I don’t know, it wasn’t technically a strange new world.

The nitpicky in me is wondering “wouldn’t the light on La’an’s shoulders light up the two companions in front of her?” I appreciated the animatronic werewolf costume though I imagine some of it was hidden CGI. The costumes, sets, and SFX were commendably well done. I generally kind of liked this episode.

Wow, actually exploring a Strange New World for a bit.

The intro came in really late this one. Ten minutes? Long opening, but then again it’s a longer episode.

Oh snap, an Andorian episode. I love Andorian episodes.

Was that the countdown sound from Independence day?

Overall liked this episode. It was a feeling similar to that Spongebob episode where the customers go “that’s what we’ve been waiting for!” A classic Star Trek moral quandary orders vs Badmiral deal.

I don’t know why this gimmick worked while others fell short for me. I was picking up what it was putting down, actually laughing and feeling the emotions.

At this point I’m starting to have trouble naming a Goodmiral.

I guess I’m nostalgic for disaster movies because I rather liked this one. I liked the subplot of keeping M’Benga alive between a rock and a hard place, even in noncompliance of some orders. Scotty’s character was really endearing this episode whereas I usually didn’t care much for Montgomery Scott in the original series and earlier season.

That said, the “Strong Force Neutrino” stuff felt a little too out there for me in terms of stretching the plausibility of technobabble. I guess the concept of a starship acting like a particle lab because it’s moving so fast could be kind of cool, but it felt like they forced talk of the famously neutral neutrinos because it was the “Wormhole” particle in DS9.

I’ll be frank, I still don’t like the Neutrino thing even if there were funny scenes about scanning for Neutrinos in DS9.

Why did the subtitles always spell it as “high jinks” instead of hijinks? Is that some dialectal variant I was unaware of?

29k km didn’t seem that far in terms of “more than two days away” space travel.

I liked Pelia’s noodle hair. I also guess I never particularly noticed her bare feet before, now that Starfleet Academy started emphasizing it as a Lanthanite trait or quirk. Or was it not a thing before and they made it a thing for this season?

When Scotty got free from the weight, I thought the answer would have been Looney Tunes style cartoon physics. Like they can win, but so long as it’s a gag / funny. Maybe they tried doing that and it didn’t quite land.

I liked the insight into Orion culture, and the way the second in command acted. Sometimes I too just want to be told what to do. Like a vacation for my brain.

The “it was all a dream” felt like a betrayal. Just kind of wasting my time. At least Spock was developing a little bit.

Maybe it was because I kept getting interrupted and watched this spread out over a couple days, but I kind of don’t think I like this one.

It felt a tad too familiar and not gimmicky enough if you’re going to go for a Noir style, Casablanca inspired setting. I craved color (finding the explanation unsatisfactory considering shutters and artificial light), and I got tired of the hushed tones or whispering.

Oh well, next.

It tries to be fun, but some of the jokes didn’t land. That said, I’m not going to fault them for trying “The Hangover” in Space as it feels like at least it’s something different and not so much by committee, and I still enjoyed most of the episodes. This is probably the best of the very rare “Ortegas Episodes” and I particularly liked seeing an “It’s green” scene yet again.

I think the only ones who wouldn’t inherently trust a Star Trek fan over a Star Wars fan are the Child Exploitation Section of the Toronto Sex Crimes Unit circa 2005.

Considering her half Lanthanite heritage with a long lifespan, I was left wondering why Ake also didn’t stay to raise Sam in the time dilated planet. They never address it, but I suppose it’s just unspokenly weird to suggest to co-parent a child with your subordinate coworker.

The Deus Ex Transportia near the end felt like a copout, like they couldn’t really figure a proper ending for the incident’s culmination before showing some aftermath.

It doesn’t matter that I love Doctor Who so much that it’s been inspiring my username for a decade and a half, that reference in this episode felt too out of pocket.

I didn’t like the time loop with such big stakes, but overall I liked this episode and the diplomatic A-plot. The scene regarding Translator mishaps was my favorite.

Also, I know feathers on Dinos is a bit of a hot button issue, but was it even the case for therapods?

Yeah, the T-Rex thing could’ve just been convergent evolution, like with cough cough all the humanoids. Plus, how’d they know about the Martians after the Enterprise was tethered?

Usually Star Trek takes a little more than the first season to get good but this did it somewhat early.

The B-plot with the ambassadorial dinner thing felt a bit incomplete, and too comic-relief without quite landing. I guess it might keep going with the next episode, but overall this one was a decent exploration about the expectations of life and bearing being thrust into a role.

Thok moving of the piece of clothing to the side had me really chuckling.

I see they decided to address the more foul Language in this show compared to other Star Treks. I would have liked if it was addressed as a cultural shift regarding the evolution of language over centuries but instead they “Effed it up.”

I never really took debate in school, but is that really how it goes? One student winner debating everyone for practice until they “lose?” Constant citations of things like they were called out anime punches? It seemed more like it school debate as written by someone who never did a debate club/class, but I never took one neither so I felt I should ask.

I think I might have liked this series more if it came out like 15 years ago. Right now it just comes off as immature and overly quirky/comedic.

Protostar mentioned! A little too much Shakey Cam. A little too much swearing. Cuss words still feel weird in Star Trek. Sound mixing in the Xenomythology scene of Episode 2 felt off. So, did they forgo green makeup for some of the Orions(?) because it’s hard to apply? Some of those looked digitally colored. Apparently, they heavily considered making Gamora blue instead of green because of such problems with application, so I don’t blame them. Episode 2 got real cheesy near the end. I’m glad to see a love for what seems to be all of trek, with cameos of species like Brikar from Prodigy, the Exocomp, old style Klingons, DS9, and so on. Overall though, it just seems like the priorities are skewed and much of it looks kind of cheap.