Written by Kirsten Beyer & Davy Perez

Directed by Eduardo Sanchez


Logline

Returning to a planet that dredges up tragic memories, Captain Pike and his landing party find themselves forgetting everything, including their own identities as he confronts a ghost from his past.

  • sarcasticsunrise@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Nothing to add pertaining to this last FANTASTIC episode; I really just wanted to say I appreciate everyone posting here. After Reddit, I thought these kind of threads were done for, but here we are. So even if no one reads this, thank you and much love 🙏

  • Disgustoid@startrek.website
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    1 year ago

    Wow, these SNW writers really bring it each week, don’t they? Not to say every episode is perfect but I’ve found every single one to be very entertaining and exactly what I want out of Star Trek in 2023. The combination of standalone stories mixed with underlying character development and arcs is perfect.

    As for this week, the idea of encountering a planet that could make you forget everything was weirdly creepy, if not a bit implausible. Even if this wasn’t her showcase episode, I grinned at Ortega’s “I AM THE PILOT!” moment. Also enjoyed the away team being out of sorts on the planet which I thought was well done and not an action overdose like the season opener.

    • Schal330@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Wow, these SNW writers really bring it each week, don’t they?

      Don’t they just! Genuinely excited whenever I fire up the episodes and watch the intro everytime (love the intro music!)

      • Disgustoid@startrek.website
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        1 year ago

        I know the feeling! SNW’s theme and opening credits definitely bring back memories of eagerly looking forward to TNG every week. It’s easily my favorite Trek theme since TNG.

    • Steve Sparrow@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      SNW really is a masterclass in balancing episodic and narrative storytelling.

      I’d love to attend a workshop/lecture with Goldsman, Myers, et al.

  • astroturds@startrek.website
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    1 year ago

    A very TOS episode that I thoroughly enjoyed!

    Can we let La’an have a few happy moments in this season? That woman must be riddled with PTSD by now.

    It was great to finally get Pike back! Has he ever told his girlfriend that he’s almost certainly going to be disabled? What a pickle he’s in. I think if I were in his shoes I would have let the relationship end. The guilt must be driving him insane.

    I feel like they might be messing around with the timelines so that they can save Pike from his horrendous fate and just say it’s an alternate timeline compared to TOS. Normally I’d be against that, but it’s Pike and I love him so much that I almost want them to do it.

    • StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website
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      1 year ago

      The nature of a time crystal is that it’s a fixed event in every timeline forward.

      Once Pike drew the crystal on Borath, it was locked in.

      • astroturds@startrek.website
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        1 year ago

        Thanks, I should know that, I’ve seen every episode!

        In a kind of sad way he does have a happy ending. I just don’t want it to happen to him. Poor old Pike!

  • andrybak@startrek.website
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    1 year ago

    Reed Birney’s acting is great. His soft voice is very touching.

    – Be in the moment with me.

    – We look out for each other. Every night we have our forgetting.

    – You are guided by your emotions. They are your truth. I find them convincing. The totem teaches that we live in each moment, embrace them.

  • BorgDrone@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    Was the high pitched ringing sound really necessary, especially for that long each time? That almost physically hurt and it scared the fsck out of my cat.

    • Sammydee@universeodon.com
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      1 year ago

      @BorgDrone @ValueSubtracted As a person with tinnitus, it seemed important to me. Let me know exactly what was going on. It’s also very common in video games, for example when someone is dazed by a nearby explosion. Again it conveyed a lot of meaning to me and helped explain what they were going through.

      • BorgDrone@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        Sure, but there is a difference between having that sound at low volume for 2 seconds and blasting it through all 10 speakers for 20.

          • CeeBee@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            It seemed a perfectly harmless

            As someone with tinnitus, it not only hurt, but triggered my tinnitus to be worse for the rest of the day.

            Far from harmless. I had a proper issue with the excessive ringing in this episode.

    • autojourno@startrek.website
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      1 year ago

      Yeah. I watched with a loved one who needs hearing aids, and I can vouch that that exact pitch plays havoc with high-tech hearing aids and apparently results in actual physical pain. We finished the episode with the sound way down, reading the captions to understand it. It’s fine for 99% of people but I would have appreciated a warning for the 1% that experienced actual pain from that.

    • deepthaw@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      Similar to how we refer to TOS episodes as “The Nazi Planet” and “The Gangster Planet” this one will be “The Alzheimer’s Planet.”

  • reddig33@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    To me, this felt like the first real, original, stand alone episode of this season. I didn’t care for the courtroom drama episode, or the time travel one. Those plot lines have been done on Star Trek so many times before.

    Still wishing this wasn’t a series that insisted on the “previously on” intro. You never saw that on TOS or TNG unless it was a two parter.

  • Beefcyclone@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Did anyone else just despise the noise though, loved the episode but for me that noise will make the episode un-rewatchable…

  • khaosworks@startrek.website
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    1 year ago

    Annotations up at https://startrek.website/post/282663.

    This was a very TOS episode yet in terms of feel.

    The dialogue could easily have come from the mouths of the TOS cast, and the situation on the planet reminiscent of officers violating the Prime Directive like in TOS: “The Omega Glory” or “Bread and Circuses”. Even Mount’s delivery when on the planet was Shatner-esque.

    I can readily imagine Kirk, McCoy and a random redshirt or Chekov on the planet in Pike, M’Benga and La’An’s place, and Sulu pulling it together like Ortegas.

    • StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website
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      1 year ago

      I agree that it has a genuine TOS feel.

      Especially as it gets back to the mid 20th century thought experiments around how the mind functions, but informed my more current understanding of memory, cognitive function and emotion.

      I wasn’t quite sure the balance of the scenes was what it could have been, but it was good to see all of the main cast having their moments. I was nonetheless frustrated that Number One was quickly sidelined once again.

      Also I was uncomfortable with how far Pike was willing to go in his aggression in order to get information from Zack. I believe we’re supposed to feel that, but it did feel that it was pushed just that moment longer to drive home the point that Pike’s deep ethics are what keeps him in check, not his emotions. It also tracks with his anger and how he even used it to break the thrall of the Talosians in The Cage.

      But overall, I liked it. It’s a deeper and more challenging episode than it may seem on the surface, first watch. I suspect it will be one that stands up over a longer horizon.

      • psychothumbs@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I felt like they were trying to show Captain Pike as going a little far when beating up Zac, but I thought he was being totally reasonable given the situation of “this guy knows how to keep your memories and you really really need to force him to hand that information over.” There was no way for him to know all he had to do was wait around in the palace for a little while.

        • khaosworks@startrek.website
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          1 year ago

          It’s an interesting insight into Pike’s character - the fact that he had to remember not to beat the crap out of Zac implies that innately he’s not a pacifist or a nice guy; that dark side is something he’s learned to keep in check.

          • Tom Riley@mas.to
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            1 year ago

            @psychothumbs @khaosworks That *was* interesting. His instincts work overpowering Zac in the phaser battle but then we don’t actually know if he’ll “remember” he can’t just beat him senseless afterwards. Maybe we’ll see some Pike backstory at some point that shows him learning ethical lessons when he’s younger.

  • Azfaa@startrek.website
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    1 year ago

    I have loved SNW from the get go but I think its great that to me at least every episode has been great. I don’t think I have felt meh or bummed out by any singular one so far. Comparing to TNG and DS9 who had quite a few meh episodes. That is great imo

    • Thomas@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I agree, this show has knocked it out the park. It’s in the top 3 for me; TNG, DS9, and SNW. The order changes regularly ;)

  • theinspectorst@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    At the start of the episode, when Ortegas was getting ready for the away mission, I thought this episode would have the scene from the start of the season 2 trailer where she (gleefully) pilots a shuttle down to a planet.

    At least we know she will eventually get to go on an away mission!

  • Tom Riley@mas.to
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    1 year ago

    @ValueSubtracted second best episode of S2 so far, after Ad Astra Per Aspera. The type of setup has already been done many times but there are enough new ideas to keep it interesting. The old man is a great single-episode character.

  • ieightpi@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Definitely felt like classic trek this week. Fun episode. I was really hoping we would get a more in depth episode for Ortegas’ character. I did read something last year that she was getting her own episode, so im going to assume this wasn’t it.

    • CeruleanRuin@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      I did let out a big guffaw when I realized their bait and switch. Started it out like it was going to be an Ortegas focused episode, and then Spock comes in and pops hers and everyone else’s bubble with his Vulcan science. Loved how she put the hat back on as she was walking away, as if to say “I’m gonna wear this for a while longer because I can, dammit.”

  • crazy@canadian.loon@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Ok, at the risk of sounding like a filthy casual, it’s only now when I’m digging into Memory Alpha that I realized we’re finally getting visualization of what Pike was so miserable about in TOS the Cage. I was like, why does Rigel VII sound so familiar…

    This is the kind of retcon I live for!!

    • TeaHands@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’ve been watching Trek since I was basically a baby but don’t have anywhere near the depth of knowledge of most people posting here. We are still valid!

    • deepthaw@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      I like that the original away mission failing wasn’t some weird magical thing - it was just a mission that went bad in a fairly mundane way.