Craft wasn't the reason Discovery was there. His arrival did not change the orders for Zora to hold position. Otherwise, Zora would have been able to take him home to Alcor 4. The events of Calypso were just something that happened while Zora and Discovery were waiting.

Generally OK ending... My biggest gripe is I dont actually think they showed how powerful/dangerous the device actually is, rather than just talk about it. Seemed extremely underwhelming - especially for a finale.
The ending scenes with Zora and Discovery kind of redeemed the episode a bit, but the whole season, while much better than anything from seasons 3 or 4, was ok at best. Glad this is over, and hoping they introduce something better to the ST universe.

I think that when they made "Calypso," that that they had a sort of vague idea about sending the series into the far future at a time when the Federation had collapsed and the galaxy had fallen into barbarism (sort like Isaac Asimov's Foundation novels). The Craft character also has some similarities to Book -- possibly an early form of that character being set up as a romantic interest for Michael? Makes me wonder if what was going in "Calypso" eventually evolved into the third season's time jump and the "Burn."

Ok. So we don't know. I thought I was missing something. Calypso works perfectly fine on it's own. But now with them tying in literally the last scene of the entire series to this short it makes it feel like it should have a bigger role in the series. Like it's something important.

They name-checked Craft within the episode, so it seems like he is, somehow, relevant to whatever Discovery is doing in the forty-third century.

Maybe he's a descendant of Michael and Cleveland?

See? Instead of tying it up nicely they just raise more questions. I still like that scene but I don't see the need to tie it in. The short worked perfectly fine without having to tie the show proper to it.

If he was that important or relevant then why would Zora send him on a shuttle that might not even make it?

You could say that he was so important that they exiled Zora to the location to wait centuries to nurse him back to health. She and Discover were the only viable option. She makes sure he lives and is given the chance to continue on to do whatever was so important. We've seen what happened to the Federalization once so she was a more reliable (even a backup) plan. Not saying I like it but I can construct a scenario. I would have preferred not to though.

Watched the last two episodes last night. Needed this thread to pick up on the connections since I never watched Enterprise or the short the end apparently ties into. What a strange way to end it. I guess they really wanted to connect it to that short, but I can't imagine many watchers would have already known about it beforehand.

Why would a ship with both a computer AI and the spore drive be decommissioned ever? It doesn't seem like either were ever replicated.

Daniels was a character on Enterprise that was a time traveling agent trying to stop the temporal cold war from igniting. On Enterprise there was a future guy who gave orders to the Suliban who were enemies of the federation. Daniels was trying to counter them.

I may be in the minority but I really disliked the temporal cold war and all the time travel stuff surrounding it. It just puts emphasis on the plot instead of the characters and the logic doesn't really hold water. I much prefer my Star Trek time traveling stories to be contained in one episode. Like Cause and Effect or All Good Things. They're better used as a plot device to serve the overall story and characters. It's just opening a bag of worms if you try to make it a long running plot. Too many contradictions and plot holes.

And per Brandon Braga, "future guy" was actually a future Captain Archer, so Daniels wasn't supposed to wind up as a "good" guy in the end.

Future version of Archer is a different person?

The one-offs are the best. Technically, Star Trek has a multiverse, yet it's good when its used as a one-off. Love a lot of the time travel episodes and it never felt too overdone or heavy.

That was the plan for season 5 but since that never happened it's never been cannonized. So as it is now it could be anyone.

Binged the final season over the last two days. I liked it enough. I do think it's the weakest of the previous four, which I seem to be in the minority in liking. I thought Rayner was badass but I couldn't stand Moll. She reminded me of Mila Kunis, which I guess, I also don't care for.

It's a crying shame that it took so long for Enterprise to find its footing and then almost immediately got the rug pulled out from under it.

Would have loved to have seen stuff like the Romulan War happen, Starfleet rolling out more ships (Challenger, Discover, Atlantis, and Endeavour?)

Not to mention the badass enterprise NX refit.

I finally binged this season over the past week or so and disliked almost everything about it…from Bonnie and Clyde, to Tilly winning a marathon (), to the video game locations like the floating castle library and the hall of portals, to the half-assed attempts at wrapping everything up (recognizing there was only so much they could do after the cancellation notice) and tying in additional series. I can’t see myself ever revisiting this show.

I like the show well enough yet the biggest thing that will make it extremely hard to rewatch is every season is one long movie. I'm not doing that every time I watch to see an episode.

This show has been so mediocre at best that I just generally watch it in the background while doing other things, so I guess I didnt think too much about that ep. But yeah, thinking about this again, that's a hilarious (and true) observation!

What did you think about the other seasons? Or the show in general as a whole?

I really hated most of the first season. That hate still carried over in the second one even though it was a lot better. Mainly because of the introduction of Pike and Spock. The third was absolutely abysmal. A total waste of a really cool set up. Then it really started to pick up with the fourth season and I loved the way it ended and went more to the roots of Star Trek. Exploration. Not made up internal conflict. Then I thought the fifth season was pretty great.

I only liked the 2nd and 5th seasons and most likely the only ones I'll revisit in the future. The 3rd and 4th were just terrible.

All of them have significant issues, some more than others, but the fourth was the best for the reasons you mentioned. I am also grateful that the second season led to Strange New Worlds despite the "Spock's sister" bullshit, which SNW thankfully jettisoned with a line or two of dialogue early on.

I finished the show in the last couple of days and while I think the 5th season is better than most of the others, it kind of felt like a chore. Discovery has made so many mistakes over the years, that I hardly couldn't watch the season with an open mind. Just the fact that Michael is the Captain is beyond any logic. Most of her actions disqualfiy her from being the Captain of a ship. I don't have anything against the character, make her an Lieutenant and it's perfectly fine, but making her the Captain always was nonsensical to me and it showed in this season when Rayner commanded the Discovery when Michael was on another wild goose chase.

Despite certain issues, I liked the first and third seasons. I absolutely loved the second season. But I am having a hard time getting through the fourth season. I have the whole series set, but am hating the fourth so much that I dunno when (if ever) I'll get to the fifth.