To be fair, if you look at her quarters, she does tinker with things a lot. So it's not exactly out of left field that she might have the mechanical knowledge to tinker up some jury rigged devices.
A Darmok, The Enemy and Arena episode is not what I was expacting but I was pleasantly surprised.
I don't mind retreading old stories, after all recycling plots is a Star Trek tradition.
I'd have been happier without the reveal of the Metrons. I get it, as a callout/foreshadowing of Arena, but I kind of feel that is took away from the emotional beat of the Gorn being killed by the security team. Then to also have it handwaved away with a memory wipe, so that it is only meant for us, the viewers. I don't know man... I kind of like the deepcut, but it's also distracting.
I guess it was also a bit necessary for us to understand the Gorn a bit more to have the all seeing eye narrate to us that the Gorn pilot was lonely and is the reason Ortega was spared.
Anyway, I loved this episode. We got a whole episode for Ortega. Addressed her PTSD that had been sitting in the backseat for this entire season. And I love these kind of survival episodes. Like I really enjoyed ENT's Shuttlepod One for the same reason. Just seeing characters fighting for their lives and also accepting their death in a cold and uncaring Universe. It's good compelling Star Trek.
The only thing I wish is that SNW's best episodes didn't feel like the best of TOS.
I didn’t appreciate that despite the extra long (and extra long feeling) runtime of this one they had three of the Vulcans return to human off screen.
I feel like Pike and Uhura already had external character growth on screen to explain why it wouldn't take much convincing for them to go back. I kind of wish they showed what convinced Chapel.
But I think it makes sense to also emphasis La'an because they're trying ti build up the relationship with Spock, so they do kind of need more screen time.
Great episode. Extremely cringe but it works for me.
God, the amount of bullying Spock must have put up with as a kid. It's no wonder he joined Starfleet. We even see it in one of the movies where he kicked the shit out of another Vulcan kid.
And incase someone needs a reminder on how Pike and La'An knew what Romulans are. La'An ran in to one in Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. And Pike runs into them in A Quality of Mercy. Both dealing with wacky time displacement nonsense and conanically Romulans aren't revealed until TOS's Balance of Terror (which A Quality of Mercy is a remake of).
La'An is a terrible Romulan. She should have kept her plotting closer to the chest. Also funny how Pike saw through her behavior but didn't do anything about it. Does show Vulcan's are inherently bias towards other Vulcans. Which we even saw brought up when Batel calls out Pasalk.
This was a very fun episode, and does show off the complete bullshit logical fallacies that make up Vulcan society without having to deal with Vulcan society.
I literally thought this might be a prequel to that. I was disappointed.
Yeah, it is a bit weird to introduce zombies but then to only use it as window dressing instead of dealing with the scientific ramifications of creating the walking dead that are invisible to tricorders. They're a distraction to M’Benga's more personal story of him needing to confront the consequences of his actions.
Not to like completely say the episode was bad, it's just with a bit more thought it could have been better and more impactful to the meta narrative.
Eugenics and genetic engineering is bad, but exotic material to hybrid a human with an alien species might be ok? Seems odd after they gave shit to Stamets for getting tardigrade DNA. I guess Starfleet does play pretty loose with what is and is not consider legal for genetic modification, so I shouldn't be too worried about that, but I am...
That was an ending alright. I feel like the epilogue was nice, with no killing of a main character for no reason (looking at you ENT) and everyone got a pretty happy ending. And Calypso at least is canon, but it'd have been nice to have more context on what the end game is.
But my problem is that the emotional pay off just doesn't feel deserved. I really just don't feel connected with the characters and crew enough. I really feel like more episodes (or a lot more) to really flesh things out would have helped a lot.
But you know what I think I might actually like. A movie. I feel like tightening up the epic galaxy ending plot in a 90 to 120 minute feature film would feel better then a 10 ep season. I doubt we'll get one, but it'd be nice to see what kind of nonsense Burnham gets in to since they end it on a pseudo cliff hanger (as is DISCO tradition).
But what was up with Detmer and Owo being side lined for the second half of the season. I was expecting some kind of pay off for that, but nothing... It seemed unnecessary.
Where the devil has T'Lyn been for the past 2 eps? I'm actually totally fine without her being in the show in every episode. Makes the world feel more lived in knowing people have other responsibilities, and the like. After all, they probably have a life off screen.
Anyway, fantastic episode. The idea of parodying a clipshow episode but with original content, I love it. Almost wish they lampshaded Shades of Gray which was the Season 2 clipshow which didn't make a lot of sense as there wasn't enough show to clip from.
I think there is a fan theory that Romulan space is pretty small (relatively speaking), which is how they're able to defend it well with a small number of ships. Which also explains why they're not able to have enough ships to evacuate Romulus.