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.

Spoken_Weakley ,

“This was supposed to happen in 1992!”

Is that a reference to how the eugenics wars were supposed to happen in the 90’s but obviously those came and went so they’re softly retconning when the eugenics wars took place?

XiberKernel ,

I kinda like this theory. The temporal wars are still affecting the timeline, but time is pushing back to repair the timeline. In-universe reason to both retcon and act as a story element as well (with hopefully a Wesley Crusher appearance at some point?)

Lando ,

This was a classic Star Trek episode.

chronicledmonocle ,

Man poor La’an. That ending broke my heart.

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.

Mezentine ,

Okay there was a lot that worked for me in that episode. The amazing decision to have Pelia knowing nothing about engineering to being a veteran warp core engineer in 200 years. Going for child Khan and really leaning into the fucked up reality that these children were science experiments kept locked in basements for the first time in the franchise? The reminder that Toronto is actually pretty damn photogenic when it's not shot on a CW budget.

And you know what? Paul Wesley doesn't have Kirks voice, and the script still doesn't quite sound right, but he's got the Kirk delivery really nailed. He doesn't sound like Shatner, but he sounds like Kirk

Hypersapien ,

Out of all the time travel episodes Star Trek has ever done, in how many of them have they gone back in time to when the episode first aired.

I can remember two where they didn’t.

Segin ,

Great episode, this seasons is just getting better every week.

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.

JohnnyDelirious ,

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?

StillPaisleyCat ,
@StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website avatar

Never thought that letting an episode run longer in streaming would be viewed as a negative.

I wouldn’t have cut anything.

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.

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.

burningquestion ,

I enjoyed it. La’an is very much growing on me, and Pelia has immediately become my favorite character.

Enjoying the episodes that delve deeply into specific characters. Probably one of the best things about older treks that Discovery and Picard didn’t do well.

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 🥺

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).

CaptainProton ,

I really like Paul Wesley’s portrayal and the way Kirk is written. Honestly I can imagine this as a TOS episode with Shatner and co. Some more thoughts:

While I was not sure about the chemistry between the two main characters, I bought into their romance and I especially liked the final scene with La’an: it was an earned moment and the actress was very effective in her delivery. I wish the two had spent some more time talking about what reality they should preserve but I guess saving your brother’s life is a good enough reason to risk everything. I would’ve done the same, tbh. Time shenanigans needn’t be explained, honestly I can believe that the Augment Wars were so destructive that we don’t know many things about the period; could’ve been in the 90s, could’ve been in the 21st century, there are real life examples of such gaps in the historical record, after all (and don’t tell me Sarah Silverman was around for the rise of Khan). Still, a welcome reference.

I love Pelia, the accent, the delivery, the character backstory, it’s all really good and she is a very nice addition to the cast. I laughed when she didn’t know anything about engineering but it makes perfect sense. Imagine going back in time and asking a 10 year old Einstein to explain relativity to you!

With the positive out of the way, I have to say that I liked the first half of the episode more than the second for the following reasons:

I think they broke into that facility pretty easily. Why did the door open in response to La’an’s DNA? Isn’t Khan just a little kid? Can he enter and leave as he pleases? I thought he was like an experiment they are trying to keep under wraps.

I did not like the antagonist lady and I especially don’t like the suggestion that Romulans have been secretly trying to keep humanity from reaching greatness. I always thought that one of the most important messages in the franchise was that humans were able to rise above their flaws and create a utopia but now it’s the Romulans who were keeping us down and we managed to reach the stars even against these odds. How inherently great humanity is… Not a good message, imo, but perhaps the antagonist lady was simply exaggerating.

Overall a good episode. Kinda lost me in the second half but the final scene was a strong conclusion. Honestly, I can see myself re-watching this in the future.

FormerGameDev ,

I think they broke into that facility pretty easily. Why did the door open in response to La’an’s DNA? Isn’t Khan just a little kid? Can he enter and leave as he pleases? I thought he was like an experiment they are trying to keep under wraps.

Seems Khan and all the other kids are probably derived from older Noonien-Singh DNA, considering the name of the facility.

Manabi ,
@Manabi@startrek.website avatar

I think it was less humanity's greatness that allowed them to reach the stars in the alternate timeline and more of having no choice but to do so. Earth was a wasteland and they needed more resources beyond what was available in the rest of our solar system. La'an told Kirk at one point that he could be an explorer in her timeline, heavily implying humanity doesn't do that in his.

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