Star Treks - Personal Logs

Goldbug said:
OK this last episode was much better. Anyone else realize right away that ensign Gamble is going to die? Wow isn't it landing party 101 not to pick up foreign alien objects? and right next to dead bodies?!
Still some criticisms a NURSE in charge of an archeological mission?! The camera isn't affected by quantum shifts?
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Goddammit, @Goldbug! You said Episode 4! This was five!!

Otherwise, heck yeah what an awesome episode. A real, honest to God exploration of the unknown with puzzles to solve and aliens to fight.

It really had me guessing to the end. Except for Goldbug's spoiler, I guess. I even liked Pelia in this one.
 
OK this one is strange indeed.
At first I thought oh it's a planet killer then seeing the ship oh Pakleds...
Humans? That made no sense since they established the scavengers already had raided previous human colonies. So then why would that one scavenger even hesitate when seeing Pike's face??? Oh then there was "too much" debris to use transporters at the end? Riiigght, like that ever stopped them before! They didn't even attempt to save one of them.
 
That reveal didn't really do much for me, either. I thought we were going somewhere with the Gorn/evil balls from last episode.

I enjoyed the clever tease of all the existing TOS characters working together, though I wished we'd gotten an intro scene for Scotty and Kirk. I really didn't like Scotty starting a mutiny almost immediately because Kirk was having a moment - Scotty has just gone through his own version of this, so he should be more understanding.

I'm always worried about Pelia whenever she's onscreen - I keep thinking they're going to do something horrible to get her off the show but I really think she brightens everything around her. Also liked Babs totally breaking holding all those phones and just going with it. I kept thinking right before she broke out all the phones "land lines still make a lot of sense in emergencies..." It would have been helpful, though, if Pelia held the receiver up to Erica's ear so she could pilot with both hands.

Also, highlight from last week: "Do you want a-noth-er for the cam-er-a?" Classic.

This was a cool if ultimately familiar premise - Reavers in Star Trek! - but felt like it didn't get explored enough. And they did all the expo after it was all done so I felt nothing at the reveal or after the fact. I agree, not even rescuing a few felt odd - they are in space suits, they shouldn't instantly die. Did they not even try to hail? Did enjoy seeing that ship literally swallow the Enterprise, though for drama's sake the eaten ship probably should have been the one we know is doomed because clearly the Enterprise will be fine.

So glad to see Una get *something* to do but is Uhura feeling off to anyone else this season? She doesn't feel the same as the past two years.

Annoying note - Pike and La'an leaving their helmets on the cord. You don't know what's going to happen - you could get sucked into space - take your damn helmets! Also - a seatbelt would have prevented Kirk's entire plotline.
 
This episode benefitted from me being annoyed that it was another James Kirk episode, but I was immediately uplifted to see it was him commanding Farragut and not Enterprise. I also felt real joy when I realized it was all the TOS crewmembers working with him. It occurred so naturally, I didn't even notice what was being set up. But hearing Spock call him Captain Kirk, and Kirk saying "Scotty" checked a box I didn't know I had. There's something endearing about his future crew seeing him at his lowest like this that justifies their loyalty to him later.

Still not a fan of Pelia, and they had to go through some hoops to set up the phone and joysticks gag. But since I really liked the bit with just Una's footsteps running from the phone, I guess it paid off.

No complaints here about the aliens/human reveal. It was just a little coda to the main plot and not really the point of it. I'm sure somebody nerdier them I can say whether or not their pre-warp ship should've had the Starfleet Delta symbol on it, though.

I think the change we're noticing in Uhura is an increase in confidence. Starting the series as a cadet learning about the ship for the first time made her a sort of audience insert character, but now she's, like, calming the documentary guy in the face of an alien trap and just taking the helm (for the second time) without comment.
 
I respect the attempt to make this week's episode in a documentary style. For the most part I enjoyed the format with the interviews and cinema verite. The console close-ups got pretty old, though.

As for the story, it suffered a lot from me not being able to keep the names of the aliens straight. The premise was explained just in text, and then I'd keep hearing names and thinking "was that the attacker or the defender? Oh, it's the Mothra?" And then they all just started bluntly calling it "the weapon" like that's what it was supposed to be all along.

Still, a fun concept to frame it under, although I do kind of wish his documentary film was more inclusive of the season. Really get a "this is what Starfleet looks like to civilians" doc that includes footage from his perspective of the wedding or ghost trap ruins or giant scavenger ship.
 
Now that was a fun episode! Oswalt Patton is awesome as always!
I do have some criticisms because some things were overdone.
Vulcans going in heavily armed for a repair job?!
Ugh NO ONE wants to see Spock's so called love life!
They have totally rewritten "nurse" Chappel's role. Is she a doctor or scientist or archaeologist??? Is she a mad scientist?! Geez how many Federation laws did they break by using some sort of experimental serum altering DNA? plus no testing or plan to before injection
Why did the alien species not detect Spock's half human dna? For that matter why did they all have to be Vulcan?! and couldn't Spock have did the repairs himself?
It's a great premise but how they got to be Vulcans was a short cut plot.
 
They had to thread a lot of needles to get to where they wanted the story to be, and I'm not exactly sure where that was.

I thought maybe they were leading up to a sort-of reveal of La'an actually being more of a Romulan throwback and seeding that concept in the days before they actually learn of the ties between Vulcans and Romulans. That would've been something. I feel like they almost got there in the cetacean ops room, but then Spock just blamed her behavior on her Noonien-Singh heritage and then did a little dance. Chapel getting a better understanding of what it was like for Spock was also good, but occurred a season too late.

I really like Rebecca Romjin and she's doing a great job of balancing an authority figure with comedic moments. I'm going to have to look up what happens to the character between the TOS pilot and regular series, because at this moment I'm ready for a Capt. Chin-Riley spin-off series more than another James Kirk series.

Come to think of it, stop putting James Kirk in your show all together. He's had a couple good appearances (I thought the episode where he was commanding the Farragut was great), but those moments are devalued by having him pop in just all the time for stories that don't need him.

And I agree with Goldbug. This is Spock's third girlfriend in three seasons and that's at least one too many. As someone who really enjoyed how the first two developed, I groaned when they started moving him and La'an together. It's just not interesting any more.

I also can't tell what the difference is between a doctor and a nurse any more. I think maybe they're being set up as "away team medics," but that feels more accidental than intentional.
 
I'll be honest, I don't think I can take a whole episode of Ortegas talking to herself.

You guys let me know how it turned out.
 
Fletch said:
I'll be honest, I don't think I can take a whole episode of Ortegas talking to herself.

You guys let me know how it turned out.
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I thought it was a really fantastic episode. As Goldbug noted, she isn't alone!
 
Season 3 finale
Overall, not great. I liked that they went with some big ideas, but they didn't give any of it enough time to percolate. They wanted us the realize that the whole season had just been leading up to this, but they had to settle for Batel explaining (I think) that humans, Ilrians, and Gorn all fought evil?

I think if we'd had two episodes, we could've spent the first one retracing our steps a bit, reframe old discoveries, reconnect with old allies, and generally lay the path that was just summed up in Batel's theorizing and M'benga's wall text. You know, show that M'benga's modifications to the medical transporter for his daughter are what allowed Gamble to escape. Discover the ley lines by their similarities to the Gorn's hyperspace network thingy. Stuff like that.

I really liked the life together that Batel gave her and Pike. That was fun, weird, and a little tense. I would've liked *some* commentary on it, though. I wasn't crazy about the quicky wizard duel at the end, especially when it's framed like "my love will overcome your darkness." Just bad.

I also didn't need a mind meld to explain why Spock and Kirk are friends. I feel like they set that course when they teamed up on the Farragut. And while I'm at it, how weird was it that they planned the whole exercise with Kirk instead of the actual captain. The actor was there, just give her some lines.
 
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