WHY WE LIKE IT: The tributes.
WHY WE DON'T: The tributes?
REVIEW: Before I get into it, let me go back to Discovery's season opener for a second. It was called "Kobayashi Maru" and I didn't think it really deserved to be. Bit vague, bit plugged in, not entirely justified. And it's even worse considering that the kids of Prodigy find the holodeck and run the famous test. So coming second, it has to settle for just "Kobayashi", which still stick out because it's released in the same year. Ok, mini-rant over, as none of this is this particular episode's fault.
"Kobayashi" (sigh) is actually quite fun for Easter Egg and reference hunters. Dal has apparently found the cone and ball game from "The Game", though it doesn't have the addictive component, thankfully. His gamer brain is blown when Janeway presents the holodeck, again with some references including the Vulcan arena in "Amok Time" and Janeway's own "Jane Eyre" program. When he chooses the Kobayashi Maru scenario, Trekkies know how it's going to go, and that could be reference enough. But no, instead of calling in his crew, Dal decides to let the computer choose "some of the best" officers in Starfleet history. This is essentially an excuse to pay tribute to some of Trek's dearest departed, including Leonard Nimoy (Spock), René Auberjonois (Odo, strangely sitting up front on a Galaxy-class bridge) and James Doohan (Scotty), with Nichelle Nichols in the mix as Uhura, which feels preemptive given her ill health of late. That's one DS9 and three TOS (with Scotty in a Movie-era uniform), so they throw TNG a bone by having Gates MacFadden sit in as Dr. Crusher. She's also able to read new lines, which is useful given that everyone else is a walking clip show. Sometimes it's surprising how well it fits, other times, the lines are too well-known and call attention to themselves and seem forced.
So do we like this? I got a lot of joy from it initially, but a character like Spock gets such a big role (his lines have to be pulled from various points in his life and the sound - and voice - quality is all over the place), it's a little creepy over time. It's a little like resurrecting the dead. So to any given fan, it could work or not. How did you feel about it? In the end, I think my thumb will keep pointing up. Creating an all-star crew creates a sense that it really is Dal's fault when the mission fails over and over again, and it's fun to see their shocked expressions when he's first read to let the Kobayashi Maru get destroyed. We don't see every attempt, but there are dozens and dozens, some entertaining and crazy. AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" piped into the Klingons' coms, shades of Star Trek Beyond, while he throws the warp core at them. He even wins according to the original parameters, but you can't win no matter what, so the bar keeps being reset, for more craziness. In the end, Dal finally realizes he's not really a captain, and the point is made that he should listen to his crew more and work with them as a team.
For the younger kids watching, there's a C-plot about Murph eating grenades and proving pretty impervious to everything. Meanwhile, in the B-plot, Gwyn, betrayed by her father in the first act of the show, is integrating into the Protostar's crew, looking for her role. Her facility with languages creates a path, helping the crew decode information in the ship's computer that even Janeway doesn't have access to. It's all a little mysterious still, but the super-engine might share an origin with her and the Diviner (who, in flashback, is seen to create his daughter artificially as his whole people have been destroyed somehow). And then we find out the Protostar used to be commanded by Chakotay (ensuring ANOTHER guest role). That means only Enterprise is left without a guest appearance. Oh well.
LESSON: Sometimes you win by realizing you can't.
REWATCHABILITY - Medium-High: I do question whether just because we can edit in actors who have passed away, we should, but as a one-off, it's mostly fun, with intriguing reveals making up the other parts of the episode.
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