As our cadets return home for their first school holiday, they must choose between what their families expect of them and their own dreams for the future — including an aspiring captain who’s secretly willing to risk everything to re-write her own past, and an aristocratic cadet called to serve his planet way before he’s ready.
Written by: Alex Taub & Eric Anthony Glover
Directed by: Andi Armaganian
There is no spoiler protection in the episode discussion threads, and spoiler tags are not necessary!
This was most definitely my least favourite. Why show what Kionians look like in episode 1 when you’re just going to make them all look human in episode 7. Just seems lazy to me.
Genesis and Caleb’s story was better, but seemed out of character for Genesis. I also disliked the suggestion that men & women can’t be friends without falling in love with each other.
Well, that was certainly a low-stakes palate cleanser after last week’s more intense episode. Probably a little too low-stakes for my liking.
They seemed intent on inverting common tropes in this one:
The “arranged marriage” storyline didn’t play out in a way that we’ve really seen before.
Similarly, Darem’s overall arc of “I need to stop being such a people-pleaser so I can be my more authentic, dickish self” is…a twist.
Caleb and Genesis put any “will they/won’t they” plotlines to rest (though I suppose they could revisit it).
And Genesis’ deep, dark secret turned out to be…not that deep. As much as I appreciate the inversion and that she didn’t turn out to be a Species 10-C spy or something, I feel like we still don’t know enough about Genesis. We’re going to have to meet her dad to really get to the bottom of her character, I think.
I really don’t think we were meant to interpret the advice of “be a dick” literally. People with social anxiety often feel like they’re being a dick when others just see confidence and playful teasing.
I interpreted his lesson to stop being afraid of how others perceive him, which is a recurring theme of this series.
Yeah, I exaggerate, but I think the message was definitely that it’s okay to embrace your inner cockiness, which I think is an untraditional (but interesting!) message.
The thing is, for Darem, his family and his people, this might be a high stakes situation.
It’s a change in leadership model, with a young new monarch. It should have more weight — especially as we and Jay-Den learn that they have some advanced Ionian-level portal technology. So, they seem the legacy of an advanced species with a highly structured society.
But the feel of the event was more like a resort destination wedding than a constitutional event.
The Khionians clearly a society hiding behind masks, and Darem excels at that.
BUT in the end, Darem’s long time betrothed expresses betrayal that Darem had been wearing a kind of mask with her, never showing his true self.
So, she sees only the ultimatum of an abdication an annulment as a solution.
Being creative and allowing Darem to continue with Starfleet so he could grow and become more comfortable and confident in his own identity, was beyond her ability to imagine.
Bit of a snooze fest if I’m honest. I was hoping we’d get more screen time with Genesys at some point but this was a bit flat and boring. It also seems to counter her character, an otherwise brilliant cadet that’s acing it but does really obviously dumb shit? Didn’t quite buy it.
The whole episode was quite predictable, this might possibly be my least favourite episode so far.
So how did Reno break her toe?
EDIT: This had the feel of “Family”.
She felt like testing the impact door.
Im so glad they brought her into SFA. We definitely didnt see enough of her in DSC.
The swing from the last episode to this is crazy. I enjoy a good backstory, but was hoping there would have been something more interesting on the side quests. Maybe at the academy there is some systems failure and they have to camp outside idk… our maybe the wedding starts and there is a murder they need to solve… Anything… Backstory stuff is ok, but when the seasons are only like 10 episodes, I’m not sure they are with it.
Overall, yes I enjoyed this episode. Would i slip it on rewatch, likely.
I thought this episode was the sort of comfortable, regular-ass side quest character-development stories the fans are always clamoring for. Honestly surprised to see the largely negative reaction here.
Quieter episode but I enjoyed it. I wasn’t expecting a Genesis story this season from what’s been said, but I was glad to get one.
Meh, didn’t really care for this episode. The wedding stuff would have interested me more if we were already more invested in Darem and his culture, but there is too much going on at the same time (lore-wise).
As for the academy stuff, don’t know. Considering Giamatti is in this show, I hoped Genesis, Caleb and Reno would do a The Holdovers, but the entire premise falls flat. Again, too much in one episode. Genesis is first about to be recommended into that Captains program and in the same episode not. Wish this would have been more of a storyline between episodes.
After I thoroughly enjoyed the past episodes this is the weakest episode of the series so far to me.
Yeah, I liked the episode, nothing felt out of place in individual scenes, but you’re right it does feel like they were trying to fit too much story into too little time. There’s like four B-plots in there.
Yeah each scene works for itself, but together it doesn’t create something that has anything to say. Every plot point has been seen somewhere else already, so it’s not like there’d be any big surprises.
I think Darem’s story suffers most. It’s ironic if his bride says “Jay-Den talks about a side of yours I have never seen” if they all talk about a Darem we have never seen before. Not sure what the authors were thinking in this episode.
A low point episode for me, the wedding could have been much better just adding a nemesis character to Daren that is hovering over her fiancee to grab the throne, some dark guy with evil intentions. As for the Genesis/Caleb plot I only enjoyed that he knew all the time she was playing him, I would have enjoyed much more if he will have resolved the issue, and don’t have to tell the Chanciller about it.
Not very interesting episode, the main problem is that Darem has changed because a lot of time has passed between episodes, and I don’t have a sense of that (there is a line when they said how long Tarima has gone for the recovery) , he has evolved from the character he was on the first episode, but we don’t realize it
The change in Darem was the whole point of the Calica/prank episode. He went from needing to be the best (because of his parent issues) to apologizing to Genesis, supporting her as their team leader (with the prank as well), and telling his parents he’s found another way.
With the Miyazaki episode, he immediately gave Genesis credit for the idea of how to find the cloaked ship, and while he didn’t have lines for it, when she was getting frustrated with the search, his body language and gestures were essentially encouraging her.
Annotations for 1x07 are up at: https://startrek.website/post/35797552
