Pretty good action episode.
A few observations:
Poor Ortegas still only ever gets to do one thing.
Wesley still does nothing for me as Kirk, and as such, I don't much care about his crisis of confidence.
So, why did this scavenger ship blast this planet and then beat feet immediately after nabbing the
Enterprise? For kicks?
The
Enterprise party are real quick to jump to the idea of relieving Kirk of command, and Spock's totes right to shut that down.
In-story, I can buy that Starfleet screwed up by relying too much on non-wired systems. That happens now. Example: a few years ago, the US Navy
reverted from touchscreen throttle and helm controls to physical controls on some destroyers following a collision.
So, sure, maybe Starfleet went too far down the wireless path. Sometimes you just need two tin cans and a string.
The literal face on the scavenger ship was ridiculous and kinda ruined the design for me.
My biggest complaint: the staging of the climactic action was poor. The first time I watched it, I didn't even see that it was the Klingon ship the torpedoes hit. I guessed that was what happened and went back to watch it again, and it wasn't til a second rewatch that I saw it.
I like that the show doesn't always spell out every little thing, but that the Klingon ship 'sploded so spectacularly as to blow up the Scavenger ship seemed awfully convenient. What? They drained it of everything but its antimatter stores? Was its photon torpedo magazine detonated? How did Spock even know there was Klingon ship in there? Did he spot it when they got line-of-sight? I just don't feel like that was set up properly.