This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Strange New Worlds 2x07 Those Old Scientists.
Now that we’ve had a few days to digest the content of the latest episode, this thread is a place to dig a little deeper.
I think there are two big elements that made this episode as successful as it was:
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Taking ongoing SNW storylines like Spock/Chapel seriously, and not using them as punchlines.
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The unexpected delight of the Enterprise crew fanning out over the NX-01 era, holding a mirror to Boimler and Mariner.
Both of these elements were welcome, and helped keep the episode grounded.
I think it also helped that we got more character out of Ortegas than we did in "Among the Lotus Eaters" which she dominated the B plot. The cast was all used well.
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With one barely mentioned planet, this episode reframed the plot originally designed to hold together TNG, DS9, and Voyager.
Federation authorities insisted the DMZ colonies were recent and had been warned they were disputed territory. They painted a picture like Israeli settlers in Gaza refusing to obey their own government and leave.
But now we have a Federation affiliated colony on Setlik 2 a century earlier.
The UFP's failure to stop the Maquis terrorists always seemed like command wanted the war restarted with plausible deniability. Now the Maquis arguments are stronger. Ceding long-held territory is much easier to call abandonment.
Setlik III is never actually said to be one of the disputed territories, or to have been folded into the neutral zone. In fact there is some evidence that it never was: Setlik III was a relatively small outpost which the Cardassians wrongly believed to be the staging point for an invasion force, and which was in practice both full of civilians and inadequately defended. Staging for a surprise invasion within a disputed area during a hot war (where enemy attacks and accidental discovery both are much more likely) would have been an odd choice, as would neglecting the defense of that world. Further, no reference is made to the Cardassians attempting to reclaim it as a world they felt they should rightfully have owned, and Glinn Daro describes the attack as "a terrible mistake."
I think the implication here was and is that the Cardassians had snuck pretty deep into Federation territory, attacking an outpost which was thought far enough back to be safe but which could reasonably have been a staging ground for a large Federation fleet.
