Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
June 29, 2023 7:29 AM - Season 2, Episode 3 - Subscribe
La'an gets her chance to score the coveted hidden square of Enterprise Bingo: going to Earth's past to save the future with zero prep.
Memory Alpha is from space:
- The Department of Temporal Investigations (and similar/successor organizations) has appeared in different iterations of the franchise, although their purpose, methods, and equipment have changed depending on which era they're from; sometimes they're there to investigate unauthorized use of time travel (e.g. DS9's "Trials and Tribble-ations"), and sometimes they're there to fix the timeline (VOY, ENT). The "time clicker" (the device used by La'an and Kirk to travel back) seems new, and I think that it may be deliberately limited in terms of what people (or at least non-temporal agents) can do with it. It's not really clear which era the two temporal agents we see are from.
- Also not clear is whether or not Romulans had/have the sort of capability to time travel on a routine basis that the future Federation has. AFAIK, the only time we've seen Romulans time-travel is Nero and his ship in the Kelvin timeline.
- Speaking of which, NF(Non-Federation)-Kirk floats the possibility of La'an returning to her own timeline without fixing his, but she seems to think that that's impossible.
- Assuming that this takes place in 2022, that pushes forward/retcons the date of the Eugenics Wars, assuming that Khan has to be involved. Sera (the Romulan agent) says something about the timeline correcting itself; I wish that I had time (heh) to transcribe what she said about that exactly, but I watched this episode very early in the morning and didn't have the you-know-what to do it then, maybe I'll do it later if someone else or Memory Alpha doesn't beat me to it. She apparently originally went to 1992, so they're at least acknowledging the changing dates.
- The only member of NF-Kirk's crew that I recognized was Ortegas. Poor Captain Spock.
- Interesting (and logical) that many of the weapons on the wall of the combat training room look like Klingon weapons.
- The episode title is from Macbeth, one of many Shakespeare-derived Trek episode titles. Here's the monologue; spot the other time-travel Trek title in it:
Although the different iterations of the franchise have been to the well of traveling-back-to-Earth-at-more-or-less-the-then-current-time-IRL many, many times, and many of the story beats are familiar (getting the right clothes, getting some money, dealing with the authorities, finding some contemporary allies, etc.), this episode had a number of differences both big and little. NF-Kirk going back with La'an was an inspired choice; not only were there some clever nods to his past--being a chess hustler (he played 3-dimensional chess with Spock in "Where No Man Has Gone Before", Trek's second pilot) and being born on the USS Iowa, which apparently was the original name for the Kelvin--but he also brings up the issue of the correction of history resulting in his being replaced by a different Kirk. He's still willing to go along with it, because of course he's that kind of person, but even before he's killed La'an has to know that the prime Kirk won't be exactly the same person that she falls for.
And, of course, the episode belongs to her. AFAIK, NF-Kirk may have been the first person that she's ever kissed, and her tears after she talks to the prime Kirk kind of reinforce that. (I will note that, in last season's last episode, the alternate future La'an ends up serving on Kirk's ship. Hmm.) Also great was her scene with lil' Khan, tenderly wiping Romulan blood off his face. I also liked Sera; it would be kind of cool if we end up seeing her again thanks to wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey.
Anyone reading this from Toronto? Anything you'd like to point out?
Memory Alpha is from space:
- The Department of Temporal Investigations (and similar/successor organizations) has appeared in different iterations of the franchise, although their purpose, methods, and equipment have changed depending on which era they're from; sometimes they're there to investigate unauthorized use of time travel (e.g. DS9's "Trials and Tribble-ations"), and sometimes they're there to fix the timeline (VOY, ENT). The "time clicker" (the device used by La'an and Kirk to travel back) seems new, and I think that it may be deliberately limited in terms of what people (or at least non-temporal agents) can do with it. It's not really clear which era the two temporal agents we see are from.
- Also not clear is whether or not Romulans had/have the sort of capability to time travel on a routine basis that the future Federation has. AFAIK, the only time we've seen Romulans time-travel is Nero and his ship in the Kelvin timeline.
- Speaking of which, NF(Non-Federation)-Kirk floats the possibility of La'an returning to her own timeline without fixing his, but she seems to think that that's impossible.
- Assuming that this takes place in 2022, that pushes forward/retcons the date of the Eugenics Wars, assuming that Khan has to be involved. Sera (the Romulan agent) says something about the timeline correcting itself; I wish that I had time (heh) to transcribe what she said about that exactly, but I watched this episode very early in the morning and didn't have the you-know-what to do it then, maybe I'll do it later if someone else or Memory Alpha doesn't beat me to it. She apparently originally went to 1992, so they're at least acknowledging the changing dates.
- The only member of NF-Kirk's crew that I recognized was Ortegas. Poor Captain Spock.
- Interesting (and logical) that many of the weapons on the wall of the combat training room look like Klingon weapons.
- The episode title is from Macbeth, one of many Shakespeare-derived Trek episode titles. Here's the monologue; spot the other time-travel Trek title in it:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,Poster's Log:
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Although the different iterations of the franchise have been to the well of traveling-back-to-Earth-at-more-or-less-the-then-current-time-IRL many, many times, and many of the story beats are familiar (getting the right clothes, getting some money, dealing with the authorities, finding some contemporary allies, etc.), this episode had a number of differences both big and little. NF-Kirk going back with La'an was an inspired choice; not only were there some clever nods to his past--being a chess hustler (he played 3-dimensional chess with Spock in "Where No Man Has Gone Before", Trek's second pilot) and being born on the USS Iowa, which apparently was the original name for the Kelvin--but he also brings up the issue of the correction of history resulting in his being replaced by a different Kirk. He's still willing to go along with it, because of course he's that kind of person, but even before he's killed La'an has to know that the prime Kirk won't be exactly the same person that she falls for.
And, of course, the episode belongs to her. AFAIK, NF-Kirk may have been the first person that she's ever kissed, and her tears after she talks to the prime Kirk kind of reinforce that. (I will note that, in last season's last episode, the alternate future La'an ends up serving on Kirk's ship. Hmm.) Also great was her scene with lil' Khan, tenderly wiping Romulan blood off his face. I also liked Sera; it would be kind of cool if we end up seeing her again thanks to wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey.
Anyone reading this from Toronto? Anything you'd like to point out?
I don't think we have to take seriously Sera's explanation for where the Bird of Prey photo came from. Her explanation of the circumstances of that photo didn't make sense, but the photo being there in order to gauge Jim and La'An's reactions makes a kind of sense.
I liked the episode overall! It was great to spend time with La'an. Her apparent instant attraction to Jim was hard to understand at first but when she explaned it to him it did make sense to me.
I thought La'an should have gotten the gun out of Sera's hands by declaring yes, by god, and I'll kill Khan myself .. the shooting Sera instead. But at least the fight scene felt short, by comparison with the one in E1.
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 8:50 AM on June 29, 2023 [10 favorites]
I liked the episode overall! It was great to spend time with La'an. Her apparent instant attraction to Jim was hard to understand at first but when she explaned it to him it did make sense to me.
I thought La'an should have gotten the gun out of Sera's hands by declaring yes, by god, and I'll kill Khan myself .. the shooting Sera instead. But at least the fight scene felt short, by comparison with the one in E1.
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 8:50 AM on June 29, 2023 [10 favorites]
The only member of NF-Kirk's crew that I recognized was Ortegas. Poor Captain Spock.
Uhura was on comms.
I loved this ep. Just the right blend of fanservice and plot and action and emotion.
posted by Etrigan at 9:06 AM on June 29, 2023 [8 favorites]
Uhura was on comms.
I loved this ep. Just the right blend of fanservice and plot and action and emotion.
posted by Etrigan at 9:06 AM on June 29, 2023 [8 favorites]
Now am wondering if any Alt history people have written anything significant on the Optimal time to kill Hitler to stop/prevent World War II - assuming that (morally) killing him as a baby/child is not a hypothetical option ..?
posted by Faintdreams at 10:20 AM on June 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Faintdreams at 10:20 AM on June 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
I thought this was a decent episode that could have used a bit more fun.
I was bothered that Spock still existed--are we to believe that Amanda Grayson and Sarek still got married in the Bad Place?
posted by rhymedirective at 10:39 AM on June 29, 2023 [9 favorites]
I was bothered that Spock still existed--are we to believe that Amanda Grayson and Sarek still got married in the Bad Place?
posted by rhymedirective at 10:39 AM on June 29, 2023 [9 favorites]
Is this the first time we've seen hand-to-hand combat involving a Romulan? I've never been clear on whether they have the same super-Human physical capabilities of Vulcans, and this makes it look like maybe they do, to an extent, unless of course Sera is just extremely well-trained or something.
We were overdue for an episode that delved into La'an's' whole deal, and this did it well.
Just the right blend of fanservice and plot and action and emotion.
Agreed, though I also think a smidge more fun was in order. Or maybe I just want another Trek movie with pre-UFP time-travel—or a two-parter; Trek doesn't spend quite enough time "hanging out" in the past for my liking.
Speaking of: the watch was a nice TVH homage, and as for whatever that closing shot forebodes? My best guess (well, the ONLY guess I can come up with) is something involving Boimler and Mariner…
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 11:51 AM on June 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
We were overdue for an episode that delved into La'an's' whole deal, and this did it well.
Just the right blend of fanservice and plot and action and emotion.
Agreed, though I also think a smidge more fun was in order. Or maybe I just want another Trek movie with pre-UFP time-travel—or a two-parter; Trek doesn't spend quite enough time "hanging out" in the past for my liking.
Speaking of: the watch was a nice TVH homage, and as for whatever that closing shot forebodes? My best guess (well, the ONLY guess I can come up with) is something involving Boimler and Mariner…
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 11:51 AM on June 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
I was bothered that Spock still existed--are we to believe that Amanda Grayson and Sarek still got married in the Bad Place?
Even if they did, and it's quite possible that Earth and Vulcan still have diplomatic relations without the Federation, it's highly unlikely that they would conceive the same child with even a very small change in history. That's a problem with just about every alternate history showing familiar people (usually in unfamiliar roles) more than a generation or two after the point of divergence, and it's usually ignored because part of the fun of seeing alternate histories is seeing Vulcan Ship Captain Spock or Evil Goatee Spock or Disco Spock or Giant Turtle Spock or whatever.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:30 PM on June 29, 2023 [11 favorites]
Even if they did, and it's quite possible that Earth and Vulcan still have diplomatic relations without the Federation, it's highly unlikely that they would conceive the same child with even a very small change in history. That's a problem with just about every alternate history showing familiar people (usually in unfamiliar roles) more than a generation or two after the point of divergence, and it's usually ignored because part of the fun of seeing alternate histories is seeing Vulcan Ship Captain Spock or Evil Goatee Spock or Disco Spock or Giant Turtle Spock or whatever.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:30 PM on June 29, 2023 [11 favorites]
I am thinking that the plot point of we’re-stranded-in-the-past-but-luckily-we-have-a-very-long-lived-alien-pal-living-undercover-on-Earth already been done a couple of times with Guinan.
I was bothered that Spock still existed--are we to believe that Amanda Grayson and Sarek still got married in the Bad Place?
I think of it as the Sliders effect: here we are in an alternate reality but one and only one thing is different, the change will be instantly apparent, and everything else is the same, no matter how little sense that makes. (I always thought if Sliders had done an episode where the earth had no moon, we’d have seen Neil Armstrong step off the ladder with, “That’s one small st—AIIIIEEEEE!”)
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:32 PM on June 29, 2023 [12 favorites]
I was bothered that Spock still existed--are we to believe that Amanda Grayson and Sarek still got married in the Bad Place?
I think of it as the Sliders effect: here we are in an alternate reality but one and only one thing is different, the change will be instantly apparent, and everything else is the same, no matter how little sense that makes. (I always thought if Sliders had done an episode where the earth had no moon, we’d have seen Neil Armstrong step off the ladder with, “That’s one small st—AIIIIEEEEE!”)
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:32 PM on June 29, 2023 [12 favorites]
Even if they did, and it's quite possible that Earth and Vulcan still have diplomatic relations without the Federation, it's highly unlikely that they would conceive the same child with even a very small change in history.
That said, I’d have been tickled to see the alternate Enterprise had Michael Burnham as its XO, or Detmer at the helm or something.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:34 PM on June 29, 2023 [6 favorites]
That said, I’d have been tickled to see the alternate Enterprise had Michael Burnham as its XO, or Detmer at the helm or something.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:34 PM on June 29, 2023 [6 favorites]
I am thinking that the plot point of we’re-stranded-in-the-past-but-luckily-we-have-a-very-long-lived-alien-pal-living-undercover-on-Earth already been done a couple of times with Guinan.
I appreciated that they played with the trope by having her NOT (yet) actually be the engineering expert they expected to find, thus averting it a bit.
Also, the vague hand-wavey idea is that the timeline does try correcting itself, so things still somehow work out closer in some ways than they logically would, which makes the storytelling more fun.
Also great was her scene with lil' Khan, tenderly wiping Romulan blood off his face.
I thought those were just tears? I'd have to rewatch.
posted by Pryde at 1:13 PM on June 29, 2023 [9 favorites]
I appreciated that they played with the trope by having her NOT (yet) actually be the engineering expert they expected to find, thus averting it a bit.
Also, the vague hand-wavey idea is that the timeline does try correcting itself, so things still somehow work out closer in some ways than they logically would, which makes the storytelling more fun.
Also great was her scene with lil' Khan, tenderly wiping Romulan blood off his face.
I thought those were just tears? I'd have to rewatch.
posted by Pryde at 1:13 PM on June 29, 2023 [9 favorites]
Can someone explain the tritium detecting watch to me? Was that something they just made up, or did they actually run it past a science advisor?
posted by 1970s Antihero at 1:31 PM on June 29, 2023
posted by 1970s Antihero at 1:31 PM on June 29, 2023
Well, there really are tritium watches, and you can still get them; whether or not they'll glow anywhere near an external source of tritium once the stuff on the watch dial is depleted, I don't know.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:43 PM on June 29, 2023
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:43 PM on June 29, 2023
I took them removing the watch crystal as a nod to how tritium decays by beta (electron) emission which would be stopped by a solid like that, but as 6mm of air is also enough to stop the electron at that energy...
posted by channaher at 2:26 PM on June 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by channaher at 2:26 PM on June 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
I talked to a friend about the idea of their improvised tritium detector. Our suspicion not based on any hard physics/math is that if the tritium level on the street outside the complex with the reactor inside was that high it would probably (A) be super unhealthy and (B) detected by somebody before now.
I appreciated that some research seemed to have gone into the idea, even if it wouldn't have actually worked that way; my friend thought it was dumber than saying that the same phosphor would react to a made-up byproduct of cold fusion instead, or using a whole different detection method...
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 2:36 PM on June 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
I appreciated that some research seemed to have gone into the idea, even if it wouldn't have actually worked that way; my friend thought it was dumber than saying that the same phosphor would react to a made-up byproduct of cold fusion instead, or using a whole different detection method...
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 2:36 PM on June 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
like if nothing else some kids would have noticed that their glow in the dark shirts all lit up when they walked by that one block in the CBD...
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 2:37 PM on June 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 2:37 PM on June 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
History is changed by Lil' Khan being exposed to Toronto kids holding impromptu raves outside his home.
OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ
posted by Halloween Jack at 3:12 PM on June 29, 2023 [7 favorites]
OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ
posted by Halloween Jack at 3:12 PM on June 29, 2023 [7 favorites]
Starfleet needs some 29th century therapists who can hop thru the timeline to offer support, methinks.
posted by thejoshu at 4:40 PM on June 29, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by thejoshu at 4:40 PM on June 29, 2023 [7 favorites]
I dunno about this. The whole premise of deleting one timeline to restore another doesn't really fit with the multiple-worlds theory of time that Trek has pretty much bet on since Mirror, Mirror. But even if we buy that, the dramatic tension is evaporated because we know what the end of the episode has to be.
This episode was a full hour, which it really didn't need to be. Kirk fell in love with Edith Keeler before she died in 50 minutes - and we already know who Kirk is (basically, sort of).
Having the climax be a "let's kill baby Hitler" story without actually exploring that is a real shame. I'm glad La'an got to complain about having to protect a mass murderer, but she still cleaned little Khannie's face. Like, I get it, poor kid, his future is doomed - but this whole episode is about protecting the sacred timeline/canon. Don't go soft on us because there's a kid in the room.
Throwing out a Temporal Investigations reference and making them actual time travellers is sort of wild. Anyway, I miss Dulmer and Lucsly from Deep Space Nine. (I miss Deep Space Nine.)
Oh, and Kirk dies with his eyes open just like he did in Generations.
This episode felt a bit too like the characters wandering from plot point to plot point.
posted by crossoverman at 5:33 PM on June 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
This episode was a full hour, which it really didn't need to be. Kirk fell in love with Edith Keeler before she died in 50 minutes - and we already know who Kirk is (basically, sort of).
Having the climax be a "let's kill baby Hitler" story without actually exploring that is a real shame. I'm glad La'an got to complain about having to protect a mass murderer, but she still cleaned little Khannie's face. Like, I get it, poor kid, his future is doomed - but this whole episode is about protecting the sacred timeline/canon. Don't go soft on us because there's a kid in the room.
Throwing out a Temporal Investigations reference and making them actual time travellers is sort of wild. Anyway, I miss Dulmer and Lucsly from Deep Space Nine. (I miss Deep Space Nine.)
Oh, and Kirk dies with his eyes open just like he did in Generations.
This episode felt a bit too like the characters wandering from plot point to plot point.
posted by crossoverman at 5:33 PM on June 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'm assuming Kirk's "oh, this is New York City" reaction to Toronto was just lampshading the incredible number of TV shows and movies that have filmed on Toronto claiming to be in NYC.
I liked this one. Not only do we get La'an character development, finally, but we learn a little about Palia and the Lanthanites, too. Assuming what she says about learning math is true, Palia's at least 2900 years old by star date 1581.
posted by hanov3r at 5:51 PM on June 29, 2023 [18 favorites]
I liked this one. Not only do we get La'an character development, finally, but we learn a little about Palia and the Lanthanites, too. Assuming what she says about learning math is true, Palia's at least 2900 years old by star date 1581.
posted by hanov3r at 5:51 PM on June 29, 2023 [18 favorites]
Did the final focus in on the watch imply that it's going to turn up later (and have other powers)?
posted by zadcat at 6:06 PM on June 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by zadcat at 6:06 PM on June 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
I dunno about this. The whole premise of deleting one timeline to restore another doesn't really fit with the multiple-worlds theory of time that Trek has pretty much bet on since Mirror, Mirror.
Trek has alternate timelines and parallel universes and they are two different things, except when they are both at the same time. Splintered timelines do get one branch erased sometime, and sometimes the folks in those timelines don't like it and they start fights to survive, and sometimes the folks in those timelines think it's so bad in their version of reality that they sacrifice themselves so their counterparts can have a better life. In conclusion...
posted by Poogle at 6:36 PM on June 29, 2023 [6 favorites]
Trek has alternate timelines and parallel universes and they are two different things, except when they are both at the same time. Splintered timelines do get one branch erased sometime, and sometimes the folks in those timelines don't like it and they start fights to survive, and sometimes the folks in those timelines think it's so bad in their version of reality that they sacrifice themselves so their counterparts can have a better life. In conclusion...
posted by Poogle at 6:36 PM on June 29, 2023 [6 favorites]
I don't think there's anything special about the watch, except as the sole physical tie that La'an retains to Jim, and I read the camera's focus shift as showing us something about what she was thinking/feeling, and didn't think it indicated anything beyond that.
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 6:49 PM on June 29, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 6:49 PM on June 29, 2023 [7 favorites]
Could have done without the embedded car commercial, but the rest was pretty great. Avoiding spoilers, the twist with the Romulan’s true target was a nice poetic touch.
posted by FallibleHuman at 7:00 PM on June 29, 2023
posted by FallibleHuman at 7:00 PM on June 29, 2023
I'm still not buying this guy as Kirk even NF-Kirk, but that aside, I was a bit confused. I thought there were time cops/was a time bureau/something that kept pestering Archer, so I was thrown when the time agent said her organization didn't exist yet. But that I thought I remembered something but the time dude in ENT not actually being a time dude, and I just didn't care enough about the continuity to worry about it.
I don't know how much of a report the time cops get, but if they see all the details, and if they're from the future (where they should know more about people's fates and histories) they should know that La'an isn't the only person around who knows what happened. Pelia should have enough information by now to put the pieces together. But then again, she has remained hidden for centuries, so maybe she's still in hiding in the future.
I'll also confess that for years, I've always assumed there was a relation been Khan Noonien-Singh and Dr. Noonien Soong. Yes, I know how stupid that sounds. I mean at one point, I probably could have told you Khan's name was Singh, but after years of watching TNG (and subsequent shows) and hearing Soong, I think I must have overwritten the Singh memory module bit in my brain and deluded myself into thinking I must have been pronouncing it wrong.
I'm dying to know how the car came about. If it's a paid placement from the manufaturer, why bother to de-badge it and if it's not, why bother getting a Hellcat when any old Challenger would do? (At least I think it's a Hellcat.) I'll skip how improbable the Toronto geography was for the chase scene because we all know better that to expect chase scenes to flow logically over the streets.
posted by sardonyx at 7:04 PM on June 29, 2023 [3 favorites]
I don't know how much of a report the time cops get, but if they see all the details, and if they're from the future (where they should know more about people's fates and histories) they should know that La'an isn't the only person around who knows what happened. Pelia should have enough information by now to put the pieces together. But then again, she has remained hidden for centuries, so maybe she's still in hiding in the future.
I'll also confess that for years, I've always assumed there was a relation been Khan Noonien-Singh and Dr. Noonien Soong. Yes, I know how stupid that sounds. I mean at one point, I probably could have told you Khan's name was Singh, but after years of watching TNG (and subsequent shows) and hearing Soong, I think I must have overwritten the Singh memory module bit in my brain and deluded myself into thinking I must have been pronouncing it wrong.
I'm dying to know how the car came about. If it's a paid placement from the manufaturer, why bother to de-badge it and if it's not, why bother getting a Hellcat when any old Challenger would do? (At least I think it's a Hellcat.) I'll skip how improbable the Toronto geography was for the chase scene because we all know better that to expect chase scenes to flow logically over the streets.
posted by sardonyx at 7:04 PM on June 29, 2023 [3 favorites]
I've tried and tried, but I can't not see Pelia as Kimmy Schmidt's landlady (Lillian Kaushtupper), and the very dodgy shop doesn't help.
posted by Marticus at 7:06 PM on June 29, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by Marticus at 7:06 PM on June 29, 2023 [12 favorites]
It’s a step up from when she was married to a taxicab mechanic.
posted by nathan_teske at 7:21 PM on June 29, 2023 [14 favorites]
posted by nathan_teske at 7:21 PM on June 29, 2023 [14 favorites]
I thought there were time cops/was a time bureau/something that kept pestering Archer, so I was thrown when the time agent said her organization didn't exist yet.
Future Guy was never said to be a Department of Temporal Investigations agent.
I took her line to mean that department wasn’t created at that point. We know it exists in DS9’s time but there’s never been another mention of it in Star Trek before this episode, believe it or not.
Actually I do believe it because most of DS9 was straight up ignored until about 2 years ago.
posted by rhymedirective at 7:32 PM on June 29, 2023 [5 favorites]
Future Guy was never said to be a Department of Temporal Investigations agent.
I took her line to mean that department wasn’t created at that point. We know it exists in DS9’s time but there’s never been another mention of it in Star Trek before this episode, believe it or not.
Actually I do believe it because most of DS9 was straight up ignored until about 2 years ago.
posted by rhymedirective at 7:32 PM on June 29, 2023 [5 favorites]
I remember it in DS9 but I was trying to backtrack it. It was never mentioned in TOS, and as I said, my recollection of ENT was hazy, so just decided to work under the assumption it was something that cropped up between TOS and TNG, mainly in response to Kirk and crew's TOS shenanigans (which I think is actually mentioned in DS9).
posted by sardonyx at 8:15 PM on June 29, 2023
posted by sardonyx at 8:15 PM on June 29, 2023
When Kirk and La’an begin detecting the presence of a nearby fusion reactor, they are first outside and then inside the Royal Ontario Museum. The biggest surprise for me is that the reactor was not shown as being in the McGlaughlin Planetarium, a now-shuttered facility* immediately next door to the ROM, and a building that cries out to location scouts to be used as the setting for, well, a fusion reactor.
Okay, possibly not the biggest surprise: after “Space Seed” and TWOK and that Abrams mess, I bet you could have got pretty good odds from a bookie against “Khan’s next canonical appearance will be as a twelve-year-old in a basement in 21st-century Toronto.”
And if we are counting, this is now two of my past workplaces that are Trek canon.
*Open 1968-1995. It astonishes me that it has now been vacant longer than it was ever in operation. It was closed down due to budget cuts by the then-new provincial Tory government in 1995, depriving an entire generation of an amazing resource. Incidentally, the savings in taxes amounted to roughly a dime per taxpayer per year. I would have paid my share plus fifty other people’s.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:16 PM on June 29, 2023 [8 favorites]
Okay, possibly not the biggest surprise: after “Space Seed” and TWOK and that Abrams mess, I bet you could have got pretty good odds from a bookie against “Khan’s next canonical appearance will be as a twelve-year-old in a basement in 21st-century Toronto.”
And if we are counting, this is now two of my past workplaces that are Trek canon.
*Open 1968-1995. It astonishes me that it has now been vacant longer than it was ever in operation. It was closed down due to budget cuts by the then-new provincial Tory government in 1995, depriving an entire generation of an amazing resource. Incidentally, the savings in taxes amounted to roughly a dime per taxpayer per year. I would have paid my share plus fifty other people’s.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:16 PM on June 29, 2023 [8 favorites]
mainly in response to Kirk and crew's TOS shenanigans (which I think is actually mentioned in DS9).
“Seventeen separate temporal violations. The biggest file on record.”
“The man was a menace.”
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:24 PM on June 29, 2023 [12 favorites]
“Seventeen separate temporal violations. The biggest file on record.”
“The man was a menace.”
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:24 PM on June 29, 2023 [12 favorites]
I'll also confess that for years, I've always assumed there was a relation been Khan Noonien-Singh and Dr. Noonien Soong. Yes, I know how stupid that sounds. I mean at one point, I probably could have told you Khan's name was Singh, but after years of watching TNG (and subsequent shows) and hearing Soong, I think I must have overwritten the Singh memory module bit in my brain and deluded myself into thinking I must have been pronouncing it wrong.
Kinda-sorta they might be connected.
This is what Sera said that I didn't have time to transcribe earlier:
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:28 PM on June 29, 2023 [5 favorites]
Kinda-sorta they might be connected.
Some of Noonien Soong's ancestors (all played by Brent Spiner) have worked on the Eugenics/Augments projects, as detailed across several episodes of Enterprise and Picard, so it's not impossible that Noonien Soong was deliberately named to refer to Khan.
This is what Sera said that I didn't have time to transcribe earlier:
But, yeah, so many people have tried to influence these events, you know, to delay them or stop them. I mean, whole temporal wars have been fought over them. And it's almost as if time itself is pushing back, and events reinsert themselves. And all this was supposed to happen back in 1992, and I've been trapped here for 30 years trying to get my shot at him.Couple of interesting things there; the "temporal wars" may refer to the Temporal Cold War in ENT; that arc never really came to full fruition (we never found out who the shadowy figure that Silik talks to was). And the idea that "time pushes back" is found in, of all places, Stephen King's 11/22/63, which is centered around time travel and JFK, which is one of the things that Sera cites earlier, so either time is a flat circle or the episode writer is a King fan.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:28 PM on June 29, 2023 [5 favorites]
That's kind of what I thought, Halloween Jack, that there was some connection (relation, named in honour of, etc.) but the Internet seems to think it was just Roddenberry being Roddenberry.
posted by sardonyx at 8:34 PM on June 29, 2023
posted by sardonyx at 8:34 PM on June 29, 2023
To save everyone else some clicks, the story is supposedly that both Khan Noonian Singh and Noonian Soong (Data's creator) were named after real person Kim Noonien Singh.
Roddenberry is reported to have named the character of Khan Noonien Singh after his old war buddy hoping that the original would notice and try to contact him again.
To Find A Lost WWII Buddy, Gene “Star Trek” Roddenberry Named A Villain After Him
posted by Pryde at 8:41 PM on June 29, 2023 [7 favorites]
Roddenberry is reported to have named the character of Khan Noonien Singh after his old war buddy hoping that the original would notice and try to contact him again.
To Find A Lost WWII Buddy, Gene “Star Trek” Roddenberry Named A Villain After Him
posted by Pryde at 8:41 PM on June 29, 2023 [7 favorites]
Trek has alternate timelines and parallel universes and they are two different things, except when they are both at the same time.
Also, you'll be okay if you're in the wrong universe or the wrong time, but if you're too far off in the wrong time and the wrong universe you'll run into trouble and start physically deteriorating, like Emperor Georgiou in Disco.
posted by Pryde at 8:46 PM on June 29, 2023 [5 favorites]
Also, you'll be okay if you're in the wrong universe or the wrong time, but if you're too far off in the wrong time and the wrong universe you'll run into trouble and start physically deteriorating, like Emperor Georgiou in Disco.
posted by Pryde at 8:46 PM on June 29, 2023 [5 favorites]
Not much to add.
I have no problems with a Guinan-esque Pelia (Carol Kane is marvelous).
But - Guinan-esque, does Pelia have the same ethics of not talking about whether they detected some time travel anomaly - one moment La'an's La'an, another moment - Pelia has memories of meeting La'an before.
Christina Chong got some decent writing that she absolutely destroyed (in a good way).
Romulan strength; I'd have to assume that they are equivalent to Vulcans. The difference the original dichotomy was created for was to heavy-handedly show that Ideology can be almost as strong a speciation event as Biology/ Geography.
posted by porpoise at 8:57 PM on June 29, 2023 [3 favorites]
I have no problems with a Guinan-esque Pelia (Carol Kane is marvelous).
But - Guinan-esque, does Pelia have the same ethics of not talking about whether they detected some time travel anomaly - one moment La'an's La'an, another moment - Pelia has memories of meeting La'an before.
Christina Chong got some decent writing that she absolutely destroyed (in a good way).
Romulan strength; I'd have to assume that they are equivalent to Vulcans. The difference the original dichotomy was created for was to heavy-handedly show that Ideology can be almost as strong a speciation event as Biology/ Geography.
posted by porpoise at 8:57 PM on June 29, 2023 [3 favorites]
Sorry to everyone who liked this episode but I found it really tedious and dumb. Maybe it's me, I'm allergic to time travel scifi. And I believe alternate universes in Trek only are OK if they are super campy Mirror Universe episodes with at least one S&M version of a Starfleet officer. But mostly it was just such a bland episode. And what was with the bad car chase scene and the mediocre fight scene? They recalled the 'zerker juice overly long fight scene of the previous episode. Does this show have a brief in season 2 to do mediocre action movie sequences? No one asked for that.
And then the dumb plot machinations. They went from Toronto to "Vermont" in "Vermont Taxi" just to get a tritium watch? And then went back to Toronto, all in a few hours? With just the stack of $5 and $10 Kirk won hustling chess? (OK, they did mention a bus). Awfully nice hotel suite they got, too. And the tritium watch.. the big plan there was to walk all over the 630 km^2 of Toronto hoping the watch would glow?
Also thought it was weird there was no B plot for this episode. I'm good with this show drafting off TOS and having slightly silly action plots because they're fun. But there has to be a second story, both to give narrative relief and maybe (in the best episodes) to reflect on the primary story. Didn't have to be much, maybe a little quest by Spock to find a quiet place to practice his music with some warp core hijinx involved.
Really I want to know what La'an is doing catching feelings for a man. I had her as preferring women for romantic entanglement. Huh.
posted by Nelson at 9:13 PM on June 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
And then the dumb plot machinations. They went from Toronto to "Vermont" in "Vermont Taxi" just to get a tritium watch? And then went back to Toronto, all in a few hours? With just the stack of $5 and $10 Kirk won hustling chess? (OK, they did mention a bus). Awfully nice hotel suite they got, too. And the tritium watch.. the big plan there was to walk all over the 630 km^2 of Toronto hoping the watch would glow?
Also thought it was weird there was no B plot for this episode. I'm good with this show drafting off TOS and having slightly silly action plots because they're fun. But there has to be a second story, both to give narrative relief and maybe (in the best episodes) to reflect on the primary story. Didn't have to be much, maybe a little quest by Spock to find a quiet place to practice his music with some warp core hijinx involved.
Really I want to know what La'an is doing catching feelings for a man. I had her as preferring women for romantic entanglement. Huh.
posted by Nelson at 9:13 PM on June 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
Qué será será.
I really liked the way this episode literalizes La’an’s conflict. That’s a neat trick that science fiction can do sometimes. Instead of just making peace with Khan in her mind, La’an has to literally confront and accept him. Another example that springs to mind is the VOY ep where Bilana Torres splits into separate klingon and human selves.
The meta joke about Toronto was appreciated as well. Toronto so often stands in for New York in TV and film. It was fun for Kirk to head fake toward Toronto-as-New-York and then for Toronto to be Toronto. The episode even had weird Canadian money! But I don’t know, I might have had them spend some of their 2D chess winnings on a bag of milk.
posted by chrchr at 10:30 PM on June 29, 2023 [3 favorites]
I really liked the way this episode literalizes La’an’s conflict. That’s a neat trick that science fiction can do sometimes. Instead of just making peace with Khan in her mind, La’an has to literally confront and accept him. Another example that springs to mind is the VOY ep where Bilana Torres splits into separate klingon and human selves.
The meta joke about Toronto was appreciated as well. Toronto so often stands in for New York in TV and film. It was fun for Kirk to head fake toward Toronto-as-New-York and then for Toronto to be Toronto. The episode even had weird Canadian money! But I don’t know, I might have had them spend some of their 2D chess winnings on a bag of milk.
posted by chrchr at 10:30 PM on June 29, 2023 [3 favorites]
To me there was a palatable feeling of emotional disconnection throughout the episode. Kirk's and Singh's reaction to the bridge blowing up just outside their window was one of dull confusion rather than horror. That might be blamed on the fact that the actors were presumably looking at a green screen (Trek isn't using tech like The Volume yet, AFAIK), but Singh's reaction to Kirk literally dying in her arms felt equally flat.
On the other hand, the closing scene, and Singh's grief at Kirk being alive in her timeline, but separated from her, worked well, as did her inner conflict regarding her ancestor. I don't know. It just felt like they could have used a few more takes in some scenes, or some extra emotional beats.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 10:32 PM on June 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
On the other hand, the closing scene, and Singh's grief at Kirk being alive in her timeline, but separated from her, worked well, as did her inner conflict regarding her ancestor. I don't know. It just felt like they could have used a few more takes in some scenes, or some extra emotional beats.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 10:32 PM on June 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
This is the first episode that didn't work for me at all. The actor cast as Kirk is just too Jim Carrey-like for me take seriously. La'an's attachment to him felt forced and unbelievable, and the pacing was really off. The Romulans' motivation wasn't clear, and the whole Khan plotline just feels like a clumsy allegory? Honestly it was the first time I've been bored since the show premiered.
(Hopefully this is just a me problem, and next week will improve by not strictly focusing on who I consider to be the two weakest characters in the show.)
I am disappoint!
posted by Space Kitty at 11:35 PM on June 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
(Hopefully this is just a me problem, and next week will improve by not strictly focusing on who I consider to be the two weakest characters in the show.)
I am disappoint!
posted by Space Kitty at 11:35 PM on June 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
Trek isn't using tech like The Volume yet, AFAIK
The Toronto-filmed Trek shows, this one and Discovery, have both used the Volume at different times. But they are more judicious with their use, compared to The Mandalorian which basically uses it for everything.
I've been thinking more about this episode since my first comment and I can see what they were trying to do, but it still doesn't quite work for me. It's effectively an inverse of City on the Edge of Forever - Kirk goes back in time but someone there had to die so that Hitler didn't win WW2. Here, Kirk goes back in time and he dies in an effort to make sure Khan was still around to insight WW3.
But I guess I just don't know La'an well enough to really understand what the nature of her feelings are about - do people just hate the name or is she still "augmented" in some way. What kind of discrimination has she faced? Starfleet let her in but not Una, so what has she suffered?
As for the Soong/Singh connection, at the end of season two, one of Data's ancestors in the early 21st century has a folder labelled "The Khan Project" or something. But yeah, this is just the writers putting those two references to Roddenberry's friend together.
posted by crossoverman at 11:59 PM on June 29, 2023 [3 favorites]
The Toronto-filmed Trek shows, this one and Discovery, have both used the Volume at different times. But they are more judicious with their use, compared to The Mandalorian which basically uses it for everything.
I've been thinking more about this episode since my first comment and I can see what they were trying to do, but it still doesn't quite work for me. It's effectively an inverse of City on the Edge of Forever - Kirk goes back in time but someone there had to die so that Hitler didn't win WW2. Here, Kirk goes back in time and he dies in an effort to make sure Khan was still around to insight WW3.
But I guess I just don't know La'an well enough to really understand what the nature of her feelings are about - do people just hate the name or is she still "augmented" in some way. What kind of discrimination has she faced? Starfleet let her in but not Una, so what has she suffered?
As for the Soong/Singh connection, at the end of season two, one of Data's ancestors in the early 21st century has a folder labelled "The Khan Project" or something. But yeah, this is just the writers putting those two references to Roddenberry's friend together.
posted by crossoverman at 11:59 PM on June 29, 2023 [3 favorites]
This episode felt a bit too like the characters wandering from plot point to plot point.
Agreed. Weak episode, loosely put together, everything rushed, including the emotions of the characters. Promising, if overused, premise that was ultimately listless. Hopefully it was just one of the seemingly mandatory stinker episodes this season.
posted by juiceCake at 2:15 AM on June 30, 2023 [4 favorites]
Agreed. Weak episode, loosely put together, everything rushed, including the emotions of the characters. Promising, if overused, premise that was ultimately listless. Hopefully it was just one of the seemingly mandatory stinker episodes this season.
posted by juiceCake at 2:15 AM on June 30, 2023 [4 favorites]
Having the climax be a "let's kill baby Hitler" story without actually exploring that is a real shame. I'm glad La'an got to complain about having to protect a mass murderer, but she still cleaned little Khannie's face. Like, I get it, poor kid, his future is doomed - but this whole episode is about protecting the sacred timeline/canon. Don't go soft on us because there's a kid in the room.
The way I read it is that when she told him he was exactly where he needed to be, the writers weren't talking to him – they were talking to her. She's trying to forgive herself for the shame and fear she has about the potential for evil she believes exists inside her, because even if her family's legacy is the Worst Thing Ever, she is where she needs to be right now (in a general sense), and that's OK.
posted by wakannai at 2:22 AM on June 30, 2023 [10 favorites]
The way I read it is that when she told him he was exactly where he needed to be, the writers weren't talking to him – they were talking to her. She's trying to forgive herself for the shame and fear she has about the potential for evil she believes exists inside her, because even if her family's legacy is the Worst Thing Ever, she is where she needs to be right now (in a general sense), and that's OK.
posted by wakannai at 2:22 AM on June 30, 2023 [10 favorites]
I liked this one. Fun time travel shenanigans. Felt like classic Trek.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 4:37 AM on June 30, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by mrjohnmuller at 4:37 AM on June 30, 2023 [5 favorites]
god that New York gag hit me HARD
posted by DoctorFedora at 4:38 AM on June 30, 2023 [19 favorites]
posted by DoctorFedora at 4:38 AM on June 30, 2023 [19 favorites]
why bother getting a Hellcat
They're made in Brampton, about 45 minutes from Toronto.
(the engines are made in Mexico tho)
Ontario has several car factories.
Like I meant to say when Melanie Scrofano showed up last week, ya can't make a good US TV science fiction show without at least a couple hot Canadians.
posted by bartleby at 4:47 AM on June 30, 2023 [6 favorites]
They're made in Brampton, about 45 minutes from Toronto.
(the engines are made in Mexico tho)
Ontario has several car factories.
Like I meant to say when Melanie Scrofano showed up last week, ya can't make a good US TV science fiction show without at least a couple hot Canadians.
posted by bartleby at 4:47 AM on June 30, 2023 [6 favorites]
The shot of "Vermont Taxi" lingered just long enough that I wonder if/hope that it was meant to be a gag. There was really no reason for that shot.
But I guess I just don't know La'an well enough to really understand what the nature of her feelings are about - do people just hate the name or is she still "augmented" in some way. What kind of discrimination has she faced? Starfleet let her in but not Una, so what has she suffered?
Having just rewatched season 1 days prior to season 2's premiere, I'd say isolation. M'Benga mentioned it in the opening scene, which yes, could make that emotional beat seem rushed, but it worked for me inasmuch as (A) season 1 did spend a fair amount of time setting up that, and other, La'an stuff, but also (B) season 1 did not really delve into it, and I like that this episode did.
Kirk and La'an getting together, well, yeah, that felt a bit rushed. Maybe the hope was we would chalk up whatever setup we felt was missing to the Kirk factor. (Although that brings up another point: NF-Kirk ought to have felt more different from SNW-Kirk. Maybe not THIS different, but more than he did.)
And it's almost as if time itself is pushing back
I previously tried to reconcile Trek's inconsistent treatment of timeline integrity (for TTRPG purposes), and my "quantum merging" explanation might mesh well with what Sera said here, assuming Sera was not overly deranged. (Temporal agents getting stuck in Earth's past tend to struggle with that.)
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 5:26 AM on June 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
But I guess I just don't know La'an well enough to really understand what the nature of her feelings are about - do people just hate the name or is she still "augmented" in some way. What kind of discrimination has she faced? Starfleet let her in but not Una, so what has she suffered?
Having just rewatched season 1 days prior to season 2's premiere, I'd say isolation. M'Benga mentioned it in the opening scene, which yes, could make that emotional beat seem rushed, but it worked for me inasmuch as (A) season 1 did spend a fair amount of time setting up that, and other, La'an stuff, but also (B) season 1 did not really delve into it, and I like that this episode did.
Kirk and La'an getting together, well, yeah, that felt a bit rushed. Maybe the hope was we would chalk up whatever setup we felt was missing to the Kirk factor. (Although that brings up another point: NF-Kirk ought to have felt more different from SNW-Kirk. Maybe not THIS different, but more than he did.)
And it's almost as if time itself is pushing back
I previously tried to reconcile Trek's inconsistent treatment of timeline integrity (for TTRPG purposes), and my "quantum merging" explanation might mesh well with what Sera said here, assuming Sera was not overly deranged. (Temporal agents getting stuck in Earth's past tend to struggle with that.)
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 5:26 AM on June 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
Loved the New York gag, extremely impressed that they pulled off a retcon of the starting date of the eugenics wars and made it a satisfying character beat for Sera.
(Also really liked the bit between La’an and Dr. M’Benga in the cold open: “You’re not here as my physician, you’re here as my sparring partner.”
“As your sparring partner, I recommend that you talk to your physician.”)
posted by thecaddy at 5:29 AM on June 30, 2023 [12 favorites]
(Also really liked the bit between La’an and Dr. M’Benga in the cold open: “You’re not here as my physician, you’re here as my sparring partner.”
“As your sparring partner, I recommend that you talk to your physician.”)
posted by thecaddy at 5:29 AM on June 30, 2023 [12 favorites]
Someone in the SNW subreddit noted that this episode basically copy-pastes the entire plot of Season 2 of Picard: Prime Timeline character goes to Shitty Timeline, then has to go into the past to fix something related to a famous ancestor to restore things. Complete with Romulan time traveling secret agent, boosting a car for a wild chase, and a helpful immortal alien who just happens to be at the right place at the right time. It flows a bit better in a single episode than an entire dragged-out season, but it's the same damn thing. (Plus, they both borrow a lot from TNG's "Yesterday's Enterprise")
I thin Paul Wesley is a fine actor, but he is NOT Captain Kirk. He's some other dude in a Starfleet uniform and I wish they had just made him a new character and left Kirk completely out of this show. There is really nothing gained by having him be Kirk. In a perfect world, they would have paid Chris Pine to do a guest shot as Kirk in last season's finale and never showed Kirk on this series again (until maybe the very end). I didn't think there was very much chemistry between Christina Chong and Paul Wesley, either, so I didn't buy the romantic reationship.
For my money, this may have been the weakest SNW episode to date.
posted by briank at 6:00 AM on June 30, 2023 [9 favorites]
I thin Paul Wesley is a fine actor, but he is NOT Captain Kirk. He's some other dude in a Starfleet uniform and I wish they had just made him a new character and left Kirk completely out of this show. There is really nothing gained by having him be Kirk. In a perfect world, they would have paid Chris Pine to do a guest shot as Kirk in last season's finale and never showed Kirk on this series again (until maybe the very end). I didn't think there was very much chemistry between Christina Chong and Paul Wesley, either, so I didn't buy the romantic reationship.
For my money, this may have been the weakest SNW episode to date.
posted by briank at 6:00 AM on June 30, 2023 [9 favorites]
I remember it in DS9 but I was trying to backtrack it. It was never mentioned in TOS, and as I said, my recollection of ENT was hazy, so just decided to work under the assumption it was something that cropped up between TOS and TNG, mainly in response to Kirk and crew's TOS shenanigans (which I think is actually mentioned in DS9).
It was basically written as a joke in DS9, too, a play on FBI with the characters' names being... Lucsly and Dulmur.
posted by rhymedirective at 6:45 AM on June 30, 2023
It was basically written as a joke in DS9, too, a play on FBI with the characters' names being... Lucsly and Dulmur.
posted by rhymedirective at 6:45 AM on June 30, 2023
There was a reference to time wars in Discovery S3, where time travel's been outlawed, because the time wars were too destructive.
I enjoyed the episode, but I can be fairly uncritical. I'd be happier if Wesley wasn't Kirk, though. That isn't working for me, either.
posted by Spike Glee at 7:16 AM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
I enjoyed the episode, but I can be fairly uncritical. I'd be happier if Wesley wasn't Kirk, though. That isn't working for me, either.
posted by Spike Glee at 7:16 AM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
Someone in the SNW subreddit noted that this episode basically copy-pastes the entire plot of Season 2 of Picard: Prime Timeline character goes to Shitty Timeline, then has to go into the past to fix something related to a famous ancestor to restore things.
Yeah, I was talking with a friend and he said that it felt like SNW was like "oh we can do PIC S2 in one episode instead of a bloated whole season".
posted by rhymedirective at 7:26 AM on June 30, 2023 [5 favorites]
Yeah, I was talking with a friend and he said that it felt like SNW was like "oh we can do PIC S2 in one episode instead of a bloated whole season".
posted by rhymedirective at 7:26 AM on June 30, 2023 [5 favorites]
Just in case anybody is curious about this Volume thing. (I'd heard about this but I had no idea what it was called, or that it even had an official name.)
Yes, this episode was more than a bit uneven, but, at least for people living in or near Toronto, that Toronto as New York joke (which has been pointed out above) really bought a metric tonne of goodwill and that attitude helped smooth over so many of subsequent bumps, including issues like Jim's winnings not covering the hotel suite, the implausible trip to Vermont, etc.
I still standby my assertion that this Kirk would be better as a third Kirk brother--somebody who definitely isn't J.T.
I still go back to my question about the Hellcat. Why debadge your musclecar? The Hellcat rolls off the same production line as its lower-horsepower siblings (regular old Challengers), so yes, it's nice to get a nod to a car from a local assembly line, why go to the effort to bring in a higher-end model if they weren't going to really promote it, especially if there is very little physical difference between the cheaper and the more expensive cars (i.e. only things somebody who already cares about cars would likely notice)? I must say, having this kind of automotive discussion about an episode of Trek is certainly unusual.
posted by sardonyx at 8:35 AM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
Yes, this episode was more than a bit uneven, but, at least for people living in or near Toronto, that Toronto as New York joke (which has been pointed out above) really bought a metric tonne of goodwill and that attitude helped smooth over so many of subsequent bumps, including issues like Jim's winnings not covering the hotel suite, the implausible trip to Vermont, etc.
I still standby my assertion that this Kirk would be better as a third Kirk brother--somebody who definitely isn't J.T.
I still go back to my question about the Hellcat. Why debadge your musclecar? The Hellcat rolls off the same production line as its lower-horsepower siblings (regular old Challengers), so yes, it's nice to get a nod to a car from a local assembly line, why go to the effort to bring in a higher-end model if they weren't going to really promote it, especially if there is very little physical difference between the cheaper and the more expensive cars (i.e. only things somebody who already cares about cars would likely notice)? I must say, having this kind of automotive discussion about an episode of Trek is certainly unusual.
posted by sardonyx at 8:35 AM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
I think Star Trek is not using The Volume itself, which is in California, but another similar one in Canada. Whenever the Trek people refer to it, they call it the "AR Wall" and not "The Volume".
posted by briank at 9:03 AM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by briank at 9:03 AM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
She left a loaded gun on baby Khan's bedside table
posted by cosmologinaut at 9:06 AM on June 30, 2023 [29 favorites]
posted by cosmologinaut at 9:06 AM on June 30, 2023 [29 favorites]
She left a loaded gun…
Would that be Chekov’s gun?
posted by hanov3r at 9:27 AM on June 30, 2023 [12 favorites]
Would that be Chekov’s gun?
posted by hanov3r at 9:27 AM on June 30, 2023 [12 favorites]
Listen, the kid's gotta get his genocidal start _somewhere_.
And yeah, great, they took the glass off the watch - all the phosphor that the tritium excites is on the inside of those glass vials. Normally with the tritium. Certainly not picking up beta emissions halfway down the block. I was sort of maybe hoping for something a little more Trek, even if it was "well yah ok here's a Lanthanite tricorder - it looks like a gameboy!"
Did anyone catch where the bridge was supposed to go? Like here's a bridge 30 miles (47km) across Lake Ontario?
posted by Kyol at 11:45 AM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
And yeah, great, they took the glass off the watch - all the phosphor that the tritium excites is on the inside of those glass vials. Normally with the tritium. Certainly not picking up beta emissions halfway down the block. I was sort of maybe hoping for something a little more Trek, even if it was "well yah ok here's a Lanthanite tricorder - it looks like a gameboy!"
Did anyone catch where the bridge was supposed to go? Like here's a bridge 30 miles (47km) across Lake Ontario?
posted by Kyol at 11:45 AM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
I’m just amusing myself thinking of Pelia dropping hints to La’an every time she sees her until La’an just snaps and hisses I know! Vermont. I already went back! But the time police said I can’t tell anyone!
posted by Etrigan at 12:04 PM on June 30, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by Etrigan at 12:04 PM on June 30, 2023 [9 favorites]
Did anyone catch where the bridge was supposed to go? Like here's a bridge 30 miles (47km) across Lake Ontario?
I'm pretty sure someone mentioned the bridge symbolized two countries coming together, which implies that this bridge does in fact cross Lake Ontario.
posted by bigge at 12:24 PM on June 30, 2023 [3 favorites]
I'm pretty sure someone mentioned the bridge symbolized two countries coming together, which implies that this bridge does in fact cross Lake Ontario.
posted by bigge at 12:24 PM on June 30, 2023 [3 favorites]
We already have a Rainbow Bridge at home, writers.
posted by Kyol at 12:34 PM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Kyol at 12:34 PM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
Would that be Chekov’s gun?
I SAID GOOD DAY SIR
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:53 PM on June 30, 2023 [16 favorites]
I SAID GOOD DAY SIR
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:53 PM on June 30, 2023 [16 favorites]
what the actual f--- she didShe left a loaded gun on baby Khan's bedside table
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 2:28 PM on June 30, 2023 [8 favorites]
Surely that will leave a long shadow on the child's life--a spectre of the gun, if you will.
posted by Halloween Jack at 3:34 PM on June 30, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 3:34 PM on June 30, 2023 [12 favorites]
Vulcan Ship Captain Spock or Evil Goatee Spock or Disco Spock or Giant Turtle Spock
this is like with all the Lokis, now I want a croc Spock spinoff.
posted by yoHighness at 3:58 PM on June 30, 2023 [5 favorites]
this is like with all the Lokis, now I want a croc Spock spinoff.
posted by yoHighness at 3:58 PM on June 30, 2023 [5 favorites]
more like Toronto and Toronto and Toronto amirite
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:22 PM on June 30, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:22 PM on June 30, 2023 [10 favorites]
Surely that will leave a long shadow on the child's life--a spectre of the gun, if you will.
Honestly it explains a lot (Facebook / Dominion Media Television link)
posted by thecaddy at 6:03 PM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
Honestly it explains a lot (Facebook / Dominion Media Television link)
posted by thecaddy at 6:03 PM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
I’m glad I’m not the only one who doesn’t like the casting for Kirk. I don’t mind the character being part of this series, but Paul Wesley hasn’t captured the Kirk vibe at all. Chris Pine did, and he played a recognizable Kirk without doing a Shatner impersonation. But Wesley’s too straight-laced, too by-the-book, too stiff and too square for Kirk. Just horrid casting. Can’t even see a hint of the OG Captain in his performance. It’s the worst thing about SNW and apparently they are just going to keep writing Kirk appearances into the show no matter how much it annoys me.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 9:56 PM on June 30, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by Pater Aletheias at 9:56 PM on June 30, 2023 [11 favorites]
I'm also in the "That's not Kirk!" camp.
The actor cast as Kirk is just too Jim Carrey-like for me take seriously.
The character of Kirk was never averse to humor, but it was with a twinkle in his eye, not by acting the buffoon.
Paul Wesley hasn’t captured the Kirk vibe at all....too straight-laced, too by-the-book, too stiff and too square for Kirk. Just horrid casting. Can’t even see a hint of the OG Captain in his performance.
It's amazing that he can seem too straight-laced and yet not earnest enough to be a convincing Kirk.
I thin Paul Wesley is a fine actor, but he is NOT Captain Kirk. He's some other dude in a Starfleet uniform and I wish they had just made him a new character and left Kirk completely out of this show. There is really nothing gained by having him be Kirk.
I'd also be on board with the actor playing another character, he definitely has a charm to him, just not that classic Kirk® brand charm.
posted by fairmettle at 1:13 AM on July 1, 2023 [4 favorites]
The actor cast as Kirk is just too Jim Carrey-like for me take seriously.
The character of Kirk was never averse to humor, but it was with a twinkle in his eye, not by acting the buffoon.
Paul Wesley hasn’t captured the Kirk vibe at all....too straight-laced, too by-the-book, too stiff and too square for Kirk. Just horrid casting. Can’t even see a hint of the OG Captain in his performance.
It's amazing that he can seem too straight-laced and yet not earnest enough to be a convincing Kirk.
I thin Paul Wesley is a fine actor, but he is NOT Captain Kirk. He's some other dude in a Starfleet uniform and I wish they had just made him a new character and left Kirk completely out of this show. There is really nothing gained by having him be Kirk.
I'd also be on board with the actor playing another character, he definitely has a charm to him, just not that classic Kirk® brand charm.
posted by fairmettle at 1:13 AM on July 1, 2023 [4 favorites]
too straight-laced, too by-the-book, too stiff and too square for Kirk.
This is a younger Kirk: canonically, at the academy he was “a walking stack of books” and “positively grim.”
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:51 AM on July 1, 2023 [16 favorites]
This is a younger Kirk: canonically, at the academy he was “a walking stack of books” and “positively grim.”
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:51 AM on July 1, 2023 [16 favorites]
This particular Kirk is also from a very different timeline and had very different experiences growing up, let’s recall. Perhaps Wesley and the writers realized this and made different character choices.
posted by Etrigan at 5:18 AM on July 1, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by Etrigan at 5:18 AM on July 1, 2023 [9 favorites]
Yeah we still haven’t seen “our” Kirk in the show—both appearances have been due to time shenanigans.
posted by thecaddy at 7:23 AM on July 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by thecaddy at 7:23 AM on July 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
Just noticed this callback line..
This episode: [spock/kirk]
"the enemy of your enemy is your friend" "maybe in some other lifetime, captain spock"
Balance of Terror (and also Quality of Mercy): [Romulan commander to Kirk]
"In a different reality, I could have called you friend"
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 7:52 AM on July 1, 2023 [8 favorites]
This episode: [spock/kirk]
"the enemy of your enemy is your friend" "maybe in some other lifetime, captain spock"
Balance of Terror (and also Quality of Mercy): [Romulan commander to Kirk]
"In a different reality, I could have called you friend"
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 7:52 AM on July 1, 2023 [8 favorites]
we still haven’t seen “our” Kirk in the show
And the brief scene between La'an and Kirk-actual at the end of the episode showed a bit of the Kirk swagger ('buy me a drink next time we're on starbase together').
She left a loaded gun on baby Khan's bedside table
Shocking enough that it pulled me out of the episode completely. If the literal gun is not being used as any kind of foreshadowing, that's just real sloppy and distracting prop use. Guns are consequential, and it's hard to not pay attention to one (hence Chekhov's axiom about the consequences of showing one).
posted by LooseFilter at 8:11 AM on July 1, 2023 [4 favorites]
And the brief scene between La'an and Kirk-actual at the end of the episode showed a bit of the Kirk swagger ('buy me a drink next time we're on starbase together').
She left a loaded gun on baby Khan's bedside table
Shocking enough that it pulled me out of the episode completely. If the literal gun is not being used as any kind of foreshadowing, that's just real sloppy and distracting prop use. Guns are consequential, and it's hard to not pay attention to one (hence Chekhov's axiom about the consequences of showing one).
posted by LooseFilter at 8:11 AM on July 1, 2023 [4 favorites]
Let's face facts, if they attempted to bring a full powered Kirk on the same show as Anson Mount's Pike it would cause some kind of planet-eating vortex of confident charm to form and Starfleet would probably have to bring in some specialist from the Department of Charisma Anomalies or something.
posted by Poogle at 8:46 AM on July 1, 2023 [31 favorites]
posted by Poogle at 8:46 AM on July 1, 2023 [31 favorites]
I don’t think it’s been mentioned yet, but we finally got to see Khan Noonian Singh played by an actor who could plausibly have that name.
posted by schmod at 3:01 PM on July 1, 2023 [33 favorites]
posted by schmod at 3:01 PM on July 1, 2023 [33 favorites]
The other gag that worked for me was the chess hustle - when Kirk looks off-camera and says "Give me a minute", I fully expected him to walk over to a poker game ("The Corbomite Maneuver", "A Piece of the Action", and Data's time-journey had spoiled me). I had completely forgotten that canonically we only see TOS Kirk playing 3-d chess, never poker. Then I remembered that and laughed at how I'd been played.
posted by Mogur at 3:54 PM on July 1, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by Mogur at 3:54 PM on July 1, 2023 [7 favorites]
It's odd — I felt like I saw more of the Kirk I knew in this episode than before and it made me a little bit more comfortable with the portrayal. But I watched the supplement interview with Wesley and he was pretty convincing about how he's approaching this role. And I sympathize with the problem of not wanting to do an impression of Shatner. BTW, I was never completely comfortable with Pine because I felt he leaned too hard into the rogue thing.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 4:00 PM on July 1, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 4:00 PM on July 1, 2023 [5 favorites]
I also like Paul Wesley's take on the character more than Chris Pine's, at least as written in the JJ Abrams movies (though I do really enjoy Pine in other roles). Pine's Kirk never quite seemed to take himself seriously as an adult or an officer, much less a captain (to whom it's never actually believable that they'd hand command over).
Thinking about it, Wesley doesn't remind me so much of Jim Carrey's satirical take (though actually I bet Carrey could have done a decent Kirk if he played it straight) as James Cawley's in his fan made series.
posted by Pryde at 4:02 PM on July 1, 2023 [6 favorites]
Thinking about it, Wesley doesn't remind me so much of Jim Carrey's satirical take (though actually I bet Carrey could have done a decent Kirk if he played it straight) as James Cawley's in his fan made series.
posted by Pryde at 4:02 PM on July 1, 2023 [6 favorites]
La'An said they used FOUR buses ;)
Kirk's attempt to bluff Balok is directly inspired by McCoy using the word, and poker is name checked versus chess, so Kirk being a player is a likelihood. The doctor talks as if he's a player, too ("love to teach it to you") and I've come to assume that Spock took up that offer, at least by the time he confronted Commodore Decker ("Vulcans never bluff").
I can read D-O-D-G-E across the back of the car, maybe people are talking about some other badges missing?
posted by channaher at 5:33 PM on July 1, 2023
Kirk's attempt to bluff Balok is directly inspired by McCoy using the word, and poker is name checked versus chess, so Kirk being a player is a likelihood. The doctor talks as if he's a player, too ("love to teach it to you") and I've come to assume that Spock took up that offer, at least by the time he confronted Commodore Decker ("Vulcans never bluff").
I can read D-O-D-G-E across the back of the car, maybe people are talking about some other badges missing?
posted by channaher at 5:33 PM on July 1, 2023
This was absolutely my favorite episode so far of SNW. Jokes that, in retrospect, are exposition; a bunch of character development for La'an; a genuinely interesting Kirk; a Manny Coto Would Be Proud retcon .....
posted by brainwane at 6:13 PM on July 1, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by brainwane at 6:13 PM on July 1, 2023 [5 favorites]
Granted that we haven't seen much of the actual timeline Kirk portrayal, and perhaps it's because of the general prequel-ness of it all because I can't put my finger on it, but Wesley's take has worked for me. In particular, I can see him as the Kirk of Christopher Bennett's excellent The Captain's Oath, which looks at the character's early experiences as a captain.
posted by audi alteram partem at 8:06 PM on July 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by audi alteram partem at 8:06 PM on July 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
I can read D-O-D-G-E across the back of the car, maybe people are talking about some other badges missing?
posted by channaher at 5:33 PM on July 1
Depending on the model, you'd expect to see some combination of a badge inside the grill beside the headlights on the driver's side, a fender badge placed between the wheel well and the door and a badge on the back end (probably near the top of the trunk/on the spoiler). That's in addition to the Dodge nameplate. A non-Hellcat Challenger (again depending on the model) typically has the Challenger badge on the passenger's side of the grill.
posted by sardonyx at 10:11 PM on July 1, 2023
posted by channaher at 5:33 PM on July 1
Depending on the model, you'd expect to see some combination of a badge inside the grill beside the headlights on the driver's side, a fender badge placed between the wheel well and the door and a badge on the back end (probably near the top of the trunk/on the spoiler). That's in addition to the Dodge nameplate. A non-Hellcat Challenger (again depending on the model) typically has the Challenger badge on the passenger's side of the grill.
posted by sardonyx at 10:11 PM on July 1, 2023
all the phosphor that the tritium excites is on the inside of those glass vials
Precious tritium. The power of the sun in thepalm wrist of my hand.
posted by Servo5678 at 12:22 AM on July 2, 2023
Precious tritium. The power of the sun in the
posted by Servo5678 at 12:22 AM on July 2, 2023
I'm so used to Kirk having a chicken sandwich and coffee that the idea of him eating poutine was a fun surprise.
The fake-out with Pelia was great, but driving to Vermont and back felt weird—they have a whole couple days for travel in their schedule when they're trying to save the timeline? "I have a small secret lair under Kitchener" would have made more sense geography-wise.
Finally, if you're gonna show somebody kissing James T Kirk, you gotta play the love theme music. Just a couple of bars, that's all I'm asking.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 1:30 AM on July 2, 2023 [14 favorites]
The fake-out with Pelia was great, but driving to Vermont and back felt weird—they have a whole couple days for travel in their schedule when they're trying to save the timeline? "I have a small secret lair under Kitchener" would have made more sense geography-wise.
Finally, if you're gonna show somebody kissing James T Kirk, you gotta play the love theme music. Just a couple of bars, that's all I'm asking.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 1:30 AM on July 2, 2023 [14 favorites]
Depending on the model, you'd expect to see some combination of a badge inside the grill beside the
Hmm. I’m not really a car guy anymore but I am an occasional Torontonian. One thing that may have eluded most viewers was the police cars and the badges on the police uniforms we see are not the real ones.
Watsonsist explanation is it’s a byproduct of it being a different reality (there is actually no bridge across Lake Ontario either). Doylist is that there are legal injunctions against film crews using exact replicas of police livery. It stood out for me as Toronto is famous for doubling for other cities in film and TV shoots and there is rarely a month that goes by in the summer without my seeing a few NYC or Chicago police cars. Of course, I have spent much less time in these cities and am not as innately familiar with the police liveries there, so maybe there are telltale differences in those, too.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:54 AM on July 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
Hmm. I’m not really a car guy anymore but I am an occasional Torontonian. One thing that may have eluded most viewers was the police cars and the badges on the police uniforms we see are not the real ones.
Watsonsist explanation is it’s a byproduct of it being a different reality (there is actually no bridge across Lake Ontario either). Doylist is that there are legal injunctions against film crews using exact replicas of police livery. It stood out for me as Toronto is famous for doubling for other cities in film and TV shoots and there is rarely a month that goes by in the summer without my seeing a few NYC or Chicago police cars. Of course, I have spent much less time in these cities and am not as innately familiar with the police liveries there, so maybe there are telltale differences in those, too.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:54 AM on July 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
Thank you, sardonyx, maybe the Dodge nameplate is usually chrome, too, but I think a fender badge is present: screencaps at cygnus-x1.net.
The Internet Movie Car Database already has 10 vehicles listed, no helpful commentary yet.
posted by channaher at 6:22 AM on July 2, 2023
The Internet Movie Car Database already has 10 vehicles listed, no helpful commentary yet.
posted by channaher at 6:22 AM on July 2, 2023
The police cars were really obvious as well, as these days most of the liveried vehicles tend to be SUVs, but I figure there is probably still a fleet of those things hanging around for use in TV and movie work.
It seems like in the past, shoots could use/did use liveries that looked much more like real Toronto cop cars. Rookie Blue comes to mind, but as you said, these were very different.
I'm guessing Vermont is some kind of Easter egg that is going to crop up again in future episodes. Either that, or they didn't want to tip their hand at the beginning (and spoil the Toronto joke) that this was going to be based in Canada. Although they could have gone with Michigan or Buffalo or the Finger Lakes or Port Huron or somewhere a bit closer and more plausible for story-related reasons.
It's funny channaher, I missed the fender badge, which seems pretty obvious on the screenshots, and I was really looking for it. It's easier playing guess the model when you've got some kind of obvious visual confirmation rather than just relying on other traits (like the number of hood scoops or superchargers whine--which could always be sound effects added in later). I mean, if you're going to give me a car commercial in the middle of the story, you should make it blatantly obvious what car it is you're trying to sell me. Even the key-fob was shot in such a way as to not really convey any useful information.
posted by sardonyx at 10:31 AM on July 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
It seems like in the past, shoots could use/did use liveries that looked much more like real Toronto cop cars. Rookie Blue comes to mind, but as you said, these were very different.
I'm guessing Vermont is some kind of Easter egg that is going to crop up again in future episodes. Either that, or they didn't want to tip their hand at the beginning (and spoil the Toronto joke) that this was going to be based in Canada. Although they could have gone with Michigan or Buffalo or the Finger Lakes or Port Huron or somewhere a bit closer and more plausible for story-related reasons.
It's funny channaher, I missed the fender badge, which seems pretty obvious on the screenshots, and I was really looking for it. It's easier playing guess the model when you've got some kind of obvious visual confirmation rather than just relying on other traits (like the number of hood scoops or superchargers whine--which could always be sound effects added in later). I mean, if you're going to give me a car commercial in the middle of the story, you should make it blatantly obvious what car it is you're trying to sell me. Even the key-fob was shot in such a way as to not really convey any useful information.
posted by sardonyx at 10:31 AM on July 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
I should add, given what happened out east with a fake cop car, I'm perfectly happy to have movie police cars look very different from their real-life counterparts.
posted by sardonyx at 11:25 AM on July 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by sardonyx at 11:25 AM on July 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
if you're going to give me a car commercial in the middle of the story, you should make it blatantly obvious what car it is you're trying to sell me.
I really thought that entire scene should have had in tiny letters across the bottom of the screen CLOSED COURSE PROFESSIONAL DRIVER DO NOT ATTEMPT
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:12 PM on July 2, 2023 [7 favorites]
I really thought that entire scene should have had in tiny letters across the bottom of the screen CLOSED COURSE PROFESSIONAL DRIVER DO NOT ATTEMPT
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:12 PM on July 2, 2023 [7 favorites]
if they attempted to bring a full powered Kirk on the same show as Anson Mount's Pike it would cause some kind of planet-eating vortex of confident charm to form
I think that’s part of the issue. Mount’s Pike isn’t very far from being Kirk with gray hair, so if you’re going to differentiate the characters, SNW Kirk can’t be too much like TOS Kirk.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 6:14 PM on July 2, 2023 [8 favorites]
I think that’s part of the issue. Mount’s Pike isn’t very far from being Kirk with gray hair, so if you’re going to differentiate the characters, SNW Kirk can’t be too much like TOS Kirk.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 6:14 PM on July 2, 2023 [8 favorites]
I don't mind Kirk, he feels like he has about half of the unearned confidence that Shatner had, and he has time to unearn the other half. I agree that anyone doing a Shatner-style Kirk would end up looking like a poor imitation of Pike's confidence. And hair.
I did feel like this episode was a speed run re-do of Picard season 2 but it was great!
They're making a fun show, like original Trek was at its best. I like fun and I'm all for it.
I loved the twist with Pelia, she said a couple of episodes ago that she gets bored being immortal and does something new every 100 years or so, and it turned out engineering was one she hadn't done yet.
They also surprised me when they killed (alt timeline) Kirk, even though he didn't have the plot armor Kirk would normally have.
This episode did highlight that we haven't seen Sam Kirk for ages, they better get him in an episode before I start to suspect he jumped ship.
posted by mmoncur at 8:45 PM on July 2, 2023 [6 favorites]
I did feel like this episode was a speed run re-do of Picard season 2 but it was great!
They're making a fun show, like original Trek was at its best. I like fun and I'm all for it.
I loved the twist with Pelia, she said a couple of episodes ago that she gets bored being immortal and does something new every 100 years or so, and it turned out engineering was one she hadn't done yet.
They also surprised me when they killed (alt timeline) Kirk, even though he didn't have the plot armor Kirk would normally have.
This episode did highlight that we haven't seen Sam Kirk for ages, they better get him in an episode before I start to suspect he jumped ship.
posted by mmoncur at 8:45 PM on July 2, 2023 [6 favorites]
It occurs to me now that if they wanted to kill alt-Kirk, they should've had debris from the bombed bridge fall on him.
posted by Servo5678 at 11:41 PM on July 2, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by Servo5678 at 11:41 PM on July 2, 2023 [5 favorites]
On rewatch: It took the security people 12 minutes... My headcanon is after they overran on budget with the handprint scanners they had to let most of the guards go.
posted by yoHighness at 3:09 PM on July 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by yoHighness at 3:09 PM on July 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
One thing that may have eluded most viewers was the police cars and the badges on the police uniforms we see are not the real ones.
Our cop car livery looks like it was designed by someone whose love of Fisher Price toys followed them well into adulthood.
posted by juiceCake at 7:00 PM on July 3, 2023
Our cop car livery looks like it was designed by someone whose love of Fisher Price toys followed them well into adulthood.
posted by juiceCake at 7:00 PM on July 3, 2023
The fact that that the US & CAN use the same basic types of cop cars lights and sirens* means that for film & tv, you don't have to do much customization. Or none; put a two tone (one being white) four door Ford in the shot marked METRO POLICE and everyone just shrugs and says yeah, fine, cop car.
Which is probably why they didn't use actual Toronto cop cars - because of the new livery. You'd have a lot of people (including Canadians) going "WTF are those? Cop cars aren't grey! That looks weird." So they went for generic blue&whites instead.
But hey, could be worse - they could have been sent back to the 70s. because no, absolutely not.
*a visiting tourist once admitted that they had momentarily expected Montreal police cars to be Francophone.
posted by bartleby at 8:32 PM on July 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
Which is probably why they didn't use actual Toronto cop cars - because of the new livery. You'd have a lot of people (including Canadians) going "WTF are those? Cop cars aren't grey! That looks weird." So they went for generic blue&whites instead.
But hey, could be worse - they could have been sent back to the 70s. because no, absolutely not.
*a visiting tourist once admitted that they had momentarily expected Montreal police cars to be Francophone.
posted by bartleby at 8:32 PM on July 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
I don’t think it’s been mentioned yet, but we finally got to see Khan Noonian Singh played by an actor who could plausibly have that name.
The following article includes a screen cap of the watercolor painting of Khan that appeared in the original series episode in 1967 - - has star trek’s khan noonien singh been “whitewashed”?.
posted by fairmettle at 12:48 PM on July 4, 2023
The following article includes a screen cap of the watercolor painting of Khan that appeared in the original series episode in 1967 - - has star trek’s khan noonien singh been “whitewashed”?.
posted by fairmettle at 12:48 PM on July 4, 2023
I truly wish people would stop reminding me that STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS is a thing.
(Also, the absolute stupidity that the filmmakers spent a year telling us that Bumbersnatch wasn't playing Khan only for that to be the revelation in the film)
posted by crossoverman at 3:26 PM on July 4, 2023 [7 favorites]
(Also, the absolute stupidity that the filmmakers spent a year telling us that Bumbersnatch wasn't playing Khan only for that to be the revelation in the film)
posted by crossoverman at 3:26 PM on July 4, 2023 [7 favorites]
I really, really love this show. It's a pity the seasons are modern-TV-length, because I want to spend 26 episodes with this crew. Even (or maybe especially!) if a few of those turn out to be duds.
It's funny that we're three episodes deep and have yet to spend much time with Pike, though. Which is another reason I like long seasons -- you can develop the entire cast without feeling like you're missing out on anybody, and I'm sort of missing my Space Zaddy right now.
That said, I'm still loving this. I'm a sucker for time travel episodes, and this one delivered nicely, even if Kirk was a bit too slapstick for my taste.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:14 AM on July 5, 2023 [6 favorites]
It's funny that we're three episodes deep and have yet to spend much time with Pike, though. Which is another reason I like long seasons -- you can develop the entire cast without feeling like you're missing out on anybody, and I'm sort of missing my Space Zaddy right now.
That said, I'm still loving this. I'm a sucker for time travel episodes, and this one delivered nicely, even if Kirk was a bit too slapstick for my taste.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:14 AM on July 5, 2023 [6 favorites]
It's funny that we're three episodes deep and have yet to spend much time with Pike, though.
Anson Mount's wife had a baby just as they were starting to shoot Season 2, so they wrote around him.
posted by briank at 12:29 PM on July 5, 2023 [6 favorites]
Anson Mount's wife had a baby just as they were starting to shoot Season 2, so they wrote around him.
posted by briank at 12:29 PM on July 5, 2023 [6 favorites]
Anson Mount's wife had a baby just as they were starting to shoot Season 2, so they wrote around him.
I look forward to the episode where Pike is just staggering around mumbling to himself so they let him take a little nap in the ready room and he sleeps for sixteen hours.
posted by Etrigan at 12:55 PM on July 5, 2023 [14 favorites]
I look forward to the episode where Pike is just staggering around mumbling to himself so they let him take a little nap in the ready room and he sleeps for sixteen hours.
posted by Etrigan at 12:55 PM on July 5, 2023 [14 favorites]
10 episodes is just not enough, I agree. I think streaming TV could always stand to be shorter/tighter, because I think most ongoing stories could generally be more lean. But this sort of planet-of-the-week show (even if 2/3 have been on Earth, time travel shenanigans notwithstanding) could definitely afford to be 13 or 16 without sacrificing too much. Let episodes standalone. (I'm not getting a sense yet of what the over-arcing story of the season is so far, which is interesting.)
posted by crossoverman at 3:51 PM on July 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by crossoverman at 3:51 PM on July 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
I've tried and tried, but I can't not see Pelia as Kimmy Schmidt's landlady
Way back in 1987, it took me a good 8-10 episodes of TNG before I stopped seeing Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 1:06 PM on July 6, 2023
Way back in 1987, it took me a good 8-10 episodes of TNG before I stopped seeing Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 1:06 PM on July 6, 2023
It was awfully confusing how Picard's catchphrase was "Will, you young pup" while holding a space lute.
posted by Nelson at 1:39 PM on July 6, 2023
posted by Nelson at 1:39 PM on July 6, 2023
The alleyway they arrive in has showed up in a bunch of shows as “EXT. NEW YORK CITY ALLEYWAY”. I shot an AR trailer for a dance show in 2013!
They eat at the Lakeview Lunch, a well known 24hr diner and brunch spot. They spend most of the episode near the water, but weirdly the Lakeview is a few klicks north and has not lake view. The show’s fictional geography works kinda better than reality, here. The Lakeview is reliable but out in the west end — other 24hr options are Pho Pasteur on Spadina and the much-grungier Vesta Lunch on Dupont, which sign proclaims Reputable Since 1955. (I always wondered what it was before that — disreputable? Notorious?)
At the end, the jaggedy building they date-stroll past is the Royal Ontario Museum (which had to spend a lot of extra money ensuring that ice sheets don’t form and slide off all the jagged bits), and the reactor building is the Royal Conservatory of Music.
This was pretty sweet! Vermont was weird but you can’t have a character drop a Canadian place name in an American without it feeling weird or just telegraphed.
Nice to see City Hall show up again in Trek! I wore out my VHS of the TNG episode where it makes a brief appearance.
posted by sixswitch at 9:00 PM on July 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
They eat at the Lakeview Lunch, a well known 24hr diner and brunch spot. They spend most of the episode near the water, but weirdly the Lakeview is a few klicks north and has not lake view. The show’s fictional geography works kinda better than reality, here. The Lakeview is reliable but out in the west end — other 24hr options are Pho Pasteur on Spadina and the much-grungier Vesta Lunch on Dupont, which sign proclaims Reputable Since 1955. (I always wondered what it was before that — disreputable? Notorious?)
At the end, the jaggedy building they date-stroll past is the Royal Ontario Museum (which had to spend a lot of extra money ensuring that ice sheets don’t form and slide off all the jagged bits), and the reactor building is the Royal Conservatory of Music.
This was pretty sweet! Vermont was weird but you can’t have a character drop a Canadian place name in an American without it feeling weird or just telegraphed.
Nice to see City Hall show up again in Trek! I wore out my VHS of the TNG episode where it makes a brief appearance.
posted by sixswitch at 9:00 PM on July 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
This did feel like a bottle episode, somehow, but with all the exteriors and a car chase I doubt they would have saved much money.
posted by sixswitch at 9:01 PM on July 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by sixswitch at 9:01 PM on July 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
Parts of this episode seemed odd, like how there's a building in Toronto that has a fusion reactor at one end of the hall, and child Khan Noonian Singh at the other. Or how Kirk went from not knowing how to drive a car to drifting and spinning it twenty seconds later. (I still love the gag in "A Piece of the Action" were Spock says that Kirk is an excellent starship captain, but a lousy taxi driver.) Despite all this, I really loved the episode! It had heart and soul. Chong plays La'an with a scary intensity. I think it's great that they do episodes concentrating on the supporting characters. That's how you get to know and love the crew…unlike Discovery, as a counterpoint, where they never really did that.
posted by jabah at 1:04 PM on July 7, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by jabah at 1:04 PM on July 7, 2023 [7 favorites]
My headcanon is after they overran on budget with the handprint scanners they had to let most of the guards go.
Having handscanners that look like handscanners but are really DNA scanners is surprisingly expensive.
posted by biffa at 10:12 AM on July 8, 2023 [4 favorites]
Having handscanners that look like handscanners but are really DNA scanners is surprisingly expensive.
posted by biffa at 10:12 AM on July 8, 2023 [4 favorites]
There was a lot of fun to be had in this one, but it's still hard for me to get over how stupid the "Mirror Universe" episodes are. They were my least favorite running thing in DS9 (even though it was fun to see Nana Visitor having so much fun with them) and the reason I gave up on DISCO. I'm all for fanservice, but shit like "Oh, I was born on the USS Iowa, have the same name, the same brother with the same name, apparently I know Spock, who exists, and Uhura's unlikely path to being on the Enterprise was somehow preserved here, blah blah blah" just grates on me. Especially with the "do you know how unlikely it is that we'd all end up here...?" theme that keeps getting repeated in the trailers (whatever the wording is) being utterly undercut by this revelation that apparently it's not unlikely at all. Even with massive historical shifts two hundred years in the past. Grrrr...
Also, Kirk got to show a little bit of swagger this time, with his expert driving despite never having driven before (I was fine with that, he's an expert pilot and picks up on things fast, and the cops still cornered him in the end) but he still didn't manage to be at all charming, so the romance with La'an seemed to me to be based entirely on his jawline. Which, like, damn that jawline tho, but that's all that there is to this incarnation of the character so far.
posted by Navelgazer at 11:17 AM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
Also, Kirk got to show a little bit of swagger this time, with his expert driving despite never having driven before (I was fine with that, he's an expert pilot and picks up on things fast, and the cops still cornered him in the end) but he still didn't manage to be at all charming, so the romance with La'an seemed to me to be based entirely on his jawline. Which, like, damn that jawline tho, but that's all that there is to this incarnation of the character so far.
posted by Navelgazer at 11:17 AM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
Whenever the Trek people refer to it, they call it the "AR Wall" and not "The Volume".
ARwall is a company that makes the tech to build your own version of "The Volume".
posted by inpHilltr8r at 2:33 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
ARwall is a company that makes the tech to build your own version of "The Volume".
posted by inpHilltr8r at 2:33 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
Damnit I came in here to make the Chekov's gun joke. Gotta stop watching this show so much later than everyone else.
posted by potrzebie at 10:53 PM on July 31, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by potrzebie at 10:53 PM on July 31, 2023 [6 favorites]
Speaking of: the watch was a nice TVH homage, and as for whatever that closing shot forebodes? My best guess (well, the ONLY guess I can come up with) is something involving Boimler and Mariner…
How so?
posted by bq at 7:57 AM on August 5, 2023
How so?
posted by bq at 7:57 AM on August 5, 2023
How so?
It keeps TIME, get it?
Chekov’s Gun
THIS is the reason Khan recognized Chekov even though he wasn’t in Space Seed.
But seriously, I assumed she left it there because the gun was out of bullets.
posted by Jon_Evil at 8:58 AM on August 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
It keeps TIME, get it?
Chekov’s Gun
THIS is the reason Khan recognized Chekov even though he wasn’t in Space Seed.
But seriously, I assumed she left it there because the gun was out of bullets.
posted by Jon_Evil at 8:58 AM on August 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
I'm pretty sure she left it there because the screenwriters didn't want to deal with her holding a gun when she reappeared on the Enterprise.
posted by bq at 11:07 AM on August 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by bq at 11:07 AM on August 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
Did anyone catch where the bridge was supposed to go? Like here's a bridge 30 miles (47km) across Lake Ontario?
Youngstown, it looks like.
I joked with biscotti that one way I know I'm old is that at the end I was looking past Chong's perfectly good performance and her intense emotion and hey that's a pretty nice bed there
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 6:37 PM on August 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
Youngstown, it looks like.
I joked with biscotti that one way I know I'm old is that at the end I was looking past Chong's perfectly good performance and her intense emotion and hey that's a pretty nice bed there
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 6:37 PM on August 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'm only just getting around to watching these but I really want to see Giant Turtle Spock, maybe in a crossover with Jimmy Olsen.
posted by wittgenstein at 8:43 AM on September 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by wittgenstein at 8:43 AM on September 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
“Don’t worry, kid, you’re right where you need to be. Now I’m just gonna put this loaded gun over here and leave your cell door open in case you feel a sudden urge to start a eugenics war rn.”
posted by Syllepsis at 11:03 PM on September 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Syllepsis at 11:03 PM on September 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
I hope that the Time Cops went and got the gun, and Kirk's corpse (although it's been found by locals, we hear in the background). I don't understand why they let La'an keep her cool outfit and her watch.
There was no chemistry between La'an and Kirk -- I agree that it felt rushed. But Kirk does have that effect on the ladies, we have been told repeatedly.
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:52 PM on October 17, 2023
There was no chemistry between La'an and Kirk -- I agree that it felt rushed. But Kirk does have that effect on the ladies, we have been told repeatedly.
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:52 PM on October 17, 2023
I’m four months late to make this joke, but I thought overall the writers did a nice job on the ret-Khan.
posted by athenasbanquet at 7:47 AM on February 1 [7 favorites]
posted by athenasbanquet at 7:47 AM on February 1 [7 favorites]
I adored this episode. La’an calling up Lt. Kirk at the end about Sam’s security records was so tender. I kept hoping Kirk would show some awareness of the time-travel situation. Maybe they’ll have that drink when the stars align sometime.
posted by edithkeeler at 11:03 AM on February 15
posted by edithkeeler at 11:03 AM on February 15
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Heh. The square they are walking through just after arrival would have been a cluster of shops and restaurants if they had arrived in 1992. As usual with anything filmed in a place you know, the impossible geography is a mite jarring, but because of the number of productions shot in Toronto, I would note that when they are first zooming away in the boosted Dodge that directly behind the camera (but unseen here) would be Roy Thomson Hall, which genre fans know as the base of the CGI-augmented Vought headquarters inside The Boys, or else the spot where Magneto and Charles Xavier first meet in X-Men (and just beyond is Hannibal Lecter’s office from the television show). The massive bridge that gets destroyed is of course entirely fictitious. And of course, we see on Sera’s tablet Toronto City Hall behind some razor wire. It previously appeared in the TNG episode “Contagion” through a portal. Here, incidentally, is a photo of one Olivia Chow in the square before City Hall in 1991 with her late husband Jack Layton. As readers of the blue might know, she was elected mayor of Toronto earlier this week.
Toronto aside, I am also curious at the Romulan time travel capabilities and how brazen they are to be flying a bird of prey in plain sight (well below the cloud cover) and puzzled at what the ISS-photographing astronomer hoped to capture on what looked to be a pretty overcast day.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:18 AM on June 29, 2023 [6 favorites]