, but even if he went to prison (which seems unlikely) he would receive therapy and support. Voq was an outcast before he was a memory trapped in a human body and now he’s all ‘I was never the chosen one, you are’, and ‘the only place I belong is with my tormentors because I deserve torment I guess’ which … yuck! And look, I love a twisted love story, but this one was presented as sexual assault. Whatever Voq thinks, Ash explicitly experienced it as sexual assault. That cannot be swept away as “sci fi body swapping shenanigans” or whatever. If they wanted to do that they should not have included the sex and Ash’s traumatized reaction. Torture is bad enough, but at least it could be explained as the procedure to create Ash|Voq. I have to do mental gymnastics to accept Ash willingly joining L’Rell and I feel pretty gross doing it.
So I would have Ash|Voq remain with Starfleet, as an asset. Or I would not include sexual assault as part of the Ash|Voq subterfuge. I think they did it to confuse the audience along with Ash and it not only doesn’t add to the story, it makes the story uncomfortable. I don’t think they realized how angry and hurt it would make some people – that’s the excuse they gave for Landry’s death after all: we wanted to do something different and didn’t realize we ended up doing something terrible. (As a not wholly related aside wrt Landry, I read one comment saying the actress should have said something and/or not taken the job if it was really that bad to kill off a woman of color and I just want to say that is a horrible take. It is not on Rehka Sharma to educate people about optics. What was she supposed to say: “thanks but you shouldn’t hire me because I’m a woman of color”????? What kind of racist and sexist nonsense is this seriously. tldr; anyone who wants to take a shot at Rehka Sharma or Ellen Landry needs to come through me, got it?)
Anyway, don’t use sexual assault as a plot point unless you are willing to then address the sexual assault as a plot point 2keternity.
Finally, the wrap up. The family stuff is excellent, I love them all so much. I like the medal ceremony in theory and mostly in execution, but I am again salty that Detmer (and the others, but especially Detmer because she clearly goes on a journey this season but we don’t see it) isn’t named (and yes, I assume they were all named, but it’s not clear because we don’t see it, a simple blur effect denoting time passing would fix this). And I am super annoyed that the actors continue to tell us to “wait and see” with regards to Hugh Culber when the narrative itself, as it stands through the finale, is pretty definitive about his death.
Here’s how I’d change it (assuming there have been no changes to any of the previous episodes, and not altering the basic plot):
Make it 75 minutes long, which is an additional half hour.
Start where the last episode left off. Have Philippa attempt to play “good” and make a little speech about desperate times calling for desperate measures (beta-canon tie in) but as a tongue in cheek stab at giving a patented Starfleet speech. The bridge crew want to be inspired but are kind wary, esp since Micheal and Saru look like they want to throw up. Cornwell leaves, she sets her jaw as the turbolift doors close.
Opening credits followed by the ships arrival opening and the bridge scene with Emperor Philippa licking her lips at Saru. Saru is the one who asks about that Kelpian saying, Michael jumps in with the “where was that, I went there once but I forgot” part.
The episode proceeds as written. But it’s more clear Emperor Philippa enjoys beating up on L’Rell and degrading Ash|Voq because she’s been trying to be good and she’s over it. And we get the leather and weapons montage I described above.
At “I need to speak with Admiral Cornwell” Michael and Ash beam up. Michael heads to the bridge, Ash somewhere else. Michael tells the bridge crew Georgiou went rogue, she’s not who they said she was, camera lingers on Detmer looking devastated (I think she shares a look with Joann, they’d discussed this possibility, Keyla didn’t want to believe it but deep down knew all along). Bryce says he has Command on comms, Cornwell appears. As Michael plays the Qu’nos destruct vid Ash enters with L’Rell in tow. L’Rell accuses Cornwell of hypocrisy – you said the Federation has no death penalty – Cornwell counters that she, and Michael too, said Klingons only respond to force. Michael gives her speech about Starfleet having to stand for something better, ‘We are Starfleet’ happens, as Cornwell relents the camera lingers on Ash and L’Rell taking it in. Michael nominates L’Rell to unite the Klingons, ‘I’m nobody/Voq believed in you’ scene happens. L’Rell has just seen Michael do with Starfleet what she is expected to do with Klingons, is inspired.
Tilly calls from planet saying she’s tracked the Emperor, Michael beams down, confrontation in caves happens but when L’Rell shows up she already knows the plan, Tilly appears with a mini army of Klingons she’s recruited/paid to join L’Rell as warrior queen of the disenfranchised. Somehow I’d work in a subplot where Tilly’s Orion was a contact of Mudd’s and between the three of them they got L’Rell a good number of people and arms – because, look, if Mudd has to be in the story I want him to have a point. Tilly also gives L’Rell pointers on how to be a Captain Killy.
L’Rell’s ascension is at the forefront of an army, not just one human-with-an-outcast-Klingon’s-memories and a bomb.
The medal ceremony (which includes more names!) is intercut with scenes of people dealing with stuff. Detmer embraces Michael. Owosekun, Bryce, Rhys, and Ariam are shown doing something, literally anything, off-duty. One of them has adopted Lorca’s tribble (I vote Rhys). Paul puts Hugh’s medal in a place of honor and in the background we see Hugh in his mirror – or if the little light that fell on Tilly is meant to be Hugh, we see Hugh in her mirror. But if they are going to pull the “wait and see” I want concrete evidence within the canon narrative that there is something to wait for. Similarly, we see Katrina in her quarters, taking off her medals and either finally breaking down a bit or at least taking a long drink and then we switch to Prime Lorca in captivity in the MU. Or maybe with Mirror Sarek who totally survived. We see Saru giving Michael back Georgiou’s telescope. We see Sarek saying goodbye to Amanda (finger kiss) before boarding Discovery. We see Emperor Philippa leading some Orion pirates. And we see Ash|Voq being lead to a secret Starfleet facility that houses Section 31.
Again, I love Star Trek and I love Discovery and I don’t think my take is better than anyone else’s. I know the writers have a near impossible task and I salute their efforts. And this got incredibly long so if you read the whole thing, I salute you, too.
