SpaceScotsman

Worth noting that the trendline in that plot would be pointing down anyway, before you include season 4. That tends to happen for every long running TV show.

It can be a bit difficult to get a read on what Vulcans are thinking as a viewer, It can't be easy to act them out. I did think ethan peck was good in this one

"high jinks" might be intentional, and meant to be the vulcan's way of being dismissive of the human's nonsense by deliberately pronouncing it as two words.

I went into this episode blind, but the moment Scotty mentioned the puppet was going to be the transporter payload I knew we were in for a tuvix situation. I did not realise it would be quite on this scale. I don't hate the premise of the episode. It reminded me a lot of the TNG episode where they all get turned into children, and this is a universe where Tom Paris got turned into a lizard after all. I do absolutely hate the cop-out at the end where it turns out it was all a dream. It means that spock was the only character that had opportunity for development and growth, and no-one else gets to share in that. Either go all in on the zany adventures, or dont, but never waste the audience's time like this.

But hey, you want puppets, I'll judge you on the puppets. I think they were generally well designed. While the "body language" was expressive, I don't think the faces were as good as they could have been - There were only a handful of times where changes in eyes and eyebrows really stood out. I also feel that the writing and voice acting for the puppet character's dialogue was not great, but that gets hand-waved away at the end where we realise as puppets they're not quite the same people The endpoint of letting go and embracing the madness was a nice resolution to the absurd situation, however I did not feel like the cartoon physics played through.

The orion plot was OK, used as the necessary antagonists to drive the plot. But other than some moments from Joe Lo Truglio, who was a perfect choice for an empathetic male orion, the invaders could have been any invading alien species and nothing really specific to orions was needed. I'm also confused by the huge orion vessel, unless I've misread the scale, there should be hundreds at least but at no point did anyone think to help out the 3 or 4 orions actually invading the enterprise. But maybe none of this matters, because hey, it was all a dream.

With some of the other gimmicky episodes, I've instantly wanted to re-watch them once I finished. Here, once was enough, which is not a great indicator for the episode overall.

Kor was good. When a new Klingon character is introduced, they need something to differentiate themselves from the stereotype of the honor-bound aggressive wine-guzzler. Kor here stood out in his approach to running the occupation and his presence on the screen.

This is the first episode this season that I've really enjoyed.

The direction, lighting, filtering, was all great and on point. I really enjoyed the story, the A plot was a nice wartime rebel story and the B plot was pretty decent too. I was feeling shades of some of the "retro themed" ST episodes from the 90s. The set design was great on the planet.

The Klingons here are used well - seeing the way they act during wartime here they feel almost cardassian in how they treat the native population, but out also makes sense given what we're told about how they acted during this time. I liked seeing Scotty and Ortega just hanging out. La'an getting help to deal with her problems is good, and seeing her doggedly chase down the truth was nice, though I'm a little unclear in exactly what the chain of events was with the signals and the transporter. Mbenga and una were really sharp on the planet and I enjoyed their acting.

Can I get paid a billion dollars to do nothing?

Mixed bag of an episode.

I liked that we got some proper character development - Spock and Kirk coming closer together, an origin point for their friendship is good to see, and the hallucination was a useful way to explain why spock would be willing to open up to such a friendship in the first place. Ortegas and Scotty similarly got some satisfying growth, and the quite unprofessional arguing between them didn't end drag on for too long.

I did not like the first couple of acts. I know this is meant to be a comedy episode, but none of the jokes really landed for me, it was just kind of a slog to get through. I'm not a big fan of "stoner / drunk" humour in other shows, and it's not a whole lot better here. I am not sure if the alien host was meant to be funny or charming, but they just came across as mildly annoying. If I compare this to pleasure-planet episodes we've seen in other trek shows, I don't feel the pleasure planet really added a whole lot. CG sequences aside, they were in a fancy hotel more than an actual planet.

Something that really bugged me is that despite repeated references to alternate shifts, at no point did any of the "alphas" think that maybe it might be worth handing off the negotiations or asking for help with the bomb. It speaks to a kind of arrogance that doesn't really play well given the whole point of the episode is learning to rely on others.

The final act is again mixed. The idea of a pressure bomb, the sci fi equivalent of a landmine, is a great way of building tension, brings ortegas and scotty together fully. But that it then also provides the solution for the diplomatic problems make no sense. The aliens say that particular type of bomb is part of a peace ritual that hasn't been seen in generations, but then why would a separatist use that for their sabotage?

Overall it was alright, but not amazing.

I don't disagree with that... I guess limited character growth is one of the disappointing outcomes for any prequel media.

This was a very creepy episode, and as a standalone sci fi fantasy horror piece it works well. But it doesn't feel trek. Here's my conspiracy: With the dramatic different in tone, direction, the repeated references to section 12, this is a Poorly Disguised Pilot that the producers were using to test the waters for an x-files like section 12 spinoff.

Overall, I did not enjoy it. I don't seek out this kind of film normally, and I might have enjoyed it if it had led to anything interesting happening, but ultimately it has not left them with any further progress. All the dramatic moments between the away team and the "others" they hallucinated were basically "then they woke up and it was all a dream", so no relationship progress there. And within themselves, aside from more unresolved trauma, Spock seems no closer to aligning his human and vulcan selves, La'an hasn't really learned anything new about her violent tendencies she didn't already know from the last episode, and Kirk never even got to have the chat with his family because the network apparently cut out.

Vulcans can be arrogant, but they also have some personality to balance it out. I think part of the problem is we haven't seen much, other than a sliver of backstory at the end of the episode

I do think the away team section needed another pass, either on the writing or the direction. It had some action moments, but at the same time it didn't feel like anything the away team actually did carried any impact,and never that they were in any real danger. The only bit that actually felt it had real energy was the archeopteryx getting punched in the face.