Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 2x03 "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow"

::: spoiler Logline La’An travels back in time to twenty-first-century Earth to prevent an attack which will alter humanity’s future history—and bring her face to face with her own contentious legacy. :::

Written by David Reed

Directed by Amanda Row

Note: This is a second attempt, as technical difficulties were preventing people from seeing the original discussion post. Apologies to the people who were able to comment in the original.

arkclr ,

Did anyone else catch what looked like an unspoken, knowing look from Pelia when La'an appeared on the bridge after returning? Does Pelia somehow remember their prior encounter on Earth? Is it explicit, or more like the way Guinan would have an intuition, or a subliminal feeling? Or did I imagine that?

linux2647 ,

I feel like it was a “aha I remember when you wore that outfit.” I was kind of hoping they would have a conversation at the end. Instead we got the DTI 😄

Jon-H558 ,

Yeah I was really expecting pelia to come in and lift the watch back up at the end and comfort laan

Jon-H558 ,

Actually thinking about it that might be why the line "I'm awful with faces" was there ..not just to explain away why 21stC Pelia didn't recognise why la'an knew her but she didn't know laan, but also why 23rdC pelia doesn't remember a meeting 200 years prior

CeruleanRuin ,
@CeruleanRuin@lemmy.one avatar

I imagine she will take a few episodes to figure it out. This definitely seems like a thread that hasn’t spooled all the way out yet.

burningquestion ,

I saw that as well! I’m assuming Pelia remembers, there’s no reason why she wouldn’t other than that it was so long ago. But then again, La’an walking onto the bridge in the exact same outfit from before might have jogged her memory.

FormerGameDev ,

Pelia remembers it, that meeting was before the timelines diverged, so it happened in the current timeline.

Pyr_Pressure ,

It’s unfortunate that the writers didn’t plan this beforehand, so we could have had some foreshadowing a few episodes beforehand with a first meeting between the two where pelia acts a little weird (because she remembers her from 200 years ago).

MagikarpeDiem ,

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.

ranphi ,

I’m with you on this. La’an is my fave character in this show so I was really looking forward to this episode. But after watching it, I felt it just wasn’t very good. I think, for me, it was mostly the writing, followed by the pacing, and the fact that while Kirk is my all-time fave Trek Captain… I just do not like the Kirk in this show. I just don’t find the actor they chose to be a suitable fit at all, unfortunately.

Still, the episode did have a few good moments, and it’s only 1 of only 2 episodes, so far, that I haven’t enjoyed with this series. So that’s still a good batting average.

Hopefully I’ll like the next episode more!

LaSirena ,
@LaSirena@midwest.social avatar

I totally agree about the change of locations! Where were the exterior scenes filmed? Was it really Toronto?

ValueSubtracted OP Mod ,
@ValueSubtracted@startrek.website avatar

Like Discovery, Strange New Worlds is filmed in Toronto, so it was a fairly easy location shoot for them.

DoctorWheeze ,

Yeah, that was definitely actually Toronto. The big area they’re wandering around in at the start is Yonge-Dundas Square, and I’m pretty sure this is the clothing store they stole from. The “Noonien-Singh Center” at the end was actually the Royal Ontario Museum - both the interior and exterior.

Kinda weird seeing Star Trek characters actually wandering around in an area I know decently well.

BowtiesAreCool ,

For me there was a couple wild suspensions of disbelief that just didn’t work. Earning enough cash from an afternoon of playing randoms at chess in the park to afford a full on suite at a decent hotel downtown Toronto. And the police just letting them go, no license, no identification of any kind…

I did really enjoy Toronto in general and thought the main plot was strong enough, but agree the romance was unnecessary and also think the dialogue needs some work.

TheGayTramp ,
@TheGayTramp@lemmy.ca avatar

Not just the hotel, but enough to bribe two separate border officers to let them cross the border the day after a terrorist attack

absentmoniker ,

As others have mentioned, far too many suspensions of disbelief in this one. I’m not sure which is more ridiculous though: Kirk hustling general public at chess winning enough money for a downtown Toronto hotel suite or the brutally awkward romance between La’an & Kirk.

gnuplusmatt ,

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

dan ,

Seriously. They need to stop giving us time travel stories to shoehorn Kirk into the series. Let it stand on its own without having to hearken forward to the Original Series.

It’s a good show, and it deserves to be its own good show.

triktrek ,

I agree. SNW has a really strong cast, and great writers. The show truly can be episodic without referencing any previous canon and still be fantastic and even appreciated more by new watchers of Star Trek.

FormerGameDev ,

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.

linux2647 ,

I know I was like, “wait she just left the gun there??”

Jon-H558 ,

Chekovs gun (for a very long time I actually thought the phrase related to the good old Enterprise navigator)

Devastm ,

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.

khaosworks ,
@khaosworks@startrek.website avatar

It can still kind of work. Montalban was about 45 when he was Khan, so let’s say Khan was around that age when he was exiled. The young Khan we see seems to be about 10 years old, maybe a bit younger.

So say baby Khan was born in 2012 if we want to take Sera’s 30 years literally rather than as an approximation. World War III (according to ENT: “In a Mirror Darkly” but the years may have slipped) starts in 2026 and lasts until 2053 (ST: FC, SNW: “Strange New Worlds”). Khan could easily have fought in the war and took power in the end days of the war - he’d only be 41 in 2053.

Even in the old timeline Khan only ruled one quarter of Earth for about 4-5 years between 1992 and 1996. So it’s not implausible that the Eugenics Wars happen around 2048-2053 (Khan would be in his mid-thirties, and augmented) and Khan escaped after his reign was toppled during the Last Day in 2053 on a non-warp powered sleeper ship, because Cochrane only managed warp 10 years later.

In fact, having the Eugenics Wars take place around 2050 works better because Archer said his great-grandfather fought in them (in North Africa). Since ENT takes place in the 2150s, that only makes about a century between their births, which is certainly reasonable, whereas if Archer-great-grand-pére fought in the 1990s then it’d be stretching his longevity just a tad.

NuPNuA ,

Having WW3 and the Eugenics Wars switched in canon would make a lot of sense. Humanity goes to war and ruins civilization, then the augments take advantage and seize part of the planet for their fifedom. Then people like Colonel Green start purging anyone with radiation altered genes in the west as part of a general paranoia over “divergent” evolution.

khaosworks ,
@khaosworks@startrek.website avatar

If we take the chronology in “Mirror Darkly” as still valid, then Green started the war in 2026.

2026: Earth’s World War Three begins, over the issue of genetic manipulation and human genome enhancement. Colonel Phillip Green leads a faction of ultra-violent eco-terrorists resulting in 37 million deaths.

Basilisk ,

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.

deepthaw ,

After the first episode of the season and seeing how he handled himself as a sparring partner, M’Benga should henceforth be called Dr. Seen-Some-Shit

triktrek ,

Toronto passing as New York for characters was so meta and hilarious.

Mezentine ,

Also it feels kind of significant that they finally dropped the word socialist on screen to describe the Federation? They've always danced around it before, but I'm glad they finally made it explicit, even in an off hand way. It helps make the Federation feel less "magical" and more like something that people who existed in history, connected to both the past and the future, had to actually build

StillPaisleyCat ,
@StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website avatar

Having Pelia say it, with the lens of historical perspective, is perfect.

The Federation may not use the word or describe its society that way, but someone who’d lived in the United States in the 20th and 21st century might.

Mezentine ,

I really really like Pelia as a character and a concept. I think its a very smart approach to immortality to have her be someone both used to and unresistant to change. The world happens. Time moves on. Over centuries kingdoms turn into empires turn into wastelands turn into spacefaring cooperatives and she's not jaded nor stagnant, she just continues to grow and adapt and change as things change around her.

lemillionsocks ,
@lemillionsocks@beehaw.org avatar

I do love also how she’s not some wisened genius race. She’s just old. Like maybe her people were space faring at some point in time, but given how long they live getting fast high end tech isnt necessary so they probably werent as advanced as most species we encounter in star trek.

But also even if they were it’s been a long time since they used their tech and even if they remember it it’s not like she would know how to build it. Like I know how to drive a car, and can do some basic mechanic work, and I know the broad strokes of how an internal combustion engine works. If someone asked me to build them a car they’d be out of luck.

StillPaisleyCat ,
@StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website avatar

I didn’t expect to like this episode as much as I did.

Wesley’s Kirk is growing on me, and I give the EPs credit for using the alternate timeline Kirk’s to let his performance coalesce. I also like the deft weaving of the crazy car driving, heartbreaker Kirk with the think five steps ahead genius that he also had to be.

The acknowledgement in-universe that the timeline and humanity’s development has been interfered with is entirely credible given the accretion of temporal incidents across every era of the franchise.

I’m not sure how I feel about it giving comfort to those who feel so strongly that this isn’t the same timeline as the original TOS one. (I see some chortling on this point elsewhere.) Likely the temporal physics of this is best left for a deep dive /c/Daystrom Institute discussion, but I prefer hold to a view that this is absolutely still the same Prime timeline but that the timeline itself has been perturbed repeatedly even if the key events have kept their integrity. In fact, the Romulan temporal agent, while not a reliable narrator, gave credence to the idea that the Prime timeline had proven unexpectedly robust against major intervention by humanity’s enemies.

I was delighted to see DTI show up and be named. It seems all of a piece of DTI’s rigidity that they would leave La’an alone to deal with the trauma. It does however mirror Pike’s own experience in sealing his future with the time crystal. One senses that there must be some kind of intersection or mutual revelation to come, leaving aside the Chekhov’s gun of the temporally dislocated watch.

Knowing that Anson Mount had to relocate to Toronto with his wife and newborn explains why episodes featuring others in the ensemble were front loaded for this season. He’d said before he committed to the show that creative conversations would be needed as he wasn’t wishing to repeat the production experience he had in Discovery season two. A creative conversation with the EPs that limits a principal character’s presence is fairly extraordinary, but Mount seems to have done it in a way that’s generous to the rest of the ensemble.

With an ensemble so strong, and as we didn’t see as much of Chapel or Una as we would have liked last season, I’m fine with waiting to see more Pike later in the season. It sounds as though we have a Spock focused and an Ortegas to come before some big ensemble pieces in the back half.

CeruleanRuin ,
@CeruleanRuin@lemmy.one avatar

That really explains a lot. Kudos to the production for really playing well to their constraints like this.

NuPNuA ,

If anything doesn’t this prove that this does take place in the same timeline as TOS but that timeline is in flux due to time travel and interference?

StillPaisleyCat ,
@StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website avatar

That’s exactly it.

jalanhenning ,
@jalanhenning@startrek.website avatar

A little remarked side effect of time travel is that it causes infatuation (Kirk, in "City on the Edge of Forever") and horniness (Spock, in "All Our Yesterdays"). La’An experienced both!

Edit: I forgot about Bashir and Jadzia in "Trials and Tribble-ations" but honestly they just seemed to be acting in character!

FormerGameDev ,

La’An fell head over heels for someone who had never heard of her. Absolutely makes sense. An entire lifetime of being treated differently, because everyone knows. Even if they don’t treat her negatively, they still know.

This Kirk was the first person since grade school that she met someone who didn’t know.

Absolutely makes sense.

CmdrShepard ,

Plus it ties in with the previous episode where she and Number One reflect on their augments, family history, and years of feeling shame about who they are.

Leer10 ,

This came out of left field for me but I really love La’An as a character and I want her to be consoled so hard 🥺

knotthatone ,

I would like to see a Short Trek of what went down during that 16hr+ road trip with Kirk & La’An

CeruleanRuin ,
@CeruleanRuin@lemmy.one avatar

Lots of talking, probably. They probably spilled everything about their histories, and not just their personal histories, but the histories of their own universes. Thinking about that makes the ending all the more heartbreaking.

russjr08 ,
@russjr08@outpost.zeuslink.net avatar

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.

ValueSubtracted OP Mod ,
@ValueSubtracted@startrek.website avatar

Apologies - my own thoughts on the episode also have been lost to time.

We’ve identified the problem, and it shouldn’t happen again!

ShakaWhenRedditFell ,
@ShakaWhenRedditFell@startrek.website avatar

Lost … in time… like tears… in the rain.

Continuumguy ,

Random thoughts as I watch (cross-posted from the old place):

  • Wow, first that outburst, and then Spock jams too much. Truly in his wild child phase.
  • BTW, was that a Denobulan?
  • Pelia totally worried that this whole utopia thing just a passing trend. And hilariously having to prove (?) she isn't a thief.
  • They really are taking advantage of Babs O's Jiu-Jitsu training this year, aren't they?
  • Captain James T. Kirk, the greatest menace of Temporal Investigations!
  • Oh boy, alternate timeline where the Federation doesn't exist time!
  • "Maple leaves, politeness, poutine."
  • Clever distraction.
  • I wonder if 3D chess is a thing in the United Earth Fleet timeline, because Kirk is good at the 2D in it.
  • Okay, I guess they do have 3D Chess.
  • I generally try not to be like this... but goddamn I'd like to thank them for having Christina Chong in various states of tight clothing and undress.
  • Good thing the time travel guy went to the ship Sam Kirk was on.
  • Oh man, I was looking forward to driving across Lake Ontario to Toronto (presumably from Rochester or Buffalo or something, right?), which totally would be a logical economic and engineering choice, I'm sure!
  • Mildly annoyed that Kirk doesn't drive to Beastie Boys.
  • James Discreet Kirk
  • Soongs gonna break in even to the timelines and series they aren't in.
  • Jim Discretion Kirk
  • OH FUCK ROMULANS
  • We have gone (zero) days without Romulans trying to screw up the timeline.
  • Probably the first time that DuckDuckGo has been mentioned in Star Trek.
  • Yeah, Pythagoras is the worst, Pelia.
  • Oh, so this is a predestination paradox where they make her become an engineer and as a result she is there to inspire La'An to go look for her later.
  • KHAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN! KHAAAAANNNNNNNNN! (Or at least the institute for him)
  • To be fair, this is like the third face that Captain Kirk has had.
  • We have gone (ZERO) days without a time-travelling Romulan that had to ditch the ears.
  • We have gone (ZERO) days without (a) Captain Kirk dying. We're three-for-three on Kirk actor deaths, folks!
  • KHAAAAAAAAAANNNN! KHAAAAAAANNNN! KHAAAAAAANNNNNN!
  • THEY CAME UP WITH AN EXPLANATION WHY THE EUGENICS WARS DIDN'T HAPPEN IN THE 90'S! THE MAD LADS DID IT!
  • Face to face with great-great-great-great grandpa Baby Genetics-Hitler.
  • Oh, great, temporal investigations. No wonder they hate Kirk so much, even his alternate versions screw stuff around.
  • Good ep. Way better than it sounded when I first heard about it.
Justas ,
@Justas@sh.itjust.works avatar

I wish the Romulan agent succeeded but that led to a stronger Federation instead just to spite those meddling aliens.

bunkyprewster ,

I love that Kirk had to die saving his own worst enemy so that the Federation could exist.

FormerGameDev ,

and subverting the “hero goes back in time to kill a mass murderer” trope, with “hero goes back in time to save a mass murderer”

NuPNuA ,

I actually thought the plot of Picard series 2 was going to be something like this, Picard has to ensure WW3 happens, dooming millions to save his future. Instead we got, well what we got.

TheGayTramp ,
@TheGayTramp@lemmy.ca avatar

Seems to me that they are merging the eugenics wars and wwiii together in canon. Maybe the eugenics wars are the catalyst for wwiii or something like that?

NuPNuA ,

Makes sense to be fair. The Augments take advantage of the War to seize a portion of the planet in all the confusion.

cybervseas ,

Wait what’s this? Star Trek writers can still create a time travel story that wraps up in an episode (or two) instead of lasting a whole 10 episodes of nothing?!

And they can weave in minor plot points from previous episodes to give it continuity without feeling forced?

How can this be?

CmdrShepard ,

If you’re referring to Discovery, I think the whole time jump saved the show. I really struggled through the first couple seasons but now I look forward to new episodes. It’s still not peak Trek, but I’ve been waiting for something that doesn’t center around Kirk or the Kirk era (similar to Star Wars and the Skywalkers) but instead jumps further ahead than previous eras for decades now.

Katherine1 ,

I believe that was referencing Picard Season 2, which this episode has a strong resemblance to.

CynicalStoic ,

Really enjoyed this episode! Wasn’t quite sure where it was going at first but just went along for the ride and ended up really liking it. Refreshing to see a good temporal mechanics Star Trek episode again.

I’m not 100% sold on new Kirk yet but I also don’t dislike him either. It’s kind of surprising given how well Ethan Peck fits as Spock, I would have thought that Kirk’s casting would be equally spot on.

Still, curious to see where this goes, definitely loving the ride!

zalack ,
@zalack@kbin.social avatar

I feel like he fits the like... platonic ideal of Kirk, but he's not doing a William Shatner impression the same way that Peck is doing a Leonard Nimoy impression.

He's doing his own interpretation of the same character on the page.

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