I'm jumping in midway here, so forgive me if something is mentioned already on the previous nine pages.
I think the main way to describe Season 3 was uneven. Some decent episodes and some really bad ones and some rehashes that we didn't need.
Hegemony Part II was alright. You had to get M'Benga & Sam Kirk back, but I found that half of the episode to be better than the Pike side. I was frustrated that the Gorn simply got put into hibernation, but it follows Trek tradition of not being able to stick the landing in Part II's.
Wedding Bell Blues continues to beat this dead horse of the Spock/Chapel relationship and then pushes him into a relationship with La'an. I get that Ethan Peck is physically attractive, but he was never interested in Chapel in TOS and here, he's like a love sick puppy. Rhys Darby was fun and I enjoyed the trickster stuff in a fun way, but I was done with the relationship and just didn't care.
Shuttle To Kenfori. I like the episode as a Pike/M'Benga friend journey. The Klingon storyline could have been chopped and Pike still could have extracted the admission of guilt from M'Benga. Zombies have been done, even in Trek. It was an opportunity to do something different and we got zombies.
While I liked A Space Adventure Hour as an hour of TV, it is yet another episode of the SNW cast playing different characters. They use the proto-holodeck as a McGuffin to get there and all we're doing is more La'an/Spock relationship building. I'll forgive them if there is some event in the future where La'an is killed tragically that forces Spock to close that part of himself off, but right now, its just cringy writing.
Through The Lens Of Time was the first good episode of the season, even with the continued featuring of the love triangle. I got lost in some of the explanation of the whatever they were in, but at least it was closer to Star Trek than anything else so far in the season.
Sehlat was another good episode. It could have been two separate episodes between the original crew coming together on the Farragut and the human colonist story. As much as it had been done with Star Trek Beyond etc, a group that decided to leave Earth and then take an absolute shit kicking to become this vengeful scrapper group is an interesting concept.
What is Starfleet? was my favourite of the season. Even if Beto is being disingenuous, we still got more character development for Uhura and Ortegas that we had up until this point. It was different to see the events happen from a third party view instead of being right on top of them.
Four & A Half Vulcans is SNW's Threshold, And The Children Shall Lead, These Are The Voyages, Shades of Grey and it is probably worse than most of them. Obviously written for a reason to stick the four regulars in Vulcan makeup for wacky hijinks, it is painfully bad to watch the actors try and be Vulcans. I will admit to some laughs with Vulcan Pike, if only because he leans into the absurdity into the story. The La'an wants to stay Romulan storyline is out of left field (all of their "we want to stay Vulcan stuff" was silly) and the problem is again solved by love with an assist fro the power of dance. The Una stuff with Patton Oswalt was another WTF moment. She is this cool, collected officer, but Doug drives her wild? Why? The joke isn't funny. The only part of the episode I would watch again is the post credit scene with Peck & Oswalt going back and forth.
Terrarium was the best episode of the season until they dragged the Metrons into it. There was no reason other to have them other than "hey look a TOS reference." The episode had been a tour de force from Melissa Navia, who basically is acting by herself, in a fake environment, and doing a damn good job of it. But the minute La'an is sent off the bridge to go rescue Ortegas, you know she is going to kill the Gorn and the episode doesn't have any payoff from the moment.
New Life & New Civilizations was frustrating. For the entire season, Batel seemed like an after thought, that the writers truly had no idea what to do with her after they made her part Gorn. Nurse Gamble is partially saved from being a redshirt by being an excellent villain. But if we deleted Four & A Half Vulcans, moved Terrarium back and had a two part finale, so we could have longer, more intimate scenes in the world Batel created for Pike. It was a great idea, but it feels shoved in amongst all this other stuff that's going on and it shortchanges characters like M'Benga, who the villain has this interest in. It felt very rushed, but it was still a decent episode.
Another irritating thing in this season was the forced inclusion of James Kirk in some episodes. Paul Wesley plays him well, but is this his show or Anson Mount's as Pike? Four & A Half Vulcans - he shows up to visit Sam, apparently not checking in ahead, but sticks around to drink with Scotty so he can get swept up in the La'an plot. He should be used sparingly.
Can we cut Pelia now? She isn't funny. I didn't find the telephone bit funny nor did I find her scenes throughout the season to do anything to further the story. I get she is the intended comic relief, but they keep giving her these time traveller lines and again, just not interested.
The romance story plots with Spock need to be thrown out. I'm sorry if Ethan Peck or Jess Bush or whoever wants them, but you are writing a series that's a prequel. I'm not a fan that declares the bridge should look like it did in the 60's or the Klingons should have smooth heads, I get that real life technology allows for new and interesting thing. But it is bad writing to take pre-established characters with pre-established ways of acting and change them up. If anything, Spock feels like a creep that can't let go of Chapel, when in TOS, he could care less about her for the most part.
