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

[O'Dib]

Illyrian history is quite fascinating and I can not think of any other ancient tribal societies that the original writers could have taken inspiration from in regards to the Vulcan’s and Romulan’s? Obviously the Romulan’s would be the Roman’s though? That’s pretty obvious.

Indeed. I'd never known even back in the day one accurately situated Illyrian tribe went by Abroi, quite similar to an antiquated Serbian name for Albanians - Arbanasi. In a Yugoslav context, Illyrian province is what Napoleon named conquered pieces of Slovenia and Croatia when he rode through thereabouts, and Illyrism was the name of the first idea for creating a shared identity for the people Star-Trek: Enterprise once named Serbo-Croatians.

Now, knowing the animosity between many of the nations in former Illyria, the theme of persecution being tied to the name rings true, but given hatred is enough of a generalized human trait I'm not certain it's a direct reference.

If Romulans are Romans, Vulcan may be San Marino?

 

[Timofnine]

I think that the original ‘Balance of Terror’ dealt with the Cold War from the 1960’s and the resulting fear from both sides of this situation, to some extent it could also have been a parody of the nuclear arms race with all the weapons tech being developed such as cloaking devices and plasma torpedoes. We know that Romulan’s used nuclear weapons in their war with the Federation too with is quite blatant if antiquated tech. There was also a character called ‘Stiles’ who was present in the original series episode ‘Balance of Terror’, but he was not in this reboot episode. I believe that at the time Stiles was supposed to represent a personification of racial prejudice. I would need to re watch to confirm and I am several episodes away in my rewatch unfortunately. Why was Stiles missed out of this episode? Surely his presence would have made the episode more relevant and the controversy surrounding his character could have led to serious debate about the issue or racial prejudice? Why did they skirt around the bush?

 

[fireproof78]

Then why does Sam explicitly tell us that is who his brother is ... only for Wesley to convey the complete opposite?

Had Sam actually told Pike, "Look, my brother is brilliant, but he comes across as a stack of books with legs," then at least Wesley's performance would make sense in the episode. But that is clearly not the case.

Because brothers suck, at least in my experience.

See it's all about perspective and the company I keep for me. Around family, I'm open, warm, and can be quite funny. Around strangers I am fairly stiff and formal. Around coworkers I tend to be a little more open but not by much. With clients I am far more outgoing than I ever would be with anyone else.

People are not static. Expecting them to be static or even how people report them to be is really missing out on a lot of aspects of humans.

 

[Greylock Crescent]

Because brothers suck, at least in my experience.

See it's all about perspective and the company I keep for me. Around family, I'm open, warm, and can be quite funny. Around strangers I am fairly stiff and formal. Around coworkers I tend to be a little more open but not by much. With clients I am far more outgoing than I ever would be with anyone else.

People are not static. Expecting them to be static or even how people report them to be is really missing out on a lot of aspects of humans.

That's a lot of mental gymnastics to justify a huge discrepancy between what the writers wanted from Kirk and Wesley's pitiful performance.

But I'm glad you enjoyed it.

 

[Rahul]

I almost feel bad for Wesley.
It's a classic type of miscast. The guy gave his best. And he absolutely did the RIGHT acting choice of NOT trying to do a Shatner impression. Instead he played it the way he would play a honorable, great Starfleet Captain. For a guest appereance on a television series his acting was quite okay. It's just the larger-than-life comparison he's measured against....

He even actually looked the part. (At least for television standards). IMO he looks more like Shatner, than Peck looks like Nimoy.

He just has a completely, different type of persona, and wasn't able to act his way out of that.

 

[fireproof78]

That's a lot of mental gymnastics to justify a huge discrepancy between what the writers wanted from Kirk and Wesley's pitiful performance.

But I'm glad you enjoyed it.

That's literally my life. So, yeah, apparently I'm a gymnast...

 

[Tiberius Jim]

I almost feel bad for Wesley.
It's a classic type of miscast. The guy gave his best. And he absolutely did the RIGHT acting choice of NOT trying to do a Shatner impression. Instead he played it the way he would play a honorable, great Starfleet Captain. For a guest appereance on a television series his acting was quite okay. It's just the larger-than-life comparison he's measured against....

He even actually looked the part. (At least for television standards). IMO he looks more like Shatner, than Peck looks like Nimoy.

He just has a completely, different type of persona, and wasn't able to act his way out of that.

This is exactly why i wish they hadn't gone the "John Harrison is Khan!" route with him and just cast Wesley as a new character who is supposed to embody some of the same characteristics as Kirk. We can understand the idea that a different style of command was needed her without being hit over the head with it by having the guy who should be there....actually be there.

Or...they could have just done a better job of casting Kirk.

 

[Rahul]

This is exactly why i wish they hadn't gone the "John Harrison is Khan!" route with him and just cast Wesley as a new character who is supposed to embody some of the same characteristics as Kirk. We can understand the idea that a different style of command was needed her without being hit over the head with it by having the guy who should be there....actually be there.

Or...they could have just done a better job of casting Kirk.

Second point is the issue. This was absolutely a "Kirk"-story. Without Kirk, there's no plot (They could still have a future-Pike time-travel - but the whole A-plot/alternate Romulan War timeline plot needed to be a different one).

I guess the producers were gunning for recreating the magic of Anson Mount again - cast a somewhat prominent, but not A-list actor in an important role & see how fans react.

Had Wesley been the bomb, I'm sure a TOS reboot (or at least a Kirk & Spock prequel) would have been pushed for pretty soon. As is, the producers did a good job of introducing a major canon character, without actually breaking canon (since it was technically an "alternate future").

IMO one of the best outcomes - we got our Kirk, but no chance in hell actual Kirk is going to replace awesome Anson-Pike soon.

 

[Kor]

It seemed that when I watched the episode on Paramount+ there were almost no commercial breaks. Did that happen for anyone else?

Kor

 

[Paul755]

My own assumption is that the only difference between Original Recipe Kirk and this realities Kirk is that one got the Enterprise and the other didn’t. We have no way of knowing what the differences are beyond skipping the first 7 eps of TOS.

For all we know, Gary and Bones were on the Farragut we just didn’t see them during the evac.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

Had Wesley been the bomb, I'm sure a TOS reboot (or at least a Kirk & Spock prequel) would have been pushed for pretty soon. As is, the producers did a good job of introducing a major canon character, without actually breaking canon (since it was technically an "alternate future").

IMO one of the best outcomes - we got our Kirk, but no chance in hell actual Kirk is going to replace awesome Anson-Pike soon.

Yeah if they were actually testing the water to see if they can set up a Kirk and Spock spin-off I'd say the answer is 'nope, not with this guy!' The episode has had an incredibly positive response from fans, but Kirk seems to be in almost everyone's 'negatives' column. Personally I'm considering that to be a good outcome, because I want them to leave Kirk the hell alone.

 

[Tiberius Jim]

Second point is the issue. This was absolutely a "Kirk"-story. Without Kirk, there's no plot (They could still have a future-Pike time-travel - but the whole A-plot/alternate Romulan War timeline plot needed to be a different one).

I could still see it working even if the Farragut captain was some unknown hotshot instead of Kirk. I felt like the point wasn't that the captain of the Enterprise needs to be Kirk, more than it needs to not be Pike. At least as far as Pike is concerned, since it doesn't seem like he's made aware that Kirk is supposed to captain the Enterprise and not him.

 

[fireproof78]

IMO one of the best outcomes - we got our Kirk, but no chance in hell actual Kirk is going to replace awesome Anson-Pike soon.

He's coming back in Season 2. So, I am not confident that Pike isn't out yet.

But, given the reaction to Kirk I can only suspect that Season 2 will not have it as easy with the fans as Season 1.

 

[Nerys Myk]

It seemed that when I watched the episode on Paramount+ there were almost no commercial breaks. Did that happen for anyone else?

Kor

I stopped getting commercials years ago. Never signed up for commercial free, though.

 

[Paul755]

He's coming back in Season 2. So, I am not confident that Pike isn't out yet.

But, given the reaction to Kirk I can only suspect that Season 2 will not have it as easy with the fans as Season 1.

it all depends on how much Kirk is in it. Everyone seems to assume he’s gonna be there a lot but he could barely be there outside a side plot with La’an.

 

[fireproof78]

it all depends on how much Kirk is in it. Everyone seems to assume he’s gonna be there a lot but he could barely be there outside a side plot with La’an.

I'll await your report with great interest.

 

[IMC Headquarters]

Pike + La'an = Pla'an. Is that the plan?

 

[fireproof78]

Pike + La'an = Pla'an. Is that the plan?

Only when it comes together.

 

[GNDN18]

But will you love it?

 

[Sisko_is_my_captain]

They should have had James Frain play the Romulan commander.