132: Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 2, episode 1 “The Broken Circle"

[Music] in this episode of Trek in time we're going to talk about holding the best and worst of you inside that's right we're talking about Star Trek strange new worlds season 2 episode one The Broken Circle welcome everybody to Trek in time where we're watching every episode of Star Trek in chronological order by stard date we're also taking a look at the way the world was at the time of original broadcast and as I mentioned just the moment before we're talking about season of strange new world

s which means we're talking about well basically last year so we're not going too far back in the way back machine we're just going a little bit and who are we well I'm Sean frell I'm a writer I write some sci-fi I write some stuff for kids and with me is my brother Matt he's that Matt of undecided with Matt frell which takes a look at emerging Tech and its impact on our lives Matt how are you doing today I'm doing great and do you realize Sean we're only like what is it 10 or 11 episodes away f

rom the original series I know I am so close I am looking forward to it it I this all started with the wouldn't it be fun to take a look back at Star Trek and take a look at the world at the time of original broadcast that's where this channel originated and in my mind it was like it'll be fascinating to take a look like this episode dropped on this date and this is what was going on in 1969 and then we've been talking so much about last year basic the last couple of years and it's really been l

ike yeah remember way back when when there was well yeah the war in Ukraine and yeah that's still going on and investigations into the previous administration well that's still going on and oh well but that'll all change in about 10 episodes so if you want to learn more about the 60s come back then as we always like to do before we get into our current discussion we like to visit the mailbag and see what you guys have said about our previous episode so Matt what have you found for us this week T

here's a couple this week and one of them is a long one so hold on your head but I thought this was a really good comment that could I'm curious what your thoughts on this are um from episode 131 equality of Mercy which was the finale of season one of strange new worlds value of nothing wrote this episode is terrible the message is you must accept your fate hence there's no free will in order to use the time Crystal the future had to come true that's a terrible message in any case this episode i

s just a single story of the future of all the Futures That Old Pike saw thus this single episode itself is not really important what this episode should have been was something like voyagers year of hell where the captain of time ship tries over and over again to improve the timeline and fails after all Pike now knows how to save the peace with the rulin and save the children when Pike returns to his present all he has to do is send a peace delegation to the rhy amulance maybe offer to move a s

ettlement or two number two this this episode is about Pike failing as Matt says where Kirk succeeded to me that's just a terrible message but was about racism and the idea we should try to understand our enemies this episode is all about failure and the lack of Free Will Point number three this episode says you shouldn't negotiate first like Discovery season one episode one that's also a terrible message and point number four there's no reason for Kirk to be in the episode and I thought this wa

s fascinating because there was elements of this I was like I get what you're going for and then there were points where I was like I just totally disagree curious what what are your thoughts on on that that feedback I get this I get this perspective I get this perspective uh the thing for me that made this work was I when we reviewed that episode I started off by saying they were having their cake and eating it too and I think that is the unspoken element of that episode that doesn't appear dir

ectly on the screen nobody is walking around saying we're having our cake and eating it too and what I mean by that is how do you incorporate Kirk and known Trek lore into the story to make Pikes sacrifice they weren't trying to make it a lack of free will they were trying to make his sacrifice be an act of free will he has to go into what we know the character has happened to him willingly otherwise for us as a viewer it is tragic we know where Pike ends up to see him get there with a kind of b

lindness or weakness and lack of acceptance would be to put him in a Greek tragic perspective of this has been laid around my neck and I do not accept it he becomes more of a heroic figure by taking it on and this episode gave us the opportunity to see him talk to Kirk and like I said last week the idea that in the original series we will see Kirk say I never had the opportunity to meet him but we know that Pike had the opportunity to Kirk and likes him and respects him that I think is what this

episode is about it is about the various levels of relationships between the characters and I would point out that when Pike's older version of himself comes back he says he has tried multiple different paths yep he says he has gone that route of everything I try it all fails and it leads to a Calamity that destroys the Federation so it's he doesn't say it all fail but he says basically's saying there's always tradeoffs and that's part of the reason why I didn't agree with some of the points th

at were brought up in this comment because I from my point of view I saw it as it's all about free will he has absolute free will to do whatever he wants he's choosing to sacrifice himself because if he does X Y or Z Spock dies over here or the they end up in a war with the ryin over here and millions die it's like there's all these trade-offs so he can either be selfish save himself and trade his fate if you want to call it fate to somebody else so it's kind of a I thought it was a beautiful ki

nd of like you said in the beginning where it's like it's not this tragic he's stuck on this path against his will he's making the choice to sacrifice himself to have the least the least amount of damage done yeah he's doing this to protect Spock he's doing this to protect Starfleet and millions of lives he's doing this choice of his own Val he doesn't have to and that's the thing I thought was interesting that uh value of nothing you took that as a lack of Free Will and Sean and I are both taki

ng it the exact opposite yeah that's one of the reasons I wanted to read this comic because I thought it was fascinating to see the different point of view on the same exact thing we all watched the same episode but we took very different things away from it and I would also say to value of nothing I completely understand your perspective because what you are describing all of your points are on the screen that like you didn't invent anything to dislike the these these elements of the story this

is the story as presented and I can understand it is a this is why a show like Star Trek is discussed in some philosophy classes at college and stuff like this is the kind of show it is it revolves around the idea of is this free will or not and we could debate that and neither of us would necessarily end up convincing the other but the fact that it makes you think in these ways puts Star Trek consistently in kind of a class of its own it is a philosophical sci-fi as opposed to let's just watch

these robots blow up and not give any consideration to what it might mean or if it's true or if it's or if it's ethical or moral this show revolves around that so what you're touching on and what we're discussing is effectively the same nugget which is these are issues for us to wrestle with what does it mean what does it mean to be free the other comment I want to bring up is direct relations to today's episode where you asked what's the uh the episode title mean wrong answers only we have one

from paleo 69 a broken circle is what happened when a perfect circle went on a Hiatus ah yeah there you go once again pale ghost jumping in with big brain thinking thank thank you so much everybody for your comments and that noise you hear in the background that of course is the read alert which can mean only one thing it is time to buckle up raise our editorial deflector fields and uh get ready for Matt to read the Wikipedia description good luck Matt let let me stumble my way through this one

while undergoing upgrades under the supervision of long-lived engineer pelia the Starship USS Enterprise receives a distress call from security Chief laan Nunan sing on the mining Planet kajar 4 with first officer una number one chin Riley number one but you know she's arrested and Captain Christopher Pike recruiting her defense Council Vulcan science officer Spock disobeys Admiral Robert April and steals the Enterprise Spock and the crew find lean on kajar 4 kind of already established that an

d she explains that a cabal of ex-star Fleet and Klingon soldiers are plotting to restart the recently ended Klingon feder ation War Dr Joseph MGA and Nurse Christine Chapel are captured and taken to a ship that has been cobbled together from Starfleet technology the cabal plans to use it to fire on a Klingon ship and frame Starfleet Anda and Chapel fight their way off the false flag ship just as Spock orders its destruction saving the arriving Klingons Spock bonds with the Klingon Captain over

drinks impressing Pila April reprimand Spock but is privately grateful that the war with the Klingons was avoided considering the impending threat of the Gorn this is episode number one of season two directed by Chris fer written by Henry Alonzo Meers and AKA goldsman AKA goldsman once again is the creator of this program so seeing his hands on the script means important plot points important character moments pay attention main cast as always Anson Mount Ethan peek Christina Chong Melissa Navia

Rebecca Roma Jess Bush Celia Rose Gooding and bab zelis Moun and of course we also have the introduction of a new character played by Carol Kane engineer pelia this episode dropped on June 15 2023 and what was the world like on that date well Matt you want to quickly tell me what this number one song was that's right it was last night by Morgan whan you along with 32 million other people streamed that song to dance along to alone in your bedroom and the movies The Flash was the number one film

the controversial release of a film that had a star who was getting headlines for all the wrong reasons earned 55 million with a alternate reality alternate not alternate reality a parallel universe storyline which included the Resurgence of Michael Keaton as Batman along with Ben Affleck Tim Burton your it's a rough it's a rough episode so far Matt and yes it is in streaming we try to compare apples to apples so we're talking about a streaming show we're comparing it to other streaming shows th

is is an interesting list of mostat programs because last year the 2022 list of streaming programs revolved mainly around Netflix there seemed to be a shift in what people streamed across the networks and the streaming apps and neelson Analysis determined that American streamed 21 million years worth of content in the year 2023 what's fascinating about this I am sorry you just broke my brain yeah you want to talk about parallel realities think about that 21 million years worth of content streame

d within one year and on top of that the Resurgence of programs that just exist as a library of old content is similar to the fact that friends remains a top viewed program to this day despite the fact that it's been off the air for decades so when we look at the top 10 acquired steaming programs number one a program suits which is anerican American legal drama that was originally on the USA Network it originally broadcast in 2011 and it ended in 2019 but when it moved to Netflix and peacock in

2023 it's 141 episodes garnered 57 billion minutes viewed in 2023 making it the number one stream program of the year that's because of the royal family it is because of the royal family it is also because something about that show captured attention to the point where audiences that didn't know about it and there's and I was talking with my partner about this and I have a theory USA programming has the advantage over other older shows it has a kind of approach to storytelling which is reminisce

nt of a pre-2000 drama think of an LA law that kind of model of programming but being produced later as it was it is in digital format and it is formatted to fit properly on current television screens so when you have the desire for I want a TV show that's easy to digest I want something that follows a kind of not going to get too dark not going to get into the Golden Era of highlevel drama television that we currently live in I want something that has a lot of episodes I want something I can pu

t on the background I want something that's kind of like bubblegum that I can go through quickly but I also don't want it to look like garbage USA programming kind of fits that zone perfectly so it show like suits it's not a knock really it's just like they do what they're doing really well they're doing it in a way that technologically is current but they're also doing it in a way that's like you don't want to be you miss an episode you have no idea what's going on or you walk out of the room f

or five minutes because you're getting a cup of tea and you come back and you don't know what happened you want something that you can have on while you're doing other things washing the dishes or something like that and these shows just kind of like fit that model in an interesting way and had viewership when they were broadcast that was probably a narrower band of the audience simply because they were first cable only but also maybe appealing mostly to people who were of a generation that was

a little bit older than the largest part of the audience that the streamers and networks were going after and now we've reached a point where that kind of show has maybe a lot of Escapist appeal and a show like suit suddenly bubbles to the top to the point where I did not see it but apparently the two guys from Suits appeared at the emy's presentation and poked fun at the fact that their show is now more popular than it was when it was actually on the air so hats off to those guys and in the new

s on this day there were articles about the FED leaving rates steady but forecasting for more moves this is in response to the inflation that the US has been undergoing there was also an article about the judge in the Trump documents case not having a lot of experience in criminal trial and and that has proved to be a recurring theme of that case there are also articles about how president Trump's AIDS and lawyers could now be witnesses that has played out to this point as several cases are comi

ng to a conclusion and other are just about to start up and also an article about the us paying billions to Russia's nuclear agency how and why and it all revolved around the US need for nuclear materials and effectively buying it from Russia so looking now at this episode I'm curious Matt about the tone of this episode there was a bit of a shift from some previous episodes and there was something that I felt like was the Star Wars ification on display when they get to the mining colony and you

see what that environment looks like and the adventure that plays out from that and I'm curious did you feel like that was kind of a tone shift from what is normally seen as Trek and did you find it fitting for the story that was being told I thought it was fitting um the tone shift I don't know the tone shift wasn't didn't catch my attention too much because I don't know it felt I think it's because it did feel feel like it fit for the episode for the story that was being told for this time in

Star Trek history that we're currently in it felt like it it kind of worked for me it didn't jump out I mean did it jump out for you it jumped out for me but in a really positive way because this episode had a couple of things in it that I thought oh here's a here's a Trope here's a here's a known Trope that they're going to touch on and I felt there were a couple of moments where I had just a a quick flash of apprehension of like oh no is this where they're going with this and then they did it

so well that I ended up saying like I'm glad they did it like they really earned those tropy moments one is the engineer showing up and saying like oh somebody's done something that's making it look like there's a warp core breach and wink wink it I know you're faking it like I didn't quite like that as it started but then 2 minutes into it I was like oh my God I love this and the other aspect was the very star warsy feel of getting to the mining Planet seeing rabble gathered around drinking hol

es and a drinking game which felt very Indiana Jones and the environment of like we're all kind of out here together so we're from various places that have been in combat with each other and we're not supposed to get along but we actually all kind of do kind of a tne sort of feel and when it was first presented I was like oh really this is what the like this doesn't feel Trish but I ended up feeling like it was the most Trish of this kind of environment that they've done we saw a little bit of t

his in Enterprise where Archer would go undercover and go to a place where he had to like figure out how to get the secret plans that a mob boss had a hold of and it would have this kind of feel but it always still F felt more like a set piece more like a okay this is just a brief moment of like they've created this they've changed a set that might be the engineering room and decorated it to look like a bar but this was a big open air environment this was a big setting of lots of people in the s

hot and it created a different tone than we've seen before and I also flashback to some of the more Awkward attempts at this kind of thing on like next Generation where it always looked like rer would go undercover and show up looking like a guy in a business suit be like I am also alien and how can I find those plans I need and it was always like all right that's Jonathan it's not working uh but here it really felt like it worked and I really liked n and sing's setting for her yes in she has ma

naged to figure out how not only to find the family of the girl that she had rescued in the at the close of the last season but she has discovered a dilemma and has reached out to the team that she knows can help her figure it out so tone shifts and the inclusion not only in the tone from the Star Wars kind of edge that I felt like was on display but also the humor in this episode big breath of fresh air from the previous one did you find that the humor in this one worked for you I would say all

the humor except for the engineer uh pilia I've seen this entire season shine I'm really curious to see what you think by the end of the season um Pia never resonated with me from the from I remember when I watched this episode the first time I was like oh man that's like a hit the wrong key while you're playing a song on the piano um and then by the end of the season I still had that feeling I I've never jelled with her character ever and so the humor that comes out of her is a little bit like

a Nails on a chalkboard for me so I didn't like that but the other humor that kind of comes out from some of the other sequences and characters I thought was great um but yeah I'm just not a fan interesting I I liked her I liked her um but there were a couple of moments where it felt like they are trying to fast forward a gynan perspective yes into into the character to they are not earning the gynan aspect of it where gynan showed up on next generation and I remember the very first time they v

isited T forward and you saw Gyan my response was why are they acting like she's been here the entire time and then after the second or third time they go talk to gynan you forget that she hasn't been there the entire time and yes the drip drip drip of reveal of gynan is incredibly old gyan's relation ship with peard is unique she has an experience of time that is different from other people's and her Revelations around do you remember the first time we met you actually don't because it hasn't h

appened yet those kinds of things were critical to her character but they were very slowly wound out over years and this was a little obvious oh here's Carol Kan and she's saying this thing at the end about like I'm bored and I really like you don't know what it's like like oh they're trying to quick they're trying to fast forward it like I'm incredibly old I'm nearly Immortal I know stuff you you'll never experience but I've got a unique perspective and I'm going to join your crew and I'll and

I'll share all this stuff with you and it felt a little bit like okay it's obvious I see what they're doing but I actually really like Carol Kane in this role I like the character idea uh I like the idea of a replacement for hemmer as somebody who is so knowing as to see all the red alerts that are going off in the ship at the beginning and walk in and say yeah it kind of looks like a meltdown but it's not actually a meltdown she sees through it so quickly I really appreciated that so to pull in

to the Spock in charge I think it's an interesting moment to give us something that I hadn't considered the idea that Spock at this point is not the first officer so he has never been Solo in charge of the ship in quite this way and Pike giving him the Reigns at a time when he thinks the worst that's going to happen is he's going to have to negotiate Shor leave for various members of the crew they're having all this work done the ship is not going anywhere he's gonna be fine and then it turns in

to a classic moment of Spock very dead pan saying to the Skeleton Crew aboard we have to steal the Enterprise this is a Trope right out of the movies Kirk deciding we got to steal the Enterprise to to go do what we got to do uh in Star Trek 5 this is like lifted right out of the original crew how did you feel about Spock's role in this episode as being in charge how he manages it and what they do with it in getting us to the point where he's demonstrating his competence as a leader I I'm gonna s

ound like a broken record Sean I give me all the Spock give me all the Spock I love this character I love this portrayal I love what they did with him in this episode I thought it was really nice to see him still struggling with his unlocking his emotions so he's he's barely holding it together for this entire episode and it was fun to see that in this character that we know so well seeing him struggle but seeing him be the Spock we kind of know in the sense of he can take charge when he needs t

o take charge he is a leader and he has a good head in his shoulders he makes good decisions he's thinking out the side the Box um partially because he's slightly unhinged at this moment um he makes decisions he might not have made if he was a little more in control which I thought that was kind of fun to see him making these kind of like very emotionally driven decisions yeah where it's like if this was Spock 20 years from now he would not be doing that probably um or he'd be doing it in a very

different way so I thought that was a lot of fun um I don't want to go I don't know if this too off topic but I have two points of view on the whole him stealing the ship and that whole stealing stuff and how the Admirals and Starfleet doesn't seem to respond go ahead jum yeah that's a classic thing that we visited yeah go ahead and talk about they grab the ship and they go and all the plot unfolds and hij Jinks ens Su we have a fun time watching this episode but then if you think a little too

hard you're like whoa how come there were no real ramifications from this yeah they stole a freaking Starship they'd be out of there in a heartbeat what is going on here and there's this kind of really kind of weak explanation at the very end with the Admiral going you better not do that again um and it was kind of like okay that was a little uh no that's just no this would have never no no um he would have been demoted he would have been kicked out there would been like so much ramifications fr

om this there's a mark in your permanent record there's nothing like that um yeah on the Blu-ray because I've talked about this before I have the Blu-ray there's an extended scene that was cut and I don't know why they cut it because it should have been in there it was a conversation between two Admirals right when the when the Enterprise rockets off they steal it this scene takes place after that of these two Admirals talking about why did you let him go and Admiral April is like we need to see

how this plays out like d they have this whole debate between these two Admirals one Admiral saying we got to go after them and the hammer BAS basically saying the hammer has to come down on these guys and April is say giving the explanations to why he's letting this happen why he's letting it play out and why it's important to let it play out yeah so they are letting this go on and so that one scene it was like oh my God that puts so much more weight behind the ending when they're just like pl

ease don't do that again is because they let it happen they could have stopped it but they didn't April actually let it happen and so it's I don't know why they C cut it because it would have strengthened that whole aspect of this so much more and it would have made it a little more believable it would have made it a little less like uh there's bend the rules because it's the you know Spock and crew I agree a scene like that really does sound like it would lend a lot to it and pull away from the

oh you wacky kids with your party like it's it it it is an ending that we've had that in Star Trek for forever unfortunately the you break the rules and then at the end you get the like oh by the way Starfleet loves us um and that's fully on display here uh to go back to like pulling it back into Spock himself one of the things that I loved about this episode was him and Dr maena and having yes the two of them reflecting one another in this while mea is overtly helping Spock and saying there's

an aspect of this that you're struggling with your emotional release you don't know what to do or how to do it music is a way to do that and Spock quickly Buys in you can see like you can almost hear it instantly like I will do anything I need to in order to make this work and music does have a logical mathematic aspect to it that I can key into and he gives him the classic Spock harp that I really loved that while also being stymied by why does MAA have that in his office like like hang on yeah

in my head can I was like he has it made like he has it like he uses a he acquires it for Spock and he's basically gifting it to him yes like he goes in he's like I've got this thing for you and here it is uh but then you get some very nice scenes of Spock playing with this thing which I'm looking forward I got nostalgic as I was watching him sit down and play it for the first time I got nostalgic for a future episode of the original series when he's playing it in the cafeteria and yur is singi

ng along and I suddenly got like very moved by the fact like oh here's this thing being given to him and years from now he and yur who are still serving together create a duet that they performed together so it's little things like that that really hit me where my Star Trek lives uh but the beauty of Spock saying the walls have come down and I don't know how to put them back up and I don't know what to do with all this stuff that's now rushing out of me and banga is saying there are things you c

an do to help yourself and then the storyline reveals a level of PTSD in mbanga and Chapel that is so surprising and hat tip to the way they side they kind of Sidle into it in a way that to me didn't feel laid on at all and I was so surprised by that because there's a certain way of giving backstory that feels like oh for this episode they needed him to know how to play the harmonica so suddenly he's got a harmonica and we'll never see it again but this so subtly and deafly handles manga quickly

in a moment of stress and a moment of what if the war restarts and the way his eyes kind of Flash and he's just like you realize he's carrying something buckets of something and he and Chapel together doing the super soldier serum storyline effectively where they clean house in a way that reveals they must have been involved in something in the past some kind of research to allow Starfleet to go toe-to-toe with the cling on in a losing battle where Starfleet at the end of Discovery is clearly i

n a position of we are losing this war and we will look at any options including this and this is not something we've seen before it's not something we've heard of before and when they reveal it it suddenly made so much sense I was watching this and it was like when Chapel says do you ever not carry this with you and he's like no like like oh this is a guy who's walking into every situation thinking if I need to go on a rampage I know how to do it and that entire sequence again something that sh

ould it have worked in Star Trek should it have fit into Star Trek and I find myself sitting there like this is fantastic this is great and it felt very Star Trek when when I complained about Pia feeling like she's slapped in there and it it's like a bad note this does not as you pointed out but part of the reason it doesn't is we know that he and Chapel were involved in the war we we knew that in the first season we know that they have a long history together we know that he has some issues wit

h Klingons in the past but it was never explored but it was there so now we're seeing it and it doesn't feel out of place because it's it's building on something hint were already dropped last season and now we're starting to see it front and center and the another reason I don't think tonally it's out of the Tre lore is because we've seen the history like think about the movie First Contact it's like we're going back to when we first humans first met the Vulcans and the the chaotic war that Hum

anity came out of it's like our history of war and doing things because the ends justify the means is part of the history it's already in Star Trek we just don't see it a lot because most of the shows are post that we're in the kind of semi utopian ideal this is where like with Discovery and this pit with the serum we're getting to see it firsthand we're seeing some of the vestages of that checkered past which I find fascinating it's really kind of cool at this point in history of Star Trek to s

ee that explored and I'm not gonna give anything way Sean but one of the comments I think it was from last week on the show mentioned I understand why they got rid of the daughter in the storyline because manga has some heavy stuff coming up mhm this is what it was referencing yeah and I will say this is a theme in this entire season so yeah I expect it would be more of this is coming um and it's it's really fleshed out I think in a nice way and I'm really curious to see what you're gon to think

about it as it goes forward but I love the hints like it was what the hell what the hell is that green vial it's like we've never seen this before it's like yeah I always carry it with me it's like oh oh dear oh this seems heavy seeing what it actually does I had the same reaction the first time I saw it that you're having right now I was like oh oh oh hell yes sign me up what is this about it was like I really enjoyed how they're unfolding it and letting us kind of discover what this history o

f chapel and manga is and manga I'm I'm uh I'm blanking the actor's name uh B yeah yeah he is such a good act he's my favorite character on the show he's one of my favorite characters he's the heart everything he's the heart of the show yeah yes like when Spock says we're stealing this ship and it cuts to all the different characters unspoken nobody says we're in it just you can tell everybody's like bought in just by them their facial expressions but it ends with a shot on him he's the last one

they show and just the multi-layered reaction on his face it's just you can tell he's in he's kind of like way to go Spock he's got this kind of like a you can tell is kind of like you go Spock and then at the same time I'm also in and then there's also this like little bit of a dread that kind of comes across his expression and it's what unfolds they're going to a cling on mining Planet at this point correct yes it's just the acting that he does in this is top-notch yeah I agree completely uh

to touch on something really quickly I really like the manga Chapel Spock triumverate kind of like braided storyline between the three of them Spock reveal ing his romantic feelings for Chapel meima picking up on that uh Chapel being in a perspective of like I got to get out of here because this is breaking my heart so she's potentially trying to leave the ship and all of that uh twists together in a way as I was thinking about it just now it really creates a nice balance for the future in which

why does Spock have the contener relationship with McCoy that he does and it occurred to me in the scene where he is sitting and being so accepted by benga it seems like Spock May hold a grudge against a doctor who seems to judge him for his Vulcan whereas manga is constantly accepting him for who he is manga from a certain perspective is a more holistic doctor and a better holistic doctor than McCoy McCoy kind of wears his emotions on his sleeve in a way that's abrasive and that's supposed to

be the charm of the character that you know that underneath it he loves Spock but on the surface it's just like well now I got to recalibrate this machine to get your stupid Vulcan physiology in there and here manga is the one who gives him the instrument who leads him on a path of like how do you manage this which is so hard and there's a level of trust here that seems to be in uh Counterpoint to the outward abrasive relationship that Vulcan that Spock has with McCoy and I think it's a nice Bal

ancing Act there um to move on to the plot of the plot the let's restart the War I had no issues with this it felt like it was the C plot if anything while being very action-oriented and driving a lot of the great visuals at the end of pursuing this Cobble together ship through the asteroid field having to destroy it just before it strikes against the Kling on ship all of that I found uh really enjoyable it's a lot of popcorn fun but it is not where the heart of the episode lives the heart of th

e episode lives in The Quiet Moments for me but I will say I enjoyed the plot of the plot the idea of a cabal of profiteers coming together from two sides of the war and saying like we both enjoyed it more when it was a bad situation so let's restart it I like that idea and it hints at um unease within the Federation and unease within the Klingon Empire and unease within the whole region that this kind of shenanigan could take place I also like that this is the first moment that we see Klingons

who remind us of the Klingons we're so familiar with with out it being jarring we get the drinking game in which Nunan Singh is going up against a Klingon that she drinks under the table and for all intensive purposes he could be visiting warf's family it's like he looks like a Clon that we would know it doesn't feel like we are looking at an attempt to transition the Klingons into looking like something more alien or walking back from that the last few times we've seen Klingons in Discovery it

was clearly a walking back of the alienness of them but they still had certain traits that were like wow that's a lot of prosthetic you're really hiding your actor you're making it really hard for them this was a klling on it was as he's sitting there and growling I was just this is a klling on this is what they should look like and finally there's the hint of future dilemmas that are coming when in the very final scene this goes back to what Matt and I were talking about a little bit earlier Ap

ril kind of like Taps the back of Spock's hand and says don't do that again and sends him off to play and then there is the thank goodness we don't have a war on two fronts moment and a shot of a battle plan screen in which it is hinted that there is belief that a Gorn invasion is in the offing so setting up a darker tone for what's to come while being a lighter episode with some good action both on the ground in the form of super soldier serum in space in the form of the Cobble together ship tr

ying to attack a klling on bird of prey which again arkens back to the original series that's the bird of prey that we remember it is not one of the ships from discovery which looks like is that notra flying in space this is a ship that looks like a Kling on ship so a lot of elements here a lot of different places we haven't even touched un banga and Chapel ejecting themselves into space Oh yeah great sequence all of that this episode felt big it felt cinematic and it felt big and it was a I tho

ught from start to finish a really great Triumph I felt like this was a great kickoff for a second season it got me very excited it felt like a um summer blockbuster to me yeah where it was I would would not say that this was on the a tier Level of Star Trek where it's dealing with ethical dilemmas in like a really star treky way it was not that level but it was definitely on the level of man I'm having a fun ride watching this episode it's keeping me engaged has enough action it has enough um d

ilemas and character building that is keeping me invested um and you can tell that this is setting up the season so it's like this is just the setup this is just the where we're going to Spring off from here it's the spring board and I thought it was a really great way to kind of launch off the season I agree so next time Matt and I are going to talk about episode number two which is ADD Astra per aspar so please jump into the comments and as usual leave your thoughts about what that might be ab

out wrong answers only considering it is in Latin he said he thinks uh I think the doors are wide open so good luck on wrapping that up before we move on to the end of the episode Matt is there anything you want share with our listeners or viewers about what you have coming up on your main Channel well for all the people that think I'm full of hot air I thought let's do a video about uh blimps um yeah uh there's a Airship video I did one a couple years ago that was pretty popular and people real

ly enjoyed it so this is kind of revisiting that topic where is it now are they going to become the future of Transportation kind of a view um kind of like you know you're in an alternate universe like in Fringe where you look up at the sky at the emperor St building and there's blimps FL around it um are we going to have that future at some point so it was a fun video check it out oh the humanity as for me if you want to find out more about my books you can go to Shan feral.com you can also jus

t go to your local bookstore your Amazon page or your local library my books are available everywhere if you'd like to support the show please consider reviewing us on Apple Google Spotify wherever ever it was you found this go back there leave a review don't forget to subscribe and please do share it with your friends all of those are great ways to support the channel and if you want to support us directly you can go to Trek in time. show click on the become a supporter button it allows you to

throw some coins at our heads you become a supporter and you immediately become an enen which means you will be subscribed to our spin-off show out of time in which we talk about things not confined to this setting so we might talk about other sci-fi sometimes movies TV shows things we're reading whatever is crossing our path thank you so much everybody for your support and your time thank you for watching or listening and we'll talk to you next [Music] time