It’s not a bad episode, but it’s not going to go down as one of SNW’s strongest, and it’s an oddly dour note to set as a tone for the upcoming season. The first season premier was full of optimism and hope even when circumstances seemed dire, and this episode at times almost seems to be the reverse. We are now reminded that so many characters are carrying the trauma of the Klingon War: Ortega knowing how to hide among asteroids, Chapel with her medical knowledge, and M’Benga who has apparently been carrying Emergency Punching Juice on every single away mission. And to hammer the point home, April makes it clear that the Gorn are coming in force and Starfleet is not going to be at peace during season 2 of a show called Strange New Worlds. I could be wrong, and I’m not saying it can’t work as a season-long arc, but we’re very far from Pike giving an anti-war, aspirational speech to the 21st-century-equivalent aliens.

I’m also worried that the writers of SNW are building toward some Big Moment for Spock which will make him decide that he needs to shut down open expression of his emotions for all of TOS, and that’s how they will reconcile the two shows and two portrayals of the character.

Pelia is great, though. A fantastic twist on the old “alien observes humanity from the outside” Trek character, and clearly much more willing to get down and dirty with the technobabble than Guinean ever did. Here’s hoping this chief engineer actually gets an episode devoted to her…