As the year comes to an end, Caleb must choose between the life he thought he wanted and the life he’s built for himself at Starfleet Academy. Meanwhile, Nahla breaks protocol in one final gambit to keep a promise to Caleb.
Written by: Kirsten Beyer & Kenneth Lin
Directed by: Jonathan Frakes
There is no spoiler protection in the episode discussion threads, and spoiler tags are not necessary!
Is there any chance for a resolution of this story where Caleb’s mother does not die?
I think this was a solid episode, but very “by the books”. No real surprises here plot wise. Well except these deus ex machina mines
a detailed I liked is that brakka told he had a gift for the federation with a big red bow. looking at the mine ring of image mines. It is clear he meant that
Well, that’s a lot. I’m not sure why I didn’t expect a cliffhanger, and I hope there won’t be one at the end of the season.
As we saw the wall of omega-47 mines, it occurred to me that Brakka had told Ake what he wanted in episode 6 — a return to the isolation of planets that gave him and the Venari Rahl their power — but neither she nor Vance appreciated the scale of his ambitions to return to the anarchy of past century.
And the Federation should have anticipated this kind of challenge to come from some quarter, even if they’d come to detente with the Emerald Chain. Those who benefited from the systems that were built up over the century of the Burn would have nostalgia for it and distrust against the Federation would not vanish quickly.
I appreciate the narrative structure of the season, Anisha and Caleb Mir represent those who struggled to get by around the powers and forces of the Burn. There is a personal story and a societal story about making choices to take the risk to move towards something better — as found family and as a society.
As it goes on, this show reminds me increasingly of The Magicians, on which SFA showrunner Noga Landau was a head writer at one point. There’s the quotidian developmental, coming of age challenges of students in their undergraduate years juxtaposed with massive and truly menacing events.
Why did they bother introducing the Athena’s bridge crew if they’re not going to use them?
I guess reunification between the Vulcans and Romulans must have taken a while if Vulcan was renamed to Ni’var in Nahla’s lifetime.
Convenient that they waited until the school year was over to lose most of the school.
Why did they bother introducing the Athena’s bridge crew if they’re not going to use them?
Alex Kurtzman has said on a couple of occasions that this series is less expensive to produce that you might imagine, and I do think there have been a handful of moments throughout the season that seemed like cost-cutting measures. This was definitely one of them.
Jonathan Frakes mentions several things in the TrekMovie interview that may impact costs.
Alex Kurztman set the direction style with more close up, tight camera work. More, he specifically ordered special long camera lenses to enable that. This means that despite the enormous sets and UHD cinematography, with long lenses they are able to block the scenes without as much extraneous detail.
Saving the wide angles for when they need them but closing up on the characters, and doing more in set internal volumes must surely reduce a lot of crew time and accelerate production.
Announcing Becky Lynch only to use her an an extra twice, doesn’t feel like cost cutting as much as a potential breach of contract.
I don’t watch WWE, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Becky’s wrestling gear based on her character’s uniform has gotten more screen time than the actual uniform.
I think we’d have to know a lot more to draw that conclusion - and not for nothing, but from what I can remember, she announced herself on social media - CBS didn’t really say anything IIRC.
Damn. That was an unexpected ending.
Wonder what Frakes has in store for next week.EDIT: It was heartwarming to see the R’uustai again.
EDIT 2: I thought I had heard Frakes directed two episodes.
Frakes says this was the last Star Trek episode he has directed. None of the filming since has fit his schedule.
Bella Shepherd, who plays Genesis, said in an interview that Frakes was originally booked for direct her character’s feature episode in season two, but then he couldn’t be available because of conflicts but was expected to direct a later episode. It sounds as though they couldn’t make the schedules mesh.
Annotations for 1x09 are up at: https://startrek.website/post/36408558
