Nothing to add pertaining to this last FANTASTIC episode; I really just wanted to say I appreciate everyone posting here. After Reddit, I thought these kind of threads were done for, but here we are. So even if no one reads this, thank you and much love 🙏

Annotations up at https://startrek.website/post/282663.

This was a very TOS episode yet in terms of feel.

The dialogue could easily have come from the mouths of the TOS cast, and the situation on the planet reminiscent of officers violating the Prime Directive like in TOS: “The Omega Glory” or “Bread and Circuses”. Even Mount's delivery when on the planet was Shatner-esque.

I can readily imagine Kirk, McCoy and a random redshirt or Chekov on the planet in Pike, M’Benga and La’An’s place, and Sulu pulling it together like Ortegas.

Wow, these SNW writers really bring it each week, don't they? Not to say every episode is perfect but I've found every single one to be very entertaining and exactly what I want out of Star Trek in 2023. The combination of standalone stories mixed with underlying character development and arcs is perfect.

As for this week, the idea of encountering a planet that could make you forget everything was weirdly creepy, if not a bit implausible. Even if this wasn't her showcase episode, I grinned at Ortega's "I AM THE PILOT!" moment. Also enjoyed the away team being out of sorts on the planet which I thought was well done and not an action overdose like the season opener.

Memory loss is one of the scariest things in the known universe. This is a horror episode to me.

Was the high pitched ringing sound really necessary, especially for that long each time? That almost physically hurt and it scared the fsck out of my cat.

Definitely felt like classic trek this week. Fun episode. I was really hoping we would get a more in depth episode for Ortegas' character. I did read something last year that she was getting her own episode, so im going to assume this wasn't it.

Thoughts as I watch:

• So, I'm wondering: is Cayuga a reference to Rod Serling? He named his production company that in reference to the lake in New York.

• Relationships suck when you are a Starfleet captain who knows your destiny to one day be in a beepie chair.

• Rigel 7, a deep cut!

• We have gone (ZERO) days without some sort of Starfleet prime directive problem.

• Finally, some Ortegas action!

• "THE HAT IS SUPREME." I'm going to have to use that in conversation.

• Oh man, at least she keeps the hat.

• "Subdermal universal translators" are the new translation microbes

• Oh boy, they have starfleet tech.

• Ah, we've got a good old-fashioned "Federation citizen takes over a world" episode!

• "This is a cage." Heh.

• Forgetting is a scary side effect for a planet.

• I get that they were only on there for like four hours, but shouldn't they have noticed stuff like this their last visit? Or maybe... THEY LOST

• "Welcome to Memento/50 First Dates Planet"

• Can still remember how to fight!

• So I'm guessing Spock is probably one of the more resistant to all of this due to his Vulcan-ness.

• Man, La'An is having a REALLY bad pair of weeks.

• Captain Pike even without his memories is still Captain Pike. Makes sense.

• Okay, I guess Spock isn't immune.

• Glad to see the Connie class had GPS.

• I gotta admit, I feel like Pelia would be good in this episode given just how many memories she has to lose and how many skills she has.

• SHE FLIES THE SHIP

• The ship's computer is great this week.

• Damn, that is some tough silverware, standing up to phaser blasts.

• Is it just me or is that a fresco or whatever of Alexander the Great... Zac-ized?

• Okay, that logic doesn't quite seem sound, but whatever.

• So, uhm, be careful about telling her about the Beepy-chair, Chris.

Ok, at the risk of sounding like a filthy casual, it's only now when I'm digging into Memory Alpha that I realized we're finally getting visualization of what Pike was so miserable about in TOS the Cage. I was like, why does Rigel VII sound so familiar...

This is the kind of retcon I live for!!

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.

That’s probably one of my favorite episodes of the series as a viewing experience, it was pretty entertaining. I don’t think I quite track…the message, though? In the span of about three minutes we get explicitly told that for Pike and Ortegas the memory loss could be revealing experience that identified the core of the self, while for their friend on the planet it was an obscuring experience that robbed him of things he didn’t know were important. You can explain away the difference with plot logic pretty easily, but thematically it’s a bit weird to juxtapose them right next to each other

Really enjoyed this episode, it didn't make the most sense at times but made up for it with an extremely disturbing core concept. And there is comfort in the idea that even without a significant portion of our memories, we're still "us".

I'm confused about one thing though and maybe I just missed something so someone can enlighten me. If the palace is so well-protected that just literally being inside it for ten minutes is enough to completely reverse the memory loss, why was Pike first affected by it while standing in the palace? Is it just that they weren't in there for very long during their first encounter with Zac, and the symptoms caught up with him, or did I miss something about how that worked?

At the start of the episode, when Ortegas was getting ready for the away mission, I thought this episode would have the scene from the start of the season 2 trailer where she (gleefully) pilots a shuttle down to a planet.

At least we know she will eventually get to go on an away mission!

I've been waiting for the crew explore a new planet. Hoping there's more of these episodes than less

Can the writers stop making La'an suffer? she can't catch a break lol

It's a common trope that the away teams really shouldn't be landing in these planets without any idea what's down there without an alien style hazmat suit and here we go, another example :) I GUESS they get a pass because they were here before and the effects didn't happen because they were not here long enough

also really strange they don't confirm that people were dead? Or try and go back and get their bodies which might have equipment/ com badges /might even be alien (Spock was there and he bleeds green), maybe starfleet shouldn't be so careless about what they leave behind...

• Still somewhat annoyed that there is no seat belt on the shuttle, even if it is to maintain continuity with TOS. M'Benga looked like he was going to bang his head and get a concussion when they were landing.

• La'an: They won't see us coming.
  Zac: We totally saw you from the other side of the planet a hemisphere away.

• What was Zac trying to accomplish? He lured them there with the Starfleet Delta, but he was not going to hitch a ride home. He expected whatever ship that comes to inspect to... forget and go away, or suffer some disastrous result when the crew become unable to function? Why not just stay low and be king if he wasn't planning to leave?

This episode belongs together with the better episodes of TNG. I liked it a lot.

I'm a bit undecided about this episode.

Stuff that I liked:

• a strange new(-ish) world
• everyone got something to do, unlike last week
• once again some funny Spock moments
• the visuals on this show are stunning once again. The planet looked nice, the external VFX in the debris field of two celestial bodies that orbited Rigel VII several centuries ago looked nice, the Enterprise interiors look so nice.

Stuff that I didn't like:

• I'm not a fan of forced relationship dramas. Plus, from the pilot episode I got the feeling that Pike and Batel (does she even have a first name yet?) are only friends with benefits, but now Batel storms off after Pike says he wants to take it easy? Weird.
• how can a society or any sort of structure be maintained if you can't remember anything? The whole premise felt a bit off.
• the writing for Ortegas was weak. Her personal log at the beginning of the episode sounded like it was written by ChatGPT. And the stuff towards the end of the episode wasn't great either. The actor did the best she could with what she was given but the writing really didn't do her any favors.

Damn I love this show. I can't help but wonder if Hemmer would have been affected differently by the radiation if he wasn't a gorn egg popsicle.

I've only managed to see this episode once, but something I didn't understand was Spock's decision to try and hide in the debris field. At this point they believed the planet was the source of the problem, but it seemed mostly a guess that the debris field might shield them.

Wouldn't the most logical action have been to get as far away from the planet as reasonably possible until the effects appeared to subside? I know Una made a point that they had crew down there, but it's not as if they can't return more cautiously and with a clearer understanding of what's happening. You're also helpless to help your landing party if you're completely incapacitated yourself.

Have I missed something important?

I wrote this as I was watching:

• Since when have Batel and Pike have a history? Was she in season 1?
• I wish they had a tone warning at the beginning of the episode, also I thought the tones went for a little too long each time.
• Lol this is the anti-Spock world. "Your emotions are your truth." Maybe Spock should have been on the planet surface as well.
• Did Spock forget how to read?
• Did the Enterprise not feel the effects in the previous mission? Did they forget to record it or make personal logs?