I’m enjoying the genre surfing. Most or all of the episodes are traditional Trek stories and they’re just viewed with the lens of a different genre, if that makes sense. Like, trying to get a culture out from under an enemy’s control without seeming to be involved has happened in Trek a hundred times, they just filmed it like a film noir this time. I’m having fun with it.
For me, it’s just a question of whether it’s serving the story. If it’s baked into the premise, like the musical or puppetry episodes, I’m happy to go with it.
But disaster scenarios are more satisfying if the obstacles and especially solutions seem like a natural consequence of the world of the show. Magical particles that both heal and fuel showing up in M’Benga’s case notes feel too convenient, even if it took some effort on Spock and La’an’s part to track them down. I’m not sure if I’d call it a Deus Ex Machina or just a MacGuffin that came into the story too late, but it just doesn’t do it for me.
Yeah, that’s a fair point. Time was of the essence, and the commanding officer made a call. We wouldn’t normally see anyone question that unless they had a very compelling reason not to.
I guess I wouldn’t object to some dialogue like that, but I also don’t see it as necessary. I agree that if Una weren’t as tough as Spock, or if she’d just never shared this with him, he would have spoken up. Since he didn’t say anything we can logically conclude that she is, in fact, known to be that tough. Unless there’s some other canon showing that to be untrue, I don’t really see the problem with simply accepting that conclusion.
I feel like this is only coming up because Una looks like a normal human. But we know she isn’t, so there’s no contradiction that I can see.
I’m less concerned that neutrinos don’t act like this, and more amused that any particle can heal a bisected corpse simply by being aimed at it.
Diverting power from life support makes all the heat from the hallways instantly vanish? Where does it go? Is 23rd century technology somehow effortlessly recapturing the heat and turning it into electricity? Is that what they’ve been doing all these years every time they “diverted power from life support?”
It was cold enough for Chapel’s finger to snap right off, but she’s walking around completing tasks with her face uncovered? It’s great that they let the actress emote, but…
What the episode lacked in believability it made up for in good character work. Loved seeing Scotty’s connection with the Enterprise being born, loved seeing Chapel put to the test (and actually giving her actress something to do for the first time since the second season). I also always appreciate bottle episodes just because of how gorgeous these sets are, and the special effects here were top notch, too.
Maybe my grasp of the lore isn’t encyclopedic enough, but is it a given that an augmented Illyrian would be less suited to extremely high gravity than a Vulcan? As I was watching, I just took it that they both silently agreed that Una was the logical choice and didn’t need to litigate it.
I do think the mind meld solution was valuable, because without it the entire extremely flimsy neutrino plan to save the day would have gone off without any real wrinkles. Aiming the particles at M’Benga and the deuterium worked exactly as expected, so the real friction was in how many roadblocks they ran into getting the data.
I’d feel better about ep1 if it was presented as a difficult or haunting choice. It’s the hunch aspect that really bothers me.
But on reflection, there were still some very good ideas in there. The small bit with the translation of “alone” was possibly the cleverest thing that’s happened this season, and hard to actually pull off in dialogue as well as they did.
Funny, I thought the first episode was pretty terrible. Pike’s decision to go along with a planetary genocide on a hunch was indefensible to say the least. And there wasn’t even very much dinosaur action to offset that with stupid fun.
The rest of the season I’ve really enjoyed. A big step up in quality from season 3, though still not hitting the highs that season 2 reached.
Kermit taught me to write my own 😉
Highly enjoyable episode. I laughed. My partner face-palmed. We both especially appreciated Pelia’s puppet design.
The character development on T’Pring was top notch. I love that she’s embraced chaos so much that, by the end, she’s pranking Spock by making him believe he dreamed the whole incident. A nice quirk that long term fans know will escalate to the truly epic prank she’ll eventually play on him in TOS Amok Time.
I just worry the writers were too subtle about this. I’m already noticing some more gullible viewers think that the bulk of the episode was actually meant to be a dream. True fans know that SNW’s writers are brave enough not to pull that, though!
Ratings are irrelevant, they’re already cancelled. Not sure exactly when they learned that, but definitely by season 5 we’ll be seeing what happens when they have nothing to lose.
I like muppets, but the musical will be hard to beat. I’ll be happy if it’s as good as the fairy tale episode.
It’s sadly a pretty low bar, but I’d say season 4 is showing more substance than season 3 did at this point in its run.
I’m feeling like season 2 is going to turn out to be the show’s peak. Hopefully I’m wrong.
Honestly don’t know why they bothered with an “explanation” at all. It’s a filming style that suited their story. No more need to explain it here than there is in Spider Noir.
I feel like Spock’s interest in plants in this episode is both a call back to The Cage (the way Spock grips the office plant before melding with it felt very similar to the way he gripped the signing plants in that episode) and possibly a call forward to TAS The Infinite Vulcan, where we learn that Spock’s ultimate fate is to live among a planet of sentient plants in a giant cloned body.
(It’s interesting to consider that a copy of his consciousness was returned to his original, diminutive body at the end of that episode. I wonder what adventures that small version of Spock might have had? We may never know…)
I knew I’d have a good time with this one. I’d heard we were getting a horror themed episode directed by someone who worked on The Haunting of Hill House, which is one of my favourite horror projects from the past decade. (Checking Google now, and I see it was actually Bly Manor. Close enough.)
You can certainly see the same approach at play, and I thought it was very fun to see in Trek. I also loved the nods to other sci-fi horror, including that one scene in TNG Night Terrors that really hit hard when I was 7.
I feel like a bit more backstory on the Griffen might have been nice. She was the last ship built in the Pyris shipyards, which mined its ore from an ancient alien graveyard, and all ships built there met a bad end. Or something better than that. But I see those in this thread unhappy that it wasn’t all explained with the sci-fi equivalent of a gas leak, so maybe the simple mystery approach is a good compromise.
Apart from the horror of it all, some nice character work, with Kirk being the stand out. Nice to see his early relationship with Carol. Or lack thereof. I wonder if they’ll ever have occasion to cast her or if she’ll be forever offscreen.
Oh, the wastes! The magnificent wastes! When I was a lad I knew a man who visited the wastes and brought back such beautiful things! Real salt from the dry riverbeds, pieces of rubber that would burn for hours and give us such marvellous dreams! One day I’ll earn enough to take you to the wastes myself, young one. One day.
The Martians have a bit of a Vulcan look to them, and it’s referenced that their genetics can be found in a number of races known to the Federation. Is this a hint that Spock might in fact be descended from Martians, in reference to his original conception as a Martian science officer?
Might be supported by Spock’s mention in TOS Return to Tomorrow that being descended from an alien race is consistent with some Vulcan prehistory.
Or I’m reading too much into a basic makeup choice.
He’s not joining the conversation because they’re strangers who just happen to be riding the same public transit as him.
Hey, you’re in luck: soap operas aren’t watched by kids, and aren’t exactly known for their high octane action either 😉