I don't like the implications that there is a device that can absorb phaser fire.

I also find it weird that the "intruders" who I assume know English, are not able to pick up on Federation Standard, I assume it is still not that different from English, considering Starfleet did start in North America. You think when you see on the hall of a ship, "U.S.S. Enterprise" or when you enter and take a look around and see the service panels that, they might think for a second that this ship might have hailed from Earth.

Also a bit weird how they haven't encountered Federation ships with humans with their couple of hundred year space travels. But I assume maybe they went through the same wormhole as V'ger or something. And who knows what kind of trauma they have to live through.

Despite these logical inconsistencies, I think I still enjoyed this mess of an episode.

The spectacle was over the top. I like seeing the TOS crew interacting with each other. And I enjoyed the Enterprise crew coming up with a solution to save themselves, though their escape and timing with the Farragut's attack did seem awfully convenient. Would have felt a little less contrived if they had coordinated with each other a bit sooner to match up the plans, but we don't always have so much screen time to explain things and the plot sometimes needs to get moving, so I can forgive it.

I also like the Pike to Kirk talk talking about empathizing with your enemy. Feelsl ike foreshadowing to Arena.

Anyway, I currently like this episode.

I've enjoyed the season well enough so far but this to me was a bit off script-wise.

Nothing wrong with the concept – a forgotten spaceship from Earth* but there was no explanation or speculation on how they survived and why their spaceship had that (atrocious) cyberpunk pirates of the caribbean aesthetic.

So many questions that even the characters themselves should have asked but didn't. The takeaway seemed to be about human nature, the darkness within us etc. but it wasn't really explored rather than haphazardly touched upon like it was an afterthought. And maybe it was, maybe the idea that the "dangerous aliens" were human was a late edit.

*Although a bit hard to integrate to the canon but whatever.

The first time in a decade where the sci-fi protagonists were wearing visored helmets that weren't transparent and lighting up their faces -- at least until the visor magically folded away.

Minor pet peeve to have, I know. I imagine the choice wasn't director induced and more something regarding stunt coordination but I wouldn't rule out thematically mirroring the faceless unempathic enemy.

This episode is giving me some Firefly vibes.

I agree with your comment that this episode was a tonal mess, yet for all that still enjoyed it. Life isn't neatly packaged into times of only deadly seriousness, lighthearted nonsense and character growth, sometimes they all happen at the same time.

In that sense, each of them clearly had a distinct tone to me

You clearly saw the seeds of the lead up to TOS in the Farragut storyline, which was ultimately it's purpose.

Off-topic but holy hell are spoilers so difficult to use on Lemmy

This reminded me of “The Doomsday Machine” at times.

Annotations for 3x06 up at: https://startrek.website/post/27570531

I thought this one was a tonal mess - so much so that I was convinced the whole thing was going to turn out to be a training simulation or something.

This show is usually so good at setting a clear mood, but this one was so all over the place, I didn't know how seriously to take the situations the crew(s) found themselves in.