I think this was on par with DS9’s Dominion War episodes, showing how the Federation ideals clash with the real world. It will certainly be controversial for being so “un-Trek”. There’s no happy ending, there’s just the sinking feeling that a war never really ends in the heads of those that were affected by it.
The acting was stellar all around, particularly M’Benga and Chapel. [Edit: and Ortegas! Finally she got some material to work with that weren’t funny one-liners, and she made the most of it.] And that final scene with M’Benga and Pike just demands a continuation in the future.
It was certainly an impressive, thought-provoking episode but if you’d ask me to rate this episode on a scale of 1 to 10 I’d have no idea where to put it. I’m still sitting here trying to wrap my head around what I just saw. I guess that’s war for you. It doesn’t make sense.
Yeah, but the depth was great, I really felt m’benga was a badly developed character till now, and this fleshed him out in ways that made him now one of my fsvorites, before he made no sense.
Also loved bunny’s work as the klingon, that is ALWAYS a hard role, but he managed to nail him as
Spoiler1. A klingon, 2. A klingon defector 3. A klingon defector turned pacifist diplomat for the federation 4. A klingon defector, coward liar war criminal turned pacifist diplomat for the federation. He also had to seem like he could be betraying starfleet the whole time, AND that he genuinely believed and wanted redemption.
People will undersell how hard that is to pull off, m’benga’s actor had 1.5 seasons to lay the foundation for aspects of his character (though honestly it was mostly done here) while bunny had this episode, to cram in all of that.
Help! How do you do spoilers!!? K, figured it out.
Agreed on the Klingon ambassador! The acting felt weird at first but his demeanor made sense at the end.
And I feel similarly as you about M’Benga. I didn’t care much about him until now, he was simply the doctor that speaks strangely. But now I really want to find out what’s next for him.