Reviews

I don't like the alien rip-off aka nuGorn, but this was kind of more interesting than last seasons gorn episode. And it is kind of ok after 3 rough episodes. Still it wasn't great.

Specific problems with the episode for me:

• shuttle not detected just because of some trash on the hull, but maneuvering around and having even visible engine exhaust. Makes no sense given the technological level the Gorn are on
• some of the gorn scenes feel like taken from one of the Jurassic Park sequels
• missing of sickbay on Cajuga noticed after quick view onto the ship, but no one checked in the hours before
• Scotty: another TOS character showing up for no reason, doesn't feel at all like Scotty. But a 'great' solution for many problems...
• Sams reasoning about the gorn getting into a feeding frenzy because of sun eruptions is really far fetched based on the information he got from Scotty
• no reasons given why Spock is the only one for placing the rockets, just him saying that humans are not capable of it. And later there is no situation that supports this, nothing that requires special Spock magic
• Chappel is the only one surviving???

• Chappel can fix life support far too easy
• Spock flying around in space through a debris field with a suit .... Again - it's a Kurzman show after all.

• no one takes care of flashlight batteries
• grown up gorn looks even more like the good old Xenomorph then in the previous season
• crashing a saucer onto the planet again, and Scotty & co watch this without being killed????

• Platel not being attacked because she is pregnant wit a Gorn, seems familiar.. lets wait if they cook up a queen....
• of course it is a cliffhanger... Seems they try to channel the situation at the end of Best of both worlds part 1
• Spocks portrayal continues to be bad.

And overall just relying to much on horror, but still not thrilling. Scarry monter aliens is just not what I watch Trek for. If this is the the main alien species we are focusing on, then give us more background on the species... This is just too dumb and simple. Obviously they rebooted the Gorn, because there is no way these are the same as the lizzard from TOS 10 years later. So if you reboot them, why not add something interesting instead of copying a monster from the 70s?

All in all a fitting finale for a mediocre season.

I liked this a bit more than the second one, but it came nowhere near the first one. What I disliked about the beginning was the endless queue of jokes that felt kind of flat. It didn't have the charme of the first one. You got the feeling the Guardians don't like each other. Especially the way they spoke about each other, basically without any respect, made this a dull affair. This got better towards the end of the movie though and I liked that Nebula was better integrated.

Yes, the flashbacks to Rockys past were done well mostly. This was the part that I feared would be to unsuited for our daughter (12y), but it was ok. It was even a bit too childish for me in some regards. But what really makes this one of the least child-friendly Marvel Movies is the brutality in combination with questionable morality. The Guardians save animals and Children, but slaughter the results of the experiments of the High Evolutionary without any hint of merci. And all this in very explicit depiction. I guess they just had less luck then Rocky. Nobody even asks the question if there was a way to loosen the control of the purple guy over the experiments.

Actually I can't remember any other Marvel Movie that spreads violence so arbitrary. I have the feeling the golden era of Marvel has ended.

Yes, it was kind of fun, if I am not watching this as a star trek episode but as some random time killer stuff. Unfortunately this is ths case to often with star trek today. See, I kind of like Lower Decks, I don't love it, but it is a funny look at my favorite franchise through a lens that does not depict the reality of the star trek universe, at least not for me. I have similar feelings about Strange New Worlds: it is also a somewhat inmature alternative depiction of Trek. Not perfect, but enjoyable in most cases. Sometimes I can even pretend it is a legit prequel to TOS, TNG, DS9 and Voyager, but in most cases it feels like a flat cover version that tries to be hip but doesn't get the core of Trek and deosn't give a s**t about what came before, but I can watch it. But this crossover, what does it acomplish? It places SNW in a universe in which all Starfleet personel behaves like hyperactive teenagers (well, this would kind of fit Discovery... ). While I thought until now that LWs way of depicting its characters is just a mechanism of the chosen medium, this episode basically says: nope, Lower Decks is depicting exactly what is going on in the 24th century. In a series of dump decissions for this franchise, this might be one of the worst.

This would have been so much better if they tried to depict more realistic versions of Boimler and Mariner once they leave the protal, like original characters which Lower Decks just makes fun of, still having some character traits of the Lower Decks versions, but much more in-universe (related to SNW at least), and yes, less annoying. Then Lower Decks would just be a funny retelling of the real adventures of the USS Ceritos. And that real USS Ceritos would also visit this planet with the portal, but we only see the comedy version that LD depicts. This would have been much more satisfying, and would not have destroyed the last bits of a credibility of SNW. But now we are left with a universe that is just a mixture of various levels of homage and persiflage. But I bet soon, there will be another episode that rips off Alien with blood and splatter, who knows, maybe even inside that hyped musical episode.

Pretty good time travel episode without to much complexity. And it was the first Episode that I really liked L'aaan in. Pretty good acting of both actors/actress, competently shot, felt good overall.

What I didn't like:

• 'funny' scene with Spock at the beginning - you can do something like that, but it didn't land for me and I don' t like the trend of turning him into a joke
• the romulan agent didn't work at all for me, didn't behave like a romulan at all
• why did the romulan help the pair? There were no signs she was tracking them after they came back from Pelia, so she would have found the reactor anyways...
• they should not have shown Khan. But subtlety is not a strength of today's Trek
• L'aan wandering around the apartment at night while Kirk was also awake... that felt like taken out of a bad rom com. Also the crying at the end almost destroyed the strong character work of this episode. A dreamy, sad look out of the window would have been enough. Again, subtlety....
• it felt to drawn out, a bit to long

Overall a nice one, but now for some strange new worlds, shall we?

I liked this quite a lot, much better then Episode 1. Now this one is not near as good as TNGs The Drumhead (which the vulcan admiral seemed to go for) or The measure of a man, but pretty good nonetheless. Now there were moments where it went a bit too far into 'Federation/Starfleet is bad' territory, but the aforementioned two classic TNG episodes did similarly. However especialy the delivery of Neera was a bit on the nose, parallels to real world problems too direct. It is amazing how well this was handled in TNG. Also Neera comes across a bit to aggressive, but this was still ok. I can see that this episode might trigger some woke allergies in some people, but given the status of the franchise, this is one of the best eps in a long time and I think it balances classic Trek sensibilities for themes such as race and discrimination quite well with the more direct approach on those topics of today. Also I liked most of the acting including the non central cast. But they should have really refrained from the applause at the end. But thats the TNG fan in me missing more professional behaviour, still sometimes forgetting that this is before TOS...

Overall I liked this. I liked how the characters interacted. I can even live with an emotional Spock. I see this as a reboot, as all the recent outings, and as that it is the best reboot for me. Picard S3 is overhyped for me, although I loved the cast and many moments of the season. SNW is better story wise for me, at keast they didn't stretch the battle in the gas giant in season 1 over four episodes... And Discovery is just something I try to erase from my memory. So yeah, I like SNW although it hreaks canon and I like this Spock although he has not much in common with THE SPOCK. So what did I like:

• the tone, humor was ok for me
• overall story
• klingons that can be identified as klingons

What I didn't like:

• to few information about the circle
• not enough Pike
• they didn't really introduce the new female officer on the bridge, did they?

• not a big fan if the new engineer, but let's see how this turns out
• that starbase... those huge spaces, kind of stupid

What I hated:

• our favourite medical staff in berserker mode because of some drug (was this introduced before?). We have seen something like this in 100 other movies and shows, I don't like it, I don't need it in Trek. Feels like Kurzman still can't accept that he was not good enough for Marvel. Just dumb stuff. I miss Trek that solves such situations in a clever way ...

So overall a mixed one, but still felt good to me mostly.

For me, this was an okaish finale for a good (not great) season. I try to review this in context of other great shows, so there is no way I can go with 10 points for this. I do not understand the hyperole here (and general in fandoms). Why are there so many extreme ratings? No way this is the best or worst show ever. And this season had better episdoes than this. Is nobody else seing this as a linear scale? I too want to express that I like this much more than most of the other NuTrek, but I try to stay realistic.

This episode basicaly went with the obvious conclusion - destroy the beacon, save the galaxy. Very basic, but nothing wrong with it. But I am not a fan of the execution. Going into the cube Falcon-like ist not just an extremely blunt copy, it is also just dump with this big ship. The E was never this maneuverable. And why is there always a coridor that makes it easy to destroy the doomsday machine? The shot of the D hovering over the queen chamber was silly and it doesn't help that they spent zero time on explaining how Deana found them. So was the queen hanging around there the whole time, just feasting of drones? When did the cube arive there, did nobody spot it? Is this the ship from endgame? I realy have to rewatch Endgame and the last two parts of S3 in tandem again, I guess. What's up with the changelings? Was the whole great link involved? What happend to hand-turned-floating-flesh-face? So this is the problem with the mystery box format... For 80% of the season you just don't care and try to wow everyone with open threads, and then you do not have enough time to resolve it in a good way at the end. Also the fight of the Titan against the fleet was just rediculous (and why did the ships stay on a 2D plane forming borg symbols?) and the explanation why the cloaking device helped them to block the "line of sight" signal didn't land with me. Why rename the Titan into the E? This would make sense if anyone of the old Gang was the captain, or if this was supposed to be the flagship, which it surely isn't.

But I really liked the interplay between the characters, as in most episodes of this season. More time on the D, a bit of bantering (although not always in the right situations), this was again priceless. And this is the reason why I still give 7 points despite my criticism. The end was a bit long, but it was ok and after that I was realy ready to let them go.

But then we get a nice mid credit scene, that basically continues the trend of this whole season - just ignore what happened in the travesty that was season 2 - hilarious :-)

What a ride 😁 From the moment it was revealed that the changelings stole Picards body I suspected that Borg would be involved, but I was more leaning towards a story in which changelings would just want to use the tech. A Borg/Changelings coalition (aka the Borglings, or Wechselborg in german) was not on my radar and I would have preferred if it was not again the Borg, as they were a main topic in the previous seasons already. BUT I like where this headed, especially the transporter trick is neat. I didn't like the way the Borg were depicted though, but we'll see where this goes. The frontier day is not an idea that I liked, the Fireworks were kind of stupid and the formation shots looked a bit strange, but the producers love that (we had this basically in the season 2 finale) and surely this was not the whole fleet although they basically say that the whole time. But I assume the same is happening elsewhere, but they could have made that more clear.

But overall I loved it. So much happening. I wonder though why they put so much into the last two episodes while not much happened in the other 8 episodes. Now we have this wonderfull set of the D bridge (!!!) and use it only for one episode? Man, I had chills running down my spine seeing the old gang together on that set, but was immediatly sad knowing it will only be there for one hour max.... And they killed Shaw 😤

Some questions were not realy answered for me though:

• what did the borg need Jack for? The genetic mofifications were ther the whole time. Is the signal only possible with him?

• Why need the changelings Picards body? If they work with Borg they have access to the tech already...
• What about Juratiborg and what went down last season?

• was it mentioned why the bridge is that from the tv Show, not the one from Generations? I am glad they did it that way but seems not bobvious
• Why can they have light on old ships but not on new ships (joking)

Can't wait for next week!

After the bad 7th episode this was a great one. Loved most of it. The tension was good, the way Data defeated Lore was great, I enjoyed Trois return more then I thought I would. Still not a fan of the mystery box format and of Jack - not his character, not his supernatural nature, although I have to say the execution is good in this episode and I am really curious now. Character and acting wise this was the best episode until now for me, I loved the old gang back together and Vadic was less annoying. Luckily not too much of Rafi, but my biggest issue is represented by her: sword fighting and fist fights while the changelings have phasers and the the ability to .... well, change. I am still not convinced the guys with the bird masks are really shape shifters though. Besides not shape shifting they seem to be to stupid. Last episode they ran after starfleet personel that had no weapons, but did not fire besides having clear chances to do so. But here it is even worse: just because Rafi seems it fit running around with swords, they do as well. I get it that Klingons use swords, but why anybody else would do it in this setting is beyond me. I know everybody loves Matalas, but in scenes like this it all just feels like the same stupidity we got served in the previous seasons.

But besides that it was a great episode that almost made me forget that Picard & Crusher wanted to kill a prisoner last week.

Saw it yesterday with my wife and my oldest daughter. We had a blast. My wife plays prn & paper regularly, I did a short time 20 years ago. We are not into D&D, but we love genre books and movies. It was nice to see such a well balanced approach to fantasy. Maybe the best Fantasy movie I've seen in 10 years, and one of the funniest movies I've seen in ages. Likable characters, a story with enough turns that do not feel forced, great jokes, good dialog, great effects, superb timing. The only small nitpick I have is the main villain, you do not get much about her motivation, while Hugh Grant is great.

I hope there will be (a few) more movies, but it was also nice to see something fresh without too much of a franchise around it.

Unfortunately, this seems to end the good run of this season. From the beginning I had the suspicion, that this might go again in a very dark direction, but they managed to hide and balance that in most of the previous episodes. But here we go again with a moraly bancrupt starfleet. Maybe it is only section 31 (but even that would be to mich for ne at this point. I lived section 31 in ds9, but the idea has been ruined over the years), but then we see Bevery and Picard agreeing on killing a prisoner. This is a perversion of TNG, its characters and what it stood for. Is their decission human and understandable? Yes, from todays perspective, and as father. But this series used to be about a future in which people are better, despite their mistakes. But this episode shows that the producers want to have a show set in a dark dystopia future. The vibes were there the whole time, but I was hoping that I was wrong.

Also, the whole plan with the force fields was stupid. And it is a bit strange that we see nothing of Riker and Troi.

Bit I liked the beginning with Tuvok, and also the scenes with Geordie and Lore/ Data.

So this was the best ep together with the first one. After the somewhat drawn-out nebula story this episode moves the overall story forward quite nicely. I love that Ro came back, didn't see that coming. This worked out great, really. I am not a big fan of thr Jack storyline, but let's see where this goes.

But again, this otherwise great episode was dragged down a bit for me by the Rafi/Worf arc. I love Worf, but the scenes don't work for me. It is partially because of Rafi, but I also dislike these gangster planets. It just feels too much like the first teo seasons. And how many shady character do they want to bring in (and isn't the vulcan again from 12 monkeys?) and continue this bread crump hunt?

But overall, I loved the episode.

B.

This is a strange one... Rafi is missing, which is good and we mainly get the Titan, Piacard & co, which is good. But it all feels so slow. Now while it is cool to spend time on a starfleet ship and on a nebula I cant help but feel that eps 2-4 should have been one episode. It drags quite a bit. So this ep doesn't move the story at all . And the way the talk is done doesn't work for me. So I warmed up for Shaw, but even now he gives Picard a hard time because of Wolf 359? This was even hard to swallow with Sisko back in the day, but I would think that Starfleet personal is more professional so they can judge rationally about this after 25 years. There is still a bit too much of that unjustified drama around here. And while I thought there might be a plan that explains why Vadic let the Titan drop into the centre of the anomaly, it was just incompetance and craziness. And the whole birth thing was just an add on to calm the wish for discovery. It really felt rushed and had no meaning. But hey, space jelly fish. I heard before that ep 4 would be good, bit it didn't work for me. Still mich better than Seasons 1 and 2 and Disco, but not really good at the moment either.

Much better than last week, but not as good as the first one.

Good:

• changelings back
• story gets more interesting
• a bit more to do for Beverly
• Visuals are better then before
• there seems to be a SF topic in the nebula
• portal weapon usage is quite cool

Bad:

• Rafi as annoying as always
• jokes about decapitation
• Jack is annoying, simply doesn't work for me
• Not sure why it has to be Jack that has the important idea
• Medical procedures seem less advanced than in TNG & DS9
• not sure about the conflicts between Picard, Riker and Beverly, not fully convincing

Realy looking forward to how this progresses.

Part 1 was fine (8 out of 10), but here it starts to go south. So first the bad stuff:

• no way to find out if Jack is Crushers son, until she awakes??? Is there no brain on board?

• Vadic.... why do we need a crazy villain? And again a massively overpowered villain ship... I guess there will be an explanation later, but it just is too much, over the top

• Jack is actually a wanna be Han Solo, and a bad one at that. I liked him in the first episode, but not in this one. And I hoped he would not be Picards son. Maybe there is still hope...

• Rafi worse then in last episode, almost on level of previous seasons. The storyline is bad, feels like something from a dark crime drama, but not well written or acted, still feels to much like Kurzman crap
• I hate the way Worf is introduced. Yes, he is a warrior, but he could have solved this differently. Decapitation.... Why?

• still nobody found the light switch

Picard, Riker and the Titan stuff is largely fine otherwise. I kind of like Shaw, his arguments are valid, but it is not consistent that he completly changes his mind when he learns that Jack is Picards son.

Hopefully gets better again.

This was a mostly good start. Story starts ok if I just accept that it is again just a dark revenge, big weapon thing. Would wish for real trek with exploration, science and so on, but if they do it competently, I am ok with it.

What I liked:

• Picard feels more like Picard
• Riker is great
• the two together, it feels right
• nicer camera work, feels like Trek again
• music, pace, everything is so much better than S1, S2 or disco
• it is mostly fun
• Design in general, very classic all, but with Crushers ship we get something fresh
• story intriguing, even though elements borrowed from ST2 and 3, but made cleverly

What I didn't like:

• the Darkness. Is this an environmental message like 'don't waste energy'? I realy hate this and it seems they are doing this because they don't want starfleet to feel primarily like a positive thing
• Rafi still very annoying. They should have dropped her, or just ger rid of the drug thing and her hectic aggressive behaviour. There might be good therapies in the future, so why not?

• obviously again a revenge/big thread story. That's all that is left of trek...
• Shaw is a bit to much of an a**hole for no reason. The double bunk... Really?

• Neo-Constitution class, stupid name
• How can the Titan-A be a refit of the old Titan?

• Titan design is nice, but doesn't fit the time
• Fire the texture- guy. The blue grills on the warp nacelle look so cheap. Just noise? And the orange Bussards also look bad, should be red
• lighting/shading of Titan doesn't look realistic
• Riker kind of embarassing Geordies daughter.

• shutle bigger than the bridge of Crushers ship. How can something like this still happen?

• Villain ship again big pointy thing. Please no connection to Nero....

So it is not perfect, but good enough so that I have hope for the season. And they surely played the nostalgia game well. I had fun.

• Future Pike even better then the current one
• Closest to TNG / Berman Trek this season gets
• the actor doesn't work for me as J. T. Kirk at all, but I also think he isn't written like Kirk, but then again it is an alternative future. Pike feels more like Kirk then the new Actor does.

• but a cool plan by Kirk.

• finaly an acceptable presentation of romulans in modern trek
• again a receycling of Spock's death from TWOK? Music over-dramatized.

• great story, allthough I don't like this fate-of-the-galaxy stuff. But fits well with Spock's future
• to bad about Una, but I think we will see her again

Great end for a great first season. The season still had it's flaws, but this may still be the best first season of Trek, and each episode was better than anything Discovery or Picard offered. Let's hope this will last many sasons... (Hell, Discovery got a fifth one, so we should get 10 or so...)

Overall a mediocre entry in a great first season!

What I liked:

• showing that Uhura is not the only cadet on rotatation, and other ensins we don't even know get promote
• a bit more Hemmer, but not much
• the unknown alien
• the Hemmer Uhura Connection

Undecided:

• Look, I love how fast I got to know this crew, something the other new shows didn't pull off after 4 seasons, or 2 seasons in a case where I grew up with the main character, but havin the briefing while cleaning dishes is a bit to much. I love the chemistry, but a bit more professional distance would be fine. Maybe I am to much influenced by TNG, and less TOS.

• Lt. Kirk... still not much on him, but he is there... Somehow. Oh yeah, he is there to place a counter point to Spock
• the whole La'an - Gorn story - parent background and all

Didn't like:

• reusing a Connie but calling it something else, was ok in the past, but not with today's tech.

• blunt copying from Alien, not just Inspiration. They even copy the fact that the Host influences the development of the hatchling. Oh and killing them with low temps... Alien 3 / T2
• oh, and they have kind of predator abilities, of course
• I am not watching Star trek for cheap space horror
• Spocks battle cry, his outragr at the end
• killing off Hemmer, a great but criminally underdeveloped character.

It was obvious from Ep 1 that they would develop the Gorn in this direction. I don't like it, it is cheap and not close to what I thougt of the Gorn. Although implemented ok, it was just a greatest hit of Alien/Terminator/Predator. Even Hemmers sacrifice just felt like a copy from Alien 3 or T2. Don't like the fact that they want to turn around the one Character who hasn' too much emotions... ButI like the idea la'an leaves, she worked the least for me.

I am kind of surprised this one was rated so good. It was the weakest ep for me, because its ideas were so weak and just a blunt copy, and because they killed if one of the best charakters without good reason, I guess for the drama.

Just rewatched it the first time since seeing it in the theatre. Still the best of the JJ-crop, but not everything is shiny.

The good:

• The main cast, it just works good for me
• the overall tone is the best of the JJ-movies
• I liked Jaylah
• I liked the Franklyn

The bad:

• one-dimensional Bond-style villain
• advanced mining ships... Yep, receycling Star Trek 2009
• non-aging villain that hides its true race... Yep, receycling Star Trek Insurection.

• again a doomsday weapon... I can't stand it any more
• mp3 destroys ships... I like the Beastie Boys as well, but that is beyond stupid
• Yorktown just makes no sense. Looks cool, but is beyond stupid

6 out of 10 might sound too much based on thus, but the good points were strong for me.

Continues as poor as before. Any hope this season might end as good as it started is gone. Random thoughts while watching:

• this CGI flight over the trees to the laSeriena doesn't look convincing. It doesn't help that they use it several times in each episode
• Rios just bumps into the other group and everyone continues talking as if he they were hanging out together the whole time.

• so, the whole nature of the Borg is now reduced to this one queen always wanting more? The Borg were cool because there was no personal ambition. When they introduced the queen in FC it was still done in a way that it respected that more or less, although it took away from the unique idea, but that was kind of remedied when voyager introduced the idea that there are multiple queens, maybe one each ship. They never appeared to me as individuals with ambition, but now, it was all because of this one queen... Great. As with many great ideas of trek (section 31, Q, mirror universe) this 'creative' team just takes it and milks it dry and changes it beyond recognition in the process. However, this is not the fault of this episode alone, this was obvious from episode 3 on. The idea of the Borg is just to abstract for these writers. Of course Star Trek needs a real baddie, because that is the nature of Star Trek...
• more flashbacks I could live without... I thought and hoped we were done with that, but hey, you need to fill 10 hours somehow
• boring fights
• Soong reduced to a one dimensional henchman
• Rafi & Seven slowly pushing knife into 'Borg' eye - just what Gene envisioned
• why go to the stars if you can spend the budget on a cellar set.... I don't get it
• how does holo-Elnor know what Elnor thought in the moment if his death? Just stupid
• how does the queens tentacle penetrating the holo-Elnor suddenly give her control over the computer? It just makes no sense. It seems the writers staged this all just because they wanted the queen to give that speech
• Rios suddenly thinking about doing what is right after havin messed up everything
• Rios being foged out while kissing and appearing at the right spot pointing the gun in the right direction to save Picard just in time ... Are you kidding me?

• how does Seven get her old implants back? Makes no sense
• so Jurati created a different kind of Borg - the ones that appear at the end of ep1 - no big surprise, nice idea nontheless. Let's see how they play that out
• Story about Picards mother is not that interesting, snd she should not die, you know? Where is his brother?

• so I guess Soongs daughter isn't important after all....

Without knowing what ep10 will bring it is for me clear that this whole season is a filler. 7! Episodes of nonsense in the 21 century. This whole part could have been done in one episode. This 'story' is so simple, just blown up out of proportion by a team that simply does not want to make Star Trek.