Comment Stream

Re: SNW S1: Spock Amok

The Good:
Anson Mount. Love the speech he gives to 'Spock' (actually T'Pring), a pity that T'Pring will have forgotten it/rejected it by "Amok Time".
Spock's nightmare sequence at the beginning. A rare look into his almost-schizophrenia regarding his human half, something that wouldn't truly be resolved until TMP...or maybe even the talk with his father after the trial in the 4th film.
Nice to see April again.
Also nice to see one of those TOS background ideas popping up again - the Federation and the Klingon Empire in competition with each other over bringing other races to their side. Aside from a caveat that I'm sticking in with The Kurtzman.
I like how Gia Sandhu as T'Pring pronounced 'Spock' when speaking in Vulcan exactly the way the Kolinahr high master pronounced it in TMP.
Both Gia and Ethan Peck did solid jobs playing the other's character.
Rather fond of how the R'ongovian captain, having stormed into the briefing room, immediately shifted attitudes once he was talking to a jovial fellow captain in Pike. A fun conceit, that continues to be played with later when they'll only speak to Spock...because it turns out that they practice a kind of "radical empathy" and take on aspects of whoever they're facing to better negotiate with them. Which is why they were so rude to the Tellarites before Pike and Spock entered the negotiations. Pike figures this out, plays the hunch hard and wins.
I liked that the Vulcan concept of "v'tosh ka'tur" (Vulcans without logic) got namechecked.
The VFX of the R'angovian solar sail vessel. Simply gorgeous.

The Bad:
I was right that the ship would be all back together again by this week even though it had taken enough damage to reduce it to scrap last time out. Still, not a first for Trek so I'll let it slide this time. Does beg a question though - even ignoring the fairly wild changes made to the design for STD/SNW just how much of this ship is actually the Enterprise as it was built in 2245? A huge chunk got taken out of the primary hull in STD's season 2 finale, then last week the ship was left with more hull breaches than actual hull and both nacelles looking distinctly second-hand. At some point Trigger's Broom/Ship of Theseus comes into play! It's even mentioned at the end that there's a hull plate on the primary hull that is the oldest unreplaced bit of the outer shell of the ship - which, of course, is right in a spot that was annihilated by the torpedo in the STD S2 finale, so isn't even that old.
I really am pretty sure that "Amok Time" strongly implied that Spock and T'Pring hadn't seen each other since childhood. I don't think it ever outright stated it though, which has given them the 'out' to show them together in this show. Still, doesn't sit brilliantly with me.
I'm all for having different story strands in the same episode, but this one felt a bit overly crammed. You've got the negotiations with the R'angovians, Chapel's commitment fears (amusingly, in-continuity she'll go from this to being engaged to Roger Korby in less than two years), Spock and T'Pring relationship issues, Spock and T'Pring body swapping (an unwelcome return to Brannon Braga-style plots, thought we'd seen the last of that with ENT), La'an and Number One doing whatever the hell they were doing, shore leave...

The Kurtzman:
La'an Noonien-Singh 🙄
During April's briefing he notes that the R'ongovians are now in talks with the Klingons - fine, all well and good - and also the Romulans aren't far behind. *record scratch* Hol' up. The *Romulans???* The race that retreated back behind the Neutral Zone following the Earth-Romulan War almost a century previously and won't actually be seen again in-continuity for another seven years? The Romulans who the Federation knew almost nothing about until that later encounter? FFS showrunners and writers, all you had to do was not mention them...and you couldn't even manage that.