Oh jeepers, I hadn’t considered the Yelchin angle.

My thoughts on this are lengthy, complicated, and probably a little bit self-contradictory, but I think some of the accusations of “gimmicks” are a tad overblown. But also a tad not overblown?

“Valles Marineris” - A pretty standard Trek episode IMO, albeit one with time travel and a twist.

“The Griffin Incident” - A horror episode, but not really a gimmicky one. Star Trek does those all the time.

“Human Best Friend” - Definitely pulling from a specific comedy genre, YMMV.

“A Case of Chiaroscuro” - I won’t argue with accusations of “gimmick” here, but I thought its use of the genre was in service of a pretty damn good Star Trek story. And DS9 in particular went to the noir well a few times over the years.

“Level Five Transporter Accident” - perfectly normal, nothing to see here.

“Off-Hour” - Pretty standard Trek.

But they definitely do a lot of genre play, and recent interviews with the showrunners indicate that it’s completely intentional, and unlikely to change any time soon.

I’ve been reconciling it by focusing on each episode as its own thing, independent of the others, and hot damn, it’s surprising how hard that’s become for me.

This one looks like a Quelane episode, so I think it’s pretty fitting.

I just took it that they both silently agreed that Una was the logical choice and didn’t need to litigate it.

I just took it for granted that she’s the ranking officer, and it’s her call to make. The fact that it led to a (potentially) unfortunate situation later isn’t really relevant in the moment, since they can’t predict that.

It’s interesting that they’re doing so much in London. Good for them!

I assumed they used neutrinos because they’re closely associated with the Bajoran wormhole (and I think wormholes in general?).

I don’t mind there being some sort of Super Secret Special neutrino that only exists under circumstances that can’t really be replicated, but it is a very silly particle.

For me, it was the moment where she patched the hole in her quarters - despite her fixing that specific problem, it suddenly made me dread what the outcome might be for her.

this episode really suffered from prequelitis

I never really feel this way - realistically, the main cast is virtually never in danger of dying, regardless of whether we know what happens next, so it doesn’t really interfere with my enjoyment of the story being told.

I guess this is meant to be borrowing from the 24 style of show

Yeah, it did occur to me that the countdown seemed to be happening in real time. I guess that explains the occasional splitscreen, which in itself feels like a very 1960s thing to do, even though it’s not something that Star Trek did.

a line that sounds superficially vulcan but which under scrutiny makes no sense

Yeah, I did not like that.

I was a little underwhelmed by the demo, but I’m hopeful that it’s been improved, because this sort of game should be right up my alley.

Pretty enjoyable episode - I feel like it’s been a while since we’ve seen a good “disaster” (or “Disaster,” if you prefer) outing.

The Chapel/M’Benga plot was affecting - M’Benga may decide not to leave, but they seem to be laying the groundwork for him to take a subordinate position to McCoy once he eventually shows up.

The Scotty plot has the most long-term impact, I think…enough impact that I was beginning to think Pelia wouldn’t survive the day.

I liked the callbacks in this one - they mostly seemed organic. The sudden return of Boyce was the biggest surprise. I couldn’t figure out why he looked so familiar, but it turns out Brian Markinson is a Trek veteran, playing several characters throughout the 90s, including my boy Elias Giger.

Beyond that, we got a weird TMP-style warp wormhole, and Kirk’s ion pod from “Court Martial.”

Big fun, all around.

Pike’s decision to go along with a planetary genocide on a hunch was indefensible to say the least.

And I think that’s the most compelling part!

TBH, one could argue that this season has been pretty successful, if the number of discussion points is anything to go by.

Honestly, I think “A Case of Chiaroscuro” deserves another look. If you disregard the B&W “gimmick” (which I think served the story quite well, but YMMV), I think the A- and B-stories are good, classical Trek.

A little TOS-y in some respects, but I don’t consider that a knock against.

Yeah, I couldn’t be less interested in unreliable, easily-manipulated aggregate "scores, " regardless of whether I agree with what they say. This whole site is for people to share their own opinions in a genuine and intelligent way, and that’s far more interesting to me.

It means that spock was the only character that had opportunity for development and growth, and no-one else gets to share in that.

This is true. I do think they did a fair amount with it in that respect, though, and he’s now pretty firmly on the trajectory he needs to be on to line up with his TOS characterization. And I’ll give full credit to Ethan Peck for selling his barely-restrained panic attacks (full-blown meltdowns by Vulcan standards, I’m sure).

I thought the answer would have been Looney Tunes style cartoon physics. Like they can win, but so long as it’s a gag / funny. Maybe they tried doing that and it didn’t quite land.

Yeah, I think there was a degree of that in the final solution, with La’An running across the walls and making a perfect three-point landing and the like, but they didn’t quite commit to it.

Uhhhh you might want to skip tonight’s episode.

None of the live-action series have done one, but the images have been floating around since…July 2025, I think.

I’m definitely enjoying the season more than you, but there’s a high degree of difficulty here nonetheless.

More than most episodes, I don’t think there’s much space between “home run” and “faceplant.”

I wouldn’t put money on it either way, but I would think CBS Studios would have more say in that than Paramount+ as the “network” - the two are very intertwined obviously, but I suspect Paramount+ just wants the shows, without being too concerned about who makes them.