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Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1x10 - "A Quality of Mercy"

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I know I beat this dead horse a lot but watching Ortegas in this story was like watching Kira Nerys dump hate on the Cardassians. Melissa Navia is her own person, but she sure does give off huge Nana Visitor vibes.
 
Loved this. Pike in the monster maroon. I am now angry that I have to wait for season 2. At least we'll have more Prodigy, Lower Decks, and Picard to tide us over in the interim.
 
That said, a couple of minor quibbles. The first and biggest one being, did I misunderstand the consequences of Pike taking the original time crystal back in Discovery season 2? I was under the impression that Pike had essentially “locked in” his future being confined to the chair, and there was nothing, absolutely nothing he could do to change it. But in this episode his future is still undetermined. Pike still has the ability to alter his fate. Yes, we see the consequences of him doing that, but I didn’t actually think he could.

It's just a loop in the timeline, after all's said and done Pike still ends up in the Chair, just like the monks said.

Future Pike has to know about the whale probe, stopping Sybok releasing "God", and the Khitomer accords. Ironically these are all events that happened AFTER Spock literally died and had to be resurrected, kind of blunting his point that Spock needs to be kept safe at all times.

Spock coming back was a million to one shot. If anybody but Kirk had been there, Spock stays dead. No need to muddy the warning about the future further.

Praetor vs Laris. Okay, which is it going to be? Do Romulans have ridges or not?

Picard established Northern Romulans have ridges.

Since when is being genetically altered an imprisonable crime? Couldn't they just like fire her?

She falsified data and lied to Starfleet to get in.
 
Lower Decks is next, they showed a scene from the first episode at the end of this week's Ready Room. But no release date yet, just said 'soon'
 
I gave it a 10, nice to see future Admiral Pike still has a full head of hair lol
However if things changing result in 'end of the world' stuff, how comes there is still a future Admiral Pike... I hate temporal mechanics
 
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Since when is being genetically altered an imprisonable crime? Couldn't they just like fire her?
Starfleet doesn't do firing. Discharge at the least, but falsifying records is a crime.
Stiles turned on Spock but didn't know him that long. Ortegas mistrusts Spock after knowing him for 7 years.
Yup. Just like real life.
Why is no one talking about this?
I had no problem with the casting choice, or the performance, so there's not much to talk about IMO
Yeah. I don't see the Carry connection.
I like the updated Romulan uniforms. Not so much the skull caps.
Honestly, having rewatched Amok Time it reminds me of one of the Vulcan headwear.
 
Great episode, I love what they did on the Balance of Terror stuff, getting to see a reimagined monster maroon was fun and old pike’s makeup was really impressive (am I the only one to think he resembled the contemporary Kirk? I wonder if it was intentional).

Not too sold on the new romulan variation with the ridges, but ok.

Nitpicking: pike leaving the enterprise had nothing to do with the incident, I wonder why it didn’t happen. Explanations are easy to find, of course.

The cliffhanger ending was really predictable and untimely pretty much identical to the one we’re waiting the resolution of on Lower Decks.

I initially thought they would go for Kirk dying, a la Of Gods and Men, instead it’s a bit more subtle…nice.

Regarding Kirk…Well, this is probably the less convincing Kirk I’ve ever seen.

9. plenty of fun.
 
I find it odd that Una can’t have guests in prison. All she did was lie to get into Starfleet. She wasn’t a serial killer.
 
Being Ilyrian (or genetically altered) is not the crime here- it's that she lied and falsified her records in order to pursue a career in Starfleet.

Although to me, the whole thing is a bit of a plothole, since it seems like the cat would be out of the bag the first time a serious medical scan was run on her.

We can add falsification of records then.
 
Here, notably, Pike is making a unilateral decision not to punish the Romulans for an unprovoked act of war and Ortegas correctly points out that they can't PREVENT a war since one has already started. I actually really liked the nuance added to her character here because everyone else was advocating for "forgive and forget" while she was correctly pointing out to forgive you need someone to be sorry first.

You could say she's filling the Stiles role but being far more serious and pragmatic makes a more rounded character for as a whole.

Ortegas having a non-snarky goofy side and being a counterpart to Pike wihout Laan works well.

Also, who believes that Laan and Pike were exes/lovers? It could have been a friend hug but also something more.
 
So 'Hansen' is, retroactively speaking, the Earth Outpost 4 commander''s first name? OK, I'm cool with that. But then why is he called Commander Hansen? Shouldn't he be Commander Al-Salah? :confused:

I mean, we know he's not putting the family name first, since his son is named Maat Al-Salah.
 
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Wow. 10+ for me. As soon as the maroon uniform popped up I was hyper. Then, it goes all Balance of Terror on us. I wish they made this episode a 2 parter, or just linger and showed us Bailey and more tips of the hat to the classic episode. As others have said, the Farragut is supposed to be a constitution.. the actor playing Kirk was good. Great writing. SNW is my fav Trek series since the 1990s.
 
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