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

[Yistaan]

So Starfleet were on their side of the neutral zone and Romulan were on theirs. That’s a very small neutral zone.
I seem to to recall whole solar systems were in there. Iconia being one.

Also a big deal was made in TOS that the cloaked bird of prey could only use impulse power (presumably they can't warp while cloaked)? Regardless in SNW the praetor can have an entire fleet suddenly warp in on short notice. Far more ships even than seen in TOS Enterprise Incident.

The Ortega scene was just there to replicate the Styles scene in Balance of Terror I bet. I don’t know why they had someone who has known Spock for nearly 8 years by this point for that though.

It's only really a contradiction if Ortegas and Spock are shown to be close friends. By Spock's very nature, he doesn't have a lot of friends and even what he has now with Chapel and Pike is a way more sociable Spock than he was portrayed in TOS.

I have coworkers I've known longer than 8 years who I have no doubt would throw me under the bus the moment the opportunity arises, despite appearing friendly and civil on the surface. So I actually don't find the Ortegas thing hard to believe at all, unless we're shown in future episodes she plays tridimensional chess with Spock every day, etc.

 

[thribs]

Also a big deal was made in TOS that the cloaked bird of prey could only use impulse power (presumably they can't warp while cloaked)? Regardless in SNW the praetor can have an entire fleet suddenly warp in on short notice. Far more ships even than seen in TOS Enterprise Incident.

I always assumed the ship was tractored to the neutral zone by a warp vessel.

 

[Noname Given]

There's no way Kirk and the projected image of Mendez weren't in a warp-capable shuttlecraft from Starbase 11. They tailed the Enterprise for a good distance until they ran out of fuel to continue the chase, and no sublight shuttle is even remotely going to give the Enterprise worries.

There's also evidence for Warp Capable TOS Shuttles in TOS - S2 Metamorphisis as when the 1701 'backtracks' the Shuttle (taken away by the Companion), they are backtracking from Interstellar space; they're not within the confines of a single Star System.

 

[JRoss]

Was James Frain not available to play the Romulan Commander?

 

[KennyB]

Loved it but Paul Wesley is horribly miscast as Kirk. criminally miscast

I'm not a fan of the casting either, I always saw him as the CW Dollar Store Robert Pattinson......but I think he was directed to play Kirk a little cold and less charming than we are used to...it IS the Pike show. I think/hope in season 2 he might have a little more of his likable swagger........crosses fingers.

 

[shipfisher]

In Toronto, over half a century ago, I watched the original airing of TOS: Balance Of Terror, which was produced in Los Angeles. In Auckland (New Zealand), today, I watched SNW: A Quality Of Mercy, which was produced in Toronto (OK, Mississauga, but close enough) - just see some irony there, but that's not why I'm posting.
I grew up loving Star Trek and can safely say I've just watched one of the finest examples ever - a more than worthy version of BOT, leaving me sure the franchise is in good hands. I even liked Paul Wesley's fresh take on Kirk in not trying to parrot The Shat - we've got Jim Carrey for that. Let the new generation respect the old by NOT trying to imitate it.
Looking forward to season 2, and hopefully many more.

 

[Yistaan]

If the Romulans wanted a war with the Federation, why did they wait until 2266 to do it? Logically the time to strike would've been 10 years before, right after the 2250s Klingon war when the Federation was in no shape to fight back. This wasn't an issue in TOS as the 2250s Klingon war wasn't invented yet. But in SNW they should've accounted for it as it's a big part of SNW's background being a direct sequel to Discovery's first 2 seasons

 

[thribs]

They didn’t want a war so to speak. They just wanted to try out their new weapon(something this episode sort of forgot) and test Starfleet”s response to it.

 

[Noname Given]

If the Romulans wanted a war with the Federation, why did they wait until 2266 to do it? Logically the time to strike would've been 10 years before, right after the 2250s Klingon war when the Federation was in no shape to fight back. This wasn't an issue in TOS as the 2250s Klingon war wasn't invented yet. But in SNW they should've accounted for it as it's a big part of SNW's background being a direct sequel to Discovery's first 2 seasons

They either had other issues, OR the development of their new Plasma weapon was the catalyst for the Praetor deciding - "Hey, lets test it against the Federation Outposts...."

 

[shipfisher]

If the Romulans wanted a war with the Federation, why did they wait until 2266 to do it? Logically the time to strike would've been 10 years before, right after the 2250s Klingon war when the Federation was in no shape to fight back. This wasn't an issue in TOS as the 2250s Klingon war wasn't invented yet. But in SNW they should've accounted for it as it's a big part of SNW's background being a direct sequel to Discovery's first 2 seasons

No big, bad plasma weapon yet - which I bet has some sort of quantum singularity application.

 

[Yistaan]

That no one knows what a Romulan looks like held up, barely, within the context of Balance of Terror when the Enterprise was still labeled as an Earth ship and the concept of the Federation and the Trek intergalactic community as we now know it didn't exist yet in early TOS episodes. Now, it's almost completely implausible. The Romulans not only have to hide from humans and the Fed, we also have to presume that they hid from every other major galactic power who would otherwise just tell the Fed what the Romulans look like, even as a bargaining chip or sale (such as the Fed can pay without its own currency) of information.

 

[Charles Phipps]

No big, bad plasma weapon yet - which I bet has some sort of quantum singularity application.

There's also other elements involved:

1. The Romulans assumed the KLINGONS would be winning that war and then suddenly the Klingons pulled back.

2. The Romulans may have figured out the Federation was willing to use a Klingon collaborator with a planet destroying bomb.

Which, both of them would probably have the Federation go up in their estimation.

That no one knows what a Romulan looks like held up, barely, within the context of Balance of Terror when the Enterprise was still labeled as an Earth ship and the concept of the Federation and the Trek intergalactic community as we now know it didn't exist yet in early TOS episodes. Now, it's almost completely implausible. The Romulans not only have to hide from humans and the Fed, we also have to presume that they hid from every other major galactic power who would otherwise just tell the Fed what the Romulans look like, even as a bargaining chip or sale (such as the Fed can pay without its own currency) of information.

Gene Roddenberry liked to emphasize that space travel was not common like in, the way Star Wars makes it common. The Romulans and Federation went to war but the idea was never that it was like a war between neighboring states. It was a war with VAST distances between the various groups.

Star Trek has widdled down the casualness of space travel considerably.

 

[T'Bonz]

10 from me. This is the Trek I wanted all along.

 

[Trekker4747]

Watching it again, still a great episode but.... Sheesh. That Wesley Kirk is just horrible. That is NOT Jim Kirk, the way he looks, behaves, delivers, everything about him says everything BUT "Jim Kirk."

With Pine I could get "something." But this guy? There's nothing there. And we get more of this next season? Oy.

He needs to gain 20-30 lbs of muscle/"dad bod," a lip-reduction surgery and spend his next several ASI points on Charisma; then he *might* get there.

 

[Tiberius Jim]

I *really* wanted to like Wesley as Kirk, especially since him being on the show was one way I convinced my Vampire Diaries fan of a wife to watch with me. Thankfully she likes the show on its own, and she agreed with me that he just wasn't quite right as Kirk. I was trying to put my finger on it and I think it comes down to this expression that he keeps making throughout the episode. Aside from the fact that he doesn't look, sound, move or project the same presence as Shatner...that face he kept making, man....that's just not a Kirk face.

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

Was James Frain not available to play the Romulan Commander?

I thought the same thing. Would have been a funny Easter egg.

I loved the episode. Great concept and intelligent use of both Pikes story and a fun way to bring in TOS (kinda reminds me of the DS9 tribbles). Love how the timey wimey plot let's you break canon a little and was a cheeky way to give up Scotty and Kirk without giving us Scotty and Kirk (also a fun troll of people getting upset about the leaks they were gonna show up. Me included)

But enough of that good stuff. Nitpicking the little things is far more fun.
The SNW/TWOK mash up version of the MM uniform was awful. I know it's alt.universe but just make the original.
The actor playing Kirk was awful. I don't like actors playing straight up copies but he was nothing at all like Kirk. Also the actor playing the station commander was so bad I wonder was it an homage to TNG. It was like he was just reading lines off a card.
I really don't like those KurtzTrek ta-da warp in fleets.

 

[Nyotarules]

Everyone is also forgetting that the way Pike handles this situation might be different if he hadn't 'quantum leaped' into it with a terrible foreknowledge that there was some 'end of the world' stuff at stake. I think it hobbled his decision making, in that he was somewhat paralyzed by the fear of making the wrong decision and sparking a catastrophe. I think Anson Mount projected this into his performance in this episode- you can see he is sweating the load, hard.

One thing that surprised me about his decision to go for a peaceful solution was that everyone who was a tactical thinker, including Spock, urged him to attack and destroy the Romulan vessel. They were right. Ultimately, when push came to shove, the Romulans were just not the 'reasonable' enemy Pike was gambling they would be- they did see his efforts as weakness, and that sparked the war.

His tactics was working, the Romulan was standing down but was betrayed by his officer calling the fleet. If that same officer was in the TOS episode a war might still have started, under Kirk, if he called the fleet. The young Romulan was gagging for a war, regardless of the situation.

As for Ortegas, IME real life events in the UK in 2016 (Brexit vote), revealed prejudices from people I have known for years. Never underestimate your fellow humans unconscious biases. Ortegas lives and works on a Humancentric ship for a Humancentric organisation.

They eithe had other issues, OR the development of their new Plasma weapon was the catalyst for the Praetor deciding - "Hey, lets test it against the Federation Outposts...."

Or she was a new warmongering, opportunist Praetor

23rd century health care makes older Pike look great, or he has good genes!

Best first season Trek ever!

 

[JvG]

Didn't like Wesley much as Kirk. But the rest was pretty good to great. Also love the overall TOS-look with the camera angles and lighting, more of this please!

 

[Eddie Roth]

I think this episode illustrated both the strengths and the weaknesses of SNW very well. On the plus side, the "Pike knows his future" angle provides a certain nobility to him here and it bolsters his relationship to Spock, which retroactively helps to explain Spock's loyalty to him in "The Menagerie". By the same token, the series runs the risk of inadvertently stepping on TOS if they made the crew too familiar with each other, the captain too legendary - in the 'historical' analysis as it has been stated many times in TNG through VGR, Pike plays second fiddle to Kirk after all as captain of the Enterprise. It shows here that the show asks the audience to side with Pike (who is obviously the main character here), to perhaps the detriment of Kirk. It was a good thing that Pike's way was ultimately shown to be wrong, so they did manage to make both coming out of this looking justified. But that's a risky game to play.

Then there's the thing about certain narrative choices that would not jibe with what we know about the era - the inherent problem of any prequel (and bascially the reason why Discovery had to go to the far future, no?). To some extent, SNW will have to play it small as a result. And they have so far, but will they be able to resist telling stories where the stakes are much higher? In this episode, they were allowed to do so by going into an alternate future, but that will be limited of course.

And I'm of two minds about referencing TOS stuff as specifically as this episode did. Is it cool to see a reenactment of "Balance of Terror"? Yes. Did that make the episode teeter dangerously on the edge of Star Trek Into Darkness territory (especially with the direct lifts of dialogue from the original)? Oh yes! It never fully crossed over into that territory thankfully, but again: a risky game to play. That's why some part of me was almost hoping during the episode that they'd just stay in the alternate future, call it a parallel universe and keep the show set there. Then they could hook Spock up with Chapel (which they clearly want to do) with no problem, or have Sybok appear (which they clearly want to do) or have Pike and Kirk interact (which they clearly want to do)... which is all not in line with established continuity. I've wondered since early Discovery why TPTB would even choose to box themselves in so much by insisting that their shows should be prequels to TOS... The problem remains.

 

[Tiberius Jim]

The more I think about Kirk's role in the episode the more I realize that Kirk didn't need to be Kirk. Yes, we're supposed to see that Pike wasn't the right guy for the job and Kirk was, but did we really need Kirk to actually be there to show us that? Swapping Kirk for another equally young, brash and creative captain would have worked just as well, albeit without the fan service. It slightly reminds me of the choice to make Cumberbatch be Khan in Into Darkness. It wasn't necessary. He could (and should IMO) have remained as John Harrison and the story would have been the better for it. (In my head cannon he *is* John Harrison while also being one of Khan's 72 followers. He was reanimated instead of Khan but being a huge Khan fanboy he decided to assume his identity to seem more badass.)