Dang, after the failed “Wedding Bell Blues” this is another one that didn’t land for me at all. The episode looked amazing, as per usual, and I loved Anson Mount’s performance as the idiosyncratic Hollywood writer (IMHO he’s the only one who really leaned into the opportunity to play against type). The parallel storyline with Scotty was interesting as well. (Although I keep wondering why he seems to be stuck in that new science lab set in every episode; is engineering not a thing anymore for engineers on this show?)
But other than that I was baffled by some of the writing choices. Want to make a Murder Mystery? Fine, but then make it something clever and not this hodgepodge of stereotypes and trite dialog. There’s definitely a kernel of a cool idea there, but it didn’t come together at all and just kind of ended at some point. What exactly was it about that even more stoic and computer-like Spock that made La’an realize she’s got the hots for him? They really forgot to add some kind of scene that made that resolution make sense, I feel like. And am I the only one who immediately suspected that that wasn’t really Spock in the simulation?
Or was this supposed to be a comedy? Then I have to wonder — if I might be so blunt — why did they forget to add any fucking jokes? The idea of the
Trek-stand-in in-universe sci-fi show is cool and all, but that opening scene went on for
waaay too long and I kept wondering if it was supposed to be funny. The writers seem to think that all they need to do is create these kind of colorful, outlandish situations and then it just magically
has to be funny. But unfortunately that didn’t work here at all, just as it didn’t with the whole Trelane nonsense. The writing just isn’t
there.
Oh man, hopefully it’ll be back to form next week.
