historylover820

You'd think that TOS didn't know about Spock/Chapel :D Everything else in SNW, I'm completely fine with in terms of TOS canon. I don't care if they want to introduce JTK before he takes command of the Enterprise. I'm fine with this. I'm fine with the little inconsistencies. I'm OK with Spock being more human in this one. But, I can't reconcile myself to Spock/Chapel, except by saying that this is an alternate timeline. The only explanation is that you've got two attractive actors, and there has to be a love story. And there's canon relating to Chapel having an unrequited crush on Spock.

Isn't there a TNG episode where Crusher is concerned that Picard has a headache because headaches are so unbelievably rare? Or did I imagine that? I know SNW is around 80-85 years before TNG, and it would be baffling to suddenly have an outbreak of Smallpox in today's society.

They should at least drop a line about Boyce. But, he's in the events of The Cage, which is in the past in SNW's events (as in, it's already happened). So, since he's not the CMO during SNW, he's not going to be in the future.

I'll come back and read your responses above after I post. But, wanted to get some quick thoughts down. I... wasn't all that crazy about this episode. 1. I don't know what the "To Be Continued" is trying to accomplish. Here's the problem with prequels: you know what's going to happen to some characters, so some tension goes out of it. Of course M'Benga and Sam survive this. How do I know? They appear at least once in TOS. I know she wasn't in the "To Be Continued, and her thing was before this, but I wasn't worried about Chapel. Why? She's in TOS. Clear up to The Voyage Home, in fact. Now, granted, La'an and Ortegas aren't in TOS, so who knows their fates right now. 2. We did Alien last year, so we're doing Aliens 3 this year? 3. Nice to see you, Montgomery Scott. Please replace Pelia soon on the Enterprise, because, interestingly, the accent that Carol Kane has used all season is like fingernails on a chalk board to me. And since he's on the Enterprise, let's get him going as Chief Engineer! 4. So, Scotty, Uhura, and Spock have seen Gorn. Scotty even managed to rig up a trap. Spock killed a Gorn. Why were they strangely silent in Arena? I know Kirk wasn't going to listen to anybody, but they could have at least tried. (Again, the problem with prequels) 5. So, when are we getting Sulu and McCoy to make an appearance? (Chekhov is just an ensign in season 2 of TOS, so he would probably be a teenager in Russia at this point. Although I love the idea that Walter Koenig had as to why Khan remembers him in WoK. Chekhov kept Khan waiting for a bathroom, and when Chekhov came out, he told Khan that it was broken and go somewhere else. Khan swore that he would never forget him.) 6. Batel's so much of a goner that they are going to come up with some miracle to save her, if and when we ever get a third season premiere.

It is. It's the same tune slowed down and in a different key. It's a "dark reprise."

No kidding! Kirk's cabin on TOS is a quarter of the size of Pike's!

Exactly! Klingons singing K-Pop is anything but honorable. I mean, I don't like K-Pop. I'm way too old to understand K-Pop. But, this is beyond dishonorable for Klingons. Opera would be honorable for a Klingon. I watched this episode again just a few minutes ago, because I HAD to see this scene again. Like I said last night, I haven't been very happy lately, and I didn't know that I needed Klingons signing and dancing to K-Pop, but I now do know that's what I needed.

Regarding the TOS canon -- I'm happiest if I think of SNW as part of an alternative universe than TOS. But I did like the sprinkling of TOS canon in this one. It's been a while since I've seen WoK, but I'm very sure Kirk knew about David. David didn't know about Kirk (or he did know about Kirk and didn't want anything to do with him). Carol asked Kirk to stay away due to his career. I think I'm remembering it right. Probably give me an excuse to pull out my blu-ray. Regarding Chapel/Spock's breakup-- This relationship was my biggest issue about tying SNW into TOS. And it still is. But, it's clear that Spock, ironically, was more emotionally invested in the relationship than Chapel was. Chapel seemed to act like it was a fling. I don't think Spock understood that. Spock has kind of been dragged through the wringer this season. Becomes human, broke up with T'Pring (which wasn't emotional, it was logical). What I saw from Chapel is not necessarily cold, unfeeling, or a jerk. She was also told a couple episodes ago that her and Spock don't end up together, and she wanted some time to deal with her feelings about the war, while someone who never experienced war is trying to get her to talk. I also just saw that she's wanting to move on, to take this new opportunity. Interestingly she gets involved with Korby and comes whimpering back to the Enterprise and begins pining for Spock again while pining for Korby (well, for one episode). Although, I haven't reconciled how JB's Christine Chapel leads into MB's Christine Chapel. I can kind of see how CRG's Uhura becomes NN's Uhura, due to Uhura's fleshed out background, wanting to belong, working on the flagship.

Put me on the side of having a blast with this episode. I'm a musical girl anyways. I can't sing a note, but I love musicals. And I'm impressed with those who can sing. I knew Christina Chong had a great voice, but wow, Celie Rose Gooding -- Brava! I think she's the daughter of a big time Broadway star (and she's also done Broadway), so impressive. But, I also liked Ethan Peck's voice. Also caught the shout-outs to Buffy's OMWF. "I got a theory." And of course, bunnies. And I'm so glad La'an maybe can get over Kirk. I still hate that episode, so if we can get over Tomorrow and Tomorrow.... the happier I think everyone can be. I'm glad that Kirk was nixed the idea of a relationship with her in the bud, although admitting that he likes her. Of course, we know his relationship with Carol doesn't work out, and, of course, we know what happens to David. (And, yes, glad Paul Wesley is a better singer than William Shatner). But, I loved Private Conversation. However, the best thing ever was Klingons doing K-Pop. Work has been stressful, and I haven't been very happy lately. Klingons doing K-Pop made me very happy. And I was just down for a fun time and I can just put aside my stress for an hour. But, wow, feeling tonal whiplash again from that trailer.

I do agree with this. And, yeah, police stations have counselors today. Mental health is important in today's society. Heck, even MASH, set in the Korean War, had an army psychiatrist as a recurring character. How did the idea of mental health issues go from today's world where mental health issues are getting more and more normalized to 200 years from now that there's nothing, then back about 75-80 years later to where the counselor sits in the seat by the captain?

I agree with this. Regarding Pike's actions: there really is no right or wrong. I disagree with his actions of making his war vets dine with a person who they will always see as an enemy. But, this is the actions of a flawed individual. M'Benga is in the wrong with his actions of killing Rah, although it really could have been self-defense (which would have made it at least justified). Rah's actions triggered M'Benga's PTSD. I do think Rah was genuinely trying to bring the Federation and the Empire together, although he was probably doing this the wrong way. I agree, I just see this episode as dark and the characters as flawed, not as an indictment of America. Personal confession: I'm ashamed to admit this, but I've suffered from a mild case of PTSD in my past. I still suffer from anxiety. I'm ashamed of my PTSD because I feel I didn't do anything to warrant it. Meaning, I'm not a soldier, I didn't see war, I didn't serve, I didn't see violence. I was traumatized by first a near miss of a car wreck, and I witnessed the driver being killed, and then a couple years later, I got sick to the point where I was in the hospital for a week and was in recovery for 6 months and nearly died. The near miss was 20 years ago, the sickness was 15 years ago. I've had therapy to manage dealing with the trauma. I'm not on any medications or anything, and, usually, things are fine. But, you can't just turn it off. Suck it up. Deal with it. With my anxiety, I've been told to not think about it. If I could stop thinking about it, don't you think I would? So, I can sympathize with the war vets here. OK, maybe they can handle being in the same room as this Klingon general. It's only for an evening. The captain didn't really order their presence, but it's pretty clear that it could become an order. Plus, the captain is a good cook, and they don't want to eat stuff from the replicators. But, it's still not fair that they have to go through that. It's sad that there are no counselors on starships during this time to give the counseling that these war vets obviously need.

Thanks. It's been a while since I've dug out my TOS DVDs and I forgot.

M'Benga is on Kirk's Enterprise as a Vulcan specialist working under McCoy. He's in two episodes, I think. I think he's on the episode where Sam Kirk is on.

I think that's the main problem. I didn't like the season opener, and I hated the La'an/Kirk time travel episode. Those two episodes make up 1/5 of the season's run time, 20% of the season. And, while my obsession with Anson Mount is also mostly tongue-in-cheek, and I understand the real life reason why his decreased time on screen (and I can respect it), he is the leading actor, he is billed first, and his sidelining wouldn't be as evident in a 22 episode season. But it is in a season with half of the episodes. Yeah, there is so much less room for error, and even though this is more of an episodic series, if you miss one episode, you still miss something important.

The ones saying that we're now watching DISCO -- Maybe tone wise. Still every single character is lightyears more interesting and just plain better than Michael, no matter what. And count me in as someone who hopes this musical episode is more like Buffy's OMWF. That was both so funny (They got the mustard out!) but also really hit some dark overarching things, like Buffy admitting that she was in Heaven and not in Hell. Yeah, I want this one to drive the plot and not be a lightweight throwaway episode.

I wanted to let you know that I love everything about this post! Look, I still love Pike. As I said, he's my favorite Star Trek captain. But, I can be disappointed with the way he was written in this one, although I liked this episode a lot. Now that you mention it, that would have been brilliant.

I'm now very interested to see what Ortegas did in the war. So, don't get me wrong--Pike is actually my favorite Star Trek captain now, and I like that he's written that he's not perfect. And I'll forgive him for this episode's insensitivity. And I get that it's from higher ups at Starfleet ordering the formal dinner. "Make this ambassador feel welcome." But, it's a little much to ask his crew who are war vets to do this. And even though he "asked" them, he made it clear that this was an order. As I said (and others have said), a ship the size of the Enterprise HAS to have more crew than the senior officers. So, give the war vets leave for this mission and not make them confront these memories against their wills. Like they kept emphasizing, no one knows war unless they have experienced it. So I understand Pike's insensitivity. I do. Pike didn't know morale was low until Una told him about it. How did he miss that? Yeah, he made the decision to shorten the journey after he had to be told "morale is low." But, here's an equivalent of it: I have my Masters degree in World War II, so I'm going to use this hypothetical situation as an example. (I probably have forgotten more than I ever learned about WWII, though.) You can use an example from any other of our real life wars if you want. Let's say that it's 1950, and you're the captain of a peace time squadron. You actually didn't fight in WWII, due to just quirks of orders and placements. However, you are now serving on the U.S. base in Tokyo, and you have Pearl Harbor survivors who are serving underneath you. You get orders from the brass that you have to have a dinner with a Japanese general who is involved with helping the U.S. rebuild Japan. However, this Japanese general was also one of them in charge of some horrific POW camps in Japan. Do you make your Pearl Harbor survivors go to the dinner that is being held? Again, hypothetical situation. Any resemblance to any actual event would be absolutely amazing and I would wonder if I were psychic or something. But it struck me as about the same thing.

I was not expecting that! I didn't care much for the season premiere, and I was a little bit on the side of "Well, I'll watch, because I'm watching this show." I mostly really liked it, though. The acting was awesome, and I'm someone who usually can take or leave the actor who plays M'Benga. But, I really felt for him. But, count me in as someone who was disappointed with Pike's utter insensitivity to his crew who were war vets. Forcing them to dinner with a war criminal is absurd. I agree with the above who said that a ship the size of the Enterprise should have more than one doctor, nurse, and helmsman, and these three should have been given a pass. And I understand the desire to put on a unified front, but even if Pike wasn't in the war, he would have had friends, colleagues, superiors, etc, who did fight in the war and should have some understanding of why is crew who are war vets may not want to fraternize with a Klingon war criminal, even if the Federation is trotting him out. I actually kept thinking that Rah was up to something, and I was partly right. But, except for Worf, I side with the words of another Enterprise captain: "I have never trusted Klingons, and I never will." But, I was absolutely not expecting M'Benga to have done that! Usually I'm very good at predicting twists, but I wasn't expecting that. Maybe I need to rewatch it, and I like the theory that Rah committed suicide, but I think M'Benga killed him outright. I don't think it was planned. I think it was Rah placing his hand on him that triggered it. And, yeah, I don't know if Pike is suspicious. And I don't know if Chapel knows the extent of this. And I kind of like that ambiguity. However, after that heaviness, I'm actually someone who is going "I can't wait for the musical episode!"

Does anyone know why this episode dropped very early? Confession time: I've never seen an episode of Lower Decks. I've heard about it, but I've never seen it. But I don't think not seeing it proved to be a detriment. Because I'm going "WTH?" along with the Enterprise crew. They don't know these two crew members, and neither do I. I laughed at Pike being known for his hair. I also kind of laughed at Boimler being very confused at this version of Spock, because he was giving voice to some of our complaints. I thought it was fun. Loved the animated credits. The Enterprise crew being animated was also fun and pretty clever. I laughed at the Riker maneuver. Apparently the actor threw it in and it made Jonathan Frakes laugh. So, they kept it in. I do know, because I recognize his voice, Ransom (is that his name? The one who said Una was the hottest babe in Starfleet), is voiced by Jerry O'Connell, who is the husband of Rebecca Romijn. I see that a musical episode is coming up. Count me in as someone who would much prefer watching this episode or a musical more than any "Let's bring in the Gorn as our mortal enemies!" episode, and way over time travel shenanigans with La'an and Kirk. Bring on the musical! (And I do see it's in two weeks)

Yeah, I remembered that 5 minutes after I posted. :D

Wasn't there a character on Voyager who loved like 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s movies? I'm blanking out on his name. Of course, I never watched Voyager. I'm someone who loves movies that are turning 100 years old now. I love silent movies. It's not unheard of.

Join me in those who liked this one. Can I have a seat? Not entirely sure we needed Kirk in this one (and I agree -- James Kirk can only be "Kirk." George Samuel Kirk is "Sam." Sorry, Sam.) But the more I see Paul Wesley, the more I like him. Even though I kind of hated Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. But I like him. And I have absolutely no issues with Kirk and Pike meeting now. Even though, yes, not sure why a temporary Fleet Commander. I've heard of battlefield promotions, but this wasn't battlefield. Not really. But, the meeting is absolutely valid and doesn't muck up canon (although, I did say last week that I've given up tying SNW into TOS). I'm OK with both Una and Uhura dealing with their grief over Hemmer now (and, boy, that appearance of zombie Hemmer in the turbolift--talk about a jump scare! I about hit the ceiling! Una was now thrown in to deal with Pelia (who, I agree above -- she didn't completely annoy me. But I still hate the accent Carol Kane is putting on), and she's needing to get over her grudge against getting the C on her paper and dealing with the loss of her friend. Plus, Una's been a little busy since Hemmer's death. Uhura obviously hasn't dealt well with death in the past and it manifests itself now. Yeah, it has flaws. Again, I'm not entirely sure we needed Kirk in the mix, particularly since we never see the Farragut, but I liked him being there. Eh. We still have phrases like "put the cart before the horse" and "sleep tight." Historical phrases that are in every day language that are not longer current. These kinds of things don't bother me.

Gene Roddenberry would agree with you who say that Starfleet isn't a military organization, but its explorers and scientists. And he hated Nicholas Meyer flat out making it military, down to the uniforms, in WoK. However, you have military ranks (Captain, Commander, Lieutenant, etc). Your ship has weapons. Kirk says that he's more of a soldier than a diplomat in one episode. There are several episodes all across Trek that has the crew gearing up for battle. However, not every commander is rigid and formal. Pike is much more casual and informal. He's more of a "father to his men." I'm betting if his crew goes too far out of line that he would be able to discipline them. Or he can probably go "I'm the Captain. You do what I tell you" pretty easily. When he was on Discovery, when he first gathers the officers of the Discovery together, he tells them that he encourages ideas, that he doesn't know everything, so feel free to advise. But the ultimate decision is his. And he has an open door policy. Of course, I'm paraphrasing. I think his leadership style is just as valid if he has officers that he trusts and he knows trust him.

Yeah, I thought Pike was taking the approach of "This is uncomfortable. I'm going to pretend I'm not here." Until he had to buy some time for Spock. For the record -- My relationship with Star Trek isn't really that comprehensive. I'm completely a TOS girl, my favorite character is Bones. to the point where I will watch DeForest Kelley in ANYTHING. I've seen Night of the Lepus TWICE. I've seen TAS. I've seen all the movies. I don't know if I've seen all of TNG. If I haven't seen every episode of TNG, I've seen most of them. I could probably talk TNG with the best of them. I have not seen DS9, Voyager, or Enterprise. My knowledge from them comes from reviews. Nu-Trek? I watched season 1 of Picard until about episode 5 and went "I'm done!" I came back for Picard for season 3 and had fun with the 'Member Berries. I watched the first two seasons of Discovery because I liked the supporting characters. I've mentioned before how much I hate Michael and hit the ceiling when it was revealed that she was his foster sister because it made me go "Well, not the first quasi-sibling of Spock's that we didn't know about." I stuck through Discovery through its third season, hoping Michael might grow on me. She didn't, and I ran away from it. I've never seen Lower Decks or Prodigy. So, having said that, I think this was the best episode this season. I really had fun with this episode. And, yes, I didn't catch Korby being referenced. Thanks for those who corrected me, and I apologize for my mistake. However, I'm still going "This won't never connect to TOS, but you keep giving me episodes like this, I don't care." This was so much fun.

I liked it, but I think I'm with most of you -- this isn't a prequel to TOS. It can't be. It's an AU. Because there's no way that TOS and SNW fits together with the Spock/Chapel relationship. Korby doesn't exist, and the Spock/Chapel relationship isn't doomed by canon. Why? Because this is AU, like the Kelvin Universe. It actually does make more sense for it to be in the Kelvin Universe than the Prime Universe anyways. This explanation also factors in Discovery, although I still hate Discovery. And reconciling myself to this being AU made me really enjoy this episode. I had fun. And I liked Ethan Peck when he and Anson Mount appeared on Discovery. I like every version of Amanda I've seen. I also liked Chapel telling the jerkass Vulcan that the Vulcan Science Academy isn't ready for her and he'll just have to read her paper later this year. And I laughed at Uhura, Una, La'an, and Ortegas teaching Spock how to talk like himself. Move your eyebrow without moving any other part of your face! I never watched very much of Enterprise, but isn't that where we get the idea that Vulcans find that humans stink and they use nasal suppressors? I was getting a feeling that the humans smelling bad was not a new idea in this series....