I’m a bit wiped on Spock at the moment, as he feels overused. The actor is good, but just a bit….over him. YMMV.

Klingons were fantastic. Nice to see the D-7, and I’m pretty sure that’s the same Klingon that becomes Chancellor in time for The Undiscovered Country? Or is meant to be.

Commander Pallell is a revelation, just fantastic stuff. Interesting character, and plenty of hints at a Very Interesting Past which I can only hope we get to explore in future, even if just as Wise Old Mentor Says, without it feeling particularly necessary to explain her actions here.

Roll on S2 E2 says I.

Spock should have hailed the Klingons the moment they engaged the other ship, told them what was coming. The fact the Klingons didn’t see them until the left the rings speaks poorly of their sensor tech. Enterprise hiding in low power mode? Sure. Two ships on full combat maneuvers firing weapons and exploding photon torpedoes? Visit your eye doctor.

… Ok I have more. Did they mention any horrible side effects from the green juice, or why are they not more frequently using that stuff that lets two medical staff members take down a dozen+ Klingons in hand to hand combat?

Stop saying you’ll freeze to death in a minute in space! It would take you Hours to freeze in space! There’s nothing in a vacuum for your body heat to transfer to, that’s why my yeti coolers are so dang effective.

Alright now I’m done.

"Hey Showrunner! Remember when I told you we wouldn't be able to design, build, and render a new starship design in time for the premier episode, so you'd have to re-use the Discovery model instead? Well... surprise! Me and the guys did a couple late nights and check it out! We managed to get every effects shot you asked for with the kitbash ship you wanted!"

"That's... Wow. That's perfect. Great job, team! I had no idea! Wow! I even had the script guys make changes to account for that. Did you have the director and editor send me fake dailies where they call it a Crossfield Class like twice? Oh man, well done! I didn't suspect a thing!"

M'Benga employing crude torture as a means of getting information says something unflattering about his character, the fact that it works at all and is no more than an expedient tool to give the character information says something unflattering about the writer.

During their ship rampage there's a scene where they climb into a hatch on the floor, the camera turns upside-down for no reason, goes to the next deck down, they climb out of the hatch on the ceiling, land on the floor, then the camera turns right-side up again. Why did it do that?

So we have another episode joining the ranks of Star Trek Court Room Dramas.

Whilst not a bad episode, it’s not up to Measure of a Man, Tribunal or Drumhead. The arguments and structure are there, but lacking a Picard it just doesn’t hit the heights of Measure of a Man or Drumhead. And being a Federation court, it lacks the loony twists and turns of an alien Judiciary we saw in Tribunal.

That being said. If I hadn’t seen those other episodes? I’d have been perfectly satisfied with this one.

If you’ve not seen those other three? Watch this ‘un first and enjoy it. Because there’s plenty to enjoy. Then go and watch the others to see why I think it just doesn’t quite make muster.

This episode directly confronts the fact that the ideal of what a perfect progressive society entails has changed over time. DS9 did this previously with Bashir's arc, arguing that what was the cutting edge of equality in the 60s wasn't the same as what it is in the 90s and for the need for society to continually challenge its moors; and here SNW acknowledges, bluntly, that those who struggle for acknowledgement today were struggling back then and did not materialize out of nowhere.

I do also think it contrasts sharply with their use of gay, trans and non-binary characters and actors in an era where previous shows would never have been allowed to do that, and them making a point of mentioning LGBT issues along with other civil rights history is the filmmakers nodding to the camera and telling their critics they know they aren't being subtle here and had no intention to be.

I do wonder what this means for the broader federation. They successfully argued (and rightly so) that the Federation gives starfleet captains broad permission to violate the prime directive because they're the ones in the situation and able to make the call on whether it does more harm than good - and that it must therefore apply to other laws must be a given. That they then successfully argued that Starfleet (personified by Pike) gave asylum to someone to protect them from the Federation itself should, presumably, be a massive shock to the Federation and its people, shouldn't it?

Slightly mixed feelings on this one.

It’s a competent enough episode, but I was rolling my eyes a bit at returning to Khan again.

But overall the plot makes sense, it doesn’t interfere with or take liberties with canon. I just kind of wish Khan had been more of an Easter Egg, and the main target was someone else.

It’s not that Khan is necessarily an uninteresting character. But I find the constant “hey kids, ‘member this guy!” a bit lazy.

YMMV

Kirk missidentifying the streets of Toronto for the streets of New York is hilarious. Perfectly in character and a perfect TV/Movie production gag rolled into one.

A solid time travel story that benefits somewhat from SNW's tendency to not drift too far from TOS' storytelling precidents. The core dillema, while evoking some of the ideas from DS9 and especially Voyager era time travel stories (with the go back and set right what someone else is setting wrong thing) ultimately hinges on our protagonist resisting the temptation to change the past for selfish reasons and taking on the grief of that decision. That it contrasts so hard with Picard's bungling of a time travel plot is just the icing on the cake.

Christina Chong and Paul Wesley are certainly helping to carry that story too.

A while back I noted that it was weird that Quality of Mercy seemed to go out of its way to show the Romulan ship didn't have that old war-weary sub-commander who shared the commander's view that war with the Federation would be a bad thing. It was one of many obvious changes from Balance of Terror but the only one that stood out as not obviously explainable by having Pike avoid his accident. That the commander takes his (newly minted, much younger) sub-commander aside to tell him about his dead old friend seemed to be about assuring the audience it was intentional and not merely a casting choice.

Now, we have an episode where Romulans (with access to a TOS-ish era ship) have built a computer to help them make edits to history for the long-term benefit of the Empire! I hope we keep following up on this!

The comment the agent makes about time 'reacting' to their efforts to change things ("this was supposed to happen in 1992, I've been stuck here for THIRTY YEARS!") is also a curious observation. Could it be that there's actually some kind of temporal elasticity at play or are these deviations being caused by the different factions like the future federation's temporal investigations department and whatever Wesley Crusher is doing mucking about with everything?

I don’t think the Romulan ship was part of the future force. The impression I got was Romulans had been messing around with humans for a long time, slowing them down in small ways. Lady from the future thought they had been doing too little and went back to change something big.

Good point, I missed that on my first pass!

Still - we have a party manipulating time in the interest of the Romulans, but almost certainly not originating from the SNW/TOS era.