Daystrom Institute
Welcome to Daystrom Institute!
Serious, in-depth discussion about Star Trek from both in-universe and real world perspectives.
Read more about how to comment at Daystrom.
Rules
1. Explain your reasoning
All threads and comments submitted to the Daystrom Institute must contain an explanation of the reasoning put forth.
2. No whinging, jokes, memes, and other shallow content.
This entire community has a “serious tag” on it. Shitposts are encouraged in Risa.
3. Be diplomatic.
Participate in a courteous, objective, and open-minded fashion. Be nice to other posters and the people who make Star Trek. Disagree respectfully and don’t gatekeep.
4. Assume good faith.
Assume good faith. Give other posters the benefit of the doubt, but report them if you genuinely believe they are trolling. Don’t whine about “politics.”
5. Tag spoilers.
Historically Daystrom has not had a spoiler policy, so you may encounter untagged spoilers here. Ultimately, avoiding online discussion until you are caught up is the only certain way to avoid spoilers.
6. Stay on-topic.
Threads must discuss Star Trek. Comments must discuss the topic raised in the original post.
Episode Guides
The /r/DaystromInstitute wiki held a number of popular Star Trek watch guides. We have rehosted them here:
- Kraetos’ guide to Star Trek (the original series)
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: The Animated Series
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: The Next Generation
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- Darth_Rasputin32898’s guide to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- OpticalData’s guide to Star Trek: Voyager
- petrus4’s guide to Star Trek: Voyager
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I am whelmed. I liked everything about it except for what was ostensibly the "main event."
Putting Spock in command? Interesting choice, I continue to enjoy Peck's portrayal as younger, less confident Spock. Love Pelia. Can't wait to see more of her. Love that we're back to a more traditional Klingon appearance. Love the updated D-7. Good use of La'an, interesting to see a planet which is firmly stuck in the wake of the Klingon war.
But then we get to the main event: Chapel and M'Benga are in a jam. And so they just... take drugs and fistfight Klingons. Yawn. This is the head doctor and the head nurse we're talking about here, and you're telling me there wasn't a more scientific or medically oriented solution? I mean sure, I guess doing some stims counts as vaguely "medical," but that's not really what I mean. It would have been interesting to see them exploit Klingon biology or Federation medical tech in a more thoughtful fashion, rather than just go bonk heads.
But, eh, that's a minor blemish on what was otherwise a solid hour of Trek. I do think it's interesting that they've managed to draw out Una's trial arc into three episodes now... hopefully it's just three? There are Strange New Worlds out there to visit.
This also stuck out to me, as it is the kind of thing that would have come in handy a lot in other shows after it. If it has consequences later in the season, I can deal with it, but I admit it might have been more on brand if they McGuyver their way a little further along into the escape before busting the drugs out at the end. It might have worked better if both the intensity of the fighting and the visual effects didn't drag out for as long, and it could show the stakes a bit more.
Otherwise I had a few issues with the episode (mostly the convenience of getting Chapel and M'Benga on the ship) but honestly it made sense in world and as a thematic vibe, given this is set around TOS. Decent season opener, probably more interesting for what's not in it (Pike and #1) as what is, that's solid. The series opener wasn't the best either, maybe they just need an episode to get rolling.