Nice to see a Q appear independent of Q.
They really succeeded in capturing the soap opera style, right down to how incredibly boring those shows are.
Also, the counselor was played by Deidre Hall, who is on a regular daytime soap opera.
Terrible episode so far and only 10 minutes in.
But I’m not a soap fan.
I’m hate myself for watching the whole episode.
I loved it. Make sure you stay for the post-credits.
Can you please spoil that in a spoiler. I didn’t even think about post-credits.
You get to see the opening credits of “Days of our Enterprise.” And then Trelaine has a commercial for cereal, which he has no idea what it is.
Something just occurred to me; what if instead of being Q’s son Trelane is actually just a younger Q The Q don’t experience linear time. What if the Q assinged Q to monitor humanity because he was the one who brought the ants to their attention in the first place?
If there is no linear time, then there is no such thing as a “younger” Q. Also, is it not the Q “continuum”? Meaning it may be a grave error thinking of there being distinct “individuals” per se versus something much more incomprehensible. On the other hand, all we know about Trelaine is that he was chastised by a “mother” and “father” who remarked that the Enterprise people were “superior” beings who had “spirit”.
I get the feeling that the writers and actors are having lots of fun this season, definitely amusing themselves. And if we the viewers aren’t as amused, well that’s our problem!
It was … okay … but overall the series is more their self indulgence.
I agree, the writers seem to have been more interested in entertaining themselves than entertaining the audience much of the time. It seems like they’ve dared each other to try to shoehorn as many disparate genres as possible into this season, however far-fetched:
- Dinosaurs
- Horror
- 40s Noir, in black & white, no less
- Muppets
- Soap opera
This latest one that just dropped, Orders of Magnitude, felt a lot like a return to TOS sensibilities in a good way: taking a very contemporary moral dilemma and wrapping it in a sci-fi veneer. With a side of away mission action for the b-plot.
I’m wondering if this storyline will force M’Benga to leave the Enterprise so that we will have Leonard McCoy as the doctor in the next season?
I was surprised that despite me hating the soap opera elements, the previous episode actually delivered some emotional payoff. But this one, despite being a much more straight play, just fell flat. On the one hand, the drama just seemed too off-key. Five million people dead should’ve had the whole crew already reeling, it’s basically comparable to the Xindi probe in Enterprise (not that I’d consider that an outstanding example of high drama TV). But it’s basically, the admiral guy comes aboard, ‘Remember the Vaardan massacre?’—‘Oh right, that’s the thing where like five million people died, right? What about it?’. I hope this will at least play some role in future episodes. On the other hand, the stakes still seemed curiously small-scale. (Or perhaps, that huge number without much of an emotional impact made them feel so.) Five-odd thousand lives at stake, but it’s really just a backdrop to some bridge drama. Doing the right thing versus obeying orders. Not that that’s not an important message, but there never seemed to be any real doubt about the outcome. I realize that’s part and parcel of working with characters whose future is already written, so to speak, but it seems to me even if it’s an episode with ostensibly high stakes, you wouldn’t miss it if you’d skipped it. I did kinda like badass Uhura though.
They seem to keep teasing how he’s going to eventually leave. He was talking about getting a transfer to a different post. Then there was the particularly bad case of him getting amputated at the waist. Now it’s ‘M’Benga taking one for the team and accepting blame that will likely get him ‘space court-martialed’ or exiled to some crap Federation outpost.
Kinda reminds me of the ‘Hot Tub Time Machine’ subplot where the one-armed janitor in the present has both his arms when they travel to the past, and the movie keeps teasing scenarios in a running joke that keeps making it look like he’s going to lose his arm, but it doesn’t happen.
We have to see Dr. Boyce and Dr. Piper first.
I’m going to have to review the background to recognize those names.
Admiral Reeger had his own version of “you’re goddamn right I did!!!”
It also happened in the M. Night Shyamalan film Signs.
And, in a very macabre way, in real life the actor who played Chekov in the JJ Abrams Star Trek films (Anton Yelchin) was killed in real life that way (his car rolled down his driveway and he was pinned between the car and a gate post). Though he was apparently killed by asphyxiation, and there was no “he will die when we move the car” aspect to the story.
We’ve seen Dr. Boyce. He’s in charge of Beta shift and took over when M’Benga was halved.
Great episode, but has an admiral showing up and taking over ever worked out well in Star Trek?