I've had a chaotic week (too many in general over the past few years), so I haven't had a chance to get my thoughts down on the latest episode until now.
This was a mixed bag for me, but in a kind of polarizing way. I literally don't care about Teacher Tilly, and the whole theatre thing was boring to me. I also don't really care that much about Tarimia’s stuff either, which is a shame because (I'm a shallow fuck) I did think I’d be more invested in her character, but I found the whole thing a bit forced.
The SAM/Doctor story though was something I felt genuinely invested in. Which is surprising, since earlier in the season I noted she was probably the character most likely to annoy me. Now she might actually be the most compelling character coming out of this season.
The idea of time, experience, and the relative nature of it, especially with extremely long-lived or immortal characters, is something I've always found interesting and it's rarely explored well, if at all. So good job on actually using the time jump here for something that makes it feel worthwhile.
I have said before that I wanted to see the Doctor’s 800+ year lifespan actually used, explored, and paid off in meaningful ways, and we definitely get that here. Yes, it’s another big legacy callback, but he’s the legacy Trek element that works best for this show, so I don’t really have a problem with it in this case.
Picardo was great here, and I challenge anyone to say that this doesn’t add to the Doctor’s character we’ve known for thirty-one years in a positive way. I think that’s pretty high praise.
I will say this as well. Looking back at early Trek seasons, they were never really great either. We live in a very different era of television now where “finding your feet” is less acceptable. Huge budgets, shorter seasons, higher expectations. This show definitely makes some explicit choices that “finding your feet” energy isn’t going to fix.
But is it the disastrous, egregious monstrosity certain corners of the internet would have you believe (for I'm sure totally innocent reasons)? No. Clearly not.
Uneven, misguided even in parts, but it has proven a few times now that it can tell compelling stories that capture what I enjoy about Star Trek, even if it still gets in its own way more often than I’d like.