Logline
Captain Pike and his crew welcome a Klingon defector aboard the USS Enterprise, but his presence triggers the revelation of some shocking secrets.
Written by Davy Perez
Directed by Jeff Byrd
This was one of the best "connective tissue" episodes of Star Trek I've ever seen.
It provides context and ties together the Discovery Era "T'Kuvma War" with the eventual outcome in "The Undiscovered Country", while providing a layered, accurate and evocative image of Klingon Honor and "perceived honor" while staying true to the lore and expanding it in meaningful ways. It also has strong shades of "The Siege of AR-558". It now "makes sense" how the Klingons got from TOS to TNG. Wow!
Dr. M'Benga is fast becoming one of my favorite characters. Also hoping to see more of Robert Wisdom's Dak'Rah!
Heghlu’meH QaQ jajvam
UESPA_Sputnik@lemmy.world 1 year ago
What a tonal shift from the last episode.
I think this was on par with DS9’s Dominion War episodes, showing how the Federation ideals clash with the real world. It will certainly be controversial for being so “un-Trek”. There’s no happy ending, there’s just the sinking feeling that a war never really ends in the heads of those that were affected by it.
The acting was stellar all around, particularly M’Benga and Chapel. And that final scene with M’Benga and Pike just demands a continuation in the future.
It was certainly an impressive, thought-provoking episode but if you’d ask me to rate this episode on a scale of 1 to 10 I’d have no idea where to put it. I’m still sitting here trying to wrap my head around what I just saw. I guess that’s war for you. It doesn’t make sense.
InverseParallax@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yeah, but the depth was great, I really felt m’benga was a badly developed character till now, and this fleshed him out in ways that made him now one of my fsvorites, before he made no sense.
Also loved bunny’s work as the klingon, that is ALWAYS a hard role, but he managed to nail him as >!1. A klingon, 2. A klingon defector 3. A klingon defector turned pacifist diplomat for the federation 4. A klingon defector, coward liar war criminal turned pacifist diplomat for the federation. He also had to seem like he could be betraying starfleet the whole time.!<
People will undersell how hard that is to pull off, m’benga’s actor had 1.5 seasons to lay the foundation for aspects of his character (though honestly it was mostly done here) while bunny had this episode, to cram in all of that.
UESPA_Sputnik@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Agreed on the Klingon ambassador! The acting felt weird at first but his demeanor made sense at the end.
And I feel similarly as you about M’Benga. I didn’t care much about him until now, he was simply the doctor that speaks strangely. But now I really want to find out what’s next for him.