Logline
La’An travels back in time to twenty-first-century Earth to prevent an attack which will alter humanity’s future history—and bring her face to face with her own contentious legacy.
Written by David Reed
Directed by Amanda Row
Note: This is a second attempt, as technical difficulties were preventing people from seeing the original discussion post. Apologies to the people who were able to comment in the original.
Kirk gets a mysterious call in the middle of the night from a woman he’s never met asking weird questions and his response is to ask her out
10/10 Kirk behavior
@buckykat @ValueSubtracted
“Why is it always so sexy around this guy when we see what Kirk is up to? It’s not sexy like this in different times, and now we know it’s not like this in nearby places. Does this guy give off a pheromone, or what?”
The more I think about this episode the more impressed I get. There’s so many small moments where they could have taken the easy, obvious choice and it would have been fine, and instead they were just a little more thoughtful and a little more creative and it shows.
They could have just had Pelia push a secret button to reveal her stash of alien tech, and that probably would have been fine. Instead they show her as this woman who’s very smart and obviously immortal but otherwise…just a person living through history, which is so much better. Imagining the 250 years between the present and when she’s one of the most famous engineers in the fleet is fun.
They could have had the Romulan agent just be a cold, ruthless assassin from the future who’s here to get the job done, and that would have been fine. Instead she’s this slightly unhinged woman, trapped out of time, stuck undercover on an alien world for thirty years on a mission that she’s not sure exists anymore and I love the way she starts losing it at the end, that she just wants to kill this kid and be done with it.
They could have cast Khan as a hot 20 something available in the Toronto area and had him to a Ricardo Montalbán impression and give us a tense standoff, and I would have been annoyed at that, but it probably would have been fine. Instead they show us an actual child, and remind is that Khan was a horrifying monster, but he was created by a world with monsters of its own, monsters who built a child in a laboratory and raised him in a basement, and suddenly its a piece of implied context made explicit that I didn’t even know I wanted.
And of course they could have just had Kirk agree to fix the timeline because its the right thing to do, or because he loves La`an, or because…honestly, because the plot has to happen, this is something that so many stories would just gloss over to keep the story moving. And instead we get one line, “Sam’s alive?” and my heart jumped to my throat a little bit and immediately we understand why he’s willing to go through with this.
I’m really really impressed with the writers on this episode.
Wow. You get my first Lemmy upvote on this post! Thank you for pointing out all these details.
They could have just had Pelia push a secret button to reveal her stash of alien tech, and that probably would have been fine. Instead they show her as this woman who’s very smart and obviously immortal but otherwise…just a person living through history, which is so much better. Imagining the 250 years between the present and when she’s one of the most famous engineers in the fleet is fun.
It’s not just fun–but it speaks to a different demographic than most shows speak to.
It’s telling older women that it’s not too late to change and grow and learn. Here she is, obviously having already lived a long life–but then we learn she hasn’t ALWAYS been an engineer from the start. She did not begin as someone obviously fascinated by science.
She realized later in life. And then she was able to SUCCESSFULLY pursue her career and become an expert. Just because she wasn’t a child prodigy didn’t mean she couldn’t learn and grow. There’s SO many stories focusing on people who have things 100% right immediately out of the gate. Top grades in school, top performance at work, accolades, reccomendations from the time they were teens.
But this story is of an ordinary eccentric retail worker…who goes back to hit the books and succeeds with her change.
This lesson will go over 75% people’s heads…but in true Star Trek fashion, even if it elludes many, it’ll hit home with the demographic it’s meant to talk to. Older women who feel like they’re too old to change. That they shouldn’t even try. It’s talking to THEM like so many other characters in Star Trek talk to other overlooked people.
And that makes this detail–one out of many in this excellent episode–top Star Trek.
Although it does remain very funny that they’re doing this much work to make us care about Sam Kirk, a character who’s fate is to die off screen to a brain parasite before the episode even starts. Sorry Sam.
I think it’s more that they’re introducing Kirk sideways, by way of humanizing him through how he cares for Sam.
I ended up liking this a lot. For one, I’m glad Pelia really is a part of the cast now because I LOVED her introduction and was fearful she’d be a one-and-done character.
But secondly, in the past all I could see with La’an was (as someone else said) “a budget Camina Drummer”. And I love Drummer, but seeing almost!Drummer every time La’an was on screen was so fricking weird.
I think this episode gave La’an some of the development she needed so I wasn’t seeing almost!Drummer all the time.
(And for those who don’t know Drummer is…go watch The Expanse. It’s as if the new (is it still considered new?) Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek had a baby. One part grittier sci-fi universe, one part wonderful character/crew exploration.)
I agree. At one point, I wondered if the EPs had wanted Cara Gee for the show.
She’s her own person now. Strong and closed like Drummer but from a very different context.
Many of us who are fans of both Trek and The Expanse have wished Trek had some of the complex strong women along the lines of the Expanse. I can’t criticize the EPs for wanting to bring that into the franchise. Now all I want is a Trek version of Avrasala.
I legit thought it was Cara Gee for the first few scenes she was in.
Maybe once Mariner gets there, La’an can finally talk about what she went through.
This was definitely my favourite episode of the season, and possibly of the series. I thought Kirk was badly cast, but actually after seeing him in this episode, I get it. He is not our Kirk, but he actually does bring something very Kirk-ish to the role that I hadn’t appreciated previously.
That is an excellent way of stating it, re Kirk. He wasn’t doing it for me, and I thought I had it figured. He looks like Pine, who tried to mimic Shatner’s mannerisms, but didn’t really deliver the Shatnerisms. Here I was able to accept him as his own thing, and it was fine.
He felt more like TOS Kirk than movie and pop culture Kirk.
Annotations at c/DaystromInstitute here.
Kirk was superb, I don’t think I could have accepted the car scene if it was anyone else. It’s Kirk, of course he’s going to drive like a nutter. I was genuinely shocked when he got shot. I thought there couldn’t possibly be a way for him to make it but they still got me.
La’an has grown on me so much, she was the one I was most dubious about in the early episodes of season one. I felt really sorry for her at the end, losing Kirk and being unable to talk to anyone about what she’s experienced. She’s gone through some pretty serious trauma already due to her genes and name and now she’s had to go through this pure insanity. I wonder what the significance of the watch is.
She was discount Camina Drummer for me at first. Now I see her as her own character with a lot of potential.
This does bring up an interesting observation… The Temporal Agents apparently have no qualms about coming to not only take back their gadgets and gizmos after someone from the past uses them, but seems to just drop in on the past and cryptically hand out missions to those same ancestors out of literal nowhere! This time travel stuff can be so mentally damaging that even those agents trained to directly work with it (Captain Brackston, for example) can mentally break. Whatever stress La’an was shouldering at the start of the episode has now surely compounded.
You would think that Starfleet of the future would have put together some form of “Temporal Psychology” department, or something. People who’s jobs are to go back to ancestors emotionally effected by time travel, and help them deal with any trauma. Telling La’an to, basically, just “shut up and suck it up” is a horrible way to deal with someone who, essentially, just saved your existence. I get she can’t talk to any of her contemporaries, but surely someone from the past could pop-in and act as a counselor of some sort.
IDK… I felt the temporal agent’s cold response to what La’an had to deal with was rather un-starfleet.
Maybe they know that she has Pelia there to comfort her?
La’an couldn’t tell Pelia the details around Khan or the Romulan incursions, but if Pelia recognizes her and asks after the handsome young companion she has with her in the 21st century, she could at least offer comfort for his nonexistence in this presence. I doubt Pelia could see La’an with this universe’s Kirk and not put her memories together.
Yes I was thinking the same thing, like “Lady you’re acknowledging how difficult this is to bear, could you offer like 6 free therapy sessions at least?”
Use discount code “temporal shenanigans” for 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com
repost my original comment from last night’s failed thread:
Canon purists are making leaps about the placement of the eugenics wars. Sounds to me like they’re blaming the Temporal Cold War for changing things.
Must be pre USS Relativity time agency…
Fun episode, but the gymnastics to tell Kirk stories without impacting TOS is getting a bit obvious, this is our 2nd alternate Kirk
Seriously. They need to stop giving us time travel stories to shoehorn Kirk into the series. Let it stand on its own without having to hearken forward to the Original Series.
It’s a good show, and it deserves to be its own good show.
I agree. SNW has a really strong cast, and great writers. The show truly can be episodic without referencing any previous canon and still be fantastic and even appreciated more by new watchers of Star Trek.
my only thought about why they are so desperate to have Kirk around is that if the show runs long enough they intend to have Pike’s accident during the series, and then tell the final 2 years of Kirk’s original 5 year mission? I’d be up for that
When the cab pulled up to Pelia’s cabin I initially wondered how they got across the border, and then La’an mentions they bribed a border guard. Pretty good save there. You know it would’ve ended up in someone’s plot hole YouTube video, or a clickbait ScreenRant article if they didn’t cover that.
This was another solid episode; even though the ending was gut wrenching. Who would have thought that a writer would shoehorn a ship between Kirk and the descendent of his greatest nemesis. I really love this series.
It was a hand-wavy reason to explain how they got across the border, but then they had to do it the other way too. I’m pretty sure bribing two different border officers the day after an incident of international terrorism is not that easy. I don’t care how good Kirk is at chess, you can’t raise the kinds of funds needed to do that by betting on games for an afternoon
Also, how did they get a fancy hotel room? Even if you’re paying in cash you need a credit card to secure the room (and ID)
I do wonder how Kirk got his initial stake against the chess hustlers though
Their badges are made of gold. IIRC in another time travel episode someone used their badge as ante before playing poker or some other game.
True, but as someone on Tumblr observed, they could have avoided that just by placing Pelia’s “bunker” on Nova Scotia or somewhere else in Canada.
I think it’s fine; I don’t think it’s a huge deal that this could’ve been solved by moving her to someplace like Quebec (Toronto or even Ontario would’ve been too convenient). Like I said, it was just a thought when they arrived at the cabin.
It felt to me like there was an idea for a scene that was cut somewhere in the process with them having to deal with there being borders on earth, but the idea of the bunker being in Vermont remained and was explained with this throwaway line
I thought about this too, it would work, but would have softened the big “Canada” reveal a bit. As a Torontonian I was delighted by the big reveal in Dundas Square
[Copying my post from the original thread and adding something to the bottom]
Christina Chong absolutely killed it, especially in that final scene. Imagine finding someone you can connect to for the first time in your life, and immediately lose them. It even makes someone who is usually very unemotional crack.
Also, Pelia is such a delightful character. Great addition to the show.
Other than that I’m not really sold on the episode. It’s over an hour long and it did feel (too) slow and meandering at times. And I feel as if it just existed to shove in Kirk once again (and once again in an alternate timeline scenario to stick to the Trek canon) and explain the postponement of the Eugenics Wars by some Temporal Cold War shenenigans.
Final nitpick: how can Spock exist in the alternate timeline if humans and Vulcans are enemies?
Others wrote about how it was interesting that La’an had to choose to keep baby tyrant Khan alive for the greater good (of the future paradise Earth). And I agree that it’s an interesting conundrum – but that was given so little space in the episode that it fell entirely flat for me. La’an found out early on that Kirk didn’t know Noonien-Singh but that plot point was dropped for 30 minutes and only brought up again in the final minutes. In that aspect it reminded my of “The Elysian Kingdom” last season where nothing happens for 45 minutes and the interesting stuff comes out of the left field at the very end of the episode.
Maybe I’m being too harsh (I’ll rewatch the episode in a couple of days together with a friend) but for now I’d say this was one of the weaker episodes of the series.
how can Spock exist in the alternate timeline if humans and Vulcans are enemies?
Where they enemies? I got the impression they were on good terms, but just never allied like they did in the main timeline.
I believe Spock said ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ implying that both Vulcans and Romulans were enemies of humans.
No, he was implying that both humans and Vulcans were enemies of Romulans.
The Vulcans are enemies with the Romulans. The Romulans are enemies with the humans. Therefore “an enemy of my enemy is my friend”. The humans and Vulcans don’t seem to be allies, but they definitely aren’t enemies.
Ha of course, you are right, somehow got it twisted up in my head lol. To me though, you only say that about someone who you’re not close with but share a mutual adversary.
Ooh, I like the nitpick. Good point.
I must be of the silent minority or something, but I really disliked the amount of advertising was done in this episode. I don’t think I can remember this ever happening in trek before, but yeah. Not for me. Also, while I enjoyed that Kirk used chess to make money, the music choice ugh. What happened?
It’s fine, I don’t hate the show, just didn’t like this episode and really it’s a skip for me. Doesn’t add enough to anything to be a required watch as part of a rewatch.
I enjoyed the episode a lot, but I do agree about the product placement. It really was unnecessary and jarring.
Heh… I didn’t notice the product placement at all. I’ll have to watch again and see what y’all are talking about.
I’m pretty agnostic regarding brands. It just doesn’t register to me, and advertisements usually disappear as background noise. If there’s a can of Coke™ on the table, I don’t usually recognize it as a proprietary brand, and translate it to “soda”.
The mentioning of DuckDuckGo seemed weird/misplaced
Perhaps. DDG is kind of a clumsy name, and it’s hard to say without throwing a bunch of rocks in the speech machine. I’ll have to watch that part again to get the exact phrasing/context. Maybe a generic “search” would have worked better, but I’m generally ok with not giving google any more mindshare.
And the Apple store and the framing of the Dodge Charger.
The bright red Charger did feel like a very Kirk car to steal while trying to remain subtle.
Ah, well I had a more thorough comment typed out, but unfortunately that was on the thread that got locked and the app I’m using on mobile ate my response when it failed to post.
The gist of it though was that I was pleasantly surprised by this episode, as I’m not usually one for the time travel themes. The ending was painful (as in, the writing was very well done) to watch and hit me harder than I expected!
And it was also cool for them to reference DDG instead of Google, I’d be happy to see that sort of thing happen more often on TV.
Apologies - my own thoughts on the episode also have been lost to time.
We’ve identified the problem, and it shouldn’t happen again!
Lost … in time… like tears… in the rain.
Ah, well I had a more thorough comment typed out, but unfortunately that was on the thread that got locked and the app I’m using on mobile ate my response when it failed to post.
Sorry to hear that. We had some problems with language settings which required replacing that post; most people couldn’t see it. That shouldn’t be a problem going forward.
I thought this episode was fantastic.
The pacing was good, the interactions between Kirk and La’an were fun, and the closing acts were a real gut wrench. Being forced through such a traumatic situation and completely unable to talk with anyone about it is a piece of the time travel/Prime Directive secrecy that Star Trek hasn’t really dug it’s teeth into before, and there’s clearly something very powerful to work with here.
Also, hilarious use of their immortal chief engineer. In retrospect, no surprise that someone in that position wouldn’t maintain exactly the same hobbies and skills throughout the centuries, and also no real shock that this particular individual got her jollies stealing priceless artwork. And then arguing statute of limitations when she is challenged on it centuries later? Brilliant.
I do not give the slightest of damns about a TOS one-liner placing Kahn in the 1990s. This is a good story which wouldn’t work properly otherwise, and that was a poor choice from writers who couldn’t have possibly known better. Absolutely do not care, and so much happier for it.
After a fairly meh first episode, SNW S2 has reeled off a pair of real bangers. Looking forward to the next installment.
But they also managed to explain the moving of the Eugenics Wars as the result of time hijinks, some of which we’ve seen on screen. I think this is a credible explanation Star Trek can use for TOS retcons without being too dismissive of canon.
@ValueSubtracted
A nice La’an episode.@ValueSubtracted
IMHO the time travel is more the background for the La’an and Kirk episode.
They rush so through it that it doesn’t seem to me the A plot.The love interest between them developed to quickly in my opinion. It felt a bit unnatural, especially for La’an who is usually much more in control of her responsibilities and composure.
There is such a thing as love at first sight, besides Kirk is a charmer who treats everyone with respect and he’s a highly accomplished officer. They were also put together in a difficult situation, which is a setting that can bring people close.
as well as that La’An hasn’t met someone since grade school that had absolutely no idea of her lineage. She’s a little broken in that respect, and it would make sense to me totally that someone would just absolutely fall for someone who not only didn’t treat her differently, but had absolutely no idea whatsoever why anyone would.
I agree with you but I think they were trying to get the setup across with her sparring with M’Benga at the beginning, and the doc saying something to the effect of it better not being alone? He’s already established to be a good reader of body language.
But I have to say I did sigh inwardly when the romance angle was hinted at (her looking at Kirk in the night). Would’ve been better to keep it back for something developed over a time. Though I suppose given the end there’s the possibly of a relationship with the Kirk from her reality?
On the other hand … it’s Kirk after all, and she was just charmed. Part of it was having her heritage erased which allowed her to open up. Part of it also could have been that it’s just love at first sight for her and she knows it. It was quick, but the speed was consistent with the nature of what was happening.
Did she leave that gun with that little boy?
Lucky for us this boy is not going to be a genocidal maniac.
More importantly, she brought the watch back with her.
That genocidal maniac little boy…
What could go wrong?
She left the gun that had shot Kirk in plain sight to be found be the security team she believed were on their way.
And in fact we heard the footfalls of the team running towards the room just as La’an hit the button and vanished. She didn’t even have time to get herself out of young Khan’s sight.
@Tired8281 @ValueSubtracted That was all I could think about while she was trasnporting back to the Enterprise. Especially since she talked at lenght about Khan’s murderous crimes…
