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

[cooleddie74]

The Pilots had an absolutely terrible braid ranking system. Everyone had just one braid or none at all.

 

[Donald G]

You will be disappointed.

He was Canadian and served in the Canadian military during World War 2.


Except, in Where No Man Has Gone Before he only has a single stripe

The Scotty we saw in this episode was the Scotty of 2266, who is wearing the braid proper to "Balance of Terror."

 

[Mr Awe]

I'm sorry but the first 50 minutes of this is nonsensical. They don't tie the delta radiation accident to the Romulan War at all, only that Kirk needed to be in command of the Enterprise at 2266 which... he really would've been already anyway once Pike gets his promotion to Fleet Captain, which still has nothing to do with the specific radiation accident.

That's a good point. Kirk didn't get command of the Enterprise because of the accident. He already was on the Enterprise when it occurred. Pike was elsewhere.

 

[cooleddie74]

Yeah, he wore one solid and one broken braid for every episode in which he wore a red uniform shirt.

 

[TRON JA307020]

You will be disappointed.

He was Canadian and served in the Canadian military during World War 2.


Except, in Where No Man Has Gone Before he only has a single stripe

I agree. I'll be disappointed. This really won't be Pikes journey anymore. It's more like a long passing of the baton to the original characters. Really too bad.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Yep. You could tell. I think his red sleeve even had the appropriate Lieutenant Commander braids.

oh, I didn't realize he actually appeared onscreen. (I haven't actually seen the episode yet.)

 

[cooleddie74]

His arm reaches around the corner of the opening of the Jefferies Tube a'la Chef handing out plates of food in "The Catwalk(ENT)."

 

[fireproof78]

Yeah, he wore one solid and one broken braid for every episode in which he wore a red uniform shirt.

I was referring to "Where No Man Has Gone Before"

I agree. I'll be disappointed. This really won't be Pikes journey anymore. It's more like a long passing of the baton to the original characters. Really too bad.

And if my grandmother had wheels she'd be a wagon.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

To be fair, though, the rank stripes kinda have to be taken with a grain of salt, since at least one SNW character (La'an) wears the wrong ones.

(For the entire run of the show, La'an has worn LCDR stripes, even though she's only a Lieutenant)

 

[cooleddie74]

I know you were. You even said so.

 

[wayoung]

Too bad the Romulan commander wasn't played by James Frain

 

[fireproof78]

I know you were. You even said so.

I must be missing the broken braid then

scotty-wnmhgb.jpg (1440×1080) (ex-astris-scientia.org)

To be fair, though, the rank stripes kinda have to be taken with a grain of salt, since at least one SNW character (La'an) wears the wrong ones.

(For the entire run of the show, La'an has worn LCDR stripes, even though she's only a Lieutenant)

Oh, I know.

I just thought Trek fans were supposed to point out little details that they get wrong. I thought it was our civic duty or something...

 

[thribs]

Is there any particular reason why Pike averting the accident which crippled him would cause him to remain in command of the Enterprise? Especially since the accident wasn't the reason he LEFT it?

I took it to mean that he didn’t accept his promotion to fleet captain, thinking that if he wasn’t around to train those cadets, it wouldn’t happen

 

[jackoverfull]

Someone hasn't watched a lot of TAS.

i watched all of it twice. It was literally shatner, so not sure what you are getting at.

 

[Trekker4747]

Boy I want to love this episode, but I can only like it. I give a 7. It was middling entertainment. I didn't dislike it, but I didn't love it.

I'll try to keep this short, but this is one I had to process to figure out how I felt about it and why. I wanted to love it. Balance of Power is an awesome episode and I rewatched it this week.

I guess my chief complaint is that it really didn't make Pike look good. Put him in the scenario as Kirk and he failed. He objectively failed. That's not a great look for a Captain and series hero. I'm sure you could say that you might put Kirk in a Pike scenario and he might not do as well too. But still, it's just an odd thing that didn't sit well.

Another issue is that it's entirely setup as something that won't happen. Further, we're told that Pike will mess up based on Old Pike. Sure enough, we see that happen. But we also know that it'll be reset and not happen. Pike just has to see that outcome to know not to send the letter. We know that for the entire episode, which robs it of some drama. It takes you out of the story.

It was nice seeing BoT redone sort of. But, boy, the line readings by the modern actors for the identical dialog just wasn't as good! They lacked ooph and drama. The scene with Ortegas and the Romulan reveal wasn't as dramatic as with Stiles. The conference room discussion about how to handle the situation wasn't as dramatic. McCoy was sharply anti-attacking, M'Benga was more mutes. Just not the same level of tension in SNW as in TOS. Even the Romulan command at the end with the "We could've been friends" line didn't have the same depth and gravitas as Mark Lenard in BoP. Collectively, this was another factor in reducing the impact of this episode.

More minor issues:

I didn't buy Paul Wesley as Kirk. Just didn't ring true for me. Perhaps with more time, I'll grow used to him. I accepted Pine as Kirk with no problem. So, it's the actor. I am now less excited about seeing more of him as Kirk next season. Hopefully, he can grow into the role or something.

I loved seeing the Neutral Zone outpost in its modern glory. You don't get that sense in BoT. However, whoever had that first image of it spinning around ought to be fired. I wanted to enjoy the beauty of the shot, not get nausea!

Scotty!

I'm sure there's more but that's enough for now. I loved the idea of the episode, but the reality of it didn't work for me. I enjoyed it ok, but I was hoping for something more epic. However, it did serve show what a fantastic episode Balance of Terror was! Everything that didn't work in SNW, worked in the TOS episode perfectly.

I just take it not that Pike is inacpable/incompetent in that kinda situation he just didn't have the rights kind of command mechanism for it to work out the way it needed too. From what we've seen of him up to this point he's pretty much of the mentality of "we can work together to find a common ground and make this work" and, actually, that thought process almost works here. It's just that in this circumstance it takes Kirk's special kind of way of dealing with things fir stuff to work out "right."

It's not a situation where Pike's friendly approach will work. It's like Jelico in Chain of Command, him being put there wasn't to speak against Picard's or Riker's command styles it's that Jelico's experience with the Cardassians was the specific key needed for that situation to have the best possible chance of working.

This episode isn't saying Pike is a poor commander just not the "right" one for this to work.

And agreed, Wesley is no Kirk.

 

[cooleddie74]

Sometimes a situation needs a Jim Kirk who'll blow up an enemy ship, violate enemy space and break the Prime Directive. And these are good things.

 

[Belz...]

Those are your words not mine.

"you have completely lost a large part of what being a fan of Trek has been about since its inception" is exactly saying that I'm not a big fan of Trek. You can't pretend that you didn't say it.

And last I knew "being obsessed about a particular IP' is pretty much the definition of what being a "Fan" is.

Leaving aside that you just made the same accusation again, that would require using an antiquated definition of the word, from "fanatic", while the current use of "fan" -- as you well know -- is much broader.

If you'd step down for just a moment from your holier-than-thou attitude

That's rich considering that you're the one who just one post ago was looking down on fans that don't enjoy the franchise in the precise way that you do by telling them that they've "lost" the large part of their status as fans.

Face it: me saying that I no longer want to waste time trying to reconcile real world creative decisions with in-universe continuity doesn't make me not a fan, nor does it mean I've "lost" anything of my enjoyment for the franchise. Nor, of course, does that mean that you can't engage in such fanwanking, yourself.

 

[Kaelef]

Both Kirk and Pike's choices during that incident were gambles made with little knowledge of the enemy. It just happened that Kirk's choice was the right one and Pike's was the wrong one. It could've easily gone the other way around.

 

[cooleddie74]

Pike was the right man for Kiley 279. Kirk was clearly the right man for the Neutral Zone border raids.

 

[Mr Awe]

I'm really torn on this episode, because in isolation, it's a great episode of Strange New Worlds that showcases all of the strengths of the series, and provides continued development to Pike's arc.

On the other hand, it's an episode that absolutely did NOT need to be made.

I have little niggles, like how this episode did the same thing that Enterprise did in These Are the Voyages... having a time skip with everyone having the exact same haircuts and no apparent character development over a long period of time. But the big issues with the episode are basically:

1. Paul Wesley is just a generic white guy captain - he doesn't give off Kirk vibes at all. Indeed, I sort of feel like the Sam Kirk scene was added because Wesley didn't sell it enough with his performance.

2. There was absolutely no need to remake Balance of Terror, one of the best, if not the absolute best, episodes of TOS (Personally I like The Doomsday Machine more, but it's arguable). Anything SNW did was not going to look quite as good in comparison, and there were some line-for-line lifts from that script here.

3. Related to point 2, the plot basically requires Pike to look like a chump, since we know that Kirk is supposed to be the one to save the day here. The episode is supposed to be a tragedy of course, but by setting us up in an alternate version of a story we already knew, it almost turns Christopher Pike into Jonathan Archer - someone bumbling his way into disaster, despite his best intentions.

All of this is unfortunate, because the episode gets a good deal of things right as well. I think the brief depiction of the Romulans here was better than what we saw in PIC Season 1, and the Romulan Commander was if anything improved slightly from Balance of Terror. The episode was well shot, directed, acted, had a good character arc for Pike...but ultimately it's just a nostalgia trip, which seems the wrong way to end Season 1, which has been careful to tell new stories centered on the cast.

I agree with all your points. Particularly how the direct comparisons to Balance of Power did no favors for this episode. And Pike was forced to look like a chump, as you say.

But you also go into this episode knowing that it was going to be reset. Pike learns not to mess with his fate. But it's an almost complete reset.

I'd rather if they had just gone on some new, epic adventure to close the season out.