It's interesting seeing some of the criticism for this episode being centered around it being slow and full of exposition...a lot of people's problem with modern Trek is that it's too action focused and here is an episode that has a lot of characters talking to each other and using their wits—in a very old school Trek way—and people are knocking it. Damned if you do, I suppose.
Another thing I'm seeing is "at least it's better than the nostalgia fest from last week," and the like. Putting aside that these arguments are terminally dumb, it's interesting to me that the people saying this can't really see the forest for the trees: this episode has exactly as much if not MORE nostalgia than last week's episode! This episode is an absolute explosion of nostalgia for DS9. Not with characters and cameos, but the DS9 main story and overall sensibility. This season is as much a direct sequel to DS9 as it is to TNG. It's even a sequel to VOY a little bit! And you know what? Just like last week, it's all fine. Good even! The nostalgia is organic to the story and moving it forward. In the case of the DS9 nostalgia, it's central to the plot. It occurred to me watching it that it's a bit simplistic to look at it this way. PIC S3 is picking up the story thread of characters and stories from 3 different shows decades after we last saw them. This is why the nostalgia doesn't bother me. We are revisiting the universe we all love. That is to be celebrated. The improvement in this season's quality compared to the previous ones is that the plotting and characterization are better and more consistent with what would make logical sense based on what we know about the characters, story, and universe. I think a lot of people say this episode is better with the nostalgia for 2 reasons: first, there are no DS9 character cameos, so it seems softer. The second is that a lot of fans are clamoring for DS9 content, so they do not classify their favored nostalgia as such, and thus it is not bad.
At the risk of this post being entirely meta criticism, the episode was not as exciting and kinetic as the few before it, but there were plenty of things that make it a good one! Vadic's motivations not only make sense, they are totally consistent with what you'd expect knowing what we know about S31, the Dominion War, and what the Federation did or didn't do to win it. You can take issue with the melodrama and the mugging (people love Khan but my dude chewed scenery more than anyone) but I am very happy to see that at the very least, her motivations are understandable and make sense given the rules and logic of the universe. Based on this alone, she is a better villain than we've seen in Trek for quite some time. Certainly one of the better ones from the TNG movies. Of course, there's still the big bad so I am curious about where it's going. The wheels can still come off in a way that makes this whole thing much dumber, but at least for now the villain is pretty good.
Also good in this episode were the character moments for the most part. They made sense and were well performed and mostly well written, with a few minor quibbles. JLP and Crusher's morality debate was a little pat and resolved too quickly, but I understood the broad strokes of what they were trying to do. The decision they reached was no worse than Sisko and Vreenak.
Finally, this is episode 7 of 10. In writing communities, there is a term called the "murky middle," that refers to the struggles of connecting the beginning and endings of stories and narratives. Authors talk of how it can be hard to keep the story moving whilst getting everything into place for the end game. This episode is probably the end of the murky middle so I expect things to pick up next week.
Finally finally, this episode cemented for me why I do NOT need or want a show about S31 and Georgiou (sp?). Between Geogiou being Space Cannibal Hitler and S31 embodying Mengele I am not sure how they can thread the needle to make a show about them where we are positively invested in S31 as the home of a show's protagonists. Some franchises have a place for something like that but I'm not sure Trek does.
