I enjoyed this one more than last week's - I think I'm calibrated to prefer the more heartfelt episodes over the sillier ones. And this one added "the purple D" to the lexicon, so that's...a real legacy, is what it is.

The Mariner subplot was pretty thin, and probably could have been cut entirely.

"We'll have to lick it off" had me reeling.

I found the lurkey quite funny this episode, even if it was a bit of an embellished and exaggerated character.

And my goodness, I love the guest star that they found on the time dilation planet in this episode: The Vasquez Rocks.

I'm loving the friendly beard-off between Boimler and Rutherford, who just casually between episodes has grown a stubble that is more impressive than Boims' shaggy growth.

It's especially nice that their differences didn't evolve into an episode-long, passive aggressive competition between comrades over who's is the better — oh, hello Tendi. Didn't see you there.

I have this headcanon now that Boimler met his purple universe self once, and that's why he started dying his hair.

Wait a minute now, is he actively dying his beard as it grows in? That's pretty weird, isn't it? Did he lie in his own personal log about dying his hair, or does the hair dying occur at a follicular level?

This one combined a favorite sci-fi trope (timey wimeys) with pure unadulterated ridiculousness. It might be a series favorite for me!

Damn, I guess the ship doesn't clean itself after all.

Annotations for 5x07 up at: https://startrek.website/post/16832667

What’s weird is in the IDW comics, Data has become a severed head again as well.

I’m a little sad. When I saw a time dilation plot, I was honestly expecting an unexpected romance to begin between Mariner and one of the other two (probably T’Lyn) - not like it fully develops, but like something weird to show up in the possible future we better get in the finale.