It’s not awful. In fact it has a lot of great high points. On balance, I would say that if you compared it objectively to the first 65 episodes of TNG, it would compare rather favorably.

La’an saying “fascinating” makes me wonder if Spock is rubbing off on her.

Uh, phrasing

When he started snapping to change things I was like oh, okay, I see what this is. I think Trelane did that too, but it became such a trademark of Q that it was hard to ignore the similarity. And then the voice was just delicious icing on the cake. They didn’t make a big deal of it or make some weird tortured commentary to try and tie it into continuity. They just let it be as a story on its own.

One of the writers talked about it on Open Pike Night and said it was a deliberate choice to give La’an and Erica opposite trajectories from last season, where now La’an is finally able to move on from her trauma with the Gorn while Erica is dealing with it for the first time.

I don’t really see it with Paris, but I’ve often thought Anthony Rapp and Alan Tudyk should play brothers in something.