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.