Still not much in the way of Captain Pike. What is he, on paternity leave or something?
This was the strongest episode of the season so far, but still not up to the standards of season one. But it gets high marks on three counts: Acting, acknowledging continuity issues, and message.
Like a few recent episodes of
Strange New Worlds (and
Picard), this one borrows generously from older episodes; in this case, mostly "Yesterday's Enterprise" and "The City on the Edge of Forever." At the start, the timeline is altered into something unpleasant, though less dire than "Yesterday's Enterprise," and the conclusion involves La'an making the same decision that Kirk did in "Forever," that the war must go on for the greater peace to follow. Though in this case, there's an additional subtext.
The episode belongs almost entirely to Christina Chong-- not only is Pike absent, but the rest of the cast is also present only for cameos. The only other major character is another Alternate Kirk, who is somehow captain, six years early, of an almost identical Enterprise-- the similarity of Kirk and other circumstances to the status quo defies credulity, but what else is new? The character of La'an has been one of the least interesting on the show, being basically a Tasha Yar retread with an ill-advised connection to a classic antagonist. The actress, though, has occasionally shown that she can do better than the material, most notably in the Magic Kingdom episode, where she got to show her range. She really knocked it out of the park in this one, though, particularly in the fade-out scene.
Meanwhile, the Romulan time agent from an unspecified future period, did some ranting about time travel that seemed to be the producers' acknowledgement that the show takes place in an alternate timeline-- or maybe just throwing up their hands and saying that it doesn't matter with so many time travelers messing with the timelines. The character also mentions the Temporal Cold War and complains about the timeline somehow pushing back against changes, explaining why there are so many unrealistic similarities in the various alternate realities. Although a Khan who is fifty years younger and a Eugenics War delayed by a similar amount of time somehow still leading to Zephram Cochrane meeting the Vulcans and setting off a series of events that leads to the Federation would take a lot of pushback by whoever or whatever is in charge of time.
The message of the episode, taking advantage of La'an's character, goes a bit beyond Harlan Ellison's dangerous vision that sometimes war is a necessary evil by adding the more timely theme of generational guilt. She has spent most of her life unnecessarily carrying the burden of the attempted genocides of her ancestor, but the dual experience of confronting a less-appealing timeline and meeting someone who never heard her name allows her to step back and come to the realization that she didn't do any of that stuff and she doesn't have to take the blame. I wonder how, or if, this will affect her in the remaining episodes.
Some other thoughts:
The actual plot makes no sense whatsoever. Why did the dying time agent come to La'an at that particular moment and give her a cryptic dying message rather than return to home base? The time agent jerk at the end made it sound deliberate, which makes no sense no matter how you look at it.
Why are time agents always jerks?
Why wasn't the time travel device programmed to go back an hour before the Guy in the Tie was shot?
Alternate Kirk talked about his first officer and science officer, but somehow neglected to invite them to meet La'an.
I loved Alternate Kirk giving up his timeline only because his brother was alive in the other one.
It was also great seeing Kirk make a quick buck playing chess in the park. He sees five moves ahead in any timeline.
But Kirk being born on the USS Iowa was a bit too cute.
Car chase. Wow. At least the episode was longer to accommodate it.
I really don't think all that sleep time, research, travel back and forth, and searching could have been accomplished in the time allotted.
It was hilarious that Pelia had no interest in engineering in that time period, yet is an expert in the 23rd century. It was probably La'an who sparked her interest.
But why didn't she recognize La'an?
And do the Lanthamites and the El Aurians know about each other? The El Aurians and the Gary Seven people know each other. How many people on Earth are actually Earthlings?
The Romulan agent made a great Millennial, but a terrible Romulan-- although you could probably say that she went native over the course of thirty years.
Where were all the guards at the Noonian-Singh Institute?
How does the Noonian-Singh Institute connect to Dr Soong's Khan Project folder? And why is it the Khan Project and not the Noonian-Singh Project? Actually, every continuity disparity in
Star Trek can probably be explained by all the butterflies in
Picard Season Two.
It was pretty careless of La'an to leave a loaded gun with Baby Khan.
Apparently in this timeline, crew members can facetime crew members on other ships instantly on their Kindles.