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 don’t think we’re going to see in this show any Starfleet officers committing information to personal logs that could threaten history.
SNW seems very conscious that personal logs aren’t entirely personal beyond access.
Una recorded and deleted her personal log acknowledging she is Illyrian in season one.
Later shows in the continuity have revealed to us that some personal logs to become available to next of kin, or are even studied by future Starfleet personnel.
Having Uhura pointedly resist providing the personal logs to La’an in ‘Ad Astra Per Aspera’ also underscored to us that it’s the ethics of communications officers that protect privacy.
While possible, it’s also possible Janeway is just fucking with him and where Chakotay hides his booze is an open secret.
That conversation was in the elevator, and Chakotay had just said he wasn’t going to talk about what the experience was like because of the temporal prime directive.
It was a fun ride overall. Especially with Kirk basically treating the mission as a field trip for the first 20 minutes. I'm glad I didn't completely jumped ship after Paul Wesley's incredibly wooden delivery of "oh my god, what have you done" nearly broke me. Meanwhile, the romance felt forced and rushed to me, so I didn't feel much at the end. But the most shocking reveal to me: George Kirk... is apparently still on the Enterprise?!
Coming from someone who has seen all of the older (pre-Discovery) stuff but only a smattering of the newer stuff:
This is such a difficult question because I think TNG and DS9 were peak Star Trek (along with movie IV) and are where I would point newbies, but both series have such off-putting starts. I grew up on TNG, so it was easy to get past the rough edges of the early seasons on my start-to-finish watch. However I hated DS9 when I started watching it, and only powered through because I was on a “watch all of the franchise” mission (this was back in 2015). Having finished it though, DS9 is now my favorite series in the franchise.
I think my recommendation for newbies is a curated list of a handful of TNG’s standout episodes, followed by “if you liked this, start TNG from the beginning,” followed by “if you liked this, watch DS9 but PROMISE ME you’ll watch the first three seasons before giving up, yes I know it’s a lot to ask but trust me,” followed by “if you’re still with me, start from the franchise beginning and watch in air order, although feel free to give up on TOS if it’s not your thing and skip to movies II+.”
I would actively dissuade anyone who hasn’t watched at least 20 seasons of Star Trek (any series) from starting Lower Decks. Even I feel like half the jokes and references go over my head.
Kirk was superb, I don't think I could have accepted the car scene if it was anyone else. It's Kirk, of course he's going to drive like a nutter. I was genuinely shocked when he got shot. I thought there couldn't possibly be a way for him to make it but they still got me.
La'an has grown on me so much, she was the one I was most dubious about in the early episodes of season one. I felt really sorry for her at the end, losing Kirk and being unable to talk to anyone about what she's experienced. She's gone through some pretty serious trauma already due to her genes and name and now she's had to go through this pure insanity. I wonder what the significance of the watch is.
This does bring up an interesting observation… The Temporal Agents apparently have no qualms about coming to not only take back their gadgets and gizmos after someone from the past uses them, but seems to just drop in on the past and cryptically hand out missions to those same ancestors out of literal nowhere! This time travel stuff can be so mentally damaging that even those agents trained to directly work with it (Captain Brackston, for example) can mentally break. Whatever stress La’an was shouldering at the start of the episode has now surely compounded.
You would think that Starfleet of the future would have put together some form of “Temporal Psychology” department, or something. People who’s jobs are to go back to ancestors emotionally effected by time travel, and help them deal with any trauma. Telling La’an to, basically, just “shut up and suck it up” is a horrible way to deal with someone who, essentially, just saved your existence. I get she can’t talk to any of her contemporaries, but surely someone from the past could pop-in and act as a counselor of some sort.
IDK… I felt the temporal agent’s cold response to what La’an had to deal with was rather un-starfleet.
Yes I was thinking the same thing, like “Lady you’re acknowledging how difficult this is to bear, could you offer like 6 free therapy sessions at least?”
Maybe they know that she has Pelia there to comfort her?
La’an couldn’t tell Pelia the details around Khan or the Romulan incursions, but if Pelia recognizes her and asks after the handsome young companion she has with her in the 21st century, she could at least offer comfort for his nonexistence in this presence. I doubt Pelia could see La’an with this universe’s Kirk and not put her memories together.
When the cab pulled up to Pelia's cabin I initially wondered how they got across the border, and then La'an mentions they bribed a border guard. Pretty good save there. You know it would've ended up in someone's plot hole YouTube video, or a clickbait ScreenRant article if they didn't cover that.
This was another solid episode; even though the ending was gut wrenching. Who would have thought that a writer would shoehorn a ship between Kirk and the descendent of his greatest nemesis. I really love this series.
I think it's fine; I don't think it's a huge deal that this could've been solved by moving her to someplace like Quebec (Toronto or even Ontario would've been too convenient). Like I said, it was just a thought when they arrived at the cabin.
I thought about this too, it would work, but would have softened the big "Canada" reveal a bit. As a Torontonian I was delighted by the big reveal in Dundas Square
This is great! I have bounced off of TOS a few times, having thought that I was supposed to watch in “production order”. I recently started TNG and have been loving it. I can highly recommend the “Start with TNG” order for newcomers like myself.
It’s surprising to me though that it was ever considered family friendly considering what a horndog Riker is (and also just everything to do with Lwaxana Troi 😂)
I liked Wesley in "A Quality of Mercy" but hot damn, he nailed it here. He is easy to recognize as Kirk and yet is borrowing very little from Shatner's performance. Wesley has managed to "echo" Kirk in a way that Peck and Gooding haven't quite dialed in yet for their characters.
It's funny—given that in both appearances he has depicted an "alternate" Kirk, he's had some built-in leeway to miss the mark and still be credible. He doesn't need it. This man can play Kirk.
She left the gun that had shot Kirk in plain sight to be found be the security team she believed were on their way.
And in fact we heard the footfalls of the team running towards the room just as La’an hit the button and vanished. She didn’t even have time to get herself out of young Khan’s sight.
[Copying my post from the original thread and adding something to the bottom]
Christina Chong absolutely killed it, especially in that final scene. Imagine finding someone you can connect to for the first time in your life, and immediately lose them. It even makes someone who is usually very unemotional crack.
Also, Pelia is such a delightful character. Great addition to the show.
Other than that I’m not really sold on the episode. It’s over an hour long and it did feel (too) slow and meandering at times. And I feel as if it just existed to shove in Kirk once again (and once again in an alternate timeline scenario to stick to the Trek canon) and explain the postponement of the Eugenics Wars by some Temporal Cold War shenenigans.
Final nitpick: how can Spock exist in the alternate timeline if humans and Vulcans are enemies?
Others wrote about how it was interesting that La’an had to choose to keep baby tyrant Khan alive for the greater good (of the future paradise Earth). And I agree that it’s an interesting conundrum – but that was given so little space in the episode that it fell entirely flat for me. La’an found out early on that Kirk didn’t know Noonien-Singh but that plot point was dropped for 30 minutes and only brought up again in the final minutes. In that aspect it reminded my of “The Elysian Kingdom” last season where nothing happens for 45 minutes and the interesting stuff comes out of the left field at the very end of the episode.
Maybe I’m being too harsh (I’ll rewatch the episode in a couple of days together with a friend) but for now I’d say this was one of the weaker episodes of the series.
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.
But they also managed to explain the moving of the Eugenics Wars as the result of time hijinks, some of which we’ve seen on screen. I think this is a credible explanation Star Trek can use for TOS retcons without being too dismissive of canon.
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.
As a purist, I’d say watch them all and in release order, but if you really have to be choosy with your time, here’s a list of things you can skip (in my opinion):
Star Trek Into Darkness
Discovery (whole show)
Picard S1 and S2
Short Treks
I know suggesting skipping Discovery outright is going to be seen as… extreme, but I suggest doing so only if time is a crucial factor. It’s a dizzyingly uneven show with the lowest points of quality in all of Trek. However, it also has some incredible highs and some truly great characters, so if you find the time to watch it, you should. And I know I’m in the minority on this, but I found Short Treks to be unwatchable.
On the flip side, Lower Decks is incredible, and Strange New Worlds is good. The third season of Picard is excellent. Prodigy is a little weird but it’s got a lot of strength. Star Trek Beyond is also a surprisingly good movie.
TOS also has some truly awful episodes, but it's pretty easy to ignore them.
I think the low points of DSC and PIC stick out for two reasons:
Recency bias. It's been 15 years since I last watched Code of Honor, and I rarely even think about it except when it's time to make memes about season 1.
Serialization. You can watch TNG, skip bad episodes like Code of Honor or Sub Rosa, and not really lose out on anything. But if you watch DSC and skip a bad episode, you blow a giant gaping hole in the over-arching story.
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