S02.E03: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

[Starchild]

On 6/29/2023 at 7:52 PM, rtms77 said:

Kirk mistaking Toronto for New York, I see what you did there  production crew 😉

During that car chase, I bet while everyone else was watching the car, Torontonians were looking at everything *but* the car.

 

On 6/30/2023 at 8:56 AM, aemom said:

I did snicker at Kirk's Noonian-Soong comment. I see what you did there show!

It got me wondering if Data's line of genetic scientists are actually related to Khan, but changed their names slightly to distance themselves. I almost thought La'an was inspired to do it herself after Kirk's comment. I still wonder if that might happen in some Trek show in future.

 

On 6/30/2023 at 9:48 AM, Orbert said:

I also didn't think her breakdown at the end was really earned, but what the hell.  They'd been through a lot together the past few days, and it wasn't just that "her version of new Kirk" was gone, it was the release after all the shit she'd just been through.  So I guess that was okay, too.

Not just the last few days. She was coming to a place where she could reconcile her heritage and maybe arrive at some peace some day. Lots of conflicting emotion there.

 

On 7/4/2023 at 11:03 AM, AWhittle said:

But in Star Trek, too much travel back... Picard season 2 overlapped with the Gabriel Bell situation from ds9.

Wouldn't the Watchers like Gary7,  Talinn with all their devices and sensors pick up on the Romulan spy who was there 30 years and the Temporal wars, the back and forth fighting to steer history?

No coordination of stories between shows. Only retcons and contradictions that we fans pick up and argue ad infinitum on fourms.

So was the Romulan agent there the same time as the temporal agent from Voyager? Good thing Toronto and LA are so far apart.

And finally, so Kirk learned chess from his XO, who wasn't Spock. I wonder if it was Una.

[ML89]

The discussion about fixed points in time…where’s the Doctor when you need him/her?

That was the smallest group of people hanging around a major disaster and not filming, ever.

Tungunska! is Krycek still there…the Romulan masquerading as a conspiracy obsessed person was a nice X-Files riff as well.

I realized belatedly that the Noonien-Singh institute looked like the TV Flash’s institute - was Flash shot in Toronto or Vancouver? 

Hey, Jim, big sign saying Toronto over your shoulder, want to try again?

Edited July 8, 2023 by ML89

[paigow]

7 minutes ago, ML89 said:

Hey, Jim, big sign saying Toronto over your shoulder, want to try again?

The constant factor across all timelines for Kirk is that every city could be named Booty-Town

[marinw]

Is World War Three still happening, just later or differently? Because after that there is the Great Handwaving and all the nations of Earth unite into a post-scarcity economy which lasts at least until the 25th Century.

Edited July 9, 2023 by marinw

[paigow]

1 hour ago, marinw said:

Is World War Three still happening, just later or differently?

Pike will intercept the Botany Bay hours after it launches... Spock dies after saving his Katra in Uhura... Pike, ignoring an urgent voice mail alert, launches Spock into a nebula before hearing Sarek demand that the body be returned to Vulcan.... all in a 1 hour episode

[paigow]

On 7/5/2023 at 6:07 PM, millennium said:

They have a platform to build new stories, to write in a way that honors and conforms to the TOS yet expands our understanding of the Star Trek universe.   

Not making a judgment or picking a side on the current Writers Guild strike... but if Season 3 has not started shooting yet, that could be a blessing...

 

[millennium]

8 hours ago, paigow said:

Not making a judgment or picking a side on the current Writers Guild strike... but if Season 3 has not started shooting yet, that could be a blessing...

 

It's funny how these shows have renewed my appreciation for Captain Kirk Classic. 

That said, at 1:09 in your clip, Shatner affects the same gee-whiz smile he uses in the first moments of his rendition of "It Was A Very Good Year" (which I can never get enough of, although I think "Common People" is his best ever -- alas I had to stop watching the brilliant fan-made "Common People" video because the song would get stuck in my head for days after).

This whole video, from the minimalist set to Shatner's Starfleet-esque attire to Kirk's trademark "Anatomical Position" pose in the final moments,  looks like a blooper from "The Empath."

 

[paigow]

5 hours ago, millennium said:

It's funny how these shows have renewed my appreciation for Captain Kirk Classic. 

 

[tv-talk]

9 hours ago, millennium said:

It's funny how these shows have renewed my appreciation for Captain Kirk Classic. 

I am the same way, in fact watching that posted clip of the Captain's Dinner with Khan I realized that scene alone may have been better than any series since has done. I am sure I'm forgetting some good stuff though, but surely not from some of these series.

[Chicago Redshirt]

On 7/7/2023 at 12:07 PM, PurpleTentacle said:

Did they just casually move the eugenics wars from the 1990s to the 2030s, because they were too cheap to set this in the 1980s?

Well great, that doesn't totally fuck with the whole Star Trek timeline or anything. And people ask me why I hate the NuTrek-writers...

I don't think they moved the Eugenics Wars from the 1990s to later just out of cheapness. Rather because it's clear to us in 2023 that the Eugenics Wars haven't happened and they want to keep them a cautionary tale. Setting them in the 1990s seemed a far way off in the 1960s. Not so much post 1990.

Previous jumps to the time-frame of the 1990s-2020s -- DS9 and Voyager both did ones IIRC and so did Enterprise, not to mention the recent Picard -- did not seem to reflect a world that had just been enmeshed in or was about to be enmeshed in WWIII. 

So the damage was already done to the Trek timeline. This episode attempted a patch that between time travelers and time itself, things have been and continue to be changing and people don't even register. Whether that patch is successful is an exercise best left to the viewer.

[tv-talk]

1 hour ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Previous jumps to the time-frame of the 1990s-2020s -- DS9 and Voyager both did ones IIRC and so did Enterprise, not to mention the recent Picard -- did not seem to reflect a world that had just been enmeshed in or was about to be enmeshed in WWIII. 

Yeah I just happened to watch that DS9 two parter and it took place in 2024. What's interesting is they completely ignored anything to do with the Eugenics Wars and rather the huge issue that was about to engulf society in flames and change everything was- income inequality. 

[marinw]

FWIW, In TOS they used a lot of the sets that happened to be on the Lot, but with the exception of the episode with Gary Seven, the use of the Roman, Gangster, or Nazi sets were explained as "Cultural Contamination" or "Parallel Development". One way to save money.

[paigow]

EVERY episode should have been shot here....

3 hours ago, marinw said:

FWIW, In TOS they used a lot of the sets that happened to be on the Lot,

[greekmom]

Anyone know which hotel they used? The view reminded me of the same one I see from the Intercontinental when I stayed there. Granted it wasn't in a sweet ass room like they had.

Nice to finally see Toronto and actually being Toronto used.  

Also, Kirk and La'an were from the future. Why would Kirk hustle at the park playing chess for money when they can just go into some Apple store, library with computers, or whatever, use a computer and set themselves up with a credit card or bank account with a decent amount of money?  What is this? 1980s or 1990s? 

La'an crying at the end was super sad.  I hope she does hook up with the Kirk in her timeline. 

Edited July 15, 2023 by greekmom

[Frozendiva]

17 hours ago, greekmom said:

Anyone know which hotel they used? The view reminded me of the same one I see from the Intercontinental when I stayed there. Granted it wasn't in a sweet ass room like they had.

Nice to finally see Toronto and actually being Toronto used.  

Also, Kirk and La'an were from the future. Why would Kirk hustle at the park playing chess for money when they can just go into some Apple store, library with computers, or whatever, use a computer and set themselves up with a credit card or bank account with a decent amount of money?  What is this? 1980s or 1990s? 

La'an crying at the end was super sad.  I hope she does hook up with the Kirk in her timeline. 

A tall hotel is the Delta/Marriott Southcore. Or the Shangrila. No bridge like that in Toronto. I liked seeing the Canadian money and mention of food like poutine. Seeing the young Khan did not have the weight of a decision to interfere in the timeline.

[marina to]

On 7/8/2023 at 1:04 PM, Starchild said:

During that car chase, I bet while everyone else was watching the car, Torontonians were looking at everything *but* the car.

Guilty as charged.

[greekmom]

19 hours ago, Frozendiva said:

A tall hotel is the Delta/Marriott Southcore. Or the Shangrila. No bridge like that in Toronto. I liked seeing the Canadian money and mention of food like poutine. Seeing the young Khan did not have the weight of a decision to interfere in the timeline.

I did some searching, I think it was the Westin Harbour Castle. Of course there is no bridge (i jet down to T.O. every 2 weeks and drive along the Lakeshore), it can't be all real about Toronto but the shot of Yonge-Dundas Square and Kirk thinking it was NYC was pretty funny.

Lakeview is an actual restaurant. Never been there but passed by it a few times. It's at 1132 Dundas St W, Toronto.   http://www.thelakeviewrestaurant.ca/

[Frozendiva]

3 hours ago, greekmom said:

I did some searching, I think it was the Westin Harbour Castle. Of course there is no bridge (i jet down to T.O. every 2 weeks and drive along the Lakeshore), it can't be all real about Toronto but the shot of Yonge-Dundas Square and Kirk thinking it was NYC was pretty funny.

Lakeview is an actual restaurant. Never been there but passed by it a few times. It's at 1132 Dundas St W, Toronto.   http://www.thelakeviewrestaurant.ca/

They also could have rented a condo in the new building at Bloor. At 85 stories, it would have a spectacular view.

https://condonow.com/The-One-Condos

 

[marina to]

22 hours ago, Frozendiva said:

They also could have rented a condo in the new building at Bloor. At 85 stories, it would have a spectacular view.

https://condonow.com/The-One-Condos

 

Looking at the view, it seemed like it was one of the condos closer to Harbourfront. Westin Harbour Castle seems like a pretty good guess, or one of the newer buildings on the other side of Queens Quay.

[Zaffy]

Well, I enjoyed this one more than the previous two.
I am not sure about the timeline (werent the Eugenics wars supposed to happen  earlier? I am not good in Trek history, but I think it was in the 20th century).
Anyway, I still find the specific Kirk horrible, he is a deal breaker. 
They shouldn't even have Kirk in this show...maybe in the very last episode.

[Chicago Redshirt]

1 hour ago, Zaffy said:

Well, I enjoyed this one more than the previous two.
I am not sure about the timeline (werent the Eugenics wars supposed to happen  earlier? I am not good in Trek history, but I think it was in the 20th century).

TOS said that the Eugenics Wars happened in the 1990s. 

VOY had an episode set in 1996 that looked pretty much like real world 1996 and didn't reflect the notion that there'd just been a WWIII/Eugenics Wars. 

This episode had the Romulan agent rationalize the discrepancy by saying that between temporal hijinks and time itself, things change and get undone. So when she came to Earth originally in the 1990s, she was stuck unable to affect the Eugenics Wars.

[Quickbeam]

I love Paul Wesley as Kirk. I did have to let go of my death grip on canon and just enjoy the ride. Plus, Toronto gets to be Toronto! That’s something. 

[Ottis]

On 6/29/2023 at 10:38 PM, cdnalor said:

I still think the actor playing Kirk reminds me too much of Jim Carrey to accept him in the role, especially in his reactions at the beginning of this episode.  Any moment I expect an "All righty, then!" to come out of his mouth.

They do seem to be focussing a lot on La'an with this episode and somewhat in the first one of the season.  Let's get back to the main cast ASAP.  So far, it feels like the new season hasn't really started yet.

Exactly. I cannot believe they cast that actor. It’s a guy doing an impression of Jim Carrey playing Kirk. Incredibly distracting. And he doesn’t talk or act like Kirk at all, or even a captain. He’s like a comedy sidekick. A horrible, horrible call.

Also, I detest these budget-saving eps shot IRL. Picard did most of a season that way. Not why we watch ST.

And they missed a fun opportunity in the diner scene to show a photo of the Enterprise in the sky from the Gary Seven ep.

By the way, do Romulans have super strength? Isn’t La’an augmented? How did the Romulan kick her butt?

Edited August 18, 2023 by Ottis

[Orbert]

In TOS, Spock easily took out any human that he fought, so the idea was that Vulcans are generally physically superior to humans.  Romulans and Vulcans have a common ancestry, so presumably (?) they are also physically superior to humans.

[Affogato]

3 hours ago, Orbert said:

In TOS, Spock easily took out any human that he fought, so the idea was that Vulcans are generally physically superior to humans.  Romulans and Vulcans have a common ancestry, so presumably (?) they are also physically superior to humans.

I'm not sure, and I'm not a super trivia nerd, but I think Vulcan has a somewhat higher gravity than earth. If so, Vulcan's would have some naturally increased strength.  Also, Spock obviously had gone through Vulcan martial arts training and learned that nerve pinch and other techniques, which combined with the ability to control his emotions, gave him an advantage.

[Orbert]

True, but I'm thinking about one scene where Spock just backhands Kirk, and Kirk goes flying across the room, or into a console or something.  That wasn't even martial arts; that was just brute strength.  I seem to recall that Spock and Kirk got into it a few times, and each time Spock easily came out on top.  And he's only half Vulcan.

[Affogato]

17 minutes ago, Orbert said:

True, but I'm thinking about one scene where Spock just backhands Kirk, and Kirk goes flying across the room, or into a console or something.  That wasn't even martial arts; that was just brute strength.  I seem to recall that Spock and Kirk got into it a few times, and each time Spock easily came out on top.  And he's only half Vulcan.

Apparently so.ewherw in DS9 it is said that Vulcans are three times as strong as humans. 

[baldryanr]

23 hours ago, Ottis said:

By the way, do Romulans have super strength? Isn’t La’an augmented? How did the Romulan kick her butt?

La'an does not have superhuman strength nor any other obvious enhancements - if she did then Una wouldn't have been able to kick her ass without breaking a sweat last season.

[Prevailing Wind]

3 hours ago, Affogato said:

Apparently so.ewherw in DS9 it is said that Vulcans are three times as strong as humans. 

"Take Me Out to the Holosuite." - the holosuite baseball game between the "Niners" and a crew of Vulcans.

[Ottis]

2 hours ago, baldryanr said:

La'an does not have superhuman strength nor any other obvious enhancements - if she did then Una wouldn't have been able to kick her ass without breaking a sweat last season.

That is incorrect. La'an has augments, apparently the same augments as her ancestor, Khan. That would mean she is essentially a genetically engineered human and would presumably have his strength. This was covered in an earlier episode, and now that I can check that, it is confirmed:

Strange New Worlds Finally Reveals If La’an Is Like Khan In Star Trek (screenrant.com) "La'an Noonien-Singh finally confirms to Neera Ketoul (Yetide Badaki), Number One's legal counsel, that she did, indeed, inherit Khan's augmentations."

If I only pay half attention and sort of remembered that, I'm not sure what the writers of this ep were doing.

Also ...

11 hours ago, Orbert said:

In TOS, Spock easily took out any human that he fought, so the idea was that Vulcans are generally physically superior to humans.  Romulans and Vulcans have a common ancestry, so presumably (?) they are also physically superior to humans.

Possibly. It is also equally possible that if Vulcan strength comes from higher gravity on their home world, and Romulans have evolved elsewhere for some time, that Romulans no longer have that Vulcan strength. I honestly don't know what canon says about Romulan strength. I don't recall eps where Romulans were shown to be stronger than humans. I do recall that Vulcans, and Spock specifically, are shown to be stronger than humans.

So my question remains as to how the Romulan could so easily beat a trained security officer who also has genetic augments.

 

Edited August 19, 2023 by Ottis

[tv-talk]

12 hours ago, Ottis said:

That would mean she is essentially a genetically engineered human and would presumably have his strength.

She clearly doesnt though as M'Benga is able to handle her pretty easily when they spar, the Romulon tossed her around like she was a child, and Una overpowered her with ease. Khan had what, 5x human strength in TOS? La'an has yet to display anything close to that, rather she seems like an elite fighter with pretty normal human ability so far.

Edited August 19, 2023 by tv-talk

[Chicago Redshirt]

On 8/17/2023 at 7:25 PM, Ottis said:

By the way, do Romulans have super strength? Isn’t La’an augmented? How did the Romulan kick her butt?

What we know is that La'an is descended from Khan. But the show has not established what, if any, result her biological heritage means for her physical strength, her intellect or anything.

We see from this ep that Khan is apparently a pre-teen in 2024. One would figure SNW's Khan only would have had children in (say) 2040 or so. It's more than 200 years later or so the interwebs tell me. So that could be 6-8 generations removed from the superior intellect (and pecs). Could be that the superior genes of Khan are all recessive and were bred out after the first generation, could be they were watered down till 6+ generations later they are pretty much gone.

As someone else mentioned, Vulcans and Romulans are biologically similar, and Vulcans are physically superior to humans, so it follows that Romulans on average are as well.

Also, greater physical strength is not a guarantee of victory in a fight. We've certainly seen our heroes kick the asses of physically stronger villains before in all of Trek.

On 8/18/2023 at 8:56 PM, Ottis said:

That is incorrect. La'an has augments, apparently the same augments as her ancestor, Khan. That would mean she is essentially a genetically engineered human and would presumably have his strength. This was covered in an earlier episode, and now that I can check that, it is confirmed:

Strange New Worlds Finally Reveals If La’an Is Like Khan In Star Trek (screenrant.com) "La'an Noonien-Singh finally confirms to Neera Ketoul (Yetide Badaki), Number One's legal counsel, that she did, indeed, inherit Khan's augmentations."

If I only pay half attention and sort of remembered that, I'm not sure what the writers of this ep were doing.

Also ...

Possibly. It is also equally possible that if Vulcan strength comes from higher gravity on their home world, and Romulans have evolved elsewhere for some time, that Romulans no longer have that Vulcan strength. I honestly don't know what canon says about Romulan strength. I don't recall eps where Romulans were shown to be stronger than humans. I do recall that Vulcans, and Spock specifically, are shown to be stronger than humans.

So my question remains as to how the Romulan could so easily beat a trained security officer who also has genetic augments.

 

The exchange in Ad Astra per Aspera comes about 30 minutes in the episode:

La'an is telling Neera that she was angry when she found out Una was genetically modified and wrote about it in her personal log.

Neera asks why, and speculates "Could it be that you carry your family's augmentations and you believe because of them, you may become dangerous?"

La'an's answer is "Yes, I do."

Neera then assures La'an that there's nothing wrong with her, no hidden monster inside.

So it doesn't follow from this exchange that La'an has all the augmentations of Khan. or that she confirmed that she had inherited Khan's super-strength. She could just have an enhanced IQ, but not super-strength. Or she could have enhanced strength but many times weaker than Khan's. 

Or she could have just responded "Yes I do" to explain that she believes that some residual Khan genetics will make her into a hidden monster some day even if in her day to day she has nothing in common with Khan.

We have not seen her display anything that a normal baseline human could not do. Indeed, La'an got severely wounded on Rigel VII (the same planet that his previous crew got an ass-whupping on according to The Cage/The Menagerie). It should be noted that La'an did not recuperate on his own as Khan might have based on Space Seed and Into Darkness. To quote another franchise, seems "Only human."

And of course, ST has a history of trained security officers getting their butts kicked, regardless of how much stronger than they might be than your average joes. It happened so much to Worf in TNG that it got dubbed "The Worf Effect."

Edited August 22, 2023 by Chicago Redshirt

[phlebas]

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.

[Raja]

18 minutes ago, phlebas said:

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.

With so much of Enterprise and Voyager dedicated to the Temporal Prime Directive I have forgotten how it worked 

[phlebas]

4 minutes ago, Raja said:

With so much of Enterprise and Voyager dedicated to the Temporal Prime Directive I have forgotten how it worked 

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."

[Chicago Redshirt]

2 hours ago, phlebas said:

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.

The general idea is that the more people who know that a time travel episode happened as well as how and why it happened, the greater the chance of unintended consequences of that knowledge. The greater the chance of unintended consequences, the greater the chances of something going seriously amiss.

Suppose someone knew that La'an traveled to the past using a handheld device and nothing more. The very knowledge that such a means of time travel is possible might lead to people trying to create that device earlier than was intended, which might lead to all sorts of time travel happening that wasn't meant to happen.

Suppose she tells someone that she met her ancestor Khan in the 2020s in Toronto. That information may get out to other agents in the Temporal Cold War, and who knows what they may do with it. We saw from this episode that one Romulan time agent went to the 1990s to mess with Khan somehow but then basically spent 30 years in the past when she couldn't figure out where he was. 

Suppose La'an tells Kirk, "Hey, I met an alternate you and we hooked up." That could lead to this-universe's Kirk making romantic or other decisions that he otherwise wouldn't, whether it is pursuing a romance with La'an that he otherwise wouldn't or clinging to a present girlfriend, trying to transfer to the Enterprise sooner than he otherwise would because he doesn't want to do the long distance thing or refraining from joining the crew of the Enterprise when he was supposed to or leaving the crew of the Enterprise prematurely to avoid any awkwardness with La'an, or any number of possibilities. We saw how Kirk not being captain for the equivalent of TOS's "Balance of Terror" led to disaster. That could happen as to any number of episodes.

Does a Kirk who has a strong attachment to La'an feel romantically attached to the various women he's attracted to in TOS, and if so do those episodes play out differently? Does his presence, or lack thereof, cause the Enterprise (or the Farragut) to handle situations dramatically better or worse than they were "meant to"? Does La'an become a precursor to Janice Lester in Turnabout Intruder and do crazy things?  If Kirk is hooked up with La'an, both she and he may make decisions when he's captain of the Enterprise that are different from the ones they are "supposed" to have made.

TLDR, any bit of knowledge she shares could have a deep effect on numerous other things. Or it could be time-neutral. But why risk it?

It was unclear to me if Pelia actually remembered meeting La'an what was two hundred years ago from her perspective. It seems like given that she's thousands (presumably) of years old, La'an and Kirk showing up for an hour and asking weird questions would not be all that striking.

[phlebas]

1 hour ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

 

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 :)

[Chicago Redshirt]

3 hours ago, phlebas said:

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 don't know if there is a formalized Temporal Prime Directive as of yet. At least a couple times in TOS, Kirk and Co. went back in time and although they were aware of the need to not mess up history, didn't seem to be as worried as they should have been. 

In Tomorrow Is Yesterday, for instance, an accident put them in the 60s and they inadvertently destroyed an Air Force jet that was investigating them as a UFO. Spock makes arguments that they can't return him because there's the possibility he will tell people what he has seen and change the future. But then they realize -- and talk about right in front of him -- that his unborn son will lead a manned mission to Saturn. So they manage to solve the issue through technobabble timey-wimeyness where the Enterprise goes back in time for a hot second allowing him to forget everything that has happened.

In Assignment: Earth, the crew deliberately goes back in time to the 60s for historical research. The actual plot of the episode doesn't matter so much as far as I'm concerned, because it seems to me that the act of time traveling for historical research would fly in the face of a Temporal Prime Directive. There's too much risk that something could go wrong and contaminate the timeline.

[marinw]

4 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

In Assignment: Earth, the crew deliberately goes back in time to the 60s for historical research. The actual plot of the episode doesn't matter so much as far as I'm concerned, because it seems to me that the act of time traveling for historical research would fly in the face of a Temporal Prime Directive.

IIRC, That episode was suppose to set up a spin-off series that never happened.

[phlebas]

2 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

I don't know if there is a formalized Temporal Prime Directive as of yet.

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.

2 hours ago, marinw said:

IIRC, That episode was suppose to set up a spin-off series that never happened.

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.

[Chicago Redshirt]

43 minutes ago, phlebas said:

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.

I just rewatched Assignment: Earth, and while I was left thinking that the concept of crotchety human tasked to steer Earth in the "right" direction plus hot-flighty-quirky chick plus shapeshifting cat chick plus gadgets plus sassy AI could have worked as a series. But I agree that the Gary Seven actor would probably need to be replaced.

I wouldn't mind seeing a similar concept revived, either specifically still in the 60s or based now.

[marinw]

1 hour ago, phlebas said:

I would not have objected to 60s era Teri Garr on my screen more, though

I can't remember the titles, but there are a couple of novels with Roberta and the Eugenics Was, which somehow happened in secret.

[Mr. R0b0t]

I'm of two minds about this one...I enjoyed the episode, but don't really care for time travel eps of Trek (unless its a short-term loop problem to solve). I'm also wondering how so many people could be face blind because this Jim Kirk looks nothing like Jim Carey other than being lanky with dark hair.  Here's to hoping they don't become an eyewitness to any criminal activity.  The actor is fine, but certainly doesn't seem to be the embodiment of any Kirk I've ever seen on screen before.  

A couple random musings.... I feel like a lot of TV and movies these days lean heavily on trauma as a narrative force.  So much that it's become the trauma Olympics at this point.  

The La'an character has really grown on me and I can't be sure if it's my crush for the actress manifesting or 100% the character.  The jury is still out.

 

[tv-talk]

20 hours ago, Mr. R0b0t said:

I feel like a lot of TV and movies these days lean heavily on trauma as a narrative force.

Unresolved trauma and need for counseling are all the rage with GenZ. Gotta "do the work" or you arent up to modern standards.

[Mr. R0b0t]

4 hours ago, tv-talk said:

Unresolved trauma and need for counseling are all the rage with GenZ. Gotta "do the work" or you arent up to modern standards.

True...  I'm not saying there isn't a place to explore themes of trauma in an episode or two, but when it becomes a driving central narrative throughout the season(s) it grates.