WHY WE LIKE IT: An interesting alternate universe and finally (?) the end of that subplot.
WHY WE DON'T: NuNuKirk.
REVIEW: In some ways, the previous episode was the season finale - a character died, one left, one was at a crossroads - and A Quality of Mercy (come on, why not call it "Terror of Balance"?!) feels like a bonus episode, but for its cliffhanger (mirroring Lower Decks') and the resolution of Pike's subplot about trying to change his fate. But since we're going to spend a lot of time in an alternate future, few characters get a chance to "advance", though we might see hints of things to come. La'an softening. Chapel joining Starfleet proper. Scotty joining the cast at some point (whether Michael Wolf is just providing a voice cameo or actually playing the part is not known, but the next engineer, as announced, is NOT Scotty). And Una being arrested for breaking the rule about genetic modifications will obviously be a Season 2 concern. Uhura sticking around is no surprise of course (do wish they'd updated her hairstyle though).
Though it might be easy to ignore the scene where Captains Pike and Batel get together again, I need to point out some clever writing. Pike talks about the meal he's making, saying he's turning leftovers into something new. This foreshadows the "Balance of Terror" remix we're about to get - same circumstances, new captain, something old made new. More on the nose, but no less enjoyable are Batel's comments about Pike striving to be a "man out of time" and being intrigued at the "Chris of tomorrow". A potentially painful irony given the fate he knows he faces, we're about to meet the Chris of an alternate future, a Rear-Admiral in a reality ravaged by war, a war so bad, the Klingons are willing to send assassins through time to prevent it. There's little choice when we put it that way. Future Pike, in his movie-era uniform (squee! but what's with the leather sleeve?), either commits temporal suicide by showing Today's Pike why he can't alter his fate, or a bat'leth is going to do it for him. It's a bit wonky to have Pike experience the turning point as a second-guesser rather than have him observe not just the event, but later consequences, in the third person, but we can agree much more dramatic.
Revisiting the events of "Balance of Terror" is pretty fun, in particular because the program can now show the destruction of the outpost and the battle with the Romulans in gorgeous detail. (This is a very good-looking episode, with moody bridge scenes and lots of special effects, my only complaint the silly upside down bridge of the Farragut during its maneuvers.) Though circumstances change, they keep the essentials. Several music cues. The wedding (Martine dies this time). Many of the Romulan Commander's best lines. Ortegas playing the Lt. Stiles role of kneejerk warhawk, yeah okay. But they shouldn't have changed the Romulan make-up (since Romulans without forehead ridges are known to exist even post-TOS), as it takes away from the necessary similarity with the Vulcans.
But the big change is, of course, that Pike has survived to this point (now 7 years from Season 1 instead of the 10 suggested earlier - do we have our series finale?) and remained captain of the Enterprise. Ortegas, Mitchell and George Samuel Kirk are still aboard, which speak to their loyalty to Pike (that they would leave after his accident in the main timeline). Jame T. Kirk is instead captain of the Farragut and shows up during the incident, and that's where I have to register disappointment with the casting, basically for the first time in Trek's renaissance. I find in Paul Wesley nothing recognizable AS Kirk. Not his appearance, not his voice, not his demeanor... And the performance is pretty dull. It's not the script per se because we get Kirk as a maverick with innovative gambits who finds a way to turn situations to his advantage. Apparently, Wesley was bringing more Classic Kirk to the table, but was asked by the production to dial it down or off, that this was a DIFFERENT Kirk, in a different timeline. But how different? According to the calendar established here, Pike's accident would have been 6 months ago, so TOS Season 1 up through "Balance of Terror" (at least in the production order) is a period of no more than 6 months where Kirk has the benefit of Spock (and McCoy, though we don't know he wasn't on the Farragut) to counsel him. Does that change him? Does losing his friend Gary Mitchell? Having the criminally underused La'an as his first officer? Nothing really comes to mind. Wesley might return as a younger Kirk some day - hopefully he can do what he wanted to do with the character then, but as of now, my assessment is really low.
The whole idea of contrasting Pike and Kirk is perhaps a losing enterprise. We like both captains, and they are quite similar in surface ways - men of action who enjoy a strong camaraderie with their crew and have a good sense of humor - but Pike, as designed, was always more intellectual (from "The Cage", at least). Here, one is a hawk and the other is a dove. The episode shows that Kirk was the right man to navigate the martial cultures of the Federation's enemies of his era. Pike is more like Picard than Kirk in the types of risks he's willing to take, so his more diplomatic approach is a loser. This isn't a great message for Star Trek to pass on - it usually IS about the triumph of diplomacy - but Pike is simply too ahead of his time. Hey, so was the Romulan Commander. But this show of weakness from the Federation leads to a very different message sent back to Romulus, and they send a whole fleet to capitalize on the mistake. Not only does this event start a never-ending war - in the original timeline, the bird-of-prey's destruction makes the Star Empire more cautious - but Spock is taken out of commission with wounds ironically similar to the ones Pike is trying to avoid. No Spock, no Unification, and so the war goes on and on.
In the end, Pike has to see his accident as a necessary sacrifice to save millions of lives on both sides, but his friend Spock's in particular. And hopefully, he's at peace with it and we need not hear about this ever again. The question that lingers is how much of this has Pike revealed to others (or even been allowed to remember). In "Balance of Terror", everyone is still surprised that there's a genetic connection between the Romulans and Vulcans, so it's likely he didn't log any of it. After all, he's just learned that meddling with future events causes problems. But might he have told Spock (as it appears he definitely told him about the foretold accident)? Spock can at least be counted on to keep a secret, and in "Balance", he does seem to know a little more than he did in this timeline, so... Forewarned, he did a little digging? But these are questions for our next rubric...
SECONDARY WATCHING: Obviously, the one to rewatch is Balance of Terror, but it's more of a compare/contrast exercise than a continuity check. Given that Spock is here shown to know about Pike's fate, I also rewatched The Menagerie where it's clear he had some knowledge of what might happen. Think about it. The accident has recently happened, and there's no way for Pike to communicate with Spock, but he still goes "No! No!" to his former first officer's elaborate plan. It's like they discussed it earlier. And when did Spock contact Talos IV to make arrangements? There's just no time for any of it to happen unless he had arranged it long ago.
Another episode to quickly check is DS9's Doctor Bashir, I Presume. Una's arrest may also be the incident referred to by Chief O'Brien when he says that Starfleet hasn't dealt with a case like Bashir's "in a hundred years".
LESSON: Not everyone wants to be your friend.
REWATCHABILITY - Medium-High: If I could believe in this version of Captain Kirk, it would be a stellar episode.
Comments
Pike wasn't the captain of the Enterprise when he had his accident. He was a fleet captain. He had met Kirk when they changed commands, which had to be sometime before the accident. "Where no man..." also takes place maybe a year or more before "Balance of Terror," and Kirk and Spock already seem to have a good working relationship. The exact timeline for the second pilot depends on whether you take the visual cues of the bridge, ship and uniforms seriously -- SNW is already asking us to ignore them.
So the fake timeline Kirk has had more than a year of different experiences as captain of the Farragut than the real Kirk had working with Spock on the Enterprise. I also got the impression that him being captain of a smaller less-important ship was part of what was affecting his characterization in the episode.