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  • The whole season is very, very good. Really loved this episode and the characters development in it. Mayby the overall story of this episode wasn't the best, but who cares it is real classic trek 🖖

  • Enjoyable episode, down a bit from the last few but at least we're staying well ahead of ep1 in terms of quality. I am getting a bit of Kirk fatigue though, they have him technically meeting people for the first time in this episode but it feels like there's no impact because we've seen them together in alternate timelines already.

    Also, did I miss something or did they gather no proof whatsoever of the nebula aliens? I'm fine with Pike taking Uhura's word for it in the climax but it just felt like there was a bit missing in between "taking the hallucinating person's word for it" and "we now all accept that this was definitely happening and are writing scientific papers on it".

    Anyway now for my truly controversial opinion: I don't like Pelia. The character is a great idea, but the execution is terrible.

    I was excited at first, Carol Kane is great, but she just doesn't work here imo. She's hard to understand, every line seems to be delivered exactly the same, I don't know she just seems like a joke character but without many jokes. It's a little uncomfortable to watch.

    Fully accept I am the only one who thinks this, though!

    • @TeaHands @ValueSubtracted you're not the only one, the way Pelia delivers her lines irks me quite a bit.
      Plus, I was shocked at Pike giving Uhura so much liberty with something that he said was so important for the federation, especially since she didn't have any proof. 🤷‍♀️

      • I was 100% braced for a deluge of downvotes so thank you for standing with me on this one 😅

    • I agree with you on multiple accounts. Seems like the writing was lacking. In addition to not securing the hallucinating guy, they also made no formal announcement to security or to warn others about his dangerous presence. You would think with such a huge crew complement that there would be more people walking the halls in the scenes when they were trying to apprehend him. Or at least folks trying to figure out why it is dark, etc.

      Also agree with the lack of direction on Carol Kane's character. In fact, the way they included Hemmer as a hallucination, in the pre-recorded video, as well as in commentary by Una and Pelia, it almost seemed as if they were apologizing to the audience for getting rid of the Hemmer character. I am unsure of the reasoning behind it, but I thought he was a great character and wish they hadn't killed him off.

      So far this is the first episode that kind of disappointed me in the new series. It almost felt like it was filler to create the establishment of relationships between Kirk and the rest of the Enterprise crew.

  • I thought this one was...fine. I don't think it will go down in history as one of the more logical episodes, but it told the story it was trying to tell.

    I do wish they'd given Spock an actual reason to approach Kirk and Uhura in that final scene. I get that they wanted to commit that meeting to film, but it was strange for him to just sort of...wander over.

    • Spock cleaned up Sam Kirk's mess once again. That's why he approached the table. (and I presume that's why that one snippet from last week was in the "previously on" segment)

      • Yeah, it was an awfully specific snippet, really just shown to setup the last scene of that episode. Bit wrird but it felt nice seeing Spock, Uhura and Kirk together. I guess just a bit of fanservice.

  • Fantastic episode. Great to see Bruce Horak back.

    I was a little thrown by the interactions between Sam and Kirk, and Una and Pelia. Their early scenes kind of felt pissy in a way you don't usually see in star trek.

    • Their early scenes kind of felt pissy in a way you don’t usually see in star trek.

      I liked them, personally. I often think about what conflict would look like in a post-scarcity people... and sibling resentment, minor grudges (re: Una) feel like the sort of thing that stand the test of time.

      • We saw some of that pissy-ness in season one of Discovery, and the frictions between McCoy and others in TOS were far more extreme.

        We shouldn’t expect 23rd Century crews to behave like mid 24th century crews in TNG. Human society has had another century of evolution and peace by then.

    • Nice to see Bruce Horak back, but very much want more. More Hemmer, more Aenar, even more Bruce Horak as a completely different alien or character.

      I like the episode a lot, and it hit so very many wonderful notes and gave us so many coup d’oeil moments….but…it’s also getting me to the point where wanting just to settle into something just focused on the entire main cast together. That won’t be next week’s crossover with Lower Decks or the musical episode. And we’re promised a ‘Moretegas’ episode too. Would be sad if the finale is the only episode that features the whole cast coalescing as a team.

      We got more from Una in this one, but still not enough. They had her in an oppositional situation with Pelia, somewhat as she was with Hemmer in season one. Even though I liked the resolution, and it’s great to see this kind of friction between two female officers with very different temperaments, somehow it’s not quite hitting the mark in making us see why Una is such a great officer. I feel like other than in the focus episodes for her each season, the writers just don’t know who she is as well as Chabon did when he wrote Q&A.

      I’m also having very mixed feelings about how Kirk is overshadowing main characters in the episodes in which he appears. This Kirk is growing on me, but do we really need so much Kirk so early in the multi season run of this show? Especially when it’s getting Paramount+ ratings enough to make the case for many seasons to come.

      All to say, as much as I really am sold on the ensemble, with so few episodes, I’m feeling that adding in so much Kirk is taking away from the opportunities to have other ensemble characters be featured teaming up with each other. I’m still not feeling that hankering for Pike’s Enterprise, that I’ve had since I first saw the reconstruction of The Cage, is quite getting satisfied.

  • I liked this episode, and Uhura's futuristic looking pillow

    Makes me nervous about the....safety of the ship if one guy who I don't think was even supposed to be posted on the enterprise (like Ramon was part of the refinery crew before Enterprise got there) was able to cut the power (no backups?) And blow up the nacelle , maybe starfleet should review their backup and security procedures there

    • As we all know, operational security is Starfleet's #1 priority.

      I have to imagine there's a seedy bar in San Francisco where all the Chief Security Officers meet up to bitch about how no one ever listens to their recommendations but its their asses who get chewed out when the ship gets so easily taken over on a weekly basis.

  • I like that they did the Kirk/Spock meet as an almost throwaway thing, rather than trying to make it a big deal. We already know it's a big deal, so any attempt to increase the drama would've made it cheesy, IMO. Plus, we've had lots of media about their friendship, already: we know it inside out. Instead, we got to focus on Kirk's relationship with a different legacy character, one that hasn't already been explored to anywhere near the same extent.

    Although, on that note... was anyone else hoping the 'doctor on the Farragut' Kirk referred to was going to lead to a cameo from Bones? I don't remember if they served together pre-Enterprise, so it might not have been strictly canon!

  • Great episode with serious and feel good moments.

    Watching Kirk and Spock meet was fun.

  • This /r/Daystrom thread from last year is kinda funny, the OP correctly predicts how Pike and Kirk meet, but then he and most of the commenters dismiss it as "unlikely".

    This leads us to three possibilities

    1. Pike was promoted to Fleet Captain and Kirk took over Command from him as a result, which is where they met. Traditionally, especially in many of the novels, thats when the met before.
    2. Kirk met him on two distinct occasions, firstly when Pike became Fleet Captain and secondly, when he took over Command (its possible that the order was reversed).
    3. Kirk met him on at least two notable occasions, which he mentions.

    With James T being confirmed for Season 2 and Sam being on the ship and friendly with Pike, enough to call him "Chris", no 3 seems to be the most likely answer

    It's a fun thread to scroll through now that we know this episode.

  • An okay episode.

    Finally Una got to do something instead of being completely on the sidelines. The whole ensemble got something to do, except Ortegas who slowly turns into SNW's Travis Mayweather: that one cast member that is just there physically but doesn't get anything to do.

    My personal highlight was the scene were Spock and Chapel play chess, and he passive-aggressively pushes her to play faster. Very Vulcan.

    What irked me: everyone and their mother immediately started calling the First Officer of another Starfleet ship by his first name. That was weird.

    The Canon defenders will complain that Kirk and Pike met face to face, although there was that throwaways line in The Menagerie that they've never met. But it was kinda inevitable that it would happen sooner or later. At least we got that out of the way.

  • It was a good episode, but there are a few things I didn't like:

    • Blowing up a space refinery on a whim.
    • Too much romance/interpersonal stuff, still.
    • Pike needs to grow a spine and be more assertive.

    I give it a 6/10; not bad, not great. I'm looking forward to the new episode.

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