Episode written by Ernest Hemingway? Spoilers.
To quote the West Wing: “They Forgot the Funny”. Both halves of the episode have a reasonable, if light, story, and some OK character moments. But it’s just not funny. The previous episode I laughed out loud, this time I barely even twitched a lip. Which meant that two weak plots were attempting to carry the episode.
The Ma’ah plot is totally caught up in lots of gratuitous ‘being Klingon’ stuff. To a degree that would have felt excessive even for a Worf episode in TNG. But the only person who has any kind of development is Ma’ah. That’s a poor foundation, and also means that the characters we care about, Boimler and Mariner, really don’t have much to do beyond encourage and occasionally suggest an obscure Klingon ritual.
And that was the stronger half of the episode. The Dr Migleemo plot centres on a character we barely care about, and was dominated by some pretty strained world building. Did you know birds have hardly any taste buds? I did, which meant that even for animated SF my credulity was strained. Tendi and Rutherford have virtually nothing to do in the plot, and so without any jokes it’s just dead screen time.
Quick hits:
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Nice minor key mournful version of the credit song. Plus some very nice visuals.
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Boob Window is now canon Star Trek.
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The little beak cutlery was very cute.
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Ah, it’s a dimensional rift season plot.
932 down.