Anti-immigrant rhetoric is a pretty mainstream position nationwide at this point.

Oh jeepers, I hadn’t considered the Yelchin angle.

My thoughts on this are lengthy, complicated, and probably a little bit self-contradictory, but I think some of the accusations of “gimmicks” are a tad overblown. But also a tad not overblown?

“Valles Marineris” - A pretty standard Trek episode IMO, albeit one with time travel and a twist.

“The Griffin Incident” - A horror episode, but not really a gimmicky one. Star Trek does those all the time.

“Human Best Friend” - Definitely pulling from a specific comedy genre, YMMV.

“A Case of Chiaroscuro” - I won’t argue with accusations of “gimmick” here, but I thought its use of the genre was in service of a pretty damn good Star Trek story. And DS9 in particular went to the noir well a few times over the years.

“Level Five Transporter Accident” - perfectly normal, nothing to see here.

“Off-Hour” - Pretty standard Trek.

But they definitely do a lot of genre play, and recent interviews with the showrunners indicate that it’s completely intentional, and unlikely to change any time soon.

I’ve been reconciling it by focusing on each episode as its own thing, independent of the others, and hot damn, it’s surprising how hard that’s become for me.

This one looks like a Quelane episode, so I think it’s pretty fitting.

The ood plotlines went nowhere, highlighting this was maybe not the best story in which to bring up the whole slave race plotline

Yeah, it really seems like they wanted the Beast to have a creepy army, and have minimal thought to the greater implications of this “basic slave race” - something they work to remedy in the future, but it’s a very…Ood choice.

Maybe not as strong as the introductory episode, but I still like this one a lot, albeit for only one real reason.

The stuff on the Santuary Base is decent, but perfunctory. Rose and the crew work to disrupt the Ood and make their escape. Rose gets to be a leader, heroic sacrifices are made, Zack gets to learn some self-respect. It’s all fine - good, even, elevated by the same strong performances we got last week. I think the direction betrays the fact that Toby is still possessed, which is unfortunate, because Will Thorp is still quite good. I’m not sure what to make of Danny’s(?) flatulence - is that supposed to be some sulphuric betrayal of Toby’s true self?

The Doctor’s final confrontation with the Beast is also…fine. David Tennant does as good a job as he possibly can - it’s fun to watch him second-guessing the situation and essentially playing chess with himself, but at the end of the day he’s still playing against nothing. It’s the same basic setup that Matt Smith later gets in “The Rings of Akhaten,” but that episode does it better. The Beast looks pretty good, but suffers a lot from the general low-resolutionness of the episode. It’d be great to see a remaster.

But the Doctor and Ida, standing on the edge of the abyss? That’s solid gold. The Doctor standing on the edge of the Pit, waxing philosophical about the compulsion to go down, is all I really think about when I think of this episode. 10/10, no notes.

I just took it that they both silently agreed that Una was the logical choice and didn’t need to litigate it.

I just took it for granted that she’s the ranking officer, and it’s her call to make. The fact that it led to a (potentially) unfortunate situation later isn’t really relevant in the moment, since they can’t predict that.

It’s interesting that they’re doing so much in London. Good for them!

Well, they signed Stuart Skinner, so I guess he counts.

I assumed they used neutrinos because they’re closely associated with the Bajoran wormhole (and I think wormholes in general?).

I don’t mind there being some sort of Super Secret Special neutrino that only exists under circumstances that can’t really be replicated, but it is a very silly particle.

For me, it was the moment where she patched the hole in her quarters - despite her fixing that specific problem, it suddenly made me dread what the outcome might be for her.

this episode really suffered from prequelitis

I never really feel this way - realistically, the main cast is virtually never in danger of dying, regardless of whether we know what happens next, so it doesn’t really interfere with my enjoyment of the story being told.

I guess this is meant to be borrowing from the 24 style of show

Yeah, it did occur to me that the countdown seemed to be happening in real time. I guess that explains the occasional splitscreen, which in itself feels like a very 1960s thing to do, even though it’s not something that Star Trek did.

a line that sounds superficially vulcan but which under scrutiny makes no sense

Yeah, I did not like that.

I was a little underwhelmed by the demo, but I’m hopeful that it’s been improved, because this sort of game should be right up my alley.

Pretty enjoyable episode - I feel like it’s been a while since we’ve seen a good “disaster” (or “Disaster,” if you prefer) outing.

The Chapel/M’Benga plot was affecting - M’Benga may decide not to leave, but they seem to be laying the groundwork for him to take a subordinate position to McCoy once he eventually shows up.

The Scotty plot has the most long-term impact, I think…enough impact that I was beginning to think Pelia wouldn’t survive the day.

I liked the callbacks in this one - they mostly seemed organic. The sudden return of Boyce was the biggest surprise. I couldn’t figure out why he looked so familiar, but it turns out Brian Markinson is a Trek veteran, playing several characters throughout the 90s, including my boy Elias Giger.

Beyond that, we got a weird TMP-style warp wormhole, and Kirk’s ion pod from “Court Martial.”

Big fun, all around.

They saved it for the very end - September 1, running for three weeks.

The gravity globe is such a weird little thing - I guess it’s called that because of the way it hangs in the air? Pretty risky when you’re in a planet orbiting a black hole, that’s also projecting some kind of gravity funnel into deep space.

Even weirder is the fact that it’s recurring - the Anglican Marines use one in Matt Smith’s Weeping Angels two-parter.

also implying there’s no way Rose can get back to the other universe where Mickey and Pete are.

I like this thought - it had never occurred to me before.

What’s that you say? You were underwhelmed by last week’s bland TV lady as a villain? Can I interest you in the actual, Biblical Satan?

I don’t think I quite knew what to make of this episode when I first saw it - it’s so unlike anything else we’ve seen in the new series. But hot damn, do I ever love it now.

There’s a base! And it’s under siege! Groundbreaking! The Doctor’s quip about these bases being built out of kits is another bit that I definitely didn’t appreciate at the time, but it’s pretty funny. I think the Doctor/Rose relationship is in its ideal state here. Low-key flirty in a way that feels pretty real, without being maudlin (though it walks up to that line as they discuss what they’ll do if they ever escape Sanctuary Base 6).

The episode handles the base crew very well - they’re necessarily sketched out quickly, but they all seem like living, breathing people, and I really felt it when poor Toby and Scooti met their fates. Will Thorp deserves particular credit for making Toby seem like a sympathetic character, and then flipping to seeming incredibly threatening once he’s been taken over by the Beast.

Pretty nice spacesuits. I wonder if we’ll ever see them again.

I’m sure there’s loads that can be said about this episode, but I dunno. It’s great. Bring on the next one. I’ll be waiting here with an inverted self-extrapolating reflex of 6 to the power of 6 every 6 seconds.

Pike’s decision to go along with a planetary genocide on a hunch was indefensible to say the least.

And I think that’s the most compelling part!

TBH, one could argue that this season has been pretty successful, if the number of discussion points is anything to go by.