Yes, exactly. Season 1 knew what it wanted to be. When it was over, I remember thinking "alright, not bad, I'm excited to watch this show grow the beard."

But it never did. In retrospect, Season 1 is the strongest season the show had to offer. Each subsequent season got a little worse as plots got more confusing, themes got more muddled, and no breakout characters emerged to carry the show through an abundance of narrative turmoil and worldbuilding strangeness. But above all else, seasons 3 and 4 are just boring. I don't care about the crew or their mission. The most interesting characters are consistently the outsiders: Pike, Vance, Rillak. I'll be watching season 5, but mostly out of a sense of obligation and morbid curiosity.

As much as I like SNW, it's still not quite the show I've been waiting since 2005 for: seven curious officers on a ship called Enterprise set in the mid-25th century. I worry that SNW has robbed us of the opportunity to see the classic formula set in the immediate post-TNG era... even though that seems to be what season three of Picard was explicitly setting up.

A "multi episode story arc"? You mean these 90 seconds? The only way this bit of character and relationship development could be less "heavy handed" would be if it didn't happen at all.

but as someone else pointed out it's still not super common for gay characters, especially male characters, to be shown as being romantically involved, which can be jarring when you're not used to it. Dunno, it's weird.

Yep, many people still struggle with it. What do you think it would take to change this?

True story, when I was 7 I got this game for Christmas, installed it on the spot and started playing, but this lady was so intimidating that I got spooked, quit, and didn't touch it again for years

Pfft, Geordi is the least of Worf's problems at that table. Data is literally a walking computer, Troi can read minds, and Riker is evidently the greatest poker player who ever lived.

Sokath, his eyes uncovered

Star Trek is cool

I don't really care if they mess around with continuity if continuity is interfering with a good story they want to tell. My point is that the SNW writers are making a clear and concerted effort to maintain continuity.

The background music that plays behind M'Benga's confession is a callback to "The Battle For Peace," the soundtrack for the climatic battle between the Enterprise, the Excelsior, and Chang's Bird-of-Prey at the end of The Undiscovered Country.

And of course when that confession escalates to confrontation, it transitions to the iconic Klingon leifmotif, first heard in The Motion Picture.

I'm guessing it was a different instance because we don't have any powermods. (I actually didn't realize Lemmy already has powermods, sheesh!) Most of us just mod one community on our instance and I don't think any of us are modding on other instances.

Regardless, I'll keep an eye out for anything fishy.

That is true and to @ValueSubtracted's point, speaks to the fundamental difference between the morality tale that each episode is setting up for our consideration. "The Enemy Within" aims to make the viewer uncomfortable by suggesting that Kirk's decisiveness is derived from his "evil" half and isn't offering any commentary on the personhood of the "evil" half. So much so that they short circuit that possibility by slapping an expiration date on EvilKirk.

Best I can give you is that it's still technically murder if you kill a condemned man.

Canon Trek is rife with contradictions. The rest of your comment is a healthy approach to thinking about canon, though.