Star Trek

I mean, it was telegraphed in S1 but there are definitely going to be some Gorn retcons this season.

I'm fine with this! But it was already tough to reconcile what we saw in S1 with later crews, "attending Gorn weddings" (much harder, imo, than the more reasonable 'they have been encountered, just in a limited capacity and with few survivors) and a full on invasion plotline - featuring Spock and Uhura no less - makes Arena tough to reconcile.

Again, that's fine!

I like the current Klingon design, though I wish they had kept the double nostril from DIS. The redesign went too far but their attempt to physically show the Klingon's redundant biology was appreciated.

The actual episode's plot was...fine. A bit rushed. Felt like a Mass Effect sidequest which is fine for an ep but hopefully not the feeling of the season as a whole. Establishing the character's war experiences and generally situating the series as post-war is probably necessary for the rest of the season. I have to wonder if they went out of their way to only show Spock and Pelia with the Klingons given other crew.....probably aren't ready to split a barrel of bloodwine.

Speaking of Pelia: a race of immortals living in secret alongside humanity and now just regular, serving members of Starfleet? Identifiable by accent even? It's a BIG swing and probably the most interesting (though for now unexplored) idea in the episode.

On the Crossfield refit...presumably from the 'shell' style associated with the pre-TOS ships (as seen in DIS Binary Stars sequence) with the Enterprise's modernized plating? Probably would have been simpler to just have a new class.

I really enjoyed this one. It felt fun. Who doesn't love a good "steal the Enterprise" plot?

They're clearly gonna push the Chapel/Spock ship. I'm broadly fine with this but I do wonder how they will reconcile it with canon Spock/Chapel (or if they'll just abandon it - which I'm also fine with).

I don't really have an issue with the green super drug. I hope we get to hear more about their time together during the Klingon War. Guessing we will based on this. But it was a cool sequence and I'm good with it.

I'm curious if that fake Federation ship was a variant of the Crossfield or just something cobbled together by those folks. I imagine we'll get some clarification from the design people at some point.

Loving the current Klingon design. I didn't really mind the Disco re-imagining but this feels like a good compromise. And that Spock made peace over bloodwine. And ended up with a hangover.

And, for me, I'm fine with The Joke. I like Ortegas' and the background that some Captain says "Zoom!" Spock's left a bit to be desired, but I laughed.

So good to have SNW back!

Loved the episode in general, but there are some interesting decisions with this episode I'd like to get into, like the green power-up juice.

That seemed odd to me. Usually on a Star Trek show the ship's doctor and a trainee nurse would easily be able to kick the crap out of a dozen or so Klingons to save the day. And I'm not even joking, the crew of Deep Space 9 were absolute murder machines when they got going.

Thing is I sort of liked it, I liked that for once on a Trek show "We can't just beat up all of these people on our own" was presented as a plot point, because it usually isn't. I expect that there will be consequences.

As to whether it could or should be a thing, I mean this is a show where people can be teleported, so the idea that they might have some kind of super bull-shark testosterone quad damage power up in their med-kits seems perfectly reasonable.

It does however beg questions about why it isn't used more. And that I think is likely going to be a question we get an answer to this season. I also think it might be connected to why Mbenga will ultimately end up being replaced by McCoy*.

*Slight tangent, but McCoy's bigoted attitude towards Spock in TOS is going to hit so differently if they keep it for SNW, assuming he ever were to appear on the show.

Anybody else feel like the space battle was trying to mimic the Expanse style?

Unfortunately didnt seem to work as well. The Expanse puts a lot of detail and thought into combat, and the setting seems more fit for it somehow.