The more I think about this episode the more impressed I get. There's so many small moments where they could have taken the easy, obvious choice and it would have been fine, and instead they were just a little more thoughtful and a little more creative and it shows.

They could have just had Pelia push a secret button to reveal her stash of alien tech, and that probably would have been fine. Instead they show her as this woman who's very smart and obviously immortal but otherwise...just a person living through history, which is so much better. Imagining the 250 years between the present and when she's one of the most famous engineers in the fleet is fun.

They could have had the Romulan agent just be a cold, ruthless assassin from the future who's here to get the job done, and that would have been fine. Instead she's this slightly unhinged woman, trapped out of time, stuck undercover on an alien world for thirty years on a mission that she's not sure exists anymore and I love the way she starts losing it at the end, that she just wants to kill this kid and be done with it.

They could have cast Khan as a hot 20 something available in the Toronto area and had him to a Ricardo Montalbán impression and give us a tense standoff, and I would have been annoyed at that, but it probably would have been fine. Instead they show us an actual child, and remind is that Khan was a horrifying monster, but he was created by a world with monsters of its own, monsters who built a child in a laboratory and raised him in a basement, and suddenly its a piece of implied context made explicit that I didn't even know I wanted.

And of course they could have just had Kirk agree to fix the timeline because its the right thing to do, or because he loves La`an, or because...honestly, because the plot has to happen, this is something that so many stories would just gloss over to keep the story moving. And instead we get one line, "Sam's alive?" and my heart jumped to my throat a little bit and immediately we understand why he's willing to go through with this.

I'm really really impressed with the writers on this episode.

Also it feels kind of significant that they finally dropped the word socialist on screen to describe the Federation? They've always danced around it before, but I'm glad they finally made it explicit, even in an off hand way. It helps make the Federation feel less "magical" and more like something that people who existed in history, connected to both the past and the future, had to actually build

Did she leave that gun with that little boy?

Okay there was a lot that worked for me in that episode. The amazing decision to have Pelia knowing nothing about engineering to being a veteran warp core engineer in 200 years. Going for child Khan and really leaning into the fucked up reality that these children were science experiments kept locked in basements for the first time in the franchise? The reminder that Toronto is actually pretty damn photogenic when it's not shot on a CW budget.

And you know what? Paul Wesley doesn't have Kirks voice, and the script still doesn't quite sound right, but he's got the Kirk delivery really nailed. He doesn't sound like Shatner, but he sounds like Kirk

Random thoughts as I watch (cross-posted from the old place):

• Wow, first that outburst, and then Spock jams too much. Truly in his wild child phase.

• BTW, was that a Denobulan?

• Pelia totally worried that this whole utopia thing just a passing trend. And hilariously having to prove (?) she isn't a thief.

• They really are taking advantage of Babs O's Jiu-Jitsu training this year, aren't they?

• Captain James T. Kirk, the greatest menace of Temporal Investigations!

• Oh boy, alternate timeline where the Federation doesn't exist time!

• "Maple leaves, politeness, poutine."

• Clever distraction.

• I wonder if 3D chess is a thing in the United Earth Fleet timeline, because Kirk is good at the 2D in it.

• Okay, I guess they do have 3D Chess.

• I generally try not to be like this... but goddamn I'd like to thank them for having Christina Chong in various states of tight clothing and undress.

• Good thing the time travel guy went to the ship Sam Kirk was on.

• Oh man, I was looking forward to driving across Lake Ontario to Toronto (presumably from Rochester or Buffalo or something, right?), which totally would be a logical economic and engineering choice, I'm sure!

• Mildly annoyed that Kirk doesn't drive to Beastie Boys.

• James Discreet Kirk

• Soongs gonna break in even to the timelines and series they aren't in.

• Jim Discretion Kirk

• OH FUCK ROMULANS

• We have gone (zero) days without Romulans trying to screw up the timeline.

• Probably the first time that DuckDuckGo has been mentioned in Star Trek.

• Yeah, Pythagoras is the worst, Pelia.

• Oh, so this is a predestination paradox where they make her become an engineer and as a result she is there to inspire La'An to go look for her later.

• KHAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN! KHAAAAANNNNNNNNN! (Or at least the institute for him)

• To be fair, this is like the third face that Captain Kirk has had.

• We have gone (ZERO) days without a time-travelling Romulan that had to ditch the ears.

• We have gone (ZERO) days without (a) Captain Kirk dying. We're three-for-three on Kirk actor deaths, folks!

• KHAAAAAAAAAANNNN! KHAAAAAAANNNN! KHAAAAAAANNNNNN!

• THEY CAME UP WITH AN EXPLANATION WHY THE EUGENICS WARS DIDN'T HAPPEN IN THE 90'S! THE MAD LADS DID IT!

• Face to face with great-great-great-great grandpa Baby Genetics-Hitler.

• Oh, great, temporal investigations. No wonder they hate Kirk so much, even his alternate versions screw stuff around.

• Good ep. Way better than it sounded when I first heard about it.

I love that Kirk had to die saving his own worst enemy so that the Federation could exist.

Did anyone else catch what looked like an unspoken, knowing look from Pelia when La'an appeared on the bridge after returning? Does Pelia somehow remember their prior encounter on Earth? Is it explicit, or more like the way Guinan would have an intuition, or a subliminal feeling? Or did I imagine that?