S02.E08: Under the Cloak of War

[tv-talk]

Just now, marceline said:

I said upthread that I think he was being written this way purposely. The more discussion, I see the more I believe that.

Agreed.  I mentioned after the Lower Decks episode that Pike has been a passenger to this season and it certainly continued with this episode. He'll be front and center for the song and dance episode given Mount's background, but that will be a silly one-off without any weight to the series. So will he suddenly be at the center of things for the finale? Guess we will see.

[Zaffy]

With dedicating episodes to specific characters, SNW treats its season like if its the old good 22-24 episodes one instead of 10.
It is the opposite of what Picard did with its 3rd season.

[historylover820]

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.

[tv-talk]

6 minutes ago, historylover820 said:

Do you make your Pearl Harbor survivors go to the dinner that is being held?

I thought Pike got orders literally stating the war vets had to mingle with Rah but I could be misremembering.

[paigow]

Star Trek VI: Kirk forced to host diplomatic dinner for Klingons... Everybody knows he has an extra personal grudge... Suck it up...

[Chit Chat]

1 hour ago, historylover820 said:

Pike didn't know morale was low until Una told him about it. How did he miss that?

He's too busy in the kitchen!

2 hours ago, tv-talk said:

I mentioned after the Lower Decks episode that Pike has been a passenger to this season and it certainly continued with this episode.

Mr. Chat read an article that said he was going to be taking some personal time off this season, so that's why he's not front and center (a new baby, perhaps?) Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't find any info about it.  

What bugged me about Pike was the attitude (and I think he said this) was that everybody deserves a second chance.  Um, no, not everybody.  YMMV.  

[baldryanr]

1 hour ago, historylover820 said:

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."

He's the captain.  If the crew is going to fake a smile for anyone, it's going to be him.  I don't remember ever seeing him in the main mess/lounge (maybe that's why he needs the giant kitchen and dining set in his quarters), so if Pike spends all of his time on the Bridge, in his office, and in his quarters, he's going to miss stuff.  Despite all of the fun dinners, he needs Una and the rest of the senior staff to help keep him informed of the general state of things.

[Chicago Redshirt]

39 minutes ago, paigow said:

Star Trek VI: Kirk forced to host diplomatic dinner for Klingons... Everybody knows he has an extra personal grudge... Suck it up...

The stakes and issues are wildly different.

In STVI, there's a reason why Starfleet would want Kirk and his crew in particular to be front and center in the peace talks. The Klingons know who he is from the numerous times he's kicked their ass. Having him there putting his best diplomatic face on both shows that the Federation is serious about peace and hey, if something does go awry, we got this guy who's kicked your ass front and center. (Or in the alternative, the anti-peace conspiracy people want Kirk front and center to serve as a fall guy when they sabotage the peace initiative.). And Kirk in STVI is not as far as we know suffering from PTSD or any issues that would prevent him from being the diplomat that he has been trained to be for decades.

Here, I fail to identify any reason why either Starfleet or Pike or Rah would care that random people Rah doesn't know about would be in attendance at the dinner. Why exactly does Pike need/want M'Benga, Chapel or Ortegas to be at the dinner? I don't think the show established that Starfleet ordered it.

If it's just "Hey, it would be nice for Rah if there aren't people missing"

a) why/how would he even notice that the ship's doctor, a nurse and a helmsman weren't there

b) why isn't a polite "they had other obligations" not suffice

c) why do we care so much about offending our own ambassador in this way? Surely he has to know that despite what he has accomplished since becoming an ambassador, some people are going to always blame him for the massacres that he perpetuated. Surely he has to have a thick enough skin to endure a slight of people not showing up for dinners with him.

d) accepting for argument's sake that we don't want to offend Rah, isn't having no-poker-face Ortegas and two people who served at the place where he got the rep of the Butcher of J'Gal almost assuredly going to end up in something offending him worse than those three skipping the dinner? 

e) and finally, weighing the risk of offense to Rah vs. the risk to the mental health of M'Benga and Chapel in particular, why wouldn't one side with the mental health of the crew? 

[TVbitch]

Okay first Spock steals the Enterprise, then Una is tried for lying to Star Fleet and outs that Pike knew she was a GMO, then Pike destroys the huge space gas station, and now the Federation's star Klingon Ambassador is killed on board. ...I hope the Enterprise crew is not expecting a year-end bonus.   

[Jodithgrace]

I, for one, was totally shocked that the Chekov’s parsley (a little is delicious, a lot will kill you) didn’t come into play. And by Checkov, I mean the playwright, of course, not the TOS officer. I was sure the ambassador was going to drop dead during dinner, and the episode would be a mystery about who killed him. 
 

I was also confused by the ending. And when M’benga was packing up at the end, it seemed kind of final, like he was leaving the ship, but I haven’t heard anything about the actor leaving. So, does that mean that next week he’ll be singing and dancing? Kind of a weird follow up. 
 

I hope that the musical episode will be like Buffy’s Once More With Feeling, which uncovered riffs and secrets, and wasn’t a happy, feel good episode, despite the humor and terrific music. 

[marinw]

I've mentioned this before, but that Lounge is one gorgeous example of retro-futuristic design. Props to the art director.

[historylover820]

2 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

The stakes and issues are wildly different.

In STVI, there's a reason why Starfleet would want Kirk and his crew in particular to be front and center in the peace talks. The Klingons know who he is from the numerous times he's kicked their ass. Having him there putting his best diplomatic face on both shows that the Federation is serious about peace and hey, if something does go awry, we got this guy who's kicked your ass front and center. (Or in the alternative, the anti-peace conspiracy people want Kirk front and center to serve as a fall guy when they sabotage the peace initiative.). And Kirk in STVI is not as far as we know suffering from PTSD or any issues that would prevent him from being the diplomat that he has been trained to be for decades.

Here, I fail to identify any reason why either Starfleet or Pike or Rah would care that random people Rah doesn't know about would be in attendance at the dinner. Why exactly does Pike need/want M'Benga, Chapel or Ortegas to be at the dinner? I don't think the show established that Starfleet ordered it.

If it's just "Hey, it would be nice for Rah if there aren't people missing"

a) why/how would he even notice that the ship's doctor, a nurse and a helmsman weren't there

b) why isn't a polite "they had other obligations" not suffice

c) why do we care so much about offending our own ambassador in this way? Surely he has to know that despite what he has accomplished since becoming an ambassador, some people are going to always blame him for the massacres that he perpetuated. Surely he has to have a thick enough skin to endure a slight of people not showing up for dinners with him.

d) accepting for argument's sake that we don't want to offend Rah, isn't having no-poker-face Ortegas and two people who served at the place where he got the rep of the Butcher of J'Gal almost assuredly going to end up in something offending him worse than those three skipping the dinner? 

e) and finally, weighing the risk of offense to Rah vs. the risk to the mental health of M'Benga and Chapel in particular, why wouldn't one side with the mental health of the crew? 

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. 

1 hour ago, Jodithgrace said:

I, for one, was totally shocked that the Chekov’s parsley (a little is delicious, a lot will kill you) didn’t come into play. And by Checkov, I mean the playwright, of course, not the TOS officer. I was sure the ambassador was going to drop dead during dinner, and the episode would be a mystery about who killed him. 
 

 

Now that you mention it, that would have been brilliant.

[Zaffy]

2 hours ago, TVbitch said:

Okay first Spock steals the Enterprise, then Una is tried for lying to Star Fleet and outs that Pike knew she was a GMO, then Pike destroys the huge space gas station, and now the Federation's star Klingon Ambassador is killed on board. ...I hope the Enterprise crew is not expecting a year-end bonus.   

OMG....... we are watching Disco, aren't we?? with the exception that everyone here seems to act like Burnham.. 😱 

p.s. you forgot Pike allowing two people from the future running around Enterprise 😁

[TVbitch]

36 minutes ago, Zaffy said:

p.s. you forgot Pike allowing two people from the future running around Enterprise 😁

I also forgot that it is discovered Pike left technology and a crew member behind on Rigel 7! Doh! 

[Guest]

7 hours ago, tv-talk said:

I dont get the backlash on Pike. He was ordered by Starfleet to have the war vets mingle with Rah, he still gave each of them a chance to pass if they wanted, he didnt come down on Ortega for her insolence (which he could have), and as soon as his 1st said morale was bad he agreed to the shortcut to get Rah off the ship asap for sake of his crew. What should he have done differently?

I agree. Also when the dinner went south and he saw how tense M’Benga was and he gave him an out. Most of Trek has included moments when the Captain has to give an unfair order (because they’ve been given an order) with little explanation. The big difference here is that the episode kept the focus solely on M’Benga rather than Pike. So we don’t see Pike reacting to the order and the audience sympathy stays solely with M’Benga.

I don’t see that Pike had any good options. If he didn’t tell them at all he is assuming what they want and disobeying a direct order. I think they showed the scene with Ortegas and M’Benga to further establish it was their choice and felt they could have said no.

I guess he could have not picked the dinner to be where they interact but that would just be putting off the inevitable and it makes sense to get it out of the way in a group setting. Which wasn’t a bad plan since Spock was able to run interference. The fact M’Benga was literally the worst possible person to be in that particular situation was something that no one other than him and Chapel knew. 

[statsgirl]

If only there had been another doctor and nurse on board so that M'Benga and Chapel could have skipped the dinner. I doubt that Rah would have noticed the difference.

[dwmarch]

3 hours ago, Zaffy said:

OMG....... we are watching Disco, aren't we??

I found this episode to be more of a Disco episode than a DS9 episode, that's for sure. I saw them reaching for the Duet parallel in this episode but they didn't quite get there.

I don't know why everyone is so offended that the Klingon killed his own men. Klingon captains smoke their lieutenants all the time for any number of reasons and you'd think by now they'd know that is a feature rather than a bug.

What is so special about M'Benga's warrior juice? He said it was adrenaline and pain inhibitors, doesn't sound hard to make if you ask me. Is there Deltan parsley in it and the commandos can't synthesize it because they can't get the mixture just right or something?

FWIW, I don't think Chapel saw a damn thing and she is straight up lying to Pike. It will be interesting to see if this comes up again next episode.

6 hours ago, Jodithgrace said:

I hope that the musical episode will be like Buffy’s Once More With Feeling, which uncovered riffs and secrets, and wasn’t a happy, feel good episode, despite the humor and terrific music. 

Same here. OMWF was a gimmick episode but it did some heavy lifting plot-wise. So I hope this is the direction we go in as opposed to Lucifer's musical episode which was both fun and funny but otherwise unremarkable.

[marceline]

16 minutes ago, dwmarch said:

I don't know why everyone is so offended that the Klingon killed his own men. Klingon captains smoke their lieutenants all the time for any number of reasons and you'd think by now they'd know that is a feature rather than a bug.

LOL! You just spoke a whole truth! Klingons kill each other for fun, honor, or exercise. I'm guessing half the people who die on Klingon ships are killed by other Klingons.

2 hours ago, statsgirl said:

If only there had been another doctor and nurse on board so that M'Benga and Chapel could have skipped the dinner. I doubt that Rah would have noticed the difference.

Yeah. By now we should probably have a "Nurse Ogawa" starting to get increased airtime.

[ofmd]

10 hours ago, Jodithgrace said:

I hope that the musical episode will be like Buffy’s Once More With Feeling, which uncovered riffs and secrets, and wasn’t a happy, feel good episode, despite the humor and terrific music. 

Same, but that's a very high bar.

Speaking of... I can't find the post anymore, but someone said they were going for Duet but not quite getting there. I'd say, not by a mile. Duet is a masterpiece, so again, a high bar...

But this season, I often get the feeling that they set out to make a GREAT episode, often modeled after one or several iconic Trek episodes. This one probably had more than one DS9 episode in mind. ... ad astra tried to be the new Measure of a Man, and so on. The result is often a good or very good ep, but not a great one.

[historylover820]

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.

[Colorado David]

On 7/28/2023 at 8:03 AM, Chit Chat said:

He's certainly had his share of cooking scenes this season!  

So we know his hobby (one of) is cooking. I wish we could see the hobbies of the other main characters too.

[Frozendiva]

I saw the dinner as being you are first and foremost a Starfleet officer and you put your own personal feelings aside for a couple of hours. The doctor could have simply asked someone to beep him for a fake medical emergency. Also, the Klingon guest could have just received visitors in his guest quarters.

I was wondering if the parsley would have been like Chekhov’s gun. Introduce it in act one and use it by act four.

Was not expecting the doctor to be the real butcher of )’Gal. It did make sense with him being in his MASH type hospital fixing the wounded and the constant bringing of new patients. Maybe the Klingon was trying to change. He loved the horrors of war and something flipped. He could never make enough amends, but he could find a better way forward.

[TVbitch]

14 hours ago, dwmarch said:

What is so special about M'Benga's warrior juice? He said it was adrenaline and pain inhibitors, doesn't sound hard to make if you ask me. 

I was wondering this, too. Sure, a concoction of adrenaline and pain killers would be advantageous to a soldier. And with M'Benga's previous military training and skills, I can see where it would raise his game considerably. BUT, it would not turn nurse Chapel into an elite level matrial arts expert and combat warrior with Klingon ass-kicking strength. I mean, she must have taken out 7-8 Klingons in Episode 1. It was laughable. 

[statsgirl]

I am confused, Rah should have been known as the Butcher of J'Gar because he ordered the killing of civilians, families, everyone indiscriminately, not because he supposedly killed his own men.

Pike may have been ordered to have his senior officers at the dinner with the ambassador but a good leader should have been aware of their backgrounds and possible PTSD and not forced them into the situation. This makes me think less of him.

The further Chapel is away from Spock, the more I like her. Her effect on him is not good.

Rah struck me as an arrogant and weak man but one who fails the expectation of his society. Klingons are somewhat like Spartans where  it is said that mothers told their sons going off to battle "Come back with your shield or on it" (Plutarch). It is a standard that Rah could not live up to, so he was overly cruel in his orders and a coward in his personal life. He probably loved the praise from other Klingons for his butchery and from Star Fleet for his redemption (if the writers put that much thought into him.)

[baldryanr]

1 hour ago, statsgirl said:

I am confused, Rah should have been known as the Butcher of J'Gar because he ordered the killing of civilians, families, everyone indiscriminately, not because he supposedly killed his own men.

The Klingons gave him that title because he killed his own men, which is what gave him the credibility to be an ambassador in the first place.  The entire point of his pleading at the end was that if the truth was revealed the Klingons would lose all respect for him, so he'd be useless as an ambassador.  They might not care about the war crimes (Federation morals don't apply, after all) but they'd definitely care about him turning tail and running.

How much of that was him genuinely wanting to atone versus being a coward?  That's the part the episode left ambiguous on purpose.  After all, the Federation would either exile him or toss him in prison if they found out.

[marceline]

Upon rewatch, the scene where Rah and M'Benga working out is really awful. Rah says he killed his generals because he couldn't stand what they did to the nameless victims and M'Benga says "You did it for the nameless?"

Rah was a dead man walking right then.

[paigow]

On 7/28/2023 at 3:23 PM, historylover820 said:

Pike didn't know morale was low until Una told him about it. How did he miss that?

Inevitably, Neelix will get dropkicked by The Guardian Of Forever onto this Enterprise to take over grilling duties and become the Morale Officer

[Zaffy]

7 hours ago, historylover820 said:

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.

That's for sure, however soon this won't be enough. Cause the writing is not good and it follows the "Disco" way in many areas, especially on how the main characters keep behaving like high school friends gathered in a spaceship, instead of being professional Starfleet personnel and keep getting away with it.
I like the chemistry and the actors, but they haven't earned their camaraderie. 
And I detest the cynicism/plot armor of forgiving your friends for crimes "because people are not perfect". When you  brake the rules or/and the law you can't just use "people are not perfect" as an argument.

And what kind of a captain shows favoritism to his friends?  a BAD captain...

Edited July 29, 2023 by Zaffy

[baldryanr]

23 minutes ago, Zaffy said:

And what kind of a captain shows favoritism to his friends?  a BAD captain...

So in other words, Captains Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, Archer, Burnham, and Pike.  Or are we going to assume Bones could have gotten away with all his yammering under someone other than Kirk, or Dax being able to go off on a Klingon revenge mission with no repercussions, etc.

[tv-talk]

1 hour ago, baldryanr said:

How much of that was him genuinely wanting to atone versus being a coward?  That's the part the episode left ambiguous on purpose.

I think Rah was pretty clearly trying to atone and genuinely wanted to do good. The point for me was the he truly had reformed and done much good but his past was too much to escape, at least given he had to have a confrontation with M'Benga of all people, the one person who knew the truth. Despite the disdain shown to him by all the characters, for me the point was that he was an emissary for peace at this point- not a double-agent or anything like that. 

[tv-talk]

4 hours ago, statsgirl said:

Pike may have been ordered to have his senior officers at the dinner with the ambassador but a good leader should have been aware of their backgrounds and possible PTSD and not forced them into the situation. This makes me think less of him.

I think this is really a reflection of how views have changed in past 10yrs or so. Namely that anyone feeling any sort of way about anything needs to be given an out and be treated as if they have no obligations. M'Benga and Chapel were medics, it's not that far out of line for Pike to think they can do their duties. I mean are they at the point where any violent triage situation is too much for them? Are they too broken to do their jobs on a battlefield ever again? And Ortega? What did she do in the war? Pilot ships? So she should get an out anytime the Federation has to deal with Klingons ever again? Allied soldiers spent years working with the Germans and Japanese IN Germany and Japan after the war. If these 3 have so much PTSD that the very presence of a Klingon is too much for them to handle...maybe they arent fit to be Starfleet officers? I dont want to seem insensitive but I think it's ok that Pike asked them to be at the dinner- especially since he gave them an out if they didnt want to. 

[Zaffy]

22 minutes ago, baldryanr said:

So in other words, Captains Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, Archer, Burnham, and Pike.  Or are we going to assume Bones could have gotten away with all his yammering under someone other than Kirk, or Dax being able to go off on a Klingon revenge mission with no repercussions, etc.

I am not known for my good memory, but when did any of the captains you mentioned covered for a murderer (especially when killed in the ship)? 

(Burnham I do not know and do not care)

Edited July 29, 2023 by Zaffy

[paigow]

21 minutes ago, Zaffy said:

I am not known for my good memory, but when did any of the captains you mentioned covered for a murderer (especially when killed in the ship)? 

Not exactly murder... but dereliction of duty leading to death...

Worf & Dax were supposed to extract a Cardassian defector... Dax was critically wounded before the meet... Worf abandoned the defector to escape with Dax. Sisko issued some half-assed reprimand and buried the matter....

[Zaffy]

15 minutes ago, paigow said:

Not exactly murder... but dereliction of duty leading to death...

Worf & Dax were supposed to extract a Cardassian defector... Dax was critically wounded before the meet... Worf abandoned the defector to escape with Dax. Sisko issued some half-assed reprimand and buried the matter....

That is not the same thing as "looking away" when your Ship's Doctor murdered someone.
And he has a past, he has put the ship already in danger with his daughter. Why this guy is still in Enterprise? 

[tv-talk]

7 minutes ago, Zaffy said:

That is not the same thing as "looking away" when your Ship's Doctor murdered someone.
And he has a past, he has put the ship already in danger with his daughter. Why this guy is still in Enterprise? 

How is he looking the other way? Isn't he going by what his chief of security told him? And doesn't he and everyone else think Rah brought the knife to sick bay?

[Joimiaroxeu]

That Klingon headpiece wasn't quite right to me. I thought it looked fake even within the context of the show.

A moon called J'Gal. Heh, it should've been inhabited by female journalism students.

Clint Howard! He was quite a blast from the Star Trek past.

Not sure how to take ending or whether to view M'Benga as a hero. I think if everyone took it upon themselves to exert vigilante justice civilized society would disintegrate. Babs Olusanmokun did outstanding work in this episode though and IMO should get an Emmy nomination for it.

Not enough Pike, and I didn't care for how relatively passive and oblivious he was in this episode. But I suppose in his position he had no choice but at least to give the appearance of respecting Dak'Rah's status.

[OLynn33]

1 hour ago, Joimiaroxeu said:

That Klingon headpiece wasn't quite right to me. I thought it looked fake even within the context of the show.

It was terrible and distracting. I kept staring at it. The hair was so fake. I mean not even close to STNG standards.

Everything has pretty much been covered so I will just mention that I liked the metaphor of Bio Bed 2 how M'Benga couldn't get it to work until he completed his mission and killed Rah. I think the bed represents him. It's fixed and working for now but it isn't going to last.

[AWhittle]

The clenching of the armchair, the shaking, reminded me of the PTSD book “The Body keeps the Score” by Bessel van der Kolk. 

Tbh, there should have been a discretionary screenshot prefacing the episode that it touches on PTSD from combat. 

I remember Ds9 “Duet”, but not enough to compare the two. 

The food Pike prepared looked good. 

I really hope now that the musical ep is not where the show “jumps the shark”

[marceline]

On 7/28/2023 at 6:52 PM, Jodithgrace said:

I, for one, was totally shocked that the Chekov’s parsley (a little is delicious, a lot will kill you) didn’t come into play.

Maybe it will show up in the next episode. Maybe it's a hallucinogen that makes everyone think they're in a musical.

[Prevailing Wind]

1 hour ago, AWhittle said:

I remember Ds9 “Duet”, but not enough to compare the two. 

DS9 is also on Paramount+  "Duet" is season 1, ep 18

 

[Affogato]

16 hours ago, statsgirl said:

I am confused, Rah should have been known as the Butcher of J'Gar because he ordered the killing of civilians, families, everyone indiscriminately, not because he supposedly killed his own men.

 

I think the 'butcher' title was conferred by his fellow Klingons. They didn't care about the killing of civilians. That he killed the klingons that killed the civilians would make the federation more likely to accept him. 

This really bothers M'Benga because he knows Rah did not have a change of heart at that time. Rah is claiming Saul on the road to Damascus (?) And M'Benga calls foul. 

Edited July 30, 2023 by Affogato

[Affogato]

8 hours ago, OLynn33 said:

 

Everything has pretty much been covered so I will just mention that I liked the metaphor of Bio Bed 2 how M'Benga couldn't get it to work until he completed his mission and killed Rah. I think the bed represents him. It's fixed and working for now but it isn't going to last.

It broke as he walks away. 

 

I believe that pike was trying to bring M'bengas issues into the open, as well as the others, but he did not realize the depth of M'Benga's involvement and guilt. 

[Affogato]

9 hours ago, Joimiaroxeu said:

 

Not enough Pike, and I didn't care for how relatively passive and oblivious he was in this episode. But I suppose in his position he had no choice but at least to give the appearance of respecting Dak'Rah's status.

Don't get the Pike fixation. He doesn't seem any more interesting than the others, which is the strength of the show, perhaps.

I think he was trying to heal the rift, not knowing how deep it was. 

[Joimiaroxeu]

Quote

Don't get the Pike fixation. He doesn't seem any more interesting than the others, which is the strength of the show, perhaps.

Pike is main reason I watch this show but the "fixation" is my tongue-in-cheek observation of Anson Mount's relative absence this season. I think when they were filming he and his wife were enjoying their newborn baby. 

[tv-talk]

12 hours ago, OLynn33 said:

Everything has pretty much been covered so I will just mention that I liked the metaphor of Bio Bed 2 how M'Benga couldn't get it to work until he completed his mission and killed Rah. I think the bed represents him. It's fixed and working for now but it isn't going to last.

Interesting, I didnt see his mission as killing Rah at all. M'Benga's line about the bed was the moral of the episode to me, he said "Some things cant be fixed, only tended to" or something to that effect meaning he was never going to be better and just had to keeping taking care of himself as needed (as all 'broken' people do). Killing Rah certainly didnt fix him.

[baldryanr]

4 hours ago, Affogato said:

I think he was trying to heal the rift, not knowing how deep it was. 

It's been mentioned explicitly at least once that Pike (and the Enterprise in general) is supposed to be represent the best of Starfleet and the Federation, so of course "we" should be able to get over past wrongs and work with former enemies towards a better future because dwelling on the past/revenge is useless.  However, as we have also seen, that's not always going to be the case (cue complaining about how Trek should show aspirational humans and not flawed one).  It certainly wasn't the case here, and the non-veterans can probably never truly understand the damage that was caused.

On another note, maybe Pike is cooking and (possibly) eating more because he has truly accepted his fate.  Might as well enjoy food while he can, especially since he knows high cholesterol and a few extra pounds won't be his most pressing health concern in the future.

[marinw]

3 hours ago, Joimiaroxeu said:

"fixation" is my tongue-in-cheek observation of Anson Mount's relative absence this season.

In one season of TNG (I forget which one) Picard was only is one or two scenes in some episodes. I'm thinking of the episode where Troi decides to become a full commander and struggles with the engineering exam.

[paigow]

6 minutes ago, marinw said:

In one season of TNG (I forget which one) Picard was only is one or two scenes in some episodes. I'm thinking of the episode where Troi decides to become a full commander and struggles with the engineering exam.

Troi: Geordi, sacrifice yourself to save the ship...Puhleeeze

[tv-talk]

49 minutes ago, marinw said:

 I'm thinking of the episode where Troi decides to become a full commander and struggles with the engineering exam.

Also known as "the episodes I skipped" lol

 

[Zaffy]

2 hours ago, marinw said:

In one season of TNG (I forget which one) Picard was only is one or two scenes in some episodes.

But those were 24 episodes seasons.
Here we are talking about the main star of a 10 episodes season.
I do think that the limited number of episodes does not serve SNW well.