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

His badge has me curious as to where he's serving in Season 2. Farragut was shown to use the E Delta in Ep.10 The Outposts have the Fish Delta. His is a third design.

 

Great episode. My first 10 score of the season.

But one thing that bugged me was that Kirk didn't become the Captain of Enterprise because of Pike's accident. Kirk didn't even know about Pike's accident until Menagerie. So the alternate timeline doesn't quite make sense (Kirk should still be the Enterprise Captain during this event even if Pike escapes his fate). Is this a screwup by the writers or is there a good explanation for this? And to be honest I didn't think of this until after the episode was over. While watching it everything made sense.

 

The new maroon also shows that ribbed turtlenecks still work, even when "it's 2022"
So there's hope for at least some brief background Cage uniforms in more than just a picture...

 

Spock had surmised that Pike's lack of injury from the training accident resulted in Pike remaining captain of the Enterprise. I imagine that when Pike returns from his time jump into the future he has already decided that Jim Kirk would be the correct captain for this encounter and would put a plan in motion to get Kirk command of the Enterprise in the corrected timeline. On Pike's "first pass" thru the alt-timeline he wasn't aware of Kirk as an option for the Enterprise.

 

That works for me. Thanks.

 

I actually like that bit of headcanon. Because other than that and the cringeworthy fan service, Into Darkness isn't a bad movie.

 

Funny you say that - because you're 100% right.
Anson Mount plays a very different character than the cold, distant Pike of Jeffrey Hunter.

The reason it works for me is because Mount is simply awesome, oozing with charisma, and having that 60s leading man-type. He alone is probably have the reason the show has a "retro futurism" charm.

You can rationalize it by saying Hunters Pike was just in a depression phase (like Mount in the pilot). But yeah. In this case - entertainment trumps internal consistency.

I think both Quinto and Peck work to a degree. Better than Wesley. But both aren't my favourite, merely "acceptable" as Spock. Which - regarding Nimoy's legendary status - is an amazing feat by itself!

I think Quinto comes closer - he looks like a carbon copy of Nimoy, with a similar "edge" (at least in ST09, before he became fatter than the super-slim Nimoy in ID). That was amazing casting.
Sadly the script betrayed him, and nuSpock became a crying, screaming, extremely violent and hot-headed emotional mess.

Peck looks like Dollar-store Spock. But his acting, the tone of his voice, and the pitch-perfect Spock-dialogue makes it (at least for me personally) clear that he "is" the original younger Spock. Kinda ' like "the cage"-Nimoy. Different, but also the same. I'm just mostly done with legacy characters at this point.

Tuvok is IMO the second best main cast Vulcan (After Nimoy, before T'Pol and all Spock copies). His acting was almost too much inspired by Nimoy, which is IMO why every one likes him, but he's no one's favourite character.

 

A mixed bag. It tried, and mostly worked.

My main issue is this constant need to constantly tread, retread and flesh out every single bit around a certain area. It seems to be what Star Wars is doing.

So you have a character like Hemmer who is a race we've barely seen in Trek and is pushing boundaries by having a blind actor. But no we don't want that. We want Kirk, and Kirk's brother, and Spock and Spock's brother and Spock's girlfriend. And maybe some Scotty too. It's so reductive. I don't feel I'm learning more about them due to this.

Oh Spock struggles with deep internal rage vs is calm exterior oh we must see more of this. Oh Kirk breaks rules. Did you pick that up? They mentioned it a few times. His brother who hasn't even served with him can say he's Starfleet's best. And he breaks rules. Oh here's rule-breaker Kirk. Oh Kirk is breaking rules!

Also the guy they hired for Kirk...well... I know you don't want a caricature, but when they said study the captain of the Enterprise did he pick Harriman?

Also in weird casting the headline Romulan was good, then his 'first officer' was just fucking awful. Both in acting but also writing. "Is this not the Romulan way?" Who speaks like this?! No one speaks like this, not even a Romulan.

But I liked its attempts at meddling with causality. A ghost of yet to come story is often appealing.

The music was amazing in Spock's deathbed scene. I hope it comes out on a soundtrack.

And Anson Mount is amazing and one of the finest additions to Trek ever.

 

I mean, you're right - but this is basically the main message of NuTrek anyway.

"The Vulcan Hello" was a lot more extreme, to the point of being obnoxious.

But you know what? There's a bit of truth in it. Not to go into current politics - but Martin Luther King, the suffragettes, and the axis powers didn't win by being nice.

They won by wanting to be nice, but absolutely willing to stand up for themselves, take a punch & give a punch if necessary. But then not holding a grudge afterwards, but reach out with a hand again.

So even if it sounds brash - the message isn't "violence" - no one asked to shoot first!

The message was to stand up for yourself. Even if it was a bit muddied.

This is a very tiny, but important distinction, that was IMO better handled in the original "Balance of Terror ". But it was still in here enough to be recognizable.

 

I notice you spend quite a few posts being dismissive of people who don't like change, this included. But this analogy it doesn't quite work.

The problem is that Hamlet is performed by different people in different ways. Different interpretations. Whereas with Trek yes technically it is different people too due to the time span, but it's brought by the same producer and holder of those rights.

It's the same product.

It's a bit like saying some new people joined Coca Cola, and you must like the new Cola Cola flavour they've introduced. Just accept it people!

But just like some people like when Hamlet is done in a steampunk style and others prefer a more pure interpretation, some people like the standard Coke taste and aren't a fan of New Coke.

There is no right or wrong, it's a preference. Our bars of acceptance of change will run the spectrum.

 

Leonard Nimoy, Mark Lenard, Tim Russ and Gary Graham were the only actors who could convincingly play a Vulcan. I never liked Jolene Blalock's portrayal of T'Pol and Zachary Quinto just does't have the dead serious facial expression he would need to play a Vulcan. Something that Ethan Peck is getting better at, and he also has the voice!

 

I’d *love* to see that episode!

 

Or maybe, in the alternate timeline Like never accepted the his promotion and remained Captain of the Enterprise. Hey! That’s pretty much what we saw onscreen…

 

If someone makes a Hamlet cinematic universe and the 15th sequel returns to the time period of the classic movie Hamlet 3: It's Hamlet Time (89% on Rotten Tomatoes) but reimagines it because his neck is too long to be acceptable to audiences in the year 2052 and he doesn't have enough symbols down the arms of his iconic coat, then I wouldn't give a damn, because I am not a Hamlet fan.

But I would have a lot of sympathy for Hamlet cinematic universe fans that are frustrated by this retcon.

 

Pike. Not Like. Damn autocorrect is controlled by Romulans

 

One small clarification, but it wouldn't have helped. If she had attacked, T'Kuvma and company wouldn't have backed off.

They were set on war no matter what.

 

Maybe he is in command of the Grissom?

 

I’m not entirely convinced of that. T’Kuvma viewed the Federation as a cultural threat, not a military one. And IIRC that’s how he pitched it to the other Klingon leaders. And what proved his point and set them all off was Georgiou’s “We’re here to help” message.

To cross nerddoms here for a minute, T’Kuvma viewed the Federation the same way the Imperium view the Tau.

If the Shenzou had gone in all Vulcan Helloing T’Kuvma’s appeals to the Klingon leadership may not have been successful.

OTOH these are Klingons so it’s open for debate

 

Una jailed for years and even prevented from keeping contact with her friends ?
Thats solitary confinement and one of the inhumane treatments / torture you can do to social beings !

I dont like that writing. The Federation schould not act like this !

 

I think that was a bit odd as they were trying to play games with the audience. "But no one can talk to her..." i.e. they want you to think she's dead. Then they reveal she's in prison.

Prison like with Tom Paris is just one of those odd Trek things. Because on the one hand they want you to think there is no crime but then they have prisons.