Hegemony

A human colony is attacked.

It is difficult to judge the plot of this one before the story concludes, but it provides good setup and cliffhanger. I am not one to complain (much) about writers breaking continuity with previous Trek when the story is good, but the arc involving these particular antagonists will need to have a very good conclusion in light of how much revision of backstory appears to be happening prior to the events of a classic episode of the original series.

As for the species portrayal in SNW, there is a bit too much "Alien" similarities for me, and so far they appear to be one of those classic Trek baddies that have implausibly developed space travel. However, I accept there could be more backstory and explanation to come.

The characters are mostly used well, particularly the reintroduction of a classic who fits nicely into the mix and is played strongly by Martin Quinn. This is the best aspect of the episode for me.

As always the visuals, art design and effects are of a very high standard.

This episode contains a lot of the high stakes energy of classic Star Trek two parters. The crew is tasked with a number of hurdles to overcome (which commonly involve rescue operations), and Starfleet plays the role of the underdog. I will never complain about this formula, especially as a season ender. The cliffhanger and wait for the resolution is actually quite nostalgic. In this case, the tension hit hard as the crew was divided and had differing goals to achieve which leads to even worse situations. Spock's mission in particular as the climactic moment was highly produced and made for some effective bonds. This season has been a bit of a mixed bag, I believe I've truly enjoyed about half of the episodes. The bottle episode format allows for this experimentation, but it somehow feels less balanced overall than older series. Not to say that TNG or Voyager's offerings were all above average, but the experimentation was somehow more believable under the same hull.

You know it's going to happen.

Certain kidnapped humans will be taken to the egg-laying Gorn Queen. She'll try to assimi-- err, chemically brainwash some of them and make them into crazed Gorn Lizardlings.

Perhaps Pike will offer himself in exchange for certain kidnapped humans, and even be turned into Locut--I mean, a spokesperson for Gorn-Human relations. You know, someone to convince humanity that resisting the Gorn is... an endeavor not worth attempting. But, do we blow up the Gorn Lizard Cube with Pike on it? NO. We attempt a rescue! Data (I mean, Scotty & Spock working together) will rig something to teleport onto the Queen's ship and keep the away team cloaked. None of the Gorn will even know what's happening until it's too late!

Then maybe Ripley-- err, La'an, can come out with a flamethrower and blow the damn Gorn Queen out of the airlock! Then with no Queen to guide them, the rest of the Gorn will be thrown into chaos again, eating each other like it's lunchtime at Chipotle.

Pike will have to have the Gorn implants removed but will be back on duty in no time, after a recovery stint on his wine farm on Earth. Then it's off to another lighthearted adventure, perhaps a mystery to solve on an Irish-themed planet.

I know, this is all farfetched but who knows!

Is season 3 out yet???

How.... HOW are we supposed to wait for the continuation of THAT "ending"?????

After a few light hearted episodes scattered amongst some of the best Trek to have been written in the modern era, Season two concludes with a dark and menacing feel, akin to a Ridley Scott Sci-fi Horror (the only thing missing was Ripley!) and it is awesome!

Well written, directed and acted, episode 10 reintroduces a familiar character whilst continuing the development of the Strange new words crew amid their fiercest mission yet. The only low point is the frustration set in the "to be continued" message at the end - right at the most intense part of the episode - and knowing that Season 3 will likely be a while in the making.

All-in-all though, an excellent offering that will have Trekkies, young and old, on the edge of their seats.

I mostly really enjoyed this episode. I think it does "action trek" in pretty much the best way possible - and that's definitely a good thing. On top of the strong action sequences, there were some interesting moments between characters and some really cool sequences with the crew trying to think their way out of different situations. This is the sort of thing Trek has often done well and it's nice to see it working with SNW just as well as it has in past shows.

That said, as much as I enjoyed this episode - and I did enjoy it: 8/10 after all - I am a little bit worried about the future. It really seems like they're trying to position the Gorn as the Borg-like adversary of SNW - and I just don't think the Gorn are interesting enough to fill that role. They're little more than Xenomorphs at this point and I haven't seen any effort to make them anything more than that, so building them up as some kind of primary antagonist as this show appears to be doing just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I really hope they introduce a different sort of enemy that is actually interesting at some point because the Gorn, while fun for an episode here or there, just isn't interesting enough to be much more than that.