Star Trek

Since this is our first episode discussion on Lemmy, we have a couple of reminders about our expectations.

Constructive Criticism - criticism is welcome, but please put some effort into explaining why you did or didn't like something. Just saying something was "good" or "bad" isn't exactly laying a foundation for discussion.

Spoilers - when a new episode airs, we enforce spoiler tagging for approximately one week. When creating threads about episodes that are less than one week old, please keep spoilers out of the post title, and use spoiler tags in the body of your post. Obviously, spoilers for this episode are allowed in this thread.

1. I am 100% here for the chaotic energy that Carol Kane is going to bring to this show.
2. The Klingon captain had exactly the right amount of swagger and sassiness that a TOS-era Klingon captain is supposed to have. I'm glad that they're moving on from some of the Discovery Klingon characterization while also resisting the urge to jump right to them behaving like TNG Klingons.

Ortegas inverted her controller settings as everyone should 🎮

Regarding Nurse Chapel almost dying - this is one of the TV/movie tropes that I think is such a cheap and terrible device and I am tired of it. Discovery was full of these scenes where they make you believe a main character really almost died, only to survive after all, and having their crew mates weep for them (I am looking at you Burnham). There are much better ways to create good drama.

Pelia is like "I have been alive for hundreds of years and I'm going to make that everyone else's problem."

For the love of Pete can we stop with all of the lame catch phrases and dumb jokes? Spock should have just uttered something simple suiting the Vulcan personality/character, like "proceed". But no, we have to get a lame line one step above a fart joke...

Thoughts and observations written as I watch- I'll be putting this on both Reddit and Lemmy, since infinity diversity/infinity combinations:

• Wheeee, NCC-1701 in the Star Trek tag!

• Previously: Last season happened.

• Little ships flying!

• Wonder who the lawyer that Una and Pike have tried to reach is.

• Oh, hey, the Vulcan musical instrument whose name I can't remember!

• “Fascinating.” “Isn't that usually his line?”

• The fellowship on archeological medicine? Is that a reference to Dr. Korby?

• “We must steal the Enterprise.” Buddy, if I had a nickel every time someone had to steal the Enterprise, I'd have several nickels.

• Lt. Mitchell gunning for series regular next year with how much screen time she's had early on this episode.

• Okay, having Carol Kane is already paying dividends.

• And, yeah, Carol Kane doesn't need alien makeup to be an alien. She's already an alien.

• I'm still not sure if the emphasis one the warp catch phrase is amazing or annoying, but this scene was funny.

• KLINGON UPDATE: RIDGES!

• So clearly La'An's augmented ancestors were genetically engineered to drink a lot. Which, y'know what? Fair.

• Ah, the borderlands, where utopian rules go away and everyone becomes a Ferengi.

• Congratulations to Uhura on graduating from the Academy.

• Ah, the old "I have technology that I'm totally not making up that will blow you up" bluff!

• New transporter chief?

• Okay, so the angry borderlands people are trying to do some sort of false flag thing.

• Redundant Klingon organs, the old standby.

• Roided-up doctors can tell you what bones they broke as they break them.

• These are obviously Discovery sets.

• This action scene, while well-done, is way too long.

• A D7!

• “We've gotten out of worse.” “No, not really!”

• “This I've got to see!”

• I wonder if “Lanthanite” is a synonym for “El-Aurian”

• Pelia knowing that being on the Enterprise means adventure is further proof that those ships are goddamn weirdness magnets.

• Gorn. Yes, it stretches canon but fuck it the Gorn are awesome we'll come up with an explanation later.

• “For Nichelle”

• Overall, while not one of the better episodes, it still was a good start to the season. It wrapped up one of the hanging threads of last year (La'An), we continued to see some of Young Spock's struggles with his emotions before he became the more-Vulcan Spock that Nimoy was in the main TOS series, and we got our first look at Carol Kane as the nutty new engineer. Overall, I'll call that a win!

I must say I'm already a big fan of Pelia.

I'm so happy to have SNW back. Whoever decided to put Carol Kane in the show needs to get a raise; she is absolutely spectacular. I'm very curious to see where her character goes.

I enjoy the idea of Spock being more emotional it really puts it into perspective that Vulcans have emotions they just try to keep them under lock and key and Spock being half human is having a harder time with that compared to most Vulcans is... relatable.

I did not like weird green super power drug that Chapel and M'Benga took to fight the the Klingons. It came from no where, the shot on the eyes right out of Dread made me think it was literally Slo-Mo from that movie. It really wasn't necessary, they could have just grabbed phasers somewhere instead.

I'm not realy sure how I feel about them using the term false flag in Star Trek. The plot makes sense but still it's a very charged term today.

I just love this show, the feeling I get when the intro rolls is the same as when I was I was 15 watching the TNG intro on TV. The characters all feel special and unique even if I've seen every episode of every series.

As President of the Spock/Chapel fanclub and a sucker for Klingons, I feel that this episode was plucked out of my brain.

I loved it.

I’m also glad they began to explore a bit of post war PTSD through M’Benga. It’ll be interesting to see how far they go with the Gorn.

Did anyone else giggle uncontrollably at “we must steal the Enterprise”?

I loved that they gave Dr. M'Benga some screentime front and center and showed that he can throw down if necessary, even if it was with the help of some super serum stuff. And while I even loved his (and Nurse Chapel's ) elaborate fight scene and enjoyed the way they filmed it, I'm also not sure if it quite fits with Star Trek. Just not sure yet with the excessive slow motion. The camera angles however were some great artistic choice. But overall one great start to season 2.

Really delighted with this episode.

No complaints. Can’t really buy into the nitpicks on this one. It seemed completely Trek, and gave many of the ensemble their moments to shine. Production design gorgeous, virtual staging more seamless, costumes excellent, vfx great.

I like how M’Benga has hoarded the green vial as part of his lingering trauma. Better, we finally see a physician giving himself the juice instead of Kirk or some other command officer. In fact, one has to wonder if McCoy carried a stash provided by M’Benga.

Spock’s unresolved feelings for Chapel are well crafted and mirror the lingering pain we see her left with in TOS. It makes those scenes with Chapel in TOS comprehensible instead of cringe-inducing.

Quite enjoyable, although I agree with some other commenters that it wasn't the strongest premiere. I thought the green juice and whole Chapel/M'Benga plotline was particularly rough, though dealing with the PTSD could be interesting in the future. It just felt rather un-Star Trekky in an otherwise solid show.

I'm also slightly unsure about how far they are going in regards to Spocks journey. I did like that they had an in-universe fairly believable reason for it from last seasons episode with the Gorn. I like that the show has a consequence for Spock, and I certainly don't hate it but just a bit cautious and curious where it's heading.

Otherwise I thoroughly enjoyed the episode, even with so little of Pike. The other characters are very solid and I liked that they toned down some of the quips and such. Looking forward to the rest of the season.

The M'Benga-and-Chapel-are-Max-Payne sequence went on far too long: only one group aboard the ship had weapons (and Stormtrooper accuracy) of any kind? I'd have preferred a stealthier sequence: after reprogramming the transponder, they use a series of Jeffries tubes to get to the airlock with the intent of opening it to escape but the ship takes off to ruin that plan.

Other than that, it was a decent episode to get the season going. Spock's emotional journey will be a focal point of the season, which I'm okay with. ~~SPECTRE~~ The Broken Circle Gang is probably going to show up again and I wonder if we'll eventually see some TOS villains retconned to be members. Carol Kane will be fun and with what was said of her species, I'm betting on her making at least two ENT references during the season.

Interesting that the false-flag ship is Crossfield-class: the saucer is a clear match but the drive section is completely different. Were the Discovery and Glenn modified from that spec to fit the spore drive research project or was the ship we saw a wartime refit of the class?

WE ARE BACK!!!! :D

I feel like I have waited so long and it was worth it, while at first I wasn't bought entirely on the action, it really came together at the end.

I loved the entire part of Spock stealing the Enterprize for the first time of many and April's unintentional implications for the future. SNW keeps proving it has the Trek energy, yes it might stumble some, I can understand questions about magic steroids (it's a bit out there even for me but I am also surprised it took this long to have it, but maybe its not meant for combat actually but some medical thing?)

But it doesn't change that the quality of this show is so high, this really manages to capture the feelings of the older series, DS9 and TNG but also with a certain high quality to it.

Loved seeing the Crossfield get another showing and how the D7 has become the mainstay. I like that we get some more traditional trek ships out there. That feel like the older ones.

Klingon blood wine drinking with Spock was amazing.

I also loved Pellia and haven't heard of the lanthenians before but something about the half crazy old lady character is just amazing.

I laughed so much, felt so much heart warming. But then also feeling my heart ripped out with the memory to Nichelle and seeing that she has passed. I remember reading it but had kinda lost track of it.

I am so looking forward to more episodes of this <3

This is a fine episode, but I felt it tried to take on too much when it absolutely did not need to. The stolen starship thing never felt purposeful. I presume its intent is to help set up why the enterprise is going so deep into klingon territory, but i’m just not sold on that. I think an espionage/stealth set up would’ve been a better balance (especially with later sneaking through the asteroids).

Others have brought up Spock’s emotion and how it’s seemingly exceeding TOS Spock. Personally, Im not too concerned with this. I tend to be pretty fast and lose with canon (i’m here to have fun, not stress over every thing). With that said, my best theory is that between now and The Cage, Spock will have some traumatic event which forces him to lock away his emotions further.

My gut feeling is that with a couple changes this episode would have hung together better-

1. Have them take a shuttle instead of the Enterprise. This lowers the stakes for our command crew and simply makes more sense than half the crew (that wasn't on leave) agreeing to steal a ship. It also means they need to figure out a different way to deal with the fake Federation ship at the end of the episode is some way other than 'shoot it with bigger guns'
2. Have Chapel and M'Benga do something within their character strengths to escape instead of magic drug that lets them hand-to-hand fight their way through a dozen or more Klingons.

That said, there were a lot of things I DID like about the episode, including the Klingon Captain at the end and the new Chief Engineer.

Not a bad start, although the episode felt somewhat lackluster. The character writing felt a little wooden, too much stuff is explicitly said instead of letting it hang in the subtext. Also there had better be a good explanation in future episodes as to why the hell Dr. M'benga keeps a couple of vials of punching serum handy at all times.

The visuals were great. The Klingon makeup was toned back a bit more towards a TNG-era look, but you can still see the more distinct Discovery skull shape. Overall a good mix between the two I'd say. The visuals from Spacedock feel very Discovery as well-- nice to see those starfleet drones being used outside of Control trying to kill everyone.

I understand if I get a slew of downvotes, but I thought that episode was pretty bad. The pacing was weird and many of the sequences involving the mining planet felt poorly written (what's with the Witcher potion?). I feel like I'm the only person not into the whole Spock/Chapel thing, so seeing that pushed harder was cringe for me.

What was the magic hypo serum they used? Was it the lost Captain America serum? Or has that been referenced / used before somewhere else in universe that I don’t recall?

Blowing up a Crossfield class in an episode with real Klingons weeks after we learned of Discovery's cancellation feels quite loaded with subtext. Reminds me of DS9 blowing up a Galaxy class on screen within a week of TNG ending.

Overall, a pretty good episode! I am slightly conflicted - I really like the character development of this Spock, but it's also less and less feeling like the Spock we'll eventually see in TOS. As the Klingon captain said, 'the least Vulcan like Vulcan ever' - whereas Spock in TOS is trying to suppress his human side and it takes him till like Star Trek VI to actually act on a hunch. But I am also conflicted as I really like this character too.

The stealing the Enterprise scene, I think Search for Spock is laughing... The CGI of the Enterprise manuvering away from space dock and escaping to warp was amazing though - one of the best uses of 3D space in Star Trek ever but pausing for like 5 minutes whilst stealing a ship to decide what his 'line' is going to be... I wish the new series would stop their pre-ocupation with this, it's kind of famous because Picard uses Engage and Make It So enough to be memeable, but most of the time people from Kirk to Janeway to Sisko also use Engage. (Kirk also frequently uses warp speed Mr sulu, and ahead warp factor 1, take her out, first star to the left and straight on till morning.) And so every captain doesn't have their thing. Pike's 'hit it' is ok, but 'Let's Fly' is kinda dumb and 'I want to go, now' is out of character and just a really unnecessary part of the story. It's also not going to be memeable when it's forced.

I really didn't like the scene where M'Benga and Chapel use some kind of drug to give them super strength to fight off a whole ship of Klingons and then the torture scene? Star Trek should be cleverer than that and made me lose respect for both of the characters. At least the Klingons look like Klingons again.

I like the new chief engineer a lot more than I thought I was going too though!

Star Trek has always been kind of lax when officers disobeying orders save the day, but I thought the admiral should have been angrier and I really hope there's a scene in episode 2 where Pike and Spock talk about it.

Not a terrible start but sadly not one of my favorite episodes for sure.

I don't really know how to describe what I didn't like, but I think it boils down to just how disjointed and rushed the pacing feels. For something so high stakes, it all felt really easy and predictable and just a bit boring.

It also felt like they were really really aggressive about making sure you understood the message about Spock. Seriously felt like a character was going to wink at the camera whenever they said something like "you're not a normal Vulcan!".

If I had to describe it, I'd probably go with Saturday morning cartoon surprisingly. A lot of story crammed into not enough time, with a heavy handed message about a character.

I didn't hate it, don't get me wrong. It just wasn't unique or interesting like so many episodes are.

I'm doing my first watch of TOS and the instrument that Spock picks up is the same as in TOS 1x02. That was a cool little reference.