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.

Tired8281 ,

Did she leave that gun with that little boy?

ShakaWhenRedditFell ,
@ShakaWhenRedditFell@startrek.website avatar

Lucky for us this boy is not going to be a genocidal maniac.

StillPaisleyCat ,
@StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website avatar

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.

UESPA_Sputnik ,
@UESPA_Sputnik@lemmy.world avatar

[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.

williams_482 ,
@williams_482@startrek.website avatar

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.

goGetF1 ,

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.

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.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • random
  • [email protected]
  • All magazines
    •