I mean, Yuri Andropov didn't order any historic massacres but he's hardly a beloved icon of progressive world politics. You can call someone a tyrant and still believe they were better than the OTHER tyrant.
Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 2x03 - "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
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Has it occurred to anyone that Kirk, Scotty, etc. in TOS had a real biased and messed up history professor that romanticized their view of Khan? Who was their history prof again? TOS said John Gill. Yes, that John Gill who thought that turning an alien society into WW2 Germany would make them more efficient.
Colonel Green comes to mind.
Think of all the people now who have little but good words to say about Fidel Castro. Yeah, for a Communist dictator he was one of the "good" ones but...I mean, come ON.
Knowing Toronto sort of ruined the episode for me because a lot of what they did made no sense in terms of geography and use of the city. It's better than if they had tried to pretend Toronto was New York, but it also made me scratch my head at times...
Although the most real thing would be a giant mega construction project that is delayed by years. That's basically real life.
As for the episode, I find the time cops pretty annoying these days, and I think the episode was a bit too long with things that didn't need to happen - putting Pelia in Vermont (or the use of Pelia at all) kind of stood out as unnecessary, as was the car "chase" in the middle of a city with no traffic. The episode is an hour long and probably didn't need to be, in my mind.
I did like the character work with La'an and Kirk, even if the inevitable reset button was going to happen with Kirk.
Although the other thing with this time travel stuff is that it basically states that human suffering is absolutely necessary for progress, which I don't know is what they want to say. It's like asking people to see the 'good' in WW2 and that it needed to happen in order for humanity to develop rockets and satellites... like you'd hope that we would have figured things out without the need of millions of people to die in a literal holocaust... but I guess Kirk also dealt with that with the whole Guardian thing so it is what it is.
Although the most real thing would be a giant mega construction project that is delayed by years. That's basically real life.
As for the episode, I find the time cops pretty annoying these days, and I think the episode was a bit too long with things that didn't need to happen - putting Pelia in Vermont (or the use of Pelia at all) kind of stood out as unnecessary, as was the car "chase" in the middle of a city with no traffic. The episode is an hour long and probably didn't need to be, in my mind.
I did like the character work with La'an and Kirk, even if the inevitable reset button was going to happen with Kirk.
Although the other thing with this time travel stuff is that it basically states that human suffering is absolutely necessary for progress, which I don't know is what they want to say. It's like asking people to see the 'good' in WW2 and that it needed to happen in order for humanity to develop rockets and satellites... like you'd hope that we would have figured things out without the need of millions of people to die in a literal holocaust... but I guess Kirk also dealt with that with the whole Guardian thing so it is what it is.
It's hilarious because I'm going to a concert tomorrow at the "secret base" they show at the end. lol
Though based on the trailers they’re still going to stick with Fleet Captain Pike meeting Kirk.I'm glad they did it, now they're 'free' to do what they want without contradicting the past anymore
And I'm also one of those on the continuum who want things to fit and make sense whenever possible - just ignore the snarky changelings
Yes it did.
Mount had a kid.
What product placement? I didn’t see any product placement.
Spock in that episode did tell Kirk that if he saved Edith Keeler that millions would die who did not die before so Trek's always had this overarching philosophy of "the past was bad but if we inadvertently change it because of personal feelings it can become much worse." La'an could have killed her ancestor in his bedroom and walked away, but it could well have resulted in an Earth that was far more devastated in a coming conflict than it was in the recorded World War III. Without Khan to seize control over a quarter of the human race the eventual WWIII might have unfolded far differently and much more lethally.
They don't develop her, they just make her suffer.
Not to mention that for a series that spawned the "Red Shirts" trope, no one even dies in Space Seed. There were close calls, but killing was never Step 1 in Khan's methods. And he only became a murderer in Star Trek II after Ceti Alpha V broke him. Treating this episode as a 'Would you kill baby Hitler' sort of scenario misses the point of Khan's character entirely. He's supposed to be a tragic character. Why would Kirk and crew vocally express respect to a mass murderer?
Sometimes the inevitable horror of war or a dictator's rise to power needs to be fully uncovered for people to realize the wrong and band together to not let it happen again.
Yeah, there's definitely a whole butterfly effect thing with this time travel stuff I suppose.
It's interesting that the only person who was able to make a positive change in the past is Sisko... well, sort of.
For how "utopian" Star Trek is though, there's a twinge of darkness that millions of people need to die in order for it to happen. It basically implies that we'll never improve unless we watch people suffer in front of us... and even then, it takes a few tries because it only happens after WW3.
Though as early as 1991 and "A Matter of Time(TNG)" Khan was referred to in the same breath as Adolf Hitler as a dangerous and tragic name in Earth's history. Two decades before the Kelvin Timeline revisited the character Khan was already being held up as a dark chapter in human history. So a "good" tyrant or not he was sinister enough that Jean-Luc Picard the amateur but well-read historian viewed him as being one of the bad guys of the past.
I've had street meat Hot Dogs in 4 Provinces, 4 countries, and 3 Continents, and I can safely say that Toronto has the best.
Toronto, Ontario.
Yeah. All the information La'an had indicated that killing Khan wouldn't necessarily have saved people, it would have just lead to a different (quite possibly larger) pile of bodies.
In better news, Wesley feels more Kirk-y! 
The little romance and Pelia were the best parts of the episode. Very strange episode, not very much happens. The nip thing made me super angry though, so I am giving it a 5.
The little romance and Pelia were the best parts of the episode. Very strange episode, not very much happens. The nip thing made me super angry though, so I am giving it a 5.Um, killing was Step 2 in Khan's methods after he doesn't get what he wants in Step 1. How does that make it better?
KHAN: I should have realised that suffocating together on the Bridge would create heroic camaraderie among you. But it is quite a different thing to watch it happening to someone else. Engage the viewing screen. I'm sure you recognise your medical decompression chamber here, Doctor. And the meaning of that indicator. (It is dropping to 10Hg) Your Captain will die. If you join me, Mister Spock, I will save his life. My vessel was useless. I need you and yours to select a colony planet. One with a population willing to be led by us.
MCCOY: To be conquered by you. A starship would make that most simple, wouldn't it?
KHAN: Each of you in turn will go in there. Die while the others watch.
For that matter, most real life murderers don't usually start with murder as step 1 either. They do it after they don't get what they want in step 1.
Khan is a bad guy. Nothing justifies his actions in Space Seed.
I was disappointed that Pelia didn't show up at her door at the end.
Even if it was just to get her watch back.
Seriously though, Pelia is the one person who La'an can talk to about it all since the correcting of the Romulan interference doesn't happen till after the two of them meet.
Makes me wonder if Pelia is the one who sets up the DTI later on down the road.
My main takeaway from this episode was that the writers just wanted another reason to kill Kirk.
I gave it an 8.
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There was a 1980s remake episode of The Twilight Zone where a time traveler seeks to save JFK from being assassinated but learns that by allowing Kennedy to live it will condemn the world to a nuclear war later in the 1960s. So this is just another variant of that "time travel f'ing up everything with the best of intentions" trope.
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