salaydouk

I can't say I disagree, but I think that in the case of SNW and focusing on this era is a complete fluke. This series exists for one reason and one reason only - Anson Mount and his portrayal of Captain Pike(who honestly was not properly "mined" up till now.) The fan reaction was uniform in praise and volume(both amount and noise) that Paramount, seeing the $$$, really had no choice but to greenlight this series and remain "stuck" in the same time windows as previously introduced. Now while I enjoyed this episode and enjoyed the Freaky Friday element, a few things came to mind: Wasn't the aspect of the R'ongovians imitating whomever they were interacting with, a slight rehash of TNG episode Liasions? Since when are civilians allowed to walk unescorted aboard a military ship? I mean why wasn't Spock at the transporter room to greet T'Pring when she came aboard? Even the R'ongovians appear to have walked out of the last negotiation meeting unescorted to the Bridge( the conference/ready room only exits is to the bridge.) The first time we see them La'an escorts them in, but after that nada. While I can understand that Spock has his insecurities about being half human, I am a bit disturbed that they seem to be writing T'Pring as being prejudice?!?! I mean the comments about Spock's quarters being too "human" and that "being in Starfleet is making him behave in a manner that is so human." What was that about? Why would you say that to someone who is half-human? Was that some sort of passive-aggressive swipe because of her perception that Spock puts Starfleet ahead of her? Or is that in fact betraying how she really feels about humanity? If it is the latter, then why would she want to be with a person who is half human? Why would someone that is half human want to be with her? And yeah yeah yeah I get that they were bonded as children but that doesn't mean they have to be in an "actual" relationship. Also why would T'Pring's parents, if they had the same prejudice, agree to bond their daughter to Spock in the first place? And how does T'Pring to develop the prejudice independently while knowing all her life she would eventually marry a half-Vulcan/half-human? Resentment of her parents? Was she teased as a child as well because she was to marry the half-human? Loved that they brought in the green jacket for Pike, but is it me or did it look a bit sloppy? All of the other uniforms look fitted and sharp but this one looked too loose like Pike just got out of Martial Arts class. That said the color was fabulous and loved the leather shoulders/arms.

But didn't you know, scars are sexy. 🤣

I thought Data just stopped giving a timer countdown including the seconds because he had discovered that humans don't care about the seconds

Oh please go ahead and judge it makes life fun. 😁 And you're right Nimoy did say "phenomena". Maybe the universal translator was "on the fritz", which would make sense the ship was damaged and all, and mis-translated. 😂 Now the counter would be of course that Spock had a human mother and a father was a diplomat assigned to Earth - so he should be able to speak "Federation Standard" fluently with no issues so why would he need the universal translator. And the response to that would be he was educated on Vulcan and presumably in a Vulcan Language and as a result technical science conversations would be very difficult for him to have in "Federation Standard". So I would "get" why he would use the universal translator. We could go round and round on this. 🙃

Yeah but I am currently still trying wrap my head around "the Torpedo Bay was hit in the attack" and how the ship is still in existence... I mean the torpedoes are armed with anti-matter in a chamber right? So if the chamber is blown apart doesn't matter and anti-matter combine for a nice giant explosion? Now it is very possible that since the Enterprise was just attacked the majority of the torpedos were not "hot" and so did not have the antimatter chamber inside. But it would be reasonable to assume, based on conditions on that planet and despite the fact that we did not hear the command, that at least 1-2 torpedos had been prepped/loaded and more should have been in process as the attack progressed. So I am actually not sure how they are all still alive.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, with the note that it applies to North American English, and to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, an acceptable plural form for Phenomenon is in fact Phenomenons. Now I would not personally use it and currently even this site's spell checker is telling me the spelling is wrong, but if both dictionaries are telling me it is an okay variant who am I to judge. What I think is more interesting is the way that Ethan Peck pronounced the word "sensor" for this entire episode, He is saying it in the same manner that Leonard Nimoy did. If urban legion is to be believed Nimoy said "sensOARS" instead of normal American "senSERS" to avoid his Boston accent coming out. That attention to detail allows me to forgive his usage of "phenomenons". :) Regarding mispronunciations not getting caught, that is really going to depend on who is being filmed, who is around, and who is filming. In this same episode, to me, La'an pronounced the word "resources" is a really strange way - it seemed she said it closer to the Canadian way instead of the US/American or British way. It would have made total sense for her to say it the British way since, Chong herself is British, and it seems like the character is being played as British, but she didn't and it should have been caught. But since the cast is primarily US/American they would assumed the different pronunciation was correct for her accent and the Canadian film crew would not have blinked because to them she was saying it the way they themselves did.

I very much agree with this as well. From the first 4 episodes of SNW it seems the show is really attempting to "draw" Pike as a "full" human being instead of playing an archetype. It seems that they are going to allow us to see all sides of him - his control, confidence, vulnerability, pain, happiness, relief, and sadness. And we are going see him fulfill his full role as captain for his senior staff(which is actually quite junior) and crew - to hold complete command of his ship, collaborating to find solutions, taking advice from his staff, and training of his crew - via encouraging and reprimanding. For me it seems that this show is going to provide us with such an intimate character study of Pike, that when the training accident occurs(if we get to see it) that we are all going to be left completely devastated. But that would be fitting since we, the fans, literally willed this show into existence because of the strong positive reaction we had for Anson Mount as Pike, it will be the show's "revenge" on us - give us this awesome fully realized character that we love and then pull the rug out from under us. All that said, what I still wonder is if it is the show, ie TPTB, that are giving us this full character or is it just how amazing Anson Mount is and the decisions/choices that he is making for his character when he is filming? I mean his facial expression movement from despair/sadness to relief/happiness when he though Hemmer/Uhura were dead to when they were alive was freaking unbelievable. He wasn't over the top the reactions were all normal but extremely subtle. Just perfection, imo.

"If I recall, you have an interest in archeological medicine. How good are you at sewing?" Just classic....

Agreed... But as some showrunners love to remind all of us... what we see in a season is not necessary one calendar year. 🙃

Agree. I still think that there would still be something that would pop up in a physical, but perhaps you would have to look really hard to find it. Her bio-engineering might be so good someone would have to be suspicious of her to make him/her take a deeper dive. And I know you said for "discussion's sake" and Kirk making Captain at ~30... but normally in reality to make full Commander it takes just over 20 years if you are an Academy graduate and if this play on Una being Enlisted plays out, since La'an calls her Chief, then in reality it would have taken her even longer. Since ST canon seems to skew the lines on promotion( ala Harry Kim was an ensign for 7 seasons which would never happen) so who knows what they are actually going to set her age to, but she would have to have been fooling everyone for a _very_ long time.

Well she looks human right? So if she said she was human why would anyone assume she wasn't from Earth or one her colonies? If this was a matter of secret enemy attempting to infiltrate, you better believe the enemy would have created a full backstopped cover story for the person doing the infiltrating. So if anyone checked, it would have all comeback clean. Security Clearance is the only point where the military would really care to confirm anything - because that is when you start to have access to material that if placed in enemy hands could cause trouble. Before that you don't know a darn thing aside from what was your most recent order/assigned task. And about all you can do is kill your immediate co-workers or blow up something outside of a security zone on base - so you kill a few hundred servicemen/woman the upper brass does not care it is peanuts to them. And returning to your case of an infiltrator, you can bet the ranch, that his/her task is acquire sensitive information over a long duration and to never be caught - so killing your immediate co-workers, unless your protecting your cover, is a no-no and the same goes for blowing something up on base.

The medical scans is where you can be looking - even if Una was modified to pass as human there should be something there to find. You might have to really look but it would be there. Regarding your point about checking family tree or history - good point but no they wouldn't necessary check. If she enlisted in Starfleet then basically she would have signed a contract to be "in" for some number of years and then had a medical physical and perhaps a psychological one. If she passed both, bam she is in Starfleet and off to boot camp she goes. If she applied for Starfleet Academy, this would be akin to applying to university aside from the needed medical physical and psychological tests. If she was accepted and graduated she would be in Starfleet. Starfleet isn't going to care who her parents/family/history are in either case - militaries don't care one whit where you come from so long as you can shoot your weapon and kill your enemy. (Sorry I know that is pretty blunt but that is the reality.) When Starfleet would care to know her background would be if she was to be given Security Clearance - then those checks for family/friends/personal history would start and that is when questions would start to be asked. Since Una is a full Commander and the ship's XO, she would definitely have Security Clearance and a pretty high one at that - so how could she have passed them and not been discovered has to lead to there being a big backstory they will unspool on us later.

The Picard jacket that you are referring to is what became Picard's "second uniform." It appeared to be a red body/black shoulder suede jacket that he wore over a blue-gray body/black shouldered shirt. I believe its first appearance was Darmok, but it was worn several times from that point on even while he was aboard the Enterprise. To the best of my knowledge, Picard has been the only person to ever appear with this uniform style so it gave rise to the idea that it was Picard's "second captain's" uniform ala Kirk's green wrap around tunic. So it really wasn't an Away Team jacket. From a prop department stand point it might have started out that way, but it didn't end up that way. The Away Team jackets seen in this episode, are more equivalent to the jackets seen in TOS "The Cage"/"The Menagerie" or on ST ENT.

I thought it was... La'an was close enough to Una when they both had Radiation Poisoning and Una's body fought of the radiation poisoning it registered the "light disease" as well fought that too. And so La'an had "sympathy" immune reaction( chimeric antibodies) and they used her blood's antibodies to create the antidote. Nothing came from Una as she destroys her antibodies once the infection is killed off. Which to me was a lot of mumbo jumbo handwaving not real way to get a cure to end the episode in under 5 mins.

So is your line of thinking that the Illyrians have modified themselves to the point that they genetically pass as human? If so interesting thought, I can roll with that... But just to poke on that idea, then how would M'Benga known how her immune system would response to a virus, ie burn it out. That would imply there is still a way to scan an Illyrian to tell the difference?!?! But to return to your point, Una seemed to submit to M'Benga's medical once over and let him draw blood too easily and without protest. So that would imply your idea is spot on... must ruminate.

Okay I liked the episode... and my first thought ran to this episode is this show's "The Naked Time"/"The Naked Now". That said...hmm... Una is an Illyrian... okay so please tell me how Starfleet and specifically Starfleet Medical doesn't know well before this? As stated in this episode she enlisted in Starfleet, which would explain why La'an calls her Chief, she would have to have a medical physical and it would have been discovered that she was an Illyrian. Starfleet would have assume she had some amount of genetic manipulation done and rejected her. If she did not enlist and went to the Academy, then lets forget about the requirements for someone from a non-Federation world to get into the Academy as outlined in DS9 for Nog and that she passed herself off as human, again she would still have to have a medical physical and it would again registered her as an Illyrian. And as such, with assumed genetic manipulation, been flat out rejected for admission to the Academy... So if she managed to fool Starfleet Medical all those years... wow! And man this episode is giving me "Gattaca" Valid and Invalid vibes! Now after watching this episode and reminded of the Federation ban on genetic manipulation... wouldn't that rule have applied to what Nurse Chapel did to the Pike/Spock/La'an in the pilot episode -temporary genetic manipulation is still genetic manipulation, no? How was that research allowed? Also it is very difficult to achieve the rank of full Commander if you started out as enlisted and you held every enlisted rank. (Since La'an is calling Una "Chief", it means she held at least 7 out of 9(using US Navy as a reference) of them before going through any special process to earn a commission and become an officer.) It can be/has been done, but it is very very rare and the individual is usually exceptional. So by having Una go from Enlisted to Officer, this is creating possibly even more interesting backstories for the character that I don't know if the show even realizes it is doing...

Side?!? Whole snark works for me!

Don't forget I will make for you his famous Aubergine Stew - Sisko or You don't like Beets -Sisko And though she had to have replicated it, I just have to give an honorable mention to Kelp buds, plankton loaf and sea berries - Keiko O'Brien

Don't disagree, especially about the actors relationships off screen - hello Shatner and Takei and Ryan and the entire Voyager cast. However regarding on-screen relationships and there being no conflicts/interpersonal relationship issues - this was an explicit desire of Roddenberry's and is the very thing for which DS9 was derided. On screen I am personally okay with TPTB showing the characters running the whole gambit from loathing to BFF as long as they don't flip flop from one episode to the next. As for off screen I couldn't care less what goes on... But regarding mentions of other CO/XO relationships, it was extremely rare for Spock to reference Kirk by first name( I believe it could only be a handful of times with the most obvious being the end of Amok Time), I am pretty certain that Kira never called Sisko "Ben" and rarely even called him the Emissary directly to his face( and if you flip it I don't believe Sisko ever called her Nerys), and I don't think Chakotay ever used Janaway's first name as well but I am not so sure about this one. So while all of those relationships were close the formality was never dropped. Here the CO/XO formality is explicitly being shown to be dropped under certain circumstances which is interesting from a characterization standpoint and it will be interesting where they go with it.

In addition, I think this scene was also intended to show just how past Pike and Una are from a standard CO/XO the relationship. It is already canon, both stated here and in Disco, that she was his long time XO but there has not been much beyond that. ( I believe all the non-platonic stuff is non-canon.) This scene shows just how much of a personal friendship two of them have - when it is just the two of them the formality of the CO/XO relationship is dropped, first names are used, and items of more personal nature are discussed - though I will say they _are_ walking a very fine line here. In fact the whole dinner scene also confirmed what we saw on Disco and showed us that Pike runs his ship like a "family"- Una/Ortegas were making drinks, Hemmer was cutting vegetables, and Spock was setting the table. Which was apparently taken from Mount's own personality from him encouraging group discussion and inclusion during table reads/rehearsals.

Yeah... I was re-watching and agree those long sideburns are just weird especially since to me it looks like make up and not real hair. Which if true is made all the more comical because Spock constantly looks like he has a five o'clock shadow so it doesn't have to be makeup. And it just looks childish in comparison to the very awesome, imo, sideburns that Anson Mount is sporting. But I just keep saying to myself if these are my complaints so far with this series, I can deal.... I would have thought he would just place the dirty dishes back in the replicator. ;) And yes in current times the captain would have a steward responsible for meal prep while at sea. But with replicator technology that position was probably eliminated. So if the Captain wants to cook then it would follow that he has to clean up after himself. Agreed... it certainly appears that they are going to go this route. But if they go the route to use characterization to drive long term story arcs embedded into/through several standalone episodes and then have those long term story arcs converged into one or two episodes I will be totally on board!

I am not sure how I feel about Ethan Peck as Spock yet - sometimes I see it and some times I don't. But to be fair I think part of my issue is that I think Zachary Quito is a better match to Nimoy both visually and behaviorally. So he is fighting not only Nimoy's iconic portrayal but also the portrayal done by a contemporary who, imo, "nailed it." He is the only actor on this show facing that kind of massive uphill battle, so I am going to give him some leeway to see if "settles in" to the role before I get a bit snarky on him. What I am really having a hard time with is the hair/makeup for Spock. Because his bangs/fringe seems different from scene to scene even within the same episode. Also they are not doing a very good job, especially in this episode, with covering Peck's human eyebrow downslope section and it is visible to me at the same time as the makeup supplied Vulcan upslope section. Overall not a big deal but it is distracting enough for me to see the actor and not the character.

Like someone has already stated... Aenar a subspecies of Andorian and live in even more extreme climate areas of the planet as a result are all blind. But from what we were told on ST:Enterprise is that the Aenar seclude themselves from the general Andorian population and are total pacifists. From the episode "Aenar" it was implied that once an Aenar left and joined the greater society that they were no longer able to return, no? And even if an Aenar could return as long as the pacifism was maintain, I would not think that applied to Hemmer since he became a member of Starfleet and presumably had taken part if the Federation/Klingon war. So either they are planning on telling a great background story for why Hemmer left the Aenar/Andoria or TPTB are going to ret-con the Aenar. 🙄 As for Pike, you totally right he is not in the correct mental state to be in command. However given that the events surrounding his last command are classified to all but the highest echelons of Starfleet and the fact that Pike might not have disclosed the personal items, ie the knowledge of his future accident, of what happened on Borath to Starfleet, no is likely not aware of the gravity of the problem. If Pike simply informed Adm April that he needed time to decompress because the last mission was "difficult" and requested leave. Once the request was granted on one would have questioned Pike further. But what IS interesting is obliviously Una and Spock know all the details and both need to be questioning if Pike is fit to command. So I am wondering if they both are "holding on to this card" for now and if a future episode is going to involve Una as XO attempting to relieve Pike of command. Also I am wondering if M'Benga knows the details as well - I would think so since he is the CMO - but it could be that Una will need "read him in" at some point.

Me too! Love the fireplace and that grill!

Go back to TNG "Encounter at Farpoint", this exact point was covered during Picard/Riker's first meeting. Riker _effectively_ told Picard that Away Missions were off-limits to him for safety reasons. And you will notice that in the 7 years the show ran, Picard was almost never off the Enterprise and when he did want to be on the Away Team there was always a "discussion" about it between the two of them. For ST TOS, because of the show's star billing, etc, that was the reason way Kirk, Spock, and McCoy were nearly always on the landing party. But that was a function of Hollywood and not reality. In reality a ship's captain will rarely leave the ship if she is at sea. (Side note, this was also done on DS9 with Sisko going out on the Defiant - as the Captain of DS9 he should have remained on DS9 and the original plan to have Worf captain the Defiant would have been more accurate. ) So for me I have always wondered if TPTB would ever make it official that Starfleet policies changed between the 23rd Century when officers were allowed to be more like "space cowboys" and the 24th Century when officers had to run the ship in a more disciplined manner.