DISCO S2E12 "Through the Valley of Shadows" Review By AswerMan

 Horrible:Meh:Adequate:Good:Fantastic

A new signal appears on the monastery planet where L'Rell and Tyler dumped their baby. So Discovery is off to check it out. Turns out that the signals and the Red Angel are independent of each other. So we still have a mystery on our hands. 

Burnham and Spock decide to check on a Section 31 ship that checked in late. They discover a dead crew, sans one. But I'll just go ahead and spoil this early because it was completely obvious upon first viewing, that lone survivor is yet another Control nanobot stand-in. He nearly kills Burnham, but Spock saves the day just in time. They head back to Discovery with the knowledge that Burnham is somehow key to Control's plan.

Meanwhile Pike heads down to the planet to see if he can snag a time crystal from the Klingon monk guardsmen. He is met by an already all grown up Voq spawn. He tells Pike that he can participate in a test to score a crystal, but that most fail. When he touches the crystal, Pike sees his future. We already know the story, he is burned and disabled, confined to a wheelchair with a blinky light and a melty face. Son of None tells him that this future is not set in stone, unless Pike chooses to take the crystal. He does.

He comes back to Discovery just in time to see dozens of Section 31 ships closing in on them. Burnham suggests that the only option is to destroy the ship, since they are outgunned and cannot delete the data that they are after. Pike takes action to self-destruct and drop the crew off on.....the Enterprise. That should be interesting.

"Through the Valley of Shadows" is yet another merely Meh episode of Trek. Burnham and Spock's side mission was completely pointless. Culber and Jett Reno discussing the quirks of their gay partners was superfluous. I did enjoy the Klingon planet challenge, and learning that Pike chose his fate that we are all so familiar with. A self-destruct in this situation also seems plausible in the timeline, because that would get rid of the spore drive, which we know is not a thing anymore. In other Trek series, we would know that a self-destruct series would only ever be used for suspense and urgency, but never gone through with. In this series, I could see them going through with it. We shall see!

Published November 8, 2020