Well I just watched it, but I don’t know what to do with it. It just kinda…happened. Other than a few moments here and there, I didn’t really get much out of it. Eh.

And I really don’t need Pelia dropping more Doctor Who references. One time was amusing and enough.

Don’t get me wrong - I’m glad SNW is back, but the opener was a little meh - not least because it was predictable in the extreme.

The moment Spock reveals that they’ve travelled back to the Sol system 65 million years ago it becomes all very convenient and the predestination paradox possibility immediately rears its head.

Because, why would a solar storm light years away throw them back to Sol? And 65 million years ago is immediately obvious to any kid with a passing fancy for dinosaurs as the Cretaceous, which probably means there’s going to be a link to the extinction event. The need for and presence of iridium in the plot reinforces that, because one of the things we know about the KT boundary is the unusual presence of iridium.

(I won’t go into nitpicking the science in this one because Trek’s hold on science has been tenuous at best and this episode was more tenuous than most)

But even if you don’t pick up on that bit, what clinches it in the end is when Spock reveals there is a fifth planet between Mars and Jupiter. Although this detail really should have been made known earlier when he initially scanned the system since it’s a pretty unusual feature for Sol and the only reason it wasn’t is because it would give away the game too soon.

Because the moment you have that bit of info, you know how the rest of the episode has to play out - and it should be obvious to every officer on the bridge, not just Pike. Hell, every Earth officer at least should know what’s going on since they should have more than a passing familiarity with their home system. So Pike’s pronouncement that there is no fifth planet in their time lands as less of a dun-dun-dun reveal than it is a “No shit, Sherlock.”

Also, the pile-on consequences were a bit much, I think. Being involved in the creation of the Asteroid Belt is one thing, and sure, I can even buy the distress buoy paradox, but to put the creation of the solar storm and the extinction of the dinosaurs on top of that is over egging it.

There are cute character bits I enjoyed. Seeing dinosaurs is always a joy. The three-woman landing party was fun, and Saffron Burrows’ performance as a complex antagonist was superb.

Cade S’sha’s presence was a bit superfluous, since she had absolutely nothing to do except be an asshole to Uhura, and one wonders if her introduction would have been better served in an episode where she was more of a focus, or she should at least have been given some role in the plot.

It wasn’t a bad episode, but it wasn’t a great one to roll out the new season.

Pretty good start for the season, nice sci-fi concepts, 7/10

Pet peeves: away team knew it had to be ancient Earth after seeing T-Rex, after riding an alien creature that looked exactly like a horse at the beginning of the episode…

I was sure that the Voth were going to show up when they said it was the dinosaurs’ Earth, I think it’s a miss not to explore that, but that ancient Martian civilization concept was also interesting. It’s not scientific however as we know pretty well that Mars was already bone dry 65M years ago.

Jurassic Trek! I love butterfly effect time travel episodes. The Dr Who references were pretty funny too.

That said, uhhhh did the pacing of each scene feel… off? Like the whole edit seemed slightly odd, hanging too long creating awkward moments, ESPECIALLY with every away team scene, and the Sol reveal felt flat. It’s so strange to see editing be an issue in any Trek series but it definitely was a clunky handling of an otherwise really great sci-fi episode.

Annotations for 4x01 up at: https://startrek.website/post/42540204

Enjoyable episode overall. I loved the conflict they had with an alien species. I dont mind these kinds of predetermined time travel episodes but I do think they wound up responsible for a little too much. Theyre responsible for the destruction of a planet, the contiunuing redding of mars, and also they killed the dinosaurs. It feels like the consequences were a little too high. A reminder of how nutrek dials everything up to 11. It’s not just butterfly effects changing history it’s like everything.

I enjoyed this episode very much, including the gratuitous shot of the dinosaurs at the very end.

It was obvious how this one was going to end, and while I’m not a huge fan of arachnids, I hated that captain Pike never gave the order to destroy the antimatter warhead that was headed to their planet.

I would have loved some Voth references but I don’t really know if the timeline would actually support them.

A good start for the season, a serious sci-fi episode. We need more of these and less of the silly ones, I can take a funny episode now and then not all the time like on S3. I think they need to explore more about the characters relationship on the episodes, the only real interactions are the ones between Scotty and Ortega on this one.

I had some T’Lyn vibes with the new vulcan girl at the begging of the episode, not much at the end.

That was great! I thought I knew where it was going but it totally surprised both me and my wife and we were like, “Damn, that was pretty good!”

Very hyped for shore leave episode now, the crew has earned it!

I really liked that episode. This is what star trek should be. Diplomacy with Sci fi. That’s why I fell in love with Star Trek in the first place.

So what part of this was from Jurassic Park?