Introduction

“Saints of Imperfection” is the 5th episode of season 02 of the American television series Star Trek: Discovery, which is set roughly a decade before the events of the original Star Trek series and follows the crew of the USS Discovery as they investigate seven mysterious signals.

The season was produced by CBS Television Studios in association with Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Entertainment, with Alex Kurtzman serving as showrunner.

Sonequa Martin-Green stars as Michael Burnham, along with the returning Doug Jones, Anthony Rapp, Mary Wiseman, and Shazad Latif; they are joined by former recurring guest star Wilson Cruz as well as Anson Mount as original Star Trek captain Christopher Pike. Ethan Peck recurs as another original series character, Spock. These characters and their starship, the USS Enterprise, were included as part of the series’ attempt to explain its connections to the larger Star Trek franchise.

The season was officially ordered in October 2017, and filming took place in Toronto, Canada, from April to December 2018. Gretchen J. Berg and Aaron Harberts, the first season’s showrunners, returned for the second but were fired during production; co-creator Kurtzman replaced them.

The 14-episode season was released from 17 January to 18 April 2019, on CBS All Access. A third season was ordered in February 2019.

Outline

Stamets and Burnham conclude that Tilly has been taken into the mycelial network. She wakes up there with the May parasite, who wants her to help stop a “monster” that is ravaging their world.

Discovery finds the shuttle that Spock used to escape the psychiatric unit, only to find Georgiou on board. Section 31 Captain Leland assigns Tyler to Discovery as a liaison, to ensure that Discovery does not interfere with Section 31’s own investigation into Spock.

Discovery conducts a half-jump into the mycelial network to give Stamets and Burnham limited time to find Tilly before the network consumes the ship. Burnham and Stamets discover the “monster” is Stamets’ husband Hugh Culber, the former Discovery Medical Officer who was murdered by Tyler during the war.

Stamets was connected to the network when Culber died, allowing his energy to be recreated by the spores. Burnham now convinces May to use the parasite cocoon on Discovery, through which Tilly was transported into the network, to rebuild Culber’s body in normal space.

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Production & Filming Details

• Director(s): David Barrett.
• Writer(s): Kirsten Beyer.
• Release Date: 14 February 2019.
• Running Time: 50 minutes.
• Country: US.
• Language: English.