Not much of an adventure

[kathleen_dailey]

The reviews I've read tend to split dramatically between the "I loved it" faction and the "it was awful" faction. Not many have expressed the reaction I felt--ho-hum. Not terrible, not first-rate, just meh. A couple of lines of dialogue were clever. I liked Kira Guloien's portrayal of the brain-cell thief, I liked Uhura-Joni's speech about why The Last Frontier mattered to people who based some of their life decisions on its ideals, and I liked the Riker maneuver. But none of it moved me either as humour or as pathos. And even though I mentioned last week that I thought I saw a glimmer of chemistry between La'an and Spock, the characters' scenes together didn't evoke so much as a trace of that feeling for me.

The whole "pre-TOS era origins of the holodeck" theme was gimmicky and unimaginative, IMO. And the scenes from The Last Frontier, which could have been a smart parody of (and homage to) Star Trek, were neither sharp nor affectionate.

Finally, I'm tired of this current (and to me unrecognizable) emotionally labile version of Spock, and although I might have been interested in seeing the Leila Kalomi backstory, I don't think the writers (1) are going there and (2) could carry it off with any insight or subtlety even if they did attempt it.

It seems that quite a few shows find their feet by season 3 and begin to produce episodes of real substance, with compelling stories and believable character development. Having rewatched the excellent first season of SNW recently, I'm starting to feel that this series is sadly reversing the trend.

Comments

[jenab]

I felt meh about the episode as well and I'm not sure about this season.

I'm not fond of how they are writing Spock and now the potential romance they are setting up with him and Li'an

[kathleen_dailey]

I'm not fond of how they are writing Spock and now the potential romance they are setting up with him and Li'an

Agreed. I know that lots of fans are saying, "well, he's young, he's experimenting," etc. But this is only a few years before TOS, and the current version of Spock seems to be devolving from the character we saw in season 1 of SNW.

The showrunners' apparent obsession with Spock's romantic life so far this season is frustrating. We should be seeing at least a few signs that he has other, wider aspects to his character, and that he has the potential to develop into the galaxy-changing figure that we know he becomes in later canon.