Well, this was a great episode.

The only downside is that the Badmeral didn’t get his comeuppance like is tradition, but I can excuse that because we get some justification why M’Benga gets a demotion.

We’ve seen this plot a few times, I don’t feel that’s a bad thing. I feel like some of the best of Star Trek, and especially SNW, is just recycling plots but doing them better, or at least something different.

Also, it was super nice to give Uhura the spotlight. It felt a bit over the top, but I kind of accept it… I kind of wish A’Sha had a bit more development to land her decision, but she was not having a good time on the Enterprise and she clearly almost died, and technically she’s seen enough times where the Enterprise was almost destroyed, it really does seem logical for her to nope out of Star Fleet. I cannot fault the Vulcan prioritizing self preservation over Uhura’s attempts to make her feel welcomed.

And a few continuity notes. The ship is obviously the same one from Balance of Terror. The other helms men next to Sulu says, everyone knows who attacked the Star Fleet Base. So this cloak ship has been a problem for a while and everyone knows of it, but there is likely political problems that make it impossible to deal with.

We also know cloaking tech is not new, as we also see it in ENT’s Minefield.

We also seen an alternate reality version of Balance of Terror in SNW’s A Quality of Mercy, which I feel this has some strange parallels with. Where in QoM Pike hesitates to attack the Romulan Ship, while we see in BoT Kirk is gungho. In this one Kirk is less gungho (but like, reasonably so). I just thought it was an interesting take. It also explains why the writers need to make sure Pike wasn’t on board or else he’d have spoiled the big reveal that it was Romulans.

Hot take. I liked this episode. I felt is landed better then most of the other gimmicks like the puppet episode.

I do believe this season has REALLY been stretching my suspension of disbelief, but I feel a Q episode works well enough as a way to make people perform out of character while also doing some character development.

I just feel like the character development feels a bit weird.

I feel like Ortegas is a simple premise for a character, but I feel like she has had the best, and most realistic character work.

M’Benga, I feel like his character is all over the place. He’s like a vengeful war veteran, a bit of PTSD, yet a caring healer. The tone of his character is wild.

But it was actually nice to give them both a bit of screen time together. If it wasn’t for the stuff around it being complete nonsense, it was honestly pretty heartwarming.

And I’ve been waiting for Sybok to get some screen time for so long, and then they take it away from me! I would have loved it if they had really had him, and have him played by Ethan Peck. Just play all of that complete nonsense straight! They foreshadowed he’d play a role, and you have no idea how insanely disappointed I am. Like he really could use some character development, so Star Trek V doesn’t feel like it just comes out of nowhere.

I also did find it interesting how they did weave Pike’s and Uhura’s shared drama of loosing their families. Its something I never thought they’d bother to deal with. And I thought they handled it pretty well.

Also, hilarious that Chapel had an entire adventure off screen. Honestly, kind of what seems like happens to Chapel all the time, like when everyone turned in to Vulcans.

So…I actually like this episode.

EDIT: Also stay tuned for the post credit scene for this episode.

I liked this episode. Reminds me of TNG’s Disaster, obviously because they both meant to be disaster movies.

I liked that we had a lot of plots requiring everyone to work together to solve the problem of the week. Felt better then the last few episodes.

I’m also starting to feel like Roddenberry’s decree that there shouldn’t be any interpersonal conflict really does sell the competence porn aspect of Star Trek that I love. So because of Chapel’s and M’Benga’s fighting, it did take me out a bit. Also…I do find it slightly hard to believe that they don’t have dermal generators to heal a crushed pelvis. This conceptually, seems survivable to me. But then again, I guess there was a time Worf was going to be paralyzed but then Klingon anatomy saved the day, so I guess medical tech can fail if the plot needs it to.

Yeah, since it’s a dream, I really wish they had gone all in on the cartoon gags. That’s my only complaint.

I can excuse the premise and even the cop out, it’s all a dream, but they really need to just go all in on the concept. Like maybe some Kermit tilting his head back while his arms flail around or crumple his face with the puppeteer’s fist like when he’s mad. Like literally the lowest hanging fruit is using puppet hair whip to the face. Or maybe some cecoling, fourth wall breaking, a Pigs in Space reference which is a parody of Star Trek. Like, just go ape shit with the concept.

I feel really conflicted about this season. I like they’re experimenting and trying new stuff, but like, i don’t know if it’s landing.

However, I do believe in like 10 years I’m going to look back and think, this is good Star Trek. But similar to…honestly all Star Trek, I find it hard to really enjoy it in the moment for some reason.

I guess Star Trek is a fine wine. You got to let it age a bit first.

On retrospective, I really like the development of Ortega. We’ve seen her rebuild a motorcycle in her quarters. We’ve seen her jury rig a universal translator in Terrarium. So her revealing she’s mad that she didn’t become an engineer makes a lot of sense, and taking it out on Scotty.

That’s solid character development that has been building over multiple episodes. I appreciate the slow burn and foreshadowing.

We got horror last week, now we got stoner comedy this week. And kicked us off with a Jurassic Park episode. They really are running the gambit with film genres.

I love that they’re experimenting, but I also would really appreciate some traditional Star Trek of seeing professionals being professional. I just want some of that Andy Weir style competence porn!

After reading some of the comments, I’m now going to watch the Hangover. As I had compared this episode to Dude, Where’s my Car, but that movie jumps the shark and goes in to absurdity. Which, to be fair, is very appropriate for the genre. They didn’t get that extreme with this episode, but I also wouldn’t have been surprised if they did.

I don’t know if I liked this episode, which makes me believe I’ll like it a lot more later after I let it sink in a bit and think about what they were trying to do.

It was good horror, but I don’t think I liked this episode very much.

I feel my biggest problem is the lack of resolution. I know that’s kind of the hallmark of horror, the “The End…?” but I actually kind of like the technobabble explanations.

I don’t want them to not take risks with Star Trek, so I welcome experimental episodes, but I still feel a bit let down.

I think this is suppose to reset Spock back to status quo for when the series ends next season. I don’t think we’re suppose to see him align his human/vulcan self.

I love me a good causality loop, but I don’t feel like this was good example of one.

The diplomacy stuff on the Enterprise was fun. But oddly the dinosaur planet plot actually didn’t feel as impactful.

Like it honestly feels like not a lot happened on planet. Which is a shame, because there were dinosaurs!

I feel like more of the dinosaurs should have had feathers, to keep up with contemporary understanding of dinosaurs. But I understand the pop culture short hand to help establish the cliche and not confuse the audience.