I was disappointed in this one again. Jesse James Keitel's performance just didn't work for me, and the beaming away reminded me of the ending of Chief Wiggun, PI.
("Aw, let him go. I have a feeling we'll meet again... always in more sexy and exciting ways")
Pikes whole blase attitude to being captured and his ship and crew taken seemed out of place, even though he knows his own future, he doesn't know his crews.
I get they needed something for Chapel to do but making her into an off screen Rambo is an... odd choice. And we get a return of the classic Star Trek False Surrender war crime! Although she's a civilian so I guess she doesn't know better. Although why a civilian nurse would also have knowledge of the Enterprises computer systems to the extent shown in Engineering is another question.
I was hoping we'd see good ol' auxiliary control, but I guess it's cheaper to set it in engineering.
Spocks character arc is also an odd choice. It's like they are trying to speed run him through stages that took 25 years in the original run. Personally, I think they'd have been better off going the Kelvinverse route and showing him struggling against his human half & trying to be more Vulcan in this show, making his later acceptance of his human side and discovery that logic is not the end point of wisdom better.
I thought Kolinahr was a special, elite process above and beyond regular Vulcan control, that only a small percentage chose to follow. Here it seems like a ritual for all Vulcans?
Was that a Reman punching Pike and messing up his hair?
Pikes pirate talk at the end was a nice TOS episode throwback (the Captain making a joke at the end of a mission).
More Small Universe Syndrome with Sybock being Angel's husband who is in prison, but that's just how the show rolls
How many pirates were there, that they managed to overpower the hundreds of crew members so easily?!?!