Nothing to add pertaining to this last FANTASTIC episode; I really just wanted to say I appreciate everyone posting here. After Reddit, I thought these kind of threads were done for, but here we are. So even if no one reads this, thank you and much love 🙏
Annotations up at https://startrek.website/post/282663.
This was a very TOS episode yet in terms of feel.
The dialogue could easily have come from the mouths of the TOS cast, and the situation on the planet reminiscent of officers violating the Prime Directive like in TOS: “The Omega Glory” or “Bread and Circuses”. Even Mount's delivery when on the planet was Shatner-esque.
I can readily imagine Kirk, McCoy and a random redshirt or Chekov on the planet in Pike, M’Benga and La’An’s place, and Sulu pulling it together like Ortegas.
I agree that it has a genuine TOS feel.
Especially as it gets back to the mid 20th century thought experiments around how the mind functions, but informed my more current understanding of memory, cognitive function and emotion.
I wasn’t quite sure the balance of the scenes was what it could have been, but it was good to see all of the main cast having their moments. I was nonetheless frustrated that Number One was quickly sidelined once again.
Also I was uncomfortable with how far Pike was willing to go in his aggression in order to get information from Zack. I believe we’re supposed to feel that, but it did feel that it was pushed just that moment longer to drive home the point that Pike’s deep ethics are what keeps him in check, not his emotions. It also tracks with his anger and how he even used it to break the thrall of the Talosians in The Cage.
But overall, I liked it. It’s a deeper and more challenging episode than it may seem on the surface, first watch. I suspect it will be one that stands up over a longer horizon.
Wow, these SNW writers really bring it each week, don't they? Not to say every episode is perfect but I've found every single one to be very entertaining and exactly what I want out of Star Trek in 2023. The combination of standalone stories mixed with underlying character development and arcs is perfect.
As for this week, the idea of encountering a planet that could make you forget everything was weirdly creepy, if not a bit implausible. Even if this wasn't her showcase episode, I grinned at Ortega's "I AM THE PILOT!" moment. Also enjoyed the away team being out of sorts on the planet which I thought was well done and not an action overdose like the season opener.
Wow, these SNW writers really bring it each week, don't they?
Don't they just! Genuinely excited whenever I fire up the episodes and watch the intro everytime (love the intro music!)
Memory loss is one of the scariest things in the known universe. This is a horror episode to me.
Was the high pitched ringing sound really necessary, especially for that long each time? That almost physically hurt and it scared the fsck out of my cat.
@BorgDrone @ValueSubtracted As a person with tinnitus, it seemed important to me. Let me know exactly what was going on. It's also very common in video games, for example when someone is dazed by a nearby explosion. Again it conveyed a lot of meaning to me and helped explain what they were going through.
Sure, but there is a difference between having that sound at low volume for 2 seconds and blasting it through all 10 speakers for 20.
Ooh, look at this guy with ten speakers! Fancy pants over here! : P
Definitely felt like classic trek this week. Fun episode. I was really hoping we would get a more in depth episode for Ortegas' character. I did read something last year that she was getting her own episode, so im going to assume this wasn't it.
I did let out a big guffaw when I realized their bait and switch. Started it out like it was going to be an Ortegas focused episode, and then Spock comes in and pops hers and everyone else's bubble with his Vulcan science. Loved how she put the hat back on as she was walking away, as if to say "I'm gonna wear this for a while longer because I can, dammit."
Ok, at the risk of sounding like a filthy casual, it's only now when I'm digging into Memory Alpha that I realized we're finally getting visualization of what Pike was so miserable about in TOS the Cage. I was like, why does Rigel VII sound so familiar...
This is the kind of retcon I live for!!
I've been watching Trek since I was basically a baby but don't have anywhere near the depth of knowledge of most people posting here. We are still valid!
Thoughts as I watch:
So, I'm wondering: is Cayuga a reference to Rod Serling? He named his production company that in reference to the lake in New York.
Relationships suck when you are a Starfleet captain who knows your destiny to one day be in a beepie chair.
Rigel 7, a deep cut!
We have gone (ZERO) days without some sort of Starfleet prime directive problem.
Finally, some Ortegas action!
"THE HAT IS SUPREME." I'm going to have to use that in conversation.
Oh man, at least she keeps the hat.
"Subdermal universal translators" are the new translation microbes
Oh boy, they have starfleet tech.
Ah, we've got a good old-fashioned "Federation citizen takes over a world" episode!
"This is a cage." Heh.
Forgetting is a scary side effect for a planet.
I get that they were only on there for like four hours, but shouldn't they have noticed stuff like this their last visit? Or maybe... THEY LOST
"Welcome to Memento/50 First Dates Planet"
Can still remember how to fight!
So I'm guessing Spock is probably one of the more resistant to all of this due to his Vulcan-ness.
Man, La'An is having a REALLY bad pair of weeks.
Captain Pike even without his memories is still Captain Pike. Makes sense.
Okay, I guess Spock isn't immune.
Glad to see the Connie class had GPS.
I gotta admit, I feel like Pelia would be good in this episode given just how many memories she has to lose and how many skills she has.
SHE FLIES THE SHIP
The ship's computer is great this week.
Damn, that is some tough silverware, standing up to phaser blasts.
Is it just me or is that a fresco or whatever of Alexander the Great... Zac-ized?
Okay, that logic doesn't quite seem sound, but whatever.
So, uhm, be careful about telling her about the Beepy-chair, Chris.
“This is a cage.” Heh.
I hope that one day Captain Pike visits a zoo and says "this is a menagerie".
This episode should have started in media res, with the away team already on planet and having lost their memories. Once we got the explainer as to what was happening, then we could return to the Enterprise to show the growing crisis there, and finally wrap everything up as the episode already did.
No.... I juste have a hate for most of the Trek episodes starting with a catastrophic situation and a blackout with a "XX hours ago..." captions...
Top easy writing.... At least, they build the tension here
Really enjoyed this episode, it didn't make the most sense at times but made up for it with an extremely disturbing core concept. And there is comfort in the idea that even without a significant portion of our memories, we're still "us".
I'm confused about one thing though and maybe I just missed something so someone can enlighten me. If the palace is so well-protected that just literally being inside it for ten minutes is enough to completely reverse the memory loss, why was Pike first affected by it while standing in the palace? Is it just that they weren't in there for very long during their first encounter with Zac, and the symptoms caught up with him, or did I miss something about how that worked?
At the start of the episode, when Ortegas was getting ready for the away mission, I thought this episode would have the scene from the start of the season 2 trailer where she (gleefully) pilots a shuttle down to a planet.
At least we know she will eventually get to go on an away mission!
That’s probably one of my favorite episodes of the series as a viewing experience, it was pretty entertaining. I don’t think I quite track…the message, though? In the span of about three minutes we get explicitly told that for Pike and Ortegas the memory loss could be revealing experience that identified the core of the self, while for their friend on the planet it was an obscuring experience that robbed him of things he didn’t know were important. You can explain away the difference with plot logic pretty easily, but thematically it’s a bit weird to juxtapose them right next to each other
I've been waiting for the crew explore a new planet. Hoping there's more of these episodes than less
Can the writers stop making La'an suffer? she can't catch a break lol
Miles O'Brien: "First time?"
It's a common trope that the away teams really shouldn't be landing in these planets without any idea what's down there without an alien style hazmat suit and here we go, another example :) I GUESS they get a pass because they were here before and the effects didn't happen because they were not here long enough
also really strange they don't confirm that people were dead? Or try and go back and get their bodies which might have equipment/ com badges /might even be alien (Spock was there and he bleeds green), maybe starfleet shouldn't be so careless about what they leave behind...
No EV suit would have protected them, either - the Enterprise was affected as well.
They handled that subtly - I was wondering why they didn't raise shields against the radiation, but the shimmering impact of the debris field seen when Ortegas was in her quarters showed that shields were indeed up, so that mean the radiation could get through shields. Then it was mentioned that Spock tweaked the shield harmonics at the end - I guess he didn't earlier because he was already affected.
I think at the time they lacked sufficient information to modulate the shields, which is why moving the ship into the astroids seemed logical.
I'm a bit undecided about this episode.
Stuff that I liked:
Stuff that I didn't like:
Still somewhat annoyed that there is no seat belt on the shuttle, even if it is to maintain continuity with TOS. M'Benga looked like he was going to bang his head and get a concussion when they were landing.
La'an: They won't see us coming.
Zac: We totally saw you from the other side of the planet a hemisphere away.
What was Zac trying to accomplish? He lured them there with the Starfleet Delta, but he was not going to hitch a ride home. He expected whatever ship that comes to inspect to... forget and go away, or suffer some disastrous result when the crew become unable to function? Why not just stay low and be king if he wasn't planning to leave?
It wasn't intentional. The Starfleet Delta was something Zac's followers had done to honour him, it wasn't intended as a lure.
Zac didn’t intend for Starfleet to notice the delta. He was content to just stay on Rigel VII as High Lord Zacarias, thinking that Starfleet would never return to the planet because of the debris field and the radiation. But then the Kalar used the delta as a symbol and it got spotted.
PIKE: Zac. We saw your message, the, um... the Delta in the garden. It's why we came. Isn't that why you did it?
ZAC: The people here adopted it as my symbol. I should have known better. It's all getting torn out tomorrow.
This episode belongs together with the better episodes of TNG. I liked it a lot.
Damn I love this show. I can't help but wonder if Hemmer would have been affected differently by the radiation if he wasn't a gorn egg popsicle.
I've only managed to see this episode once, but something I didn't understand was Spock's decision to try and hide in the debris field. At this point they believed the planet was the source of the problem, but it seemed mostly a guess that the debris field might shield them.
Wouldn't the most logical action have been to get as far away from the planet as reasonably possible until the effects appeared to subside? I know Una made a point that they had crew down there, but it's not as if they can't return more cautiously and with a clearer understanding of what's happening. You're also helpless to help your landing party if you're completely incapacitated yourself.
Have I missed something important?
My headcanon is that the radiation had already begun affecting his decision-making.
It's a stretch, I know.
I wrote this as I was watching:
If I remember correctly, the very first scene of S1E1 was Batel waking up in Pike's bed, so.. yeah :D
Good Lord they established that Pike and Batel have a relationship in the first episode.
@cyberic @ValueSubtracted She was in S1E1, scene 1. She was trying to get him to leave his cabin and get back to work.
She was in "A Quality of Mercy" as well.
For the last one: Spock stated that the previous mission they hadn't stayed as long as they were when the effects started happening.
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