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.
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.
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.
Okay there was a lot that worked for me in that episode. The amazing decision to have Pelia knowing nothing about engineering to being a veteran warp core engineer in 200 years. Going for child Khan and really leaning into the fucked up reality that these children were science experiments kept locked in basements for the first time in the franchise? The reminder that Toronto is actually pretty damn photogenic when it’s not shot on a CW budget.
And you know what? Paul Wesley doesn’t have Kirks voice, and the script still doesn’t quite sound right, but he’s got the Kirk delivery really nailed. He doesn’t sound like Shatner, but he sounds like Kirk
I love that Kirk had to die saving his own worst enemy so that the Federation could exist.
and subverting the “hero goes back in time to kill a mass murderer” trope, with “hero goes back in time to save a mass murderer”
I actually thought the plot of Picard series 2 was going to be something like this, Picard has to ensure WW3 happens, dooming millions to save his future. Instead we got, well what we got.
Seems to me that they are merging the eugenics wars and wwiii together in canon. Maybe the eugenics wars are the catalyst for wwiii or something like that?
Makes sense to be fair. The Augments take advantage of the War to seize a portion of the planet in all the confusion.
Did anyone else catch what looked like an unspoken, knowing look from Pelia when La’an appeared on the bridge after returning? Does Pelia somehow remember their prior encounter on Earth? Is it explicit, or more like the way Guinan would have an intuition, or a subliminal feeling? Or did I imagine that?
It’s unfortunate that the writers didn’t plan this beforehand, so we could have had some foreshadowing a few episodes beforehand with a first meeting between the two where pelia acts a little weird (because she remembers her from 200 years ago).
I feel like it was a “aha I remember when you wore that outfit.” I was kind of hoping they would have a conversation at the end. Instead we got the DTI 😄
Actually thinking about it that might be why the line “I’m awful with faces” was there …not just to explain away why 21stC Pelia didn’t recognise why la’an knew her but she didn’t know laan, but also why 23rdC pelia doesn’t remember a meeting 200 years prior
I imagine she will take a few episodes to figure it out. This definitely seems like a thread that hasn’t spooled all the way out yet.
The focus on the watch at the end suggests there’ll be a future plot point revolving around Pelia and the watch and La’an. Although it also seemed a bit ominous, so it might also pick up La’an getting into some eugenics-related trouble later, as I imagine those threads are also not spooled all the way out as you put it so well.
Also it feels kind of significant that they finally dropped the word socialist on screen to describe the Federation? They’ve always danced around it before, but I’m glad they finally made it explicit, even in an off hand way. It helps make the Federation feel less “magical” and more like something that people who existed in history, connected to both the past and the future, had to actually build
Having Pelia say it, with the lens of historical perspective, is perfect.
The Federation may not use the word or describe its society that way, but someone who’d lived in the United States in the 20th and 21st century might.
I really really like Pelia as a character and a concept. I think its a very smart approach to immortality to have her be someone both used to and unresistant to change. The world happens. Time moves on. Over centuries kingdoms turn into empires turn into wastelands turn into spacefaring cooperatives and she’s not jaded nor stagnant, she just continues to grow and adapt and change as things change around her.
I do love also how she’s not some wisened genius race. She’s just old. Like maybe her people were space faring at some point in time, but given how long they live getting fast high end tech isnt necessary so they probably werent as advanced as most species we encounter in star trek.
But also even if they were it’s been a long time since they used their tech and even if they remember it it’s not like she would know how to build it. Like I know how to drive a car, and can do some basic mechanic work, and I know the broad strokes of how an internal combustion engine works. If someone asked me to build them a car they’d be out of luck.
Random thoughts as I watch (cross-posted from the old place):
-
Wow, first that outburst, and then Spock jams too much. Truly in his wild child phase.
-
BTW, was that a Denobulan?
-
Pelia totally worried that this whole utopia thing just a passing trend. And hilariously having to prove (?) she isn’t a thief.
-
They really are taking advantage of Babs O’s Jiu-Jitsu training this year, aren’t they?
-
Captain James T. Kirk, the greatest menace of Temporal Investigations!
-
Oh boy, alternate timeline where the Federation doesn’t exist time!
-
“Maple leaves, politeness, poutine.”
-
Clever distraction.
-
I wonder if 3D chess is a thing in the United Earth Fleet timeline, because Kirk is good at the 2D in it.
-
Okay, I guess they do have 3D Chess.
-
I generally try not to be like this… but goddamn I’d like to thank them for having Christina Chong in various states of tight clothing and undress.
-
Good thing the time travel guy went to the ship Sam Kirk was on.
-
Oh man, I was looking forward to driving across Lake Ontario to Toronto (presumably from Rochester or Buffalo or something, right?), which totally would be a logical economic and engineering choice, I’m sure!
-
Mildly annoyed that Kirk doesn’t drive to Beastie Boys.
-
James Discreet Kirk
-
Soongs gonna break in even to the timelines and series they aren’t in.
-
Jim Discretion Kirk
-
OH FUCK ROMULANS
-
We have gone (zero) days without Romulans trying to screw up the timeline.
-
Probably the first time that DuckDuckGo has been mentioned in Star Trek.
-
Yeah, Pythagoras is the worst, Pelia.
-
Oh, so this is a predestination paradox where they make her become an engineer and as a result she is there to inspire La’An to go look for her later.
-
KHAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN! KHAAAAANNNNNNNNN! (Or at least the institute for him)
-
To be fair, this is like the third face that Captain Kirk has had.
-
We have gone (ZERO) days without a time-travelling Romulan that had to ditch the ears.
-
We have gone (ZERO) days without (a) Captain Kirk dying. We’re three-for-three on Kirk actor deaths, folks!
-
KHAAAAAAAAAANNNN! KHAAAAAAANNNN! KHAAAAAAANNNNNN!
-
THEY CAME UP WITH AN EXPLANATION WHY THE EUGENICS WARS DIDN’T HAPPEN IN THE 90’S! THE MAD LADS DID IT!
-
Face to face with great-great-great-great grandpa Baby Genetics-Hitler.
-
Oh, great, temporal investigations. No wonder they hate Kirk so much, even his alternate versions screw stuff around.
-
Good ep. Way better than it sounded when I first heard about it.
-
Wait what’s this? Star Trek writers can still create a time travel story that wraps up in an episode (or two) instead of lasting a whole 10 episodes of nothing?!
And they can weave in minor plot points from previous episodes to give it continuity without feeling forced?
How can this be?
Did she leave that gun with that little boy?
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.
I enjoyed that episode a lot, although it would have benefitted from its length being tightened up by ten minutes.
What do we think was the nature of the Romulan interference with Earth? And what time period is Sera, the Romulan agent from?
The DTI agent appears to use 29th century tech, which is several hundred years after the Romulan Empire’s supernovae-driven collapse but possibly around the time of the Romulan-Vulcan reunification of Ni’Var. Is she from that same time period?
Sera also shows Kirk a picture of what looks like a TOS-era Bird-of-Prey as part of her alien conspiracy photo deck. It has the round nacelles typical of the 23rd century, rather than those seen in ENT’s 22nd century designs, or some other design representing the 20th/21st century in which these attacks take place.
Is she a time agent from the 23rd century (with the appropriate Romulan ship in orbit)?
Is that her guessing who Kirk is, and planting the evidence he’s most likely to recognize? Or was that really a Romulan design from the 21st century?
Which leads to me wonder if the Romulans started interfering with Earth’s development only due to temporal war shenanigans, or had they been doing flybys for as long as the Vulcans?
Never thought that letting an episode run longer in streaming would be viewed as a negative.
I wouldn’t have cut anything.
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.
I didn’t expect to like this episode as much as I did.
Wesley’s Kirk is growing on me, and I give the EPs credit for using the alternate timeline Kirk’s to let his performance coalesce. I also like the deft weaving of the crazy car driving, heartbreaker Kirk with the think five steps ahead genius that he also had to be.
The acknowledgement in-universe that the timeline and humanity’s development has been interfered with is entirely credible given the accretion of temporal incidents across every era of the franchise.
I’m not sure how I feel about it giving comfort to those who feel so strongly that this isn’t the same timeline as the original TOS one. (I see some chortling on this point elsewhere.) Likely the temporal physics of this is best left for a deep dive /c/Daystrom Institute discussion, but I prefer hold to a view that this is absolutely still the same Prime timeline but that the timeline itself has been perturbed repeatedly even if the key events have kept their integrity. In fact, the Romulan temporal agent, while not a reliable narrator, gave credence to the idea that the Prime timeline had proven unexpectedly robust against major intervention by humanity’s enemies.
I was delighted to see DTI show up and be named. It seems all of a piece of DTI’s rigidity that they would leave La’an alone to deal with the trauma. It does however mirror Pike’s own experience in sealing his future with the time crystal. One senses that there must be some kind of intersection or mutual revelation to come, leaving aside the Chekhov’s gun of the temporally dislocated watch.
Knowing that Anson Mount had to relocate to Toronto with his wife and newborn explains why episodes featuring others in the ensemble were front loaded for this season. He’d said before he committed to the show that creative conversations would be needed as he wasn’t wishing to repeat the production experience he had in Discovery season two. A creative conversation with the EPs that limits a principal character’s presence is fairly extraordinary, but Mount seems to have done it in a way that’s generous to the rest of the ensemble.
With an ensemble so strong, and as we didn’t see as much of Chapel or Una as we would have liked last season, I’m fine with waiting to see more Pike later in the season. It sounds as though we have a Spock focused and an Ortegas to come before some big ensemble pieces in the back half.
If anything doesn’t this prove that this does take place in the same timeline as TOS but that timeline is in flux due to time travel and interference?
That’s exactly it.
That really explains a lot. Kudos to the production for really playing well to their constraints like this.
I’m just kinda thrilled to see Canada in the Star Trek universe. Obviously they’ve been doing a bunch of filming out of Toronto so technically we have seen it, but it’s nice for them to sidestep the fact that 99% of the time they get thrown into Earth’s past and they end up in California. Kirk “recognizing” the city as New York was a cute touch given how often Toronto doubles for it. Also technically I guess this means that the greatest tyrant in Earth’s history technically is canonically Canadian too.
Kirk being a chess hustler was cute too, explaining how he’s able to keep up when playing Spock in TOS.
Aside from that, the episode was fine. I like seeing La’an getting some development, and seeing her spar with M’Benga (and getting beaten) was nice since it justifies him being actually kind of a badass, and makes the fight scenes in the first episode of the season more reasonable. Also a bit more behind the curtain of Pelia.
A lot of the episode was just goofy “man out of time” stuff, which is cute in its own right but doesn’t really add a ton. But it was entertaining and fun, and worth watching again, so I’m still calling it a winner.
Toronto passing as New York for characters was so meta and hilarious.
After the first episode of the season and seeing how he handled himself as a sparring partner, M’Benga should henceforth be called Dr. Seen-Some-Shit
[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.
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.
