Have you ever considered that the Prime Directive is not only not ethical, but also illogical, and perhaps morally indefensible?
Well, their past wasn’t changed, and that’s the only past Starfleet is really concerned about - that’s the problem with predestination paradoxes.
I understand your reaction to the episode, but I also think you’re hitting on exactly the thing that makes it interesting.
When you get right down to it, that’s the essence of the temporal prime directive, is it not?
Okay, I guess it’s time for some actual thoughts. It was all right.
I’m not really big on Jungian psychology, but writers love it, since it’s so steeped in metaphor. It’s been many, many years since I studied it, so I’m just going to defer to Wikipedia.
In analytical psychology, the shadow (also known as ego-dystonic complex, repressed id, shadow aspect, or shadow archetype) is an unconscious aspect of the personality that does not correspond with the ego ideal, leading the ego to resist and project the shadow, creating conflict with it.
In analytical psychology, the struggle for the superego is to retain awareness of the shadow, but not to become it or be controlled by it. “Non-identification demands considerable moral effort [which] prevents a descent into that darkness”; and though “the conscious mind is liable to be submerged at any moment in the unconscious…understanding acts like a life-saver. It integrates the unconscious.” This reincorporates the shadow into the personality, producing a stronger, wider consciousness than before. “Assimilation of the shadow gives a man body, so to speak,” thereby providing a launchpad for further individuation.
So sure, this is all fine and good. Taking stuff like this and making it literal has a long tradition in sci-fi generally, and Star Trek specifically. I’m glad they addressed La’An’s inner conflict without confirming her fears of her genetic heritage controlling her destiny. I hope they’re finally putting the subplot to bed - it’s hard to see where else they could go with it.
Seeing Hemmer in the previouslys primed me to expect to see Caster show up, but nope.
They had some fun with Carol Kane’s “Princess Bride” connection - too much fun, perhaps, but whatever.
It’s a little disappointing that Ortegas in particular didn’t clock the imposter Pike and Spock immediately - the others I can forgive due to the ongoing crisis, but it would have been nice to see Erica had simply decided to go along with it for a while.
Find yourself someone who looks at you the way Melissa Navia looks at Rebecca Romijn.
Sounds like they’re going to a world that’s both strange and new. I expect everyone will love it.
Yeah, it seems like they’re being very selective for some reason.
Hoo boy. Wait until they hear about the rubber ducky…
…Do I even want to ask?
I’d have to double-check, but it IIRC it was the same map we typically see. But maybe that’s the “problem” 🙄.
That’s a good question. There have been two attempts at targeting younger viewers in recent years, and neither seems to have made enough of an impact to stick around.
And I don’t think it’s a question of quality - Prodigy and Academy were both quite enjoyable.
I think an important difference is the characters’ motivations, though - for Reeger, it’s personal, while Ramsey in “Crimson Tide” is merely hawkish and reckless.
It also lays a foundation for his actions to (arguably) come back to bite him in the ass in “Balance of Terror,” when (presumably) the same Romulan ship reappears and starts wiping out colonies. I’ll leave it up for debate whether this is a good thing.
I’m guessing this episode drawing from old war films, in particular I am getting flavours of submarine hunts, chasing after wakes, and handling big questions of WMDs, the sanity of the chain of command.
Maybe it’s just because the writers of the (alleged) next Trek film have been talking about it, but I did think of “Crimson Tide” several times during this one.
A’Sha leaving is fine, I guess, she didn’t feel very present throughout the season anyway.
I can’t help but think there’s still more to come with her - they haven’t dropped her off yet, after all. Something about it seems unfinished, somehow.
A pretty good episode that got a lot more interesting in the final act.
For the most part, it came off as a story that we’ve seen before, albeit a well-told one. But the reveal that Kirk drugged Reeger in order to make him unfit for commend is a genuinely compelling idea, as is the idea that M’Benga just torpedoed his career to cover it up.
The B-plot was decent, too - it was good to see Uhura do some ass-kicking.
They sure do like to talk about the Klingon War as if it’s ancient history when it only ended about five years ago, though.
Until next year.
If anyone’s counting, this is the third episode this season involving hallucinations (SNW: “The Griffin incident” and SNW: “Level Five Transporter Accident” being the other two).
We can add Spock’s hallucinations of Ortegas and Scotty as plants in “Human Best Friend” to that list.
I actually had no idea who Deidre Hall was
For those who have never seen it, she’s been on “Days of Our Lives” for 50(!) years.
The key line is “Space adventures leave little time for humans to deal with their inner struggles”. This line is important because it is wrong.
It’s a little odd - I agree that it’s the key line of the episode, but I don’t think it’s necessarily meant to be universally true (though it does reflect Pike’s beliefs, or at least his avoidance of dealing with his own stuff [Edit: This is almost universally true of our captains over the years]), and I don’t think it’s really the point of the episode.
What I took away from it is a meditation on reality and perception - in a way, maybe the key line was actually what Pike said about the details fading, but the memories remaining. I think anyone who has experienced enough loss in their lives would find that pretty impactful.
I was enjoing the soap opera silliness up until that point, but I ended up really respecting the statements they were making through Pike’s journey. It takes on an added dimension when you consider where he ends up, living out the rest of his days in a Talosian illusion. I wonder if Juliet will be there…
What the heck, I might as well make this my top-level comment and include some other scattered thoughts:
Soap operas deserve more respect than they generally get - those people work.
On that note, it was great to see Marlena herself, Deidre Hall, as the counselor. It’s hard to imagine a better choice.
I’m glad Spock slept through this one - he’s hallucinated more than enough this season. And Ethan Peck crushed it as Evil Twin Sybok.
One thing I do think has been missing this season is connective tissue for the character arcs. I suppose it’s been there for La’An, but she’s mostly been treading water. It was nice to see her dealing with the fallout of a breakout she initiated, but it still seems fragmented. The same can be said for pretty much everybody else.
I haven’t actually seen “Training Day,” but I suppose both films have entrenched authority figures with outdated and/or corrupt ideas of How Things Are Done, and younger subordinates who have to walk through the ethical minefield that’s been laid.
And I agree, that could be good Trek.
Wasn’t the big complaint against Star Trek: Section 31 was that people didn’t want to watch Corrupt Space CIA?
I think the much bigger complaints are that it was boring, derivative, and had nothing to say?
I think that’s what happened, at the end of the day. Princess Thalia is fictional, but she’s representative of personality traits La’An has suppressed since she was a child.
I don’t remember a cogent explanation for the planet, either - it didn’t bug me, but it is an omission for sure.