Introduction

“The Red Angel” is the 10th 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

While preparing for Airiam’s funeral, her system is purged of the Control virus along with all other Control systems around Starfleet. While doing this, Tilly discovers a bio-neural scan of the Red Angel in Airiam’s code that matches Burnham.

Leland reveals that Section 31 built the Red Angel time travel suit twenty years ago in a temporal-arms race with the Klingons, and that Burnham’s parents had been part of that programme (with Leland’s carelessness at the time leading to their deaths).

They now plan to use Burnham as bait for the Red Angel.

Discovery travels to Essof IV, where there is enough energy to power their trap. Burnham is left out in the planet’s unbreathable atmosphere until the Red Angel appears.

Leland’s Section 31 ship is able to close the wormhole behind the Red Angel to stop future Control from following her through, though Leland is attacked by the present Control which is still active within the ship.

The Red Angel is caught in the trap and revives the momentarily dead Burnham, who recognises the figure as her mother.

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Production & Filming Details

• Director(s): Hanelle M. Culpepper.
• Writer(s): Chris Silvestri amd Anthony Maranville.
• Release Date: 21 March 2019.
• Running Time: 50 minutes.
• Country: US.
• Language: English.