phlebas

I've had a thing for Jess since she got out of the limo in front of Zach. But watching her flounce around in a swimsuit has also engaged my adolescent lizard brain.

But he's 30! This is his last chance to find love before he dies alone!

I wonder how Rachel feels about everyone losing their minds over a former Bachelorette. It'll be interesting if they all freak out about Charity and Katie too.

Just rewatched. Apologies if this has been discussed before, but I couldn't find it here and don't remember it being addressed in the show: - Is Batel a starship captain who moonlights with the JAG office, or is she an attorney who gets to command a Constitution-class starship between cases? The closest parallel I can think of in Trek lore is when Riker had to be the prosecuting attorney against Data in "A Measure of a Man," but that was a) a one-off emergency at a starbase with a skeleton crew, and b) bullshit. And Riker would never have considered that judge to be his boss, but Batel definitely referred to the bald grumpy Spock-hating Vulcan that way. - Batel is prosecuting her boyfriend's first officer. To not recuse herself is some sort of malpractice. Batel is obviously not wholly advocating for the prosecution, judging by the smile she threw at Neera during the asylum argument. I enjoyed the episode, but trying to figure Batel out was a distraction.

Manakin!

I had heard her partner died, but it hadn't clicked it happened right before filming began. What a nightmare. I don't know how much that would change things, though. Sure, she was missing the first few episodes, as was Anson Mount, but if they had already written a whole episode focused on her, they wouldn't have just scrapped it and rewritten it -- they would have just filmed it later and dropped it in wherever it made sense in the broadcast order. But in light of her partner, writing her off the show right after seems a little cruel, unless she wanted it.

I wonder if her musical theater experience is more behind the scenes type work as opposed to being a performer. The few lines she had weren't bad or anything, but nothing really sounded like she was a trained singer. Or maybe I have a tin ear :)

I think SNW/TOS suffers from some of the same problems you had with the Star Wars original series vs the prequel. In some ways, Trek has it worse because we have a lot of the same characters -- it's not like we knew much about Qui Gon in A New Hope. But because in both franchises, the shows/films were not made in chronological order, you have moments where you're explaining things as a new concept after you've established it's common knowledge 10-20 years in the past. Pon farr, for example -- the audience largely knows what pon farr is by now, so re-explaining it would be wasteful. I think that's not so much sloppy writing or canon-breaking as it is storytelling. The occasional "I don't recall ever owning a droid" discontinuity is a little more annoying, but having to restructure your prequel is hardly worth adhering to one throwaway line. Maybe Obi Wan is being coy for reasons of his own? Maybe he's being pedantic because he never really OWNED R2? R2 had his memory wiped in any case, so what does it matter? Resolving Spock's and Chapel's relationship is likely the biggest wrinkle (hmmm... second biggest, after having a Gorn war and then forgetting they exist 10 years later) but it looks like they're working on it. Didn't the OG Chapel get engaged to Roger Korby? And in the musical, we see Spock taking steps to re-establish his Vulcan stoicism. Anyway, one of my favorite things about this show is speculating how this cast will morph into the TOS cast. Does Una get promoted after Pike's injury, but leaves the Enterprise at the same time because she's messed up about her friend? Does she take La'an with her? Navigator Jenna Mitchell has an interesting name -- is she a nod to Gary Mitchell without Gary himself showing up? Does Bones become CMO on the Farragut, then comes over with Kirk? Does M'Benga get demoted in favor of McCoy because of suspicions around that Klingon's murder? When does Sam leave the ship? It would be awkward to have your brother as captain. TL;DR -- It looks like they're trying to stick close enough to canon so they can claim they're in the same universe as TOS, but retaining enough space to wiggle -- no one wants to tell Jess Bush she has to act like Majel Barrett.

It definitely doesn't mean she's dead. She could happily survive the Gorn attack and continue at the helm for the rest of the series. Starfleet is a military organization -- she could get transferred off the ship later. I think it's highly unlikely she's still on the Enterprise in the TOS era. She's the first shift helmsman and, apparently, a war hero. Her being promoted and transferred and Sulu ultimately taking over seems more likely than her getting demoted and moving to the night shift, or becoming a chef or something. The reason I'm assuming someone dies is because they have sort of set Batel up for a good ol' refrigerating, and I'm assuming that's a misdirection. Ortegas lifts out more easily than any other named character on the show. No one dying is probably my backup choice. Having Marie explode from hatching eggs or getting euthanized by Chapel or M'Benga would be pretty dark. All of this may change in my mind if I hear that Melissa Navia or Melanie Scrofano is unhappy with her lack of screen time. Or are traumatized by having to sing.

Latecomer to the thread. Apologies if I touch on things that have been covered already -- I did read through it, but I may have missed some things. I went in thinking Marie was done. She still might be, but I'd kind of like to see a Starfleet captain with a relationship instead of another in a long line of confirmed bachelors and bachelorettes (or tragic widowers). Maybe no one dies. Or maybe... The Gorn made off with four named characters, two of which have some pretty solid plot armor. Sam Kirk and M'Benga both exist (briefly) in TOS, and bumping either off early would be admitting we're in a different or altered timeline from the originals. La'an -- my favorite of the new characters, even if that makes me in the tiny minority around here -- doesn't have plot armor, but we have spent a lot of time developing her this season, and there is still more to mine from the Khan relationship. Having her killed by Gorn after everything she's lived through would be pretty harsh. That leaves Ortegas, who we know nothing about and we know is gone from the ship by the time Kirk takes over, if not sooner. Plus, Boimler called her a "war hero" -- at the time I thought he meant the Klingon War, but what if he meant the Gorn one we're about to start? Maybe she sacrifices herself to save her crewmates and the colonists? That would save production the trouble of giving her a backstory apart from being bitter about Klingons. So that's my bet -- Ortegas ends up in the Great Sideburn Trimmer Chair in the sky. Una takes over as helmsman until they are ready to either give us Sulu or an interim pilot. I have no idea about contract statuses or anything, I understand they were scheduled to start filming season 3 the day after the strike started, so it seems the scripts are done. And SNW is breaking all kinds of streaming records, considering the size of its platform compared to Netflix or Amazon. No way is it canceled after next season. OKay, back into my hole. Gotta go crank up Lower Decks.

Airing from 9-11pm Eastern isn't great either.

I think she was 23 on Colton's season. And she used to do something with interior design, but I guess those days are gone.

Just in time to ruin the tease that she was going on BiP. I read that Hannah Godwin and Dylan got married too.

Yeah, there's a lot that has to be assumed in this timeline. What is now canon from TOS was really made up on the spot in a per episode basis. I think they have more structure now. I do believe there is an agreed-upon Temporal Prime Directive in the SNW timeline for two reasons: - La'an was reviewing it with Boimler at the beginning of Those Old Scientists. Of course our boy Bradward is from the post-TNG era, but seemed to know it verbatim, including when she added her own advice. - When La'an started telling Kirk about it, he said "I'm no fan of rules, but I think you're about to break a big one." To me, that implies a formal Federation/Starfleet directive But I'll grant my interpretations aren't the only possible ones :) Being able to have these obscure arguments is part of the appeal of this franchise. That would have been interesting to see, but I have spent my whole life thinking Gary Seven was a man with no charisma. Good job finding that actor, Gene... I would not have objected to 60s era Teri Garr on my screen more, though.

Interesting. Thanks for that. I hadn't considered the perspective that the time cop wasn't protecting La'an's present, she was protecting her own. The one thing that gives me pause (and which makes these conversations interesting to me) is the existence of the Temporal Prime Directive. Fretting about La'an talking about the possibility of time travel seems incongruous when time travel is well-known enough for there to be rules meant for all members of Starfleet to follow. I'll think on this more when I have not had this much rum :)

I loved both "Tomorrow is Tomorrow is Tomorrow" and "Those Old Scientists," but normally I loathe time travel. The best thing anyone said all season about it was Boimler: "I'm done worrying about the future; I want to help people now."

So why does La'an have to keep quiet about the events in this episode, according to the time cop? Who is she going to tell who might screw up the timeline? Pelia kinda knows, alt.Kirk is dead/never existed anyway, the Romulan agent is dissolved, and Khan quoted Melville into oblivion. I have similar questions about Mariner and Boimler, according the Lower Decks previews. Why can't they talk about "that Pike thing"? If La'an had been kicked forward in time to meet, say, Picard, and then gone back, that would be different. But it seems like they have gotten so used to not talking about time stuff that they forget how grandfather paradoxes work.

I had thought Christina Mandrell was coming. She mght have been entertaining. And you idiot dude-bros keep your mitts off Jess. I called dibs.

All of the Bachelor podcasts I listen to cannot stop singing Charity's praises, and I am sorry, I do not get it. Yes, she's beautiful and she seems like a really nice person, but I never found anything about her that popped off the screen. It seems like the people who are saying this are also saying she might be bumping Hannah Brown off the top spot for their favorite lead. Hannah also seems nice, but good god her season was frustrating. But what do I know? I kinda liked Katie.

The first time I typed Dotun's name into my phone, it autocorrected to Donut and he's been that way ever since. Made Charity seem like she was addicted to carbs.

Good for them. I thought Dylan had out-kicked his coverage, but I guess she sees something in him.

Chronitons. Or maybe a warp field inversion during a gravimetric flux. Or maybe there's an arboretum.

I think that's an interesting point, and I'm wondering now how much of that is to show an obvious maturing from PeckSpock to NimoySpock. Apart from Amock Time, NimoySpock only gets to let his hair down when he's sprayed with spores on the Amish planet or possessed by the Medusan or Sargon*. (* I just realized -- Diana Muldaur walking on the set meant Nimoy was getting to smile on camera.) Now PeckSpock is experimenting with letting his emotions out, sort of like young humans experiment with acid or Communism. And he got burned, like young humans experimenting with meth: "Convinced myself we shared the same feelings / I won't make that mistake again" Which he doesn't, as we see throughout the rest of Spock's life outside the Kelvin timeline. (Speaking of which, I guess he could start something up with Uhura to sort of bridge things there. At least that would rob the relationship of the creepy instructor/student vibe, but could introduce some problems with dating a superior officer.) Anyway. I'm babbling. I thought the OP had a good point :) (ETA: Also, I wonder if Ethan/Production is somewhat reimagining Spock after retconning him a human sibling around during his childhood.)

Yeah, Jason posted a standard breakup message. Poor guy has to pay full price for wine now

I'm fully on board with more musical episodes. La'an's song was great. I've had a low-key crush on Christina Chong for some time, which recently exploded into a proper obsession. More more more. I only regret they didn't do one of these in Game of Thrones.