A surprisingly solid episode.
I was expecting something a little bit more didactic from the early moments of the episode. The setup smelled like a “don’t judge a book by its cover” fable. But the episode really didn’t go there – instead, a much stronger story gets told.
The reveal on Dr Jones was surprising but well established, and Spock’s ‘mistake’ was clever and didn’t feel tacked on. The only bit that felt a little out of place was the plot for Larry Marvick, which didn’t feel like it added anything useful to the episode at all.
The direction for the episode felt very fresh and innovative – lots of tracking shots, and other interesting shots throughout. A lot of the episodes feel very ‘flat’ and stock standard in terms of their direction. This was a nice change.
60 down, 677 to go.