To the stars again. Spoilers.
Star Trek as its best – character driven, telling a story about today through the future. It’s a very talky episode, with lots of opportunities for ‘Emmy reel monologues’. That could easily go badly, especially if there wasn’t something to say. But they all work very well. And there’s a strong plot and story development – the conclusion was surprising, but felt very earned. Maybe didn’t quite need the flashbacks to 3 minutes earlier?
The two criticisms I’d make is that there’s really not enough of the main crew, particularly Pike. Would have been nice for one of them to be more involved in the case – La’an gets a bit, but it’s not very much. Which brings me to the second criticism, which is there are far too many ‘crew watching on TV react’ shots. If you’re not going to have them in the story it isn’t much better if you have to keep reminding us that they still exist.
There is some interesting legal philosophy going on here. As I’ve argued before, the Prime Directive is fundamentally at odds with the values of Star Fleet, Hence it gets frequently disobeyed. This question then of the case is whether the genetic modification laws are in keeping with the values or not. Of course, not traditionally a great legal strategy for a military court. “A beacon to remind us how to be our better selves”.
Quick hits:
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Yeah, I can see Mona’s problem with the default counsel.
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And the answer to the pronoun game is… Counsellor Ketoul. No one we’ve heard of before? Why do that?
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Actually, he discovered sympathy, not empathy. Everyone gets those ones mixed up.
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Definitely with Ketoul on the nature of the genetic purity laws.
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Actually, she said no several times very firmly.
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I love the way the series is using Pike’s cooking as a character trait.
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Courtroom episode? Good luck – many have tried, few have succeeded. But those who did…
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I do hope Pike and Batel can make it work. They’re a nice couple.
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Vulcan Body Language – I would like to learn more.
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Some more ‘Federation = Earth’ bigotry here. What are the other species experience with genetic modifications?
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Using lie detectors in court doesn’t sit well with me.
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To quote another series in terms of regulation 8514 – Lawyered!
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Very consistent with current Supreme Court jurisprudence – narrowly drawn decision to the facts at hand…
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Feels like more than a technicality to me – there’s now a pathway for Ilyrians to join Star Fleet that seems pretty possible to follow.
895 down.