It’s been several weeks since there was last Trek, thankfully the drought is over… Spoilers.
A reasonably strong start to a new season, but overall a bit of a flat episode with more emphasis on action than on character.. I was really feeling the absence of Pike through the episode. Not enough is made of Spock’s anxiety about being in command. And the other bits of character story are more background (M’Benga’s Klingon war past, Pelia’s species) than advancement.
But the action is good, and it’s a well directed episode. There are a bunch of interesting stylistic choices, especially during action scenes, and some great use of angles and transitions. While the ‘super soldier serum’ did feel a bit silly, we get a fun action sequence out of it with M’Benga and Chapel.
In terms of setup for the rest of the season, clearly we have a big ongoing story about a Spock out of emotional control. There’s a lot to examine there, although it does get to the problem of the deeply inconsistent canon on the emotional nature of Vulcans. And we have a war with the Gorn coming up – much more of a ‘meh’ from me, hopefully not something that’s going to be the whole season.
Quick hits:
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The short of the base in the intro is very Babylon 5.
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Ah, the pronoun game with the lawyer. Lazy writing.
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Spock’s harp thing, a nice callback. And the good old heart rate monitor gag with Chapel entering.
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Very ominous music on the ‘Shura needs to do something at her console’.
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Love M’Benga’s ‘hell yeah’ expression following ‘we have to steal the Enterprise’.
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Carol Kane as Commander Pelia is great – it’s close to being a bit too much for the show, but just keeps it in line.
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That seems like a really inconvenient office for the Admirals. Right in the middle of an enormous dome.
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I’d love to know which Captain it was that said ‘Zoom’ to go to warp… I like ‘vamoose’ though.
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I thought Star Base One was at Earth, not Jupiter?
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If ever there’s an opportunity to address the Klingons/Augments storyline from Enterprise, now’s the time.
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I’m not a fan of the ‘buried trauma/war memories’ plots, but for some reason I’m not minding it with M’Benga.
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Medical Department Super Soldiers. Sure.
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Surprised we didn’t get a reveal on the ‘lawyer’ hinted at in the opening scenes with Pike. Saved for next time I guess.
894 down.