The following analysis has spoilers (and potential spoilers) for Discovery season three.
Over the last couple of months, we have been analyzing a number of mysteries related to Star Trek: Discovery season three, but there has been one curiosity that has been a bit of a head-scratcher. There have been a handful of moments so far this season which showed a growing familiarity between Linus the gregarious Saurian, and Phillipa Georgiou, the former Emperor of the Terran Empire in the Mirror Universe.
Saurian love connection?
We saw our first hint of a connection between Linus and Georgiou in the second episode of season three when Phillipa takes interest in Saurian’s eyes, saying to him, “You must have an enormous visual spectrum.” She followed that up with “We should talk” and lead him off, arm in arm. In episode four last week, we saw them nod to each other before sitting together at Saru’s dinner party. And at the end of the episode, we saw Linus bring Georgiou popcorn for movie night, which she accepts with her usual snark.
Linus and Georgiou in “Forget Me Not”
All of this led to us posing the question in our review for 304: “Is there something going on between Georgiou and Linus?”—a topic we also picked up in the latest episode of our All Access Star Trek podcast.
And now there may be a sort of answer, or at least a big clue. It comes from the official CBS Star Trek Logs Instagram account, which publishes an audio crew log after each episode airs. For episode 304 they published a personal log from Linus, who shared the “wonderful news” that Georgiou accepted his gift of popcorn and he recounted his attempts to garner the Emperor’s favor after the faux pas of “shedding on her favorite uniform.” Linus says in his personal log that after he “nearly lost hope of ever receiving her attention again,” he could “die in happiness” after that moment with the popcorn, and he is looking forward to the next movie night. So at the very least, it appears our favorite Saurian has a thing for a certain Terran.
You can listen to the full log below…
Love is in the air on the Disco
The Linus/Georgiou story feels thematic. There seems to be a lot of romance going on in the third season of Star Trek: Discovery. After a rough patch in season two, Paul Stamets and his partner Hugh Culber appear happy again. There is clearly something going on between Michael Burnham and the 32nd-century courier Cleveland “Book” Booker. Last week we were introduced to Adira and her dead boyfriend Gray, who has now returned to her in the form of Trill symbiote visions. And Doug Jones has even hinted that Saru will have some romance in season three.
Michael and Book share a romantic moment from the Star Trek Day trailer
Where is this going?
Is this just a crush or could there be a genuine connection between this unlikely pair? It’s possible that the Emperor has some hidden agenda here. Or perhaps she is taken by Linus, impressed by his fearless open nature… and those amazing eyes of his. If the Section 31 show lead by Michelle Yeoh’s Georgiou ever gets off the ground, could we see David Benjamin Tomlinson’s Linus join in on her adventures?
Georgiou and Linus: Star Trek’s newest power couple?
What say you? Do you see this Terran/Saurian love connection happening, or is this all another misdirection or loose thread that will never be tied up?
New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery premiere on Thursdays on CBS All Access in the U.S. and on CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada, where it’s also available to stream on Crave. Episodes will be available on Fridays internationally on Netflix.
Keep up with all the news and reviews from the new Star Trek Universe on TV at TrekMovie.com.
I think this is the first TM article that made me throw up in my mouth. Linus and Space Hitler having a romance sounds as appealing as Linus and the real Hitler having a romance. Just…no!
He’s definitely in pursuit.
How does he know she just doesn’t want to eat him? She feats on sentient beings for pete sakes. She may look at Linus as nothing more than a good three course meal. I would stay far far away from that.
Not without precedent in nature now, is it?
His “log” on Instagram suggests he’s very impressed with her titles, and refers to her by them.
Perhaps Saurian society is very hierarchical, and females are expected to be stronger and somewhat dangerous.
Yeah, you beat me to it. Maybe Saurians react to the favors of powerful people, and the possibility of serving them, using language humans might use for romance.
I’m a little confused on your question? What is without precedent?
Think black widow spider.
OK, got it!
I’m definitely convinced that Georgiou will take some of Discovery’s crew with her, but Linus hasn’t been figuring in that calculus.
Perhaps his species was one that the Terrans never conquered. Or perhaps it’s because the MU Saurians are less gregarious and accommodating.
Georgiou seems to have an active libido and an adventurous pansexual orientation. Having a liaison with a species that was previously out of reach would be a fun game for her. I can’t see her keeping Linus around for the long term.
I’m still wondering though if Owo will be one of the ones to follow Georgiou. Her MU counterpart was one of Georgiou’s loyalists. But it would unexpected for her to leave Detmer.
“Perhaps his species was one that the Terrans never conquered. Or perhaps it’s because the MU Saurians are less gregarious and accommodating.”
Or perhaps it’s because Saurians are too chewy even when cooked?
*SCNR*
Can you imagine Linus bringing Adolf Hitler a bag of popcorn for movie night in the bunker?
I guess what’s they call the Banality of Evil ;)
Trying to make Georgiou more likeable and maybe even a better person is a terrible idea. She’s not a villain that was good all along, nor is she just a lovable rogue who has done some questionable things. She’s killed many people in just the time we’ve seen her in the mirror universe, and with no hint of remorse. She’s eaten sentient species and enjoyed it. She is not a redeemable character even though they’re framing her as such. And this is why she’s the worst character on the show. Not just for what she’s done, but for how badly and inconsistently she’s been written.
I have to agree with this. The character is obnoxious and scene-ruining. If they liked Michelle Yeoh’s work so much, they shouldn’t have killed off Philippa Georgiou.
I’m so glad I’m not the only one who thinks so. Obnoxious and scene-ruining is the perfect description of Georgiou!
I have to agree. Overall, I think season 3 is wonderful so far. But for all the reasons I love it, Georgiou just doesn’t fit. And when she appears, I find it jarring and takes me out of the story. It’s a shame, because I think Michelle Yeoh is a great actor.
Garak tortured and probably murdered people with no remorse, and most of us love him. Georgiou was an evil emperor, but she doesn’t have an empire anymore. She can’t do all the evil stuff that she used to do. Now she is part of the Discovery crew.
I’m sorry but that’s a very naive statement. She can do whatever she wants. Which is kind of the problem, because we don’t know for sure what she does want.
And Garak was mysterious, charismatic, and did have redeeming qualities. That’s at least enough for the audience. Georgiou is not charismatic, and does not seem to have redeeming qualities even if she’s treated like she does. Hanging out and helping here and there because the writers will it isn’t nearly enough to ‘atone for her sins’. Keep in mind, Garak may have tortured people and even enjoyed it, but Georgiou was (and is) not only ruthless but also genocidal. She’s in a class of her own. Plus, plenty of people were wary of Garak. Georgiou is being treated like she’s just someone’s annoying cousin.
Georgiou’s Instagram “log” indicates that she’s looking for a worthy adversary.
She thinks that whoever is responsible for the Burn might meet the requirement.
In the meantime she’s just reflexively challenging Saru because she can’t help it even when she has no desire to lead the ship herself.
I would disagree that Georgiou is not charismatic, but the writers are failing everyone by not developing any sort of a redemption arc for her. Having a character like that in midst of the main cast and letting her roam with abandon and often save the day… it’s different, that’s about all I can give them. But it doesn’t sit well with me, it just feels antithetical to Star Trek – the character is practically rewarded for bad behavior and a lack of remorse or coming to appreciate the good in her crew mates. It’s not like say, Seven of Nine electrocuting a troublesome Hirogen or telling Torres early on she has no remorse for her past. With the ship lost in space, Georgiou has kinda turned into the show’s Dr. Smith, but without a clear agenda or purpose.
“bad behavior”
This must be the understatement of the century for multi-species genocides and holocausts!
That’s not the bad behavior I’m talking about. Nothing, even that, is insurmountable if the character was put on a redemption arc. But instead she’s just there to be rude, cool and snarky, but written to save the day by beating people up and cutting through her crewmates’ bulls*t. So the writers’ intentions are clear. She’s not a proper Star Trek character, they just think it’s fun to have a bad girl character and are so pleased with themselves to have her played by Michelle Yeoh. It’s clouding their already suspect judgment. Had the character been given the dimension of Garak and/or the arc towards remorse of Seven of Nine, then she’d be something substantial and worthy.
Garak also had a nuanced, understated performance. Emperor Georgiou literally hissed at someone last season. The mirror universe is a chance for the cast ham it up, which is fun for an episode or two, as in “Through a Mirror Darkly.” It works considerably less well when lathered, rinsed, and repeated — both on DS9 and on DISCO.
Given that half of Discovery’s characters were lifted straight from a soap, I guess its fitting they also have a character straight from a Batman cartoon!
Exactly
The Emperor character really is a huge fail. Think about how Baltar was treated in the BSG reboot. That should have been the template. What I bet we will get at the end of this is some kind of “What If” Dr Who’s Master ran a temporal detective agency.
When I think about how many times I wanted Star Trek to deal with genocide up front and this is what we get? Words fail.
BSG handled most of it’s characters really well, and that’s a fundamental difference right there. Baltar started off arrogant and egotistical, self-centered, and in it for himself. So everything that made him a bad guy was a direct result of those traits. He was very consistent. And yet, they weaved in enough humanity, backstory, and just enough of a redemption that by the end, as much as I hated him through the series, I still felt for him. That’s great characterization in my opinion. Discovery on the other hand can’t even get us into the main character’s head most of the time, and generally treats the characters as action figures playing around in some kid’s wild fantasy. I hope they eventually come to realize that characters and story are more important than plot…
The writers may know what the characters are supposed to be doing, but they never show it. There is never a “discovery” of problem to understand within the realm of their occupation – every plot is a mystery thrown in their laps with haste.
Without a regular job, it makes it hard to show characters reflect on the meaning of their actions with any profound insight.
And, unfortunately, Michael’s one consistent trait is a lack of expressed curiosity. Why did they let Michael beam down alone, why did she have to shoot before contacting Saru? Being the lone officer gave her room to shoot first. Will this lead to some kind of reversal at the end of the season where Michael is going to reveal something bad she did in the missing year and have the Emperor forgive her of guilt?
I wanted Wire and Mad Men level Trek, and we deserve that!
“Let Michael beam down alone…”
S’What?!!
You wouldn’t have blinked if Riker or Worf did what Burnham did.
Michael is the first officer and a xenobiologist. She was in fact exactly the right member of their small remaining complement to accompany Adira.
Culber made the case to Burnham based on Asia’s need and that was sufficient but they always should have had the first officer present.
On shooting the Trill
1) Burnham was already on alert because the Commissioner’s guards were clearly not following the Leader’s directive to take them to their shuttle
2) the Commissioner position was that the symbiont was to be removed from Adira at any cost, and it was known that after joining it would kill the host – so threat to the life of someone in her care was imminent
3) Burnham was a first officer on an away mission with the authority to make the decision to use force when threat is imminent – they were being take somewhere with threat of force, hesitation would have led to Asia’s death — because this group was already acting extra-legally within their own society
4) Burnham used phase on stun – this isn’t the immediate kill scenario that we saw when using 32nd century technology. There was not permanent injury or death at risk for those she shot.
Your points are great! Maybe I am wrong in totality but: I was thinking directly of Kirk-era and whether he would initiate contact without bringing some backup to the ground. I don’t recall the Trill limiting the crew complement that could go to the planet. And I am still under the impression that Saru was still going to have to keep his eye on Michael after she launching the shuttle without permission with Booker.
He said that “Trust will have to be an assumption between us.”
I agree though that Saru is very reluctant to send security in. He rejected Nhan’s recommendation to pull together a team in 302.
“If the Section 31 show lead by Michelle Yeoh’s Georgiou”
Guys… you almost always misspell the word “led” in your articles. :)
Don’t get me started on the spelling here,lol! Is it Gray or Grey,for instance. lol
Meat tenderizer….
I don’t want to see Georgiou in love with anybody. Michelle Yeoh is lovely, but Georgiou is evil; if she has to love somebody, let it not be anybody on Discovery’s crew.
Georgiou is just dull. I’ll be glad when she’s gone.
What, we can’t allow for the possibility of redemption?
While not the greatest of TNG’s season finale cliffhangers, at this point I seriously doubt Kurtzman and Co. could make anything close to the epic-ness of Data commanding his own starship in Redemption Pt.s 1+2.
Heck, they were handed Data on a silver platter in Picard, only to make us watch him commit suicide. I’d love to say I’d love to see what they could do with Georgiou, but I’m so darn close to giving up hope with these people.
What I loved about DS9 is the fact that as popular as Gul Dukat became the writers thought he was above redemption. That was actually a bold thing to do at the time because fans really loved the guy even though he was responsible for millions of deaths. But because he always tried to at least sound regretful or contrite about it while just being very charming in general, they could’ve gave him one easily but didn’t. I thought that was a great move. He had his swagger and all of that too, but he still could reflect on things, a bit of introspection and in his own way tried to be a better person. Thats why fans love him.
With Georgiou, she’s too much of a cartoon to even take seriously. I don’t think she has EVER expressed any remorse or doing a single thing wrong at all, just like a soon-to-be-former-U.S.-President-whenever-he-accepts-defeat-and-moves-on.
I think with Georgiou, they just played it all wrong with her IMO. She didn’t have to be Dukat, but being this smug, overbearing person who makes crass jokes about the crew doesn’t do her any favors either. I would’ve liked to have seen someone a little more broken, shell shocked into her new situation. Someone who once commanded the alpha quadrant is now at the bottom of the food chain (so to speak ;)) and now have to answer to species she once committed to death.
It would’ve been more interesting to see someone like that have to crawl a little, in denial about the things she did, not accept her place in this universe, etc and then slowly come around to accepting who she was and what she now has to be in this new reality even if she constantly tries to fight against it. That would’ve been a more interesting arc to take the character. Instead we got someone who doesn’t seem to care about anything, shrugs everything off and NOT remotely sorry for all the lives she destroyed. Her entire character has become to eye roll at everything when she’s not giving off a condescending smug about how bad ass she is.
I’m with Corylea, I don’t want this woman to be ‘happy’ or redeemed. In all honesty I just want her to go away.
Gul Dukut was popular? Man, I missed that memo. There was nothing about the character to give cause to believe he was misunderstood, or was worthy of sympathy or the benefit of the doubt. Any Bajoran, if given the opportunity to set the phaser to kill, would have gladly have vaporized the guy.
Trek tends to sanitize it’s buy guys pretty quick. The Borg were scary as the hive mind, just assimilating all. They were neutered pretty quick. Romulans took no prisoners – suggesting a kill or be killed mentality. Klingons reputation was that of bloodthirstiness. 4000 throats cut by a running warrior. That’s a bloodbath. So, we clean them up, the Romulans are misunderstood, the Klingons noble.
Georgio is still a character out of her element – but a bit more so into it in a century where there isn’t much time for the niceties of the 23rd century. She’s not been a distraction, and sometimes being able to cut through the crap is a benefit. If she’s coming to grips that there isn’t any going back to the MU, then her arc will develop to find her niche here. Hopefully. I’ve got caught up with this season, and am willing and interested to see how this plays out.
I guess you did, but Gul Dukat was crazy popular (and still is) when the show was on. Fans really did want him redeemed. In fact there is article basically stating what I said that was written just this year about it:
“Dukat became really popular with fans, to the point where his horrific, fascist, and cruel actions during the occupation of Bajor began to be defended by fans online. This would not do. The decks needed to be cleared in Season 6, especially after Dukat lost his daughter at the same time he lost Deep Space Nine for a second time.”
https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/deep-space-nine-gave-star-trek-its-biggest-villain-of-all-time-with-gul-dukat-warp-factor
People use to defend this guy all the time online. I know, I was the one of the ‘haters’ people were calling a troll because I didn’t think he should be redeemed lol. Knock down fights over it for YEARS. Yeah as the article stated, he had a very loyal fanbase, but of course not everyone felt that way which obviously includes me, you and the writers. I LOVED the character, one of the best in Star Trek today, but I didn’t think he should be redeemed either.
With Georgiou I just tolerate her for the most part and don’t care what happens to her. She’s too much of a cartoon character to take seriously. Maybe if they give her more development beyond smug one liners, I might care. But at the moment, not at all.
If you want some further reading, here some more I found on Memory-Alpha:
By the time this episode [Waltz] aired, the character of Gul Dukat had become exceptionally popular among fans of the show, far more popular than any of the writers had ever intended. This was primarily attributed to Marc Alaimo‘s superbly charismatic performances as Dukat. Alaimo’s portrayal had presented the audience with a character possessed of a very real pathos and sense of humor, a character with many different aspects composing his psychological make-up. The writers however were not entirely happy with how popular Dukat had become. He was supposed to be the villain of the show, and while they were proud to have created such a multi-dimensional villain, they were shocked when they saw fans online actually defending Dukat’s behavior during the Occupation. Despite the writers’ attempts to make Dukat the epitome of evil in subsequent shows however, his popularity would remain undiminished until the end of the series. Indeed, in relation to “Waltz”, some Dukat fans were unhappy with how quickly Sisko denounces him after he tells Sisko about his initial actions as Prefect of Bajor. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Waltz_(episode)
“What, we can’t allow for the possibility of redemption?”
If you mean redemption in death, yes :)
That is the only pathway for her left, and even Disney children’s movies get that one right!
Aren’t there always…possibilities?
The only useful possibility I see in THAT regard is reviving Capt. Georgiou. But I think it can be ruled out thats what they have in mind becos EP Kadin called Space Hitler “delicious”!
I have a bad feeling about this. Georgiou doesn’t deserve love from anyone.
She deserves love from lots of deadly weapons. ;)
I guess they are trying to make Georgiou more endearing by hooking her up with the likeable Saurian. It seems like she would be a xenophobe, but it would be interesting to give her character some added dimensions beyond constant snark and martial arts.
This is a bad idea
She need his eyes. they are not very subtle about that.
Exactly, she has an agenda, which will lead her out of 32 century and back to Section 31, likely in the 23 or 24 century, and visual spectrum of Linus is somehow key part of the plan.
we need more non human looking people on star trek.
I mean we obviously know that she wasn’t talking about his eyes right? I think Linus has certain advantages in certain other areas that the former empress wants to use for her pleasure or other needs.
Are they archiving the Star Trek Logs anywhere? I don’t have or want an Instagram account, but I’d like to view them all.
You can probably view them one at a time through your browser since its a public account.
Unfortunately, no. Instagram is telling me I need an account.
I think Linus is keeping an eye on Georgiou, you know the old saying “keep your friends close and your enemies closer”, the Discovery crew doesn’t trust her motives and they’re smart enough to keep close tabs on her.
Linus deserves love too.
I think she is up to something…. And Linus its on her agenda… To reach the goal 🤭
Dinner?
The way they seem to let her off the hook, I can see her attempting to phaser then eat Linus, only to get a mild dressing down from Saru.
Well Saurians have a very long… tongue. And taste good.
My goodness some people really have their panties in a bunch over this one! I’m taking it for what it is, a light hearted campy romance that we all know isn’t going to end well as Georgiou is obviously looking for some fun and Linus is smitten. (Also if you’re familiar with Capt Jack Harkness from that other show people don’t want to talk about… then you’re probably already comfortable with an omnisexual character).
I was so glad for that dinner – I want to know the bridge crews characters better and I hope the focus shifts to them over the course of this and coming seasons…
Georgiou is a Terran who views her species as inherently superior to all others. It makes basically no sense that she would pursue a relationship with a member of another.
If they wanted to go down this route why not Linus and Detmer, for example?