I mean never say never? If I'm remembering the Cage correctly the Talosians at least thought there would be potential there. Though this is the much younger and possibly a little sexist Pike.

D:

If I had a nickel for every time Uhura solved a problem by singing at it, I'd have two nickels. That's not a lot, but it's the same number as how many times Chakotay's been lost in the Delta Quadrant.

This was a fun episode. Some bangers, though I agree with some of the people who think some songs could have been shortened. The unexpected Klingon boy band was an amazing gag that didn't overstay its welcome. Overall, I think it's great to have Trek embrace the old-school campiness from time to time.

Anyone else convinced Captain Batel is kinda doomed? Pike got off the relationship trauma fairly easily in this episode.

I liked that this episode and Quality of Mercy fleshed out (prime) Pike's weakness-- he's very much a diplomat, not a warrior. He avoids conflict to a fault, and this distinguishes him from other "diplomat" captains like Picard, who's more willing to show his teeth when necessary.

It really contextualizes why Starfleet Command told Pike to stay on his Five Year Mission during Discovery s1--ya just know he would have gotten the Enterprise banged up while trying to make nice withsome T'kuvma fanatics.

I would have liked M'benga's ending monologue to be less final. Instead of "things break, we fix them, but they'll break again," even just leaving it as a question-- "can we ever truly fix these things?" would feel like it leaves more room for hope and redemption in the future.

I think the episode is generally a good representation of how Lower Decks characters are, yeah.

I thought it was weird and a touch sleazier than we normally see from Ransom, but out of universe that is very sweet!

Are Orions now the designated species for calling out how essentialized Star Trek aliens tend to be? Because we have D'vana Tendi, the somewhat obscure Ensign Harral from Discovery, and now the crew of the D'var. You can argue the last one's just an extension of Tendi's character arc, but still, that's three series that have touched on this.

I mean, I think it's just reality-adjacent technobabble and you've got to accept it as plausible in universe. Tritium is a real thing used in nuclear fission but it's not so rare that you should don robotic arms and go on a crime spree to get some. On a more Star Trek adjacent topic, protostars are a real thing but (at least as far as we know) you can't shove them in a box to travel ludicrous speed.

I was gearing up for a Gorn episode and they faked us all out!

I liked it thy gave most of the cast (sorry Ortegas) screentime and moved a lot of side plots a small amount.

Moderately bummed they retroactively made Thor (George Kirk) seem like a less good father, though.

To be fair, Sybok was the original spontaneous Spock sibling, even though Star Trek V was chronologically later.