I stand by my head canon that Galaxy class ships are equipped to deposit saucers on planets to establish starter colonies. It’s already basically a floating city in space.

I’m glad somebody else has brought up that TWoK sort of feels at odds with Trek despite being the best of the films. However, I say it is still the best Trek movie because:

It focuses on the characters who know from Star Trek, and their growth, change, loss, and acceptance is critical to the story. While the things that happen to them aren’t limited to Trek characters, Kirk, Spock, et al. were the definition of “Star Trek” at the time.

The militaristic aspects aren’t totally foreign to Star Trek. While exploration was always at the forefront of their mission, Starfleet was (as Carol Marcus pointed out) still a military organization. What has happened is that the exploration/scientific aspects in the story have been initially shifted to Dr. Marcus.

The sci-fi aspects and story telling are still very strong, it’s just that Kirk and Khan shooting each other in a nebula is so great that we forget they’re there.

• What are the ramifications of a device like Genesis, which puts a civilization even closer to the ability to “play god?” Is every tool that can create also doomed to be a weapon that can destroy?
• How does a future society balance the often competing goals of scientific exploration with military power, especially given something like Genesis?
• What responsibilities do we have when we decide to “play god” within a much smaller microcosm such as Khan’s people. Kirk presumed he was doing the right and just thing by setting them up on a planet but never returned to check on them. Was he responsible for what happened to Khan as a result?

The increased breathing room of a full motion picture that doesn’t have to delve into the backgrounds of the characters we already know gives the story room to breath, and unlike TOS we have time to let events that aren’t driven strictly by the “gimmick” of the scifi aspect intermingle and impact with the plot device(s).

I still hold that TMP is the most “Trek” of the movies, but TWoK is the best of the movies while still being sufficiently “Trek.”

You don’t need to. It might even help you figure out if you’d like Lower Decks.

HE DOES THE WALK

They released earlier to coincide with screening it at SDCC.

The main thing I disliked is that it kinda of removed any chance of us getting a “Spock is split into his human and vulcan halves by a transporter accident and they totally don’t get along with each other” episode down the line.

Similar to how we refer to TOS episodes as “The Nazi Planet” and “The Gangster Planet” this one will be “The Alzheimer’s Planet.”

Did Spock forget how to read?

Maybe it’s a nod to Discovery establishing he had a learning disability similar to dyslexia.

M’Benga

You mean “Dr. Seen-Some-Shit.”

I like that the original away mission failing wasn’t some weird magical thing - it was just a mission that went bad in a fairly mundane way.

This episode should have started in media res, with the away team already on planet and having lost their memories. Once we got the explainer as to what was happening, then we could return to the Enterprise to show the growing crisis there, and finally wrap everything up as the episode already did.

So, does a genetic engineering lab now have the corpse of a man from the future with all the future vaccinations, immunities, and whatever else that may provide?

Is this the Kirk that was in the project Phoenix project?

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

I noticed Kirk didn’t have a “thing” in TOS. It’d be funny if he at least thought having a warp catch phrase was stupid and didn’t do it in SNW.

I used to have an antenna hooked up just to watch Svengoolie on MeTV and live tweet along (then they changed the schedule.)

Being able to switch to Star Trek and just zone out was nice too. Sure I can pick and choose specific ones on streaming, but there’s episodes I’d otherwise not think to revisit which pop up on broadcast.

I agree with a lot of your concerns. Two medical staff taking drugs and beating a mob of Klingons senseless with little hesitation and no apparent ramifications is horribly, horribly out of tone with what I’ve come to expect from Trek.

Spock is another issue. I’m fine with him undergoing growth and having a full character arc - but I really don’t see this Spock becoming the one in TOS — a Spock who disobeyed direct orders from Starfleet and was reluctantly able to potentially kill two crew members goes on to have the disastrous experience as leader in the Galileo Seven? Best I can see is he actively goes as hard as he can on suppressing his human side in the near future but that wouldn’t make him suddenly forget what emotions, illogic, and all that human baggage feels like when he’s interacting with humans later in his career.

(And for the record - I really enjoy Ethan Peck as Spock and watching his struggles with his emotional control. I just don’t feel like it’s the same character as in TOS and don’t see how he’d get there.)