Well, I thought that was quite enjoyable.

The black-and-white gimmick was well-used, and I felt it in service of the story, and not just a gimmick.

The story itself was an enjoyable noir caper, and it was fun to see Una getting her hands dirty, Uhura learning about spycraft, and M’Benga being entirely too comfortable with the whole thing. The guest cast was pretty great, too - I last saw Andy McQueen as Jesus Christ himself in “Mrs. Davis”, a show that no one seems to have watched, and it was cool to see him in a very different role here.

Demore Barnes was very compelling as Kor…but the gravitas he brought to it was so reminiscent of Michael Ansara to me, I almost wonder if he should have played Kang instead.

Alexander/Neelix/Jack Crusher teamup when

Who was asking for more Alexander stories?

If there’s one thing I’m pretty confident Terry Matalas wants to do, it’s bang his old action figures together.

Well, given their other mission statement of Getting the Band Together, I don’t think we’re going to be seeing less Kirk moving forward…

I know people are sort of tossing the season premiere into the “gimmick” bucket due to the nature of the time travel story, but it seemed like a pretty standard episode of Trek to me.

Genre trappings aside, I’m actually pretty intrigued by the logline for this one:

Una is mistaken for a resistance leader and drawn into a struggle against Klingon occupation.

We all know what happened when Jim Kirk went to the movies.

Paramount fumbled it pretty badly from the beginning, with it being a Nickelodeon (the channel) show, until it wasn’t.

And Netflix evidently didn’t care to commission more once they acquired the rights.

The chances are indeed slim, but considering the state of Paramount right now…sure, shoot your shot.

Well yeah, my understanding of the Maquis’ formation of an armed resistance must definitely shouldn’t be taken as an endorsement of everything they did.

What was the question again?

All we wanted to know was whether a hot dog is a sandwich…

if they have specific details they hammered out with these descendants of native americans, I don’t thing was specified in the episode.

There was an agreement made with Gul Evek - as you said, for them to be under Cardassian jurisdiction, if not full citizens:

PICARD: Anthwara, I want to make absolutely sure that you understand the implications of this agreement. By giving up your status as Federation citizens, any future request you or your people make to Starfleet will go unanswered. You will be on your own and under Cardassian jurisdiction.

ANTHWARA: I understand, Captain. And we are prepared to take that risk. Will the Cardassian government honour your agreement here?

GUL EVEK: I believe I can convince them that this is an equitable solution. I cannot speak for every Cardassian you may encounter, but if you leave us alone I suspect that we will do the same. Will this be acceptable to the Starfleet Command?

PICARD: It will not be easy, but with Admiral Necheyev’s support, I think they will go along with it in the end.

However, that’s not the way things went down:

HUDSON: I knew him. Bill Samuels was a farmer. He cultivated his land for twenty years. He raised two kids on that land. He made something out of that land and the Federation told him he had to give it all up to the Cardassians. Well, he just was not willing to do that.

SISKO: And it was people like him who made both sides realise that some accommodation had to be made for the colonies so they could stay.

HUDSON: The Cardassians have no intention of allowing these people to stay. They will either force them out or they will kill them. It’s already started. Not a day goes when there’s not some random act of violence against our people. Every Federation colonist knows you do not go out alone at night. Can you imagine living in that kind of fear?

SISKO: If you’re saying the Cardassian authorities are not enforcing the laws, we can-

HUDSON: Enforcing the laws? The Cardassian authorities were part of a mob that stoned two colonists on the streets of Ropal City three days ago.

SISKO: That’s something the Federation can take up with the Cardassians at the highest level.

HUDSON: Well, that will help a lot. The word is the Cardassian High Command is arming their colonists to the teeth.

Those are the events that led to the Maquis as a resistance movement - before that, there were no Maquis, just colonists who stayed behind.

You really want to split hairs about the fine details of fake politics?

It’s sort of the point of the thread, so it seems a little odd to suddenly try to make it sound silly.

My interpretation of the events is that eventually the butt of a Cardassian rifle is going to welcome it’s new home in the heads of one of these native american settlers, and they are going to lament their choices.

This interpretation is completely correct, but it sidesteps the two fundamental questions.

Do the colonists have the right to refuse to leave (I think you’ve made your position in that clear), and if so, do they have the right to defend themselves when the Cardassians violate the terms that they agreed to and tried to drive them off those worlds?

you set up base there about 20 years ago

For the sake of argument, how many years is the cutoff that flips it from “fine” to “evil”?

you will get more than handsomely rewarded with an equal or bigger piece of land on a different planet and not be inconvenienced

Citation needed? I don’t think that was ever stated, and “Journey’s End” is actually pretty clear about a new home having not even been identified.

it is to stop an interplanetary war.

The Federation and the Cardassians were not at war when the treaty was signed…

Get the colonisers (which is what these fucking people are) to go there.

You could say the exact same thing about the Cardassians.

I don’t see any good way to fill in the blank where “forced relocation is fine when _____” is the sentence.

But that does kinda match the absurdity of the episode.

Yeah, I think it was an appropriate resolution for the genre they were playing in.

Mind you, I felt the same way last week.

His middle finger on his right hand was amputated, but he didn’t have a prosthetic as far as I know - he just strategically positioned his hand so the camera couldn’t see it.

He did a pretty good job, but there are occasional moments where it’s noticeable.

I don’t know if the scene in this episode was an intentional nod to that, but I thought of it, as well.

You have not experienced Bonnie Tyler until you have heard her in the original Klingon.

I’m not sure there’s a lot to say about this one. I enjoyed it. The jokes didn’t land quite as well as they should have, but I have to take some responsibility for watching a stoner comedy at 9 am.

The Spirk enthusiasts should be pretty happy, though.

Yeah, I think I remember thinking the same thing.

I suppose that it would be sensible to keep someone with the shuttle Just In Case, though, and the Doc would certainly be more welcome on Kasq.

“The Enterprise crew encounters a phenomenon that forces them to face their innermost fears” is very well-trodden ground for this series, but this is probably one of the best examples. It coasts on a very well-executed horror story, and I thought it did a very good job in not tipping its hand as to which characters were real, and which were hallucinations.

Unfortunately, I don’t think the stories of our two main characters were advanced much, if it all. La’An is still afraid there’s a monster within her, and Spock still has issues with his duality, though this episode could mark the shift of his return to a more “Vulcan” way of being.

I thought the episode handled Kirk really well, though. From the moment they acknowledged that David was going to play a role in the series going forward, I had pretty high hopes - there are a lot of blanks to be filled in, since he was retconned into Kirk’s backstory in 1982. Kirk’s fears of being an absentee father, and of dying in some forgotten corner of space, feel very real, and I think they would feel real even if you didn’t know how it’s all going to turn out for him.

I thought the scene between Kirk and Uhura at the end was very…interesting. Not sure what to say about it, but it was interesting.

Surely you mean Qurelane… ̄_(ツ)_/ ̄

As far as actual news goes, this SDCC was pretty thin, to say the least.

No one can say the franchise is dead!