Other random thought: I kind of wish they'd gotten the gross body stuff out of their system with "The Griffin Incident" and would stop with it already.

He is wearing a pin above his delta which I can’t quite make out but it looks like the design on the tunic he wears in TOS: “The Cage”, which is an Earth map encircled by laurel leaves.

Yep. TrekCore.com has this good clear picture of it.

An episode that was a breath of fresh air after last week. Dropping Boyce into it was...interesting.

I don't know that the onscreen countdown clock really worked, though. At least not for me.

That's one of the available modules!

I didn't grab that one, but I downloaded the TOS, TNG, and a Myst one. Good times.

I also guess I never particularly noticed her bare feet before, now that Starfleet Academy started emphasizing it as a Lanthanite trait or quirk. Or was it not a thing before and they made it a thing for this season?

Puppet Pelia threw her shoes at one of the Orions early on.

I'm sorry but no. Of all the "and it didn't happen/gets reset at the end" episodes of Star Trek -- possibly of all of television -- that was the biggest waste of time I've ever subjected myself to.

Yes, you clearly are then. If this episode is a dud I'll have slid overall into Discovery levels (sorry DIS fans) of "I watch to be in my favorite universe for a hour and to keep up on the lore, but I have no expectation of being wowed by what I see" mode for the rest of the run, quite likely.

If it manages that level I would consider it a minor miracle.

Exactly! And this season to date has me tilted heavily toward "faceplant".

I hate to be pessimistic but I'm dreading the hell out of this episode.

Right now it's hard to imagine they're going to bring Kurtzman and Secret Hideout back for anything Trek-related. It's pretty clear Kurtzman's era as Trek overseer is done.

I had that thought too at times during the episode. Doing the whole thing in black or white pulled me out of any noir mood every time we were back on the Enterprise.