6 Ups & 5 Downs From Star Trek: Discovery 5.6 — Whistlespeak
8. UP — Doctor Kovich's Magnificent Pad
I'm not the first one to point out that Dr. Kovich's 'Infinity Room,' first seen in Red Directive, looks a lot like the 'Construct' from The Matrix — that is, if you'd taken both pills at once. Or that, if you whacked a bit of Vaseline on the camera and added the sound of a slow heartbeat, it would look awfully similar to Benjamin Sisko's favourite haunt — the Celestial Temple — or to where Q displays his tapestries. Still, copy-cat-isms aside, the new super-secretly secure, and delightfully theatrical for some, location is rather cool, and so is Kovich.
Towards the beginning of Whistlespeak, Captain Burnham beams away from Tilly and Stamets, who are hard at work with the distilled water that is still distilled water, only to be surprised to find herself with Kovich in the 'Infinity Room' (thanks for asking by the way). All Kovich has to say for the interruption is that it's "disorienting […] but you get used to it." Burnham, with the sharp comedic wit and playfully sarcastic tone that we have been delighted to see more of this season, merely replies, "Here I was thinking you were born in here."
Kovich proceeds to provide Burnham with his own clue as to the current watery wet clue. That's an interesting UP in itself, but what's even more fascinating is how the Doctor handed over his list of names of the 24th century scientists involved in the Progenitors project. He has actual real paper — "a bit eccentric of me" — that isn't replicated, but "a genuine 21st century legal pad". Now, just where (and when) on Earth did he get that?
Cue wild and wonderful speculation about the Temporal Wars, or perhaps Kovich's current access to supposedly banned time travel technology. Just what and how exactly is this new 'Infinity Room'? The look of the place — with nods to the Q and the Prophets/wormhole aliens — suggests to us that it might exist outside of time and space somehow. That certainly won't quell the rumours that Kovich is really 'Future Guy' after all. Maybe Section 31?