'Space Babies' was a classic RTD dumpster fire. It felt like a first draft and the exposition dump at the beginning was very badly done. The script editor should have pushed back hard on this one.
'The Devil's Chord' was better although hamstrung by the fact that they couldn't afford the rights to any Beatles music.
Ncuti and Millie have quickly established themselves and I'm looking forward to seeing what the rest of the season brings.
I think 'The Devil in the Dark' from the Original Series would be a good option. As would "Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach" from Strange New Worlds.
I would have it run until Kirk takes over as captain. Then jump forward to just after The Motion Picture.
This not only gives them about a decade of time before TWOK that’s barely been touched by the screen canon, they can do a design revamp to freshen the series up using TMP as a starting point, and they handle the fact that with a series per year the actors are going to quickly age ahead of their characters.
La’An theorises the Gorn have a weapon capable of rendering their enemies blind by interfering with comms, sensors and transport. In TOS: “Arena”, they were capable of faking subspace transmissions to lure starships in.
In Arena while pinned down by the Gorn landing party, Kirk also mentions that communications are being interfered with.
I've long accepted that SNW is basically an ensemble anthology show and TOS crew and others will rotate in and out as needed. The only fixed character is the Enterprise.
A lot to unpack here. Definite 'Best Of Both Worlds' vibes. Great end of season episode. Hopefully this time they have the resolution to the cliffhanger written.
I figured Batel would suffer the fate she did, even before the episode started. It was lazy writing that she should end up in the situation she did and so it happened. The writing team can and should do better than this.
Scotty appearing was a nice touch, and was well played by the actor. Given that Chapel is probably going to be rotated out for a while I think pairing him with Pelia for season 3 might be fun.
The Gorn were also well done, although the Aliens homages are getting tiresome and unless they are going completely retcon 'Arena' then there isn't a huge amount more than can be done with them. Thankfully so far they seem to using them sparingly. Hopefully they will move onto other TOS races in season 3. The Tholians, for example, have a unique feel and less alpha continuity to worry about.
Chekov was on the Enterprise during s1. Continuity with TWOK requires it. Plus some of the star dates for s2 episodes that starred Chekov where set before the star date for Space Seed.
But yes at this point we are ~6 years before TOS so Chekov would be in his late teens.
Is that also the first 32nd Century Klingon we've seen?