As our cadets return home for their first school holiday, they must choose between what their families expect of them and their own dreams for the future — including an aspiring captain who’s secretly willing to risk everything to re-write her own past, and an aristocratic cadet called to serve his planet way before he’s ready.
Written by: Alex Taub & Eric Anthony Glover
Directed by: Andi Armaganian
There is no spoiler protection in the episode discussion threads, and spoiler tags are not necessary!
So I guess the message here is, “You’re okay (without faking your application or going through with arranged marriages), and people around you want the best for you”? Which is valid, but not exactly mind blowing, narratively speaking.
I enjoyed the Genesis/Caleb staycation hookey games, not least Caleb seeing through her long con. Our boy is not a complete dupe, good on him.
The whole Darem sudden wedding side of things was part dull, part derivative. The entire landscape and scene setting where Jay-den arrived had me thinking of the SNW recreation of that “Amok time” arena. Which is promising I guess, if the writers and art dept. expect new 20-something viewers to glom onto 60 years old references — but they don’t do much with it anyway.
I sort of thought the scaly amphibian form Darem changed into in the pilot was the default Khionian look. But despite a lot of talk about seaweed and “we’ve all got gills”, everybody looks peculiarly human. Which is Star Trek, I know. The entire subplot just felt underdeveloped.
I’m still scratching my head what anyone sees in Kyle, so I’m assuming he’ll turn out to be a salt vampire.
All in all, this felt like a stopgap episode before the season finale, where stuff hopefully goes off the rails on a more epic scale.
I understand why they didn’t want to put all the time (and money) into everyone’s make up, but, story-wise, that was pretty inexcusable.
I assume because this moon has (conveniently) become a desert over the years.
Ah yes. Perfectly reasonable spot for merpeople to be married. Wonder how that place smells a few hours into the ceremony?
I also thought of Amok Time! But why would they make that reference? And not do anything with it? Also agree on the Khionians, I didn’t understand why they are all in their human forms. I also thought it was weird that everybody was pretty cool with a random Klingon to attend this important wedding.
I think this episode would have profited from being split in two. I know the 10 episode format only allows for so much episodes, but this one was a huge miss to me.
I wouldn’t call it a huge miss, but I don’t think the two stories could stand on their own in separate episodes, either. It was just a bit… meh. Definitely the low point for me in the season so far, though.
I don’t know, they could have gone all in one the Khionian culture and his past and it might have worked. Instead we got a wedding I didn’t care enough about. Likewise, the plot of “an empty school over the holidays” could have worked on its own. As I wrote somewhere else, with a show including Paul Giamatti, I was immediately reminded of the Holdovers. Two students and Reno, would have been a great setup I think. Instead, we got some hasty character “development”.