Check Out 8 New Images And Trailer Analysis For “Project Daedalus” – Episode 209 Of ‘Star Trek: Discovery’

CBS has released eight new images from “Project Daedalus,” the ninth episode of the second season. Directed by Star Trek: The Next Generation veteran Jonathan Frakes, this is his second episode for the season and third for the series in total. It is also the writing debut of Michelle Paradise, who was recently named as co-showrunner for the forthcoming third season of Discovery.

[SPOILERS BELOW]

Synopsis

When the Discovery crew infiltrates Section 31’s headquarters, suspicions arise that the crew may have a traitor in their midst. Burnham tries to help Spock but her efforts don’t go as planned.

New photos

“Project Daedalus” — Ep#209 — Pictured (l-r): Sonequa Martin-Green as Burnham; Mary Wiseman as Tilly (CBS)

“Project Daedalus” — Ep#209 — Pictured (l-r): Jayne Brook as Admiral Cornwell; Anson Mount as Captain Pike (CBS)

“Project Daedalus” — Ep#209 — Pictured (l-r): Mary Wiseman as Tilly; Hannah Cheesman as Airiam 2.5 (CBS)

“Project Daedalus” — Ep#209 — Pictured (l-r): Ethan Peck as Spock (CBS)

“Project Daedalus” — Ep#209 — Pictured (l-r): Jayne Brook as Admiral Cornwell; Anson Mount as Captain Pike (CBS)

“Project Daedalus” — Ep#209 — Pictured: Sonequa Martin-Green as Burnham (CBS)

“Project Daedalus” — Ep#209 — Pictured: Rachael Ancheril as Nhan (CBS)

“Project Daedalus” — Ep#209 — Pictured (l-r): Rachael Ancheril as Nhan; Sonequa Martin-Green as Burnham; Hannah Cheesman as Airiam 2.5;   (CBS)

Trailer and analysis

CBS released the trailer for “Project Daedalus” on the official Star Trek site. It’s also available from Netflix on Instagram (and viewable globally).

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bu4hlPbn25B/

Taking a closer look at the trailer offers some insights into the episode and how it pays off some storylines from previous episodes.

USS Discovery approaches Section 31 base

Admiral Cornwell on the bridge of USS Discovery

Discovery attacked by mines

Landing party with Micheal Burnham, Lt. Commander Nhan and Lt. Commander Airiam, presumably searching the base

Landing party discover dead frozen Tellarite admiral

Airiam attacks Nhan and Burnham

How to watch “Project Daedalus”

Star Trek: Discovery is available exclusively in the USA on CBS All Access. It airs in Canada on Space and streams on CraveTV. It is available on Netflix everywhere else.

“Project Daedalus” will be released on All Access on Thursday, March 14th, 2019 at 8:30pm ET/5:30pm PT. It will air on Space at 8:00pm ET/5:00pm PT on the same night. It will be available on Netflix the next morning, Friday, March 15th, 2019.


Keep up with all the Star Trek: Discovery news at TrekMovie.

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Section 31 is exposed. They shouldn’t be trusted. Starfleet has the high ground. Airiam turns evil, she is infected by a virus. Dead Tellarite admiral, who killed him? This is very interesting now! Who is Nhan? I’ve never seen her before.

Nhan came aboard the Discovery from the Enterprise along with Pike.

Nhan is wearing red. Just saying….

She was wearing red when young Lt. Connolly got his ticket punched for being an arrogant a-hole.(wearing Science blue…)

I thought the same thing. I hope Nhan doesn’t die. I really like her, since session 2 episod 1. Every scene she’s been in she’s been interesting. I predict Airiam is of course infected my the Control AI and she and Nhan will die. The body count is two low so far this session. Franks is going to have some fun offing a few folks.

And she’s Discovery’s chief of security – a position marked by frequent vacancies so far.

She would be leaving anyway after Pike packs up.

Section 31 needs our love. Looks like the bad guys from the future attacked the base.

I call it now: The CONTROL AI killed the admiral/s (the female vulcan, the andorian etc.) some time before the last episode and the holograms at the beginning of “If memory serves” in were fabricated and “controlled” ;) by the CONTROL AI.
It should be clear now that the threat from the future is also supposed to be a programm / artificial lifeform or something similar. Perhaps connected to ZORA?…

I thought the same. At first I wouldn’t consider it, but they have been way too many shout outs to this CONTROL for it not to show up in a later episode. I still don’t think it’s the big bad for this season though.

“The CONTROL AI killed the admiral/s (the female vulcan, the andorian etc.) some time before the last episode and the holograms at the beginning of “If memory serves” in were fabricated and “controlled” ;) by the CONTROL AI.”

Wouldn’t that be literally Deus Ex Machina for explaining away Section 31s villainery? :D Though more welcome than the Mirror twist that explained Lorcas villainery in season 1! As an allegory for AI dangers, it is very heavy handed though (short: robots are gonna kill us all)

“Wouldn’t that be literally Deus Ex Machina for explaining away Section 31s villainy?”
I am not saying I would like that development XD

But was it Control that killed the admirals, or was the Control AI itself corrupted by the future cephalapod creators?

This could however be a more subtle shout out to the Relaunch books…in those, there is a backstory that the Federation repeatedly shuts down or reins in the AI in its various guises, only to have it resurface and take charge of S31 again.

The allegory is fairly complex, the AI doesn’t just kill ruthlessly anyone who it views as a risk to the Federation and its ideal society, it also subtlety manipulates social forces via decentralized information and consumption networks. In the current context of Facebook, Google etc., it could be a very valuable allegorical plotline.

I keep hearing about these books and it sounds more and more intruiging! Thanks. Hope they can translate something that complex to the screen!

Killed? Perhaps. And using “holo-constructs” to replace them, albeit temporarily…..

Looks like Discovery Season 2 will end with the same decisions that were made in the Battlestar Galactica remake: reject advanced networking technologies.
Perhaps revert all the way back to tape storage backups that can’t be tampered with.
No androids.
No holograms.

That makes no sense. TNG has both androids and holograms. Today your computer can be hacked and your identity stolen. I have yet to hear people advocating to get rid of computers. Technology always moves forward, never back.

Yeah, but they worked out the security issues. … haha as i write that i think of all the episodes the holodeck malfunctioned XD
If you think about it, a AI fully aware of its capabilities loose in the computer networks, generating Killer Hologramms and spreading from one starship to another … a sentient computer virus destined to kill … pretty scary!

LOL, those Holodeck episodes never made sense to me. They had one TNG episode that stated that everyone inside the Holodeck would be ripped to shreds if they turned off the power to the Holodeck.

I like the Culture books where the AIs are the Good guys. I don’t really fear them.

In the TNG days, there were certain subjects that were used more than once that always guaranteed a terrible episode. Holodeck centered episodes were on that list.

Truth there, ML. A holodeck episode was a good sign to turn off the tv and go do something else back then.

I can’t imagine watching a new episode of Star Trek and just turning it off midway.

Malfunctioning Data were another.

There were good holodeck episodes. The second Moriarty one was pretty good, and the wild west one was fun,

They utilized the Holodeck quite well in other episodes that where not Holodeck centered tho – when they used It as a mere tool for research / detective work. I found this quite effective.

And I think DS9 made good use of the more recreational and even therapeutic side of the holodeck. And then came Voyager… XD

There were good episodes where the holodeck played a part. But the ones where the holodeck itself was the center of the A or B story… Like “holodeck malfunctions”… Or, “create a character capable of defeating Data”. Those were all epic fails.

100% wrong

I wish Admiral Cornwell becomes Captain next season.

That would be cool.

That would be a DEMOTION…not in keeping with career standards. Just saying.

Not necessarily a demotion.

What if Admiral Cornwell put her flag on the Discovery, and a captain (Saru, Burnham) had the ship?

Cornwell is not an HQ admiral, or even a sit at the sector starbase type.

Rather she is an in the field admiral, who could make good use of Discovery’s specialized analysis capacity and spore drive during a period of post-war instability.

And Discovery certainly could use a psychiatrist/psychologist which the admiral doctor apparently is.

With died floating Admirals in the trailer Star Fleet is going to need Cornwell in all that extra gold for a while. Some Admirals do have ships of their own right so who knows…

Tell that to Kirk.

That would be 20 years down the Prime timeline when things had stabilized and the admiralty became more bureaucratic.

Not to mention that Kirk may have been the kind of captain that the admiralty wanted settle down at a desk as times changed.

By the way, has the reveal that ‘badmirals’ in Discovery were actually ‘deadmirals’ make anyone else think of TNG’s Contagion?

Discovery’s era seems to be dealing with AI parasites rather than biological, but I’m getting the same kind ‘there was a reason they weren’t respecting Federation values’ vibe.

Oh, and does this mean that (1) Leland really didn’t know what the memory extractor would do to Spock and was just ‘following command’?

And (2) begs the question how recognizably Terran tech got inserted into S31…

Tell that to Kirk what. Kirk was demoted for disobeying orders (others charges dismissed because of the whale stuff). If you want Cornwalls to became a captain because she steals and blows up a spaceship, then just say so.

Wasn’t Kirk an Admiral and a Captain in the later movies?

…just a captain in 5,6 and Generations. At the end of 4, they gave him (back) what he wanted, with the demotion from admiral. He never wanted to be anything more than a captain.

In my view Admiral Cornwell is shady af… okay, she backed the Discovery Crews plan to end the Klingon War at the end and pinned some medals on them… but before that she green lighted the “BOMB” Plan, which was only stopped by the crews insurrection, remember…?

Another security chief bites the dust…

Hope the space suits don’t come out of nowhere like in the opening episode.

What does this mean? Space suits out of nowhere?

the helmet and such comes out of a backpack

That was only the Klingon’s but yeah, I thought it was lame, as well.

I thought it was awesome, it’s the future, it should look futuristic

Maybe they ditched the tech because its too dangerous or people got stuck XD remember this antigrav bear trap thingy from the same episode? Deadly!

It means the Iron Man suit kind of space suit. Where stuff that you need just appears out of nowhere. We saw helmets appear from nothing (the same way some gun or rocket appears out of Iron Man’s shoulder) in the first episode this year. It caused more than a few comments on message boards.

It’s Smart Matter

I wonder if we’ll finally find out what Airiam is.

She’s a very kinky girl,
The kind you don’t take home to mother
She will never let your spirits down,
Once you get her off the street.

Nice.

Ha!

I would be disappointed a bit if she actually is a pure android. Granted, there are androids in the TOS Era… but there seems to be a big big difference between the Soong Androids and the ones seen in TOS. Datas Status as first Artificial officer in Starfleet should remain untouched.

I think she is most likely a human with augmented technology. It seems like in this era we see varying degrees of augmentation. Detmer has less extensive augments, presumably as a result of injuries from the Battle of the Binary Stars. I theorize that the reason we don’t see this as much (or at all) in later series is because the technology advances and became sub-dermal.

She’s a 23rd century version of a Borg. And in keeping with the rest of the show, actually is more advanced than the Borg of a century later. She is there to determine of humanity is worthy of assimilation.

Very cool. Very cool. I’ve been waiting for Star Trek to have buzzsaw sentry space droids for a looong time.

IIRC, Frakes was originally supposed to direct episode 10 (“The Red Angel”), but due to the production delays he ended up doing episode 9.

Pretty cool! Frakes is back as director so a lot of fanfare there. And it sounds like we are going to get a deep Section 31 story along with hopefully the backstory to Ariam. We may even get our first introduction to Control. It won’t be as fan inducing like last weeks episode obviously but I’m actually excited about it.

Another thing I just realized, but this episode was written by the new show rummer for season 3. It will be her first episode for the season so I think many people will be more curious about it now.

Excited for the next episode. I hope also there’s some more Jett Reno in the future of this show.

I too would like to see more of her. I’m guessing she’ll make at least one more appearance this season.

I would not be disappointed if she took over for Stammets or was made the Chief Engineer.

Hear, hear!

Is there any news why Airam actress switched?

I believe it was because of the heavy prosthetics being too difficult to wear for the length of time required. I might be wrong, but I think that’s what the presiding wisdom says.

My guess is that Airam is not going to be on the show much longer and they liked the actress. So they gave her a different role so she could stick around.

Maybe because of the (upcoming) Martial Arts stuff :D
maybe the new actress is more of a stunt woman (no research involved)

Actually Hannah Cheesman (Airiam 2.5) has more credits and award nominations as a screenwriter.

Sarah Mitich (1.0) has recently collaborated on a small web series. Perhaps that conflicted with availability for Discovery.

Most of the Canadian secondary actors on Discovery appear have very active careers in Canadian film, TV and/or stage work. For several, the Disco work seems to be helping to pay the bills while they lead other things.

Raven Dauda (Dr Pollard) led an acclaimed one-woman show entitled Addiction recently, and Ronnie Rowe (Comms Officer) had the title role in the 2017 independent film Black Cop.

I have a crush on Dr Pollard.

I keep seeing Raven Dauda as the aspiring reporter and mum in Annedroids.

She definitely makes a lasting impression in whatever role she takes on.

“Burnham tries to […] but her efforts don’t go as planned.” Something about that line in the synopsis just read as being very typical of her character up to this point. Anyway, looks like fun. I mean I *guess* S31 would mine their headquarters if they had a fleet of ships.

We’re about due for a Shuttlepod review of last week’s episode. My feeling about the season in general is that they’ve mostly made the right decisions for this series, but that they go 150 percent with the on-screen hand-waving (ie, see what we’ve done so far to “sync up” with canon and have everything tie together) when they really shouldn’t do more than 75 percent.

If you needed any confirmation that Discovery season 2 is STILL not a “light” show, just look at the facial expression of every single character in every single picture above. I’m getting a neck strain from looking at all that tension ;)

Ha! Agreed.

Can’t wait! Can’t wait! Can’t wait! Can’t wait! Can’t wait! Pass me a sedative! Can’t wait! Can’t wait! Can’t wait! Can’t wait! Can’t wait!