DJariya

Episode 1 will be up at 3am ET tomorrow.

I know you all will be setting your alarms.

DJariya

Wasn’t my favorite SNW episode.

Starfleet let Spock off easy for stealing the Enterprise and not even resisting.

I thought Carol Kane was awful. Was she supposed to be the comedy relief? And that awful accent.

Pike was barely in this episode.

Since when does Dr. Mbenga and Nurse Chapel have hand to hand combat training? I thought it was a little ridiculous that petite Nurse Chapel took out like 4 or 5 Klingon soldiers.

Spock was getting all emotional about Nurse Chapel at the end. I know she has the hots for him, but wasn’t he bonded with that Vulcan woman from last season? Or did they break up? I forget.

The Klingon prosthetics didn’t look good. It looked cheap.

at Spock getting drunk on blood wine.

actionjackson29

Doesn’t everybody in StarFleet have hand to hand combat training? They mentioned they were both in the Klingon War. They also took some drug that gave them enhanced physical abilities.

Josh-da-man

Good episode with a couple of caveats...

The "we're going to steal the Enterprise for an off-the-books rescue" is straight out of The Search for Spock, and the idea of the humans and Klingons pulling off a false flag operation is straight out of The Undiscovered Country.

And I don't really like the idea of "juicing" in Star Trek. Doing a shot of space angel dust and going all HAM for five minutes just doesn't seem to fit in the Trek universe unless it's a cautionary tale. It's like powering up in a video game. I get the impression that this isn't something that is Starfleet standard issue and might be something M'Benga found somewhere or created himself. This might be an interesting story down the road.

I did like the "diversity" shown in the Klingons. Some of them had notes of the much maligned Discovery Klingons, some were of the classic TNG-era variety, a couple looked like TMP Klingons with their spines growing down their foreheads, and some looked like they were from the Kelvin timeline. I was hoping that SNW would do a take on the TOS Klingons, sort of Genghis-Khan looking but with sublter forehead ridges, to tie it in with TOS more. But I'll take it.

I am sort of intrigued by what a Lanthanite is. Most people seem to be under the impression that they are human-appearing aliens who were living among humans for a long time on Earth (like... El-Aurians?), but something Spock said intrigued me. His exact words were "That you managed to live on Earth among other humans undetected until the 22nd century is remarkable." Among other humans, not among humans. Does this not imply that Pelia and the Lanthanites are some kind of subspecies of humans and not extraterrestrial? Something like Elves/Faeries (or, at least the beings responsible for those legends) or Highlanders? Was Flint a Lanthanite?

DJariya

I guess. Probably a detail I missed. I did watch it at 12am PT the night it dropped. Honestly, I had no idea that every Starfleet officer, including medical personnel like M'Benga and Chapel had hand to hand combat training.

Giantrobo

I mean, Sulu was trained in Fencing....

Goldberg74

Yeah, it was a quick mention of their “wartime” service.

And getting hopped up on that rage-oid was weird. M’Benga looked like a natural fighter while Chapel looked rehearsed.

I liked the episode well enough, but something seemed off… like they need to set up the season but didn’t need the Captain and No. 1.

I loved Drunk Spock, too. 🤣

DJariya

Robert Meyer Burnett said he saw the 1st 6 episodes and wasn't happy with them. He's on his YouTube channel ripping it to hell. And he loved Picard season 3 and sold the hell out of it and even became friends with Terry Matalas. I think he hates Akiva Goldsman, who co-wrote this episode. I do agree with him that Star Trek had a lot of momentum coming off Picard and kind of came to a screeching halt here. IMO, there wasn't that much to talk about and digest. It was a pretty predictable and cliched episode of the week.

Superman07

Wasn’t the best, but wasn’t the worst.

I didn’t mind the lady’s lines, but that professor/engineer was annoying. She reminded me of the wife from The Princess Bride, which sounds like a discredit to that person…

Sounded like they weaves some Search for Spock musical queues in when they were stealing the enterprise.

Josh-da-man

Ummm...

dstrauss

Babs Olusanmokun is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt.

You're joking, I assume. If you're not, it's the same actor.

Superman07

Eek - I wasn’t joking. I didn’t realize it was the same person!

printerati

Count me in as another who didn’t care for this episode, which attempted to cram way too much into an hour and wasted too much of that time on powered-up ass beatings. Chapel as a chiseled Klingon War veteran is also a hard sell.

bluesix

Count me among the Akiva Goldsman haters. When I was working as a writer I always thought he was completely overrated and was astounded by how easily he got so many high profile screenwriting jobs. (Yes I know I was filled with jealousy and bitterness!)

However, after watching the extras on the SNW S1 DVDs I kind of changed my perspective on the guy. He seems like a true fan (similar to Malalas) and I think his intentions toward this series are genuine and respectful. I still don't know about his writing, especially after reading this post, but as an exec producer I respect him for helping to bring this show to life.

Red Dog

Yeah. I was underwhelmed by this episode as well.

Josh-da-man

It's kind of hard to image the Christine Chapel from TOS going John Wick on a bunch of Klingons a few years before Jim Kirk took over the Enterprise.

Bandoman

I agree with everyone who thinks this was a mediocre episode, but it's new Trek, and I'll take my fix any way I can get it. Not every episode can be mind-blowing. Hopefully they back to form soon.

Giantrobo

Meh episode.

Pros:
-Pelia/Carol Kane. I think she will be my fave character and I hope she stays past this season. People have commented on her accent, I mean shit...it's Carol Kane. it's not far from her real voice; but cleary with "more other characters she's done".
-Mixing in all types of Klingon looks. Loved it. I've always said the aliens on Trek all look too alike and i know it was due to budget, time, and makeup technology limitations. But mixing the Klingon looks makes sense, Humans don't all look alike, and yes, I get that using Humans isn't fair. Plus...it gives the Toxic Trekkie Haters a bone.
-Though having Pike and Number 1 missing was "a choice"(See below)...It lets the crew have screen time and chances to fuck up(The Enterprise needs a car alarm) so kinda I'll give them that.

Cons:
-Shit...are we gonna see Badmirals? Sigh.... Please don't let April be one of them!!!
-False Flags? Is Alex Jones on the writing staff? Profiting from war?... In Start Trek?
-Gorn..Fuck the Gorn. I'm TIRED OF THE GORN. SNW needs to move past these creatures.
-No Pike and No Number 1.
-Too much Spock.
-La'an. Still not as impressed with her as most are.

johnnysd

I didn't love the Carol Kane character all that much but I did find her interesting. And I am OK with them introducing a new, semi-immortal species. I thought it was OK. Not really what I would have excpected from the first episode but I really like this group of characters.

Noonan

Were we supposed to know what the Hulk juice was that they both took? I don't remember it from last season.

Kinda already know what you're getting into when you see it's Carol Kane playing a part. I'm interested in her character's species though. Spok mentioned they were on Earth for a long time, mixing in with humans without them knowing. Is that part of other Trek stories I'm not remembering?

Giantrobo

I think Pelia's race is new to Trek.

milo bloom

Somebody said there was a reference to Lanthanites in a TNG ep, but it's not on Memory Alpha that I can find.

I was ... whelmed.
Some interesting stuff happening here, but it felt like too much story crammed into one episode. And my wife and I kept wondering when we would see Pike going to get the mystery lawyer person but apparently Anson Mount wasn't available for filming at the time.

I also loved the variety of Klingons, but having M'Benga and Chapel juice up to fight them, was unusual to say the least.

I'm still cautious for Pelia, very fun to see Carol Kane back in action, but she needed more to do. Very cool to see a veteran actress like her able to handle the treknobabble and playing off the existing cast.

Giantrobo

There's an interview on Paramount + where they talk about Pelia's creation and they say they created Lanthanites for this series. Pelia is 'thousands of years old" apparently.

Here it is..

Josh-da-man

Red Dog

That's awesome.