Star Trek

I thought this episode was fantastic.

The pacing was good, the interactions between Kirk and La'an were fun, and the closing acts were a real gut wrench. Being forced through such a traumatic situation and completely unable to talk with anyone about it is a piece of the time travel/Prime Directive secrecy that Star Trek hasn't really dug it's teeth into before, and there's clearly something very powerful to work with here.

Also, hilarious use of their immortal chief engineer. In retrospect, no surprise that someone in that position wouldn't maintain exactly the same hobbies and skills throughout the centuries, and also no real shock that this particular individual got her jollies stealing priceless artwork. And then arguing statute of limitations when she is challenged on it centuries later? Brilliant.

I do not give the slightest of damns about a TOS one-liner placing Kahn in the 1990s. This is a good story which wouldn't work properly otherwise, and that was a poor choice from writers who couldn't have possibly known better. Absolutely do not care, and so much happier for it.

After a fairly meh first episode, SNW S2 has reeled off a pair of real bangers. Looking forward to the next installment.

I'm just kinda thrilled to see Canada in the Star Trek universe. Obviously they've been doing a bunch of filming out of Toronto so technically we have seen it, but it's nice for them to sidestep the fact that 99% of the time they get thrown into Earth's past and they end up in California. Kirk "recognizing" the city as New York was a cute touch given how often Toronto doubles for it. Also technically I guess this means that the greatest tyrant in Earth's history technically is canonically Canadian too.

Kirk being a chess hustler was cute too, explaining how he's able to keep up when playing Spock in TOS.

Aside from that, the episode was fine. I like seeing La'an getting some development, and seeing her spar with M'Benga (and getting beaten) was nice since it justifies him being actually kind of a badass, and makes the fight scenes in the first episode of the season more reasonable. Also a bit more behind the curtain of Pelia.

A lot of the episode was just goofy "man out of time" stuff, which is cute in its own right but doesn't really add a ton. But it was entertaining and fun, and worth watching again, so I'm still calling it a winner.

I enjoyed that episode a lot, although it would have benefitted from its length being tightened up by ten minutes.

What do we think was the nature of the Romulan interference with Earth? And what time period is Sera, the Romulan agent from?

The DTI agent appears to use 29th century tech, which is several hundred years after the Romulan Empire’s supernovae-driven collapse but possibly around the time of the Romulan-Vulcan reunification of Ni’Var. Is she from that same time period?

Sera also shows Kirk a picture of what looks like a TOS-era Bird-of-Prey as part of her alien conspiracy photo deck. It has the round nacelles typical of the 23rd century, rather than those seen in ENT’s 22nd century designs, or some other design representing the 20th/21st century in which these attacks take place.

Is she a time agent from the 23rd century (with the appropriate Romulan ship in orbit)?

Is that her guessing who Kirk is, and planting the evidence he’s most likely to recognize? Or was that really a Romulan design from the 21st century?

Which leads to me wonder if the Romulans started interfering with Earth’s development only due to temporal war shenanigans, or had they been doing flybys for as long as the Vulcans?

I enjoyed the episode. I think what makes SNW stand out for me is the characters. All the main crew are interesting, likeable characters, and that for me is generally a key ingredient for great Star Trek.

It has been quite a weird opening to the season. We haven't had the crew together on the bridge (or even the ship) for 3 whole episodes. I'm guessing there was a real world reason for this (i.e. availability of the cast), but kind of hoping the next episode is a bit more "normal".

Also, given that Kirk features, it was a missed opportunity to open with "Personal log: We've. Travelled. Back in Time...." without further explanation.

I guess I'm one of the few voices of dissent again... I enjoyed last week's episode, but this episode is disappointing again. The romance between La'an was very unnecessary and unnatural. They had no chemistry and it felt incredibly awkward. I still can't stand their choice for Kirk. Feels like I'm watching Darrin from Bewitched (or some other "ordinary working man" type character) doing cosplay and not a star ship captain, and certainly not a captain like Kirk. Not only does he not have "the look," but I hated the way he delivered all his lines.

The only breath of fresh air for me is that a disaster takes place someplace other than New York, LA, or the US in general. However, they definitely didn't hire enough extras for Toronto. Everywhere looked too under populated and not enough racial diversity (ie: where were all the Asians? Toronto is filled with East, South, Subcontinental Asians). I've never seen the streets of Toronto so sparse.

Ah, well I had a more thorough comment typed out, but unfortunately that was on the thread that got locked and the app I'm using on mobile ate my response when it failed to post.

The gist of it though was that I was pleasantly surprised by this episode, as I'm not usually one for the time travel themes. The ending was painful (as in, the writing was very well done) to watch and hit me harder than I expected!

And it was also cool for them to reference DDG instead of Google, I'd be happy to see that sort of thing happen more often on TV.

Copied and pasted from my comment on the original thread that is still in my profile (I'd noticed something was up with the previous post but figured it would clear up with time)

Nice character episode with a simple premise and a good amount of Pelia!

I’ve always thought Trek is at its worst or riskiest when doing time travel stuff, but the tone and focus of this episode being on La’an and her relationship to her heritage really centered the episode. In a way it was a subtle, but strong, IMO, character driven plot point to have her struggle with finding for once a real intimate connection with someone destined to be lost and “forgotten”.

Having Kahn appear as a child was low-key wonderful.

What’s up with the watch? Is there more to Pelia than meets the eye? Seems she’s conveniently forced herself and her myriad belongings onto the ship for this particular time period while also (and I forget what Trek’s take on time travel is here) knowing about that watch being on board at this point … ?!

Anyone else feeling a certain lack of Pike in the first 3 episodes? Not against it, it just seems somewhat conspicuous given that I imagine the character is half of the reason the show exists.

That was a love letter to trek time travel stories and a nice character piece for Christina who feels less and less like a budget Drummer ripoff. Like any episodal television SNW is a bit hit and miss but better the occasional highs than a season long arc that drags and disappointments.

Is La'an supposed to be stronger than regular humans? She gave that Romulan some good ass kicking. That's really impressive

So.. La'an goes back in time to bootstrap paradox Pelia into becoming the engineer she is in the current timeline, and saves Earth's next Hitler from being killed, because without that, humanity never really gets it's shit together. And ::speculation alert!!:: maybe her leaving that gun there begins his murderous spree, so maybe she bootstrap paradoxed Khan into being the tyrant he becomes, too.

What a wild ride.

I just ... this series.. is just so consistently enjoyable. I love it.

Its interesting what they are doing but god damn are they hamstringing the timeline by moving Khan to 2022/3.

First Contact happens in 2064 pretty reliably. So that means this PreTeen Kahn needs to become a Tyrant. Rule over a quarter of the globe, I guess start or be involved in WW3 and bounce on the botany bay. All in 40 years.

repost my original comment from last night's failed thread:

Canon purists are making leaps about the placement of the eugenics wars. Sounds to me like they’re blaming the Temporal Cold War for changing things.

Must be pre USS Relativity time agency…

Fun episode, but the gymnastics to tell Kirk stories without impacting TOS is getting a bit obvious, this is our 2nd alternate Kirk