SPOILERS throughout. I thought it was mostly okay, but kind of underwhelming with a middle that just felt like filler. -The mirrored version of the Logo had me half worried I somehow started streaming on a pirated site, but then it switched around and it was cute.

-Speaking of which, any particular reason they mirrored the text into the lake establishing shot. I like some movies where they make the text part of the environment but this ain’t that.

-I get she’s supposed to be out of breath but the airiness of her words is really tempting me to break a self promise of avoiding subtitles for movies to better my listening skills.

-I was beginning to wonder if those were eggs boiling in the stew and then it turned out to be poison.

-Was this supposed to mirror the beginning of DSC with the walking on sand and getting picked up?

-I loved the one lady in the background casually smiling at the burning hot torture.

-That said this ascension trial seems rather peculiar and unusual for the Terran empire. I’d have thought a dash of nepotism would’ve been in order but she’s just some rando.

-That briefing was rather cheesy. The mystery McGuffin. “This dog bites back?”

-Stardate “1292?” but still using CE year in that earlier briefing without saying it’s CE? I see they continue with the trend of making dates more about vibes than making sense or sticking to a system.

-I do like the design of the swirly space station.

-Bubble Gum spotted. Now I’m thinking about that scene from DS9.

-OMG it’s those half-white and half-black guys from TOS. I never expected to see them again.

-That singer in the “bagel hole” shot along with the edible eye prop kind of made me think EEAAO.

-Okay, I did wonder why that Vulcan was laughing so hard, but I figured he might’ve been half, or Romulan or something. Glad to see that was a deliberate “what’s wrong with this picture?” in a later reveal.

-They’re really hamming it up with these “gathering the team” scenes. It’s a bit goofy.

-Is there a Guy Ritchie inspiration to this movie? Wouldn’t surprise me.

-I’ll be the one to ask the inevitable “why doesn’t it/she/they phase through the floor” question.

-I turned the subtitles on. I just couldn’t make out “Give me the case” and this sound balancing was bothering me.

-Did that naked Andorian have no genitals? Perhaps confirmation of that 3rd/4th Gender from the extended stuff?

-Ugh, I hate the “breaking a bottle on a head” cliche.

-I do think the phase fight was kind of cool, Kitty Pride is among my favorite X-men, but I’ll always have the why phase through walls and people but not the floor question in my mind, and the glitching at the end felt cheap—but it’s always better to be unlucky in getting into more problems than out of them from a writing perspective.

-I do think the Emperor’s reflection while San explains “it is all for you” was a nice shot.

-I definitely laughed at the “I forbid you to die” line.

-It does seem kind of silly that Section 31 has a uniform, even if it’s all black.

-The God’s End vs Godsend joke fell flat for me.

-it sure became nighttime rather quickly.

-It’s a mole subplot. If done wrong I’d probably hate it. I don’t like guessing. RN I’ll guess it’s the leader Alok who’s the mole and see how that sticks.

-Are they really going so fast to say it’s the mech-head with no seeming brain. I feel like it’s a fakeout.

-Okay, so it was. It feels like the mole revealed plot was over a little too quickly. What was it, 13 minutes? -The tunnel fight felt a little too “shakey cam” for me.

-I’m getting flashbacks to Mozart’s laugh in Amadeus.

-The callback about the confusing name also fell flat for me.

-I think they take the “we’re direct to streaming, we can swear whenever we want” card too far with ST and it continues to be poorly implemented here.

-Three parts of “coded transmissions.” ~40 minutes, 25 minutes, 25 minutes, roughly. I can see this having been a miniseries earlier.

-The doll’s kind of creepy. I do like the “different region, different safety standard” bit of world building with the battery. It reminds me of power outlets or how British and U.S. eggs are illegal in each others’ countries. Stuff that adds verisimilitude.

-I feel that the struggle with the autopilot robot went on too long, considering the mild incompetence it was showing earlier at blending in.

-The microbe has a monologue about small things surviving big explosions but then gets defeated by an explosion? Okay.

-So San gets cut in the Carotid artery it looks like. Is this a reference to McCoy saying something along the lines of “if you were to kill me cut me here” while in the Sickbay of ToS with a knife on him?

-Who was that hologram lady supposed to be at the end? She looks vaguely familiar but I couldn’t place her.

It’s been a gas and it’s time to pass.

Spoiler throughout:

Is that an angry bullpup version of the unicorn dog from the Original Series? I like the Sense-oars pronunciation I spotted. OMG I should’ve expected them to address the different Klingon looks but I didn’t expect to see a T’kuvma / Discovery era Klingon reappearing. When they said “solidton” particles I imagined it was going to be a metaphor about keeping “canon” stagnant. First time I see a ST character say “those words aren’t real” to Treknobabble. I’m glad they’re keeping the Star Trek tradition of holding up way too many Pads on the table where one should’ve done the trick. I never wondered if Klingons had claws for toenails, now I am. I like how Brad tries to convince others that William’s the worst. How’d they know they were dropping out of warp if the next shot shows them cloaked? I expected as much with the ship changing. Never really cared much for the different classes of ships though. This Rutherford bitterness feels like it came out of nowhere. Those whales are thirsty again. I thought she was going all Kamehameha. I have a feeling the clam is a reference to something but I’m not sure what. IDK why, but that one shot of Boimler turning his head and us being able to see under his chin particularly stood out as a “bump the lamp” moment. Was there a cut scene, what was (silver?) Badgey doing there? Or was that Goodgey? Have I forgotten about them? I like how Ransom made his own rule for provisional first officers. Engage the core is a perfect Warp catchphrase.

I liked how William Boimler was so done with Multiverse fatigue. Felt topical given the current Hollywood trend.

“Sodium is not a full life” “Maybe it is for me, dammit!” Felt this in my soul.

The Bughoons were so cute.

“We’ll have to lick it off” had me reeling.

I found the lurkey quite funny this episode, even if it was a bit of an embellished and exaggerated character.

And my goodness, I love the guest star that they found on the time dilation planet in this episode: The Vasquez Rocks.

I like how tall Olly is. Really helped sell the “Demigod” thing.

Finally, representation for the struggle of being a young Immortal.

I find it peculiar how they’ve hidden the creeping Boimler Beard from the trailers a month ago.

Twisting the usual Star Trek species formula a bit and having an entire culture center around food critic reviews is really funny. Especially with how this has been built up since Season 1 with Migleemo relating everything to food—I thought it was a individual person thing but it turned out to be something cultural.

They show us a canon depiction of the transparent skulled Gallamites and then they bring back that one species from ENT that was offended by public eating in the same second? It’s like they were targeting me specifically.

OMG they’ve added a green hand to the intro.

I’m hoping they won’t go too long with the Multiverse stuff / council of

thing. I’m kind of fatigued with multiverses as it is.

That’s such a low blow that it is aiming for the toes.

“There are no bras in space.” ~ George Lucas

Weird to see them side-by-side in a videogame, but it feels so right.

They announce comic things at comic-con?

That’s not a bad idea either.

Pike went to Johnny Bravo’s barber off screen.

Do you think the humans acting all “logical” is psychosomatic? They’re less aware of the cultural history that lead to Vulcans suppressing their emotions and acting logical, so they think that logic is more of a racial trait, and thus act logical.

There is a bit of a precedent of logic being genetically encoded with Star Trek Prodigy when

acted more logical upon

.

That space and time comment kind of rubbed me the wrong way. By the nature of planetary bodies and ships moving at incredible speeds things have to move through space anyway. Episode 19 at 11:54 had a minor animation mistake going on Bribble with some weird clipping. I’m glad that other Val N’Akat supported Gwyn in that climactic battle. It was starting to feel like the dad and the BBEG were the only ones on the planet between the time duplicates in the earlier episodes.

I felt the synergy between this show and Picard went a little stronger than needed. Especially considering the first season was a little weaker than the others. It also felt a little late.

I’m still looking forward to any sequel though. I like the hook of slightly unsanctioned exploring.