WHY WE LIKE IT: The most Canadian episode ever! (Just me? Something more general? Ok:) That cathartic ending.
WHY WE DON'T: Oh God, the Temporal Wars.
REVIEW: First order of business, as this is ANOTHER episode with very little Pike in it, I want to apologize to the production team for whining about his absence, having just heard they specifically gave Anson Mount the break so he could spend time with his newborn. In a way, this helps attenuate a problem caused by nuTrek's (nuTV's, really) fewer-episode-per-season format. During the expanded TNG era, we had around 24 episodes a season, and that allowed for many more spotlights on various cast members, and greater investment in every character. SNW's 10 offers less than half that, so La'an's spotlight in Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow really helps her character, even if everyone else is short-changed. Everyone else except Paul Wesley's James T. Kirk. Though he's from an alternate timeline again, this one is much closer to what Wesley wanted to do with the character, I think (the one brief scene with the prime timeline's Kirk seems to confirm it, anyway), and the net result of the episode is that I like BOTH nunuKirk and La'an much more than I ever did before.
If you didn't like Enterprise's Temporal Cold War arc, you might be a little edgy at the thought of revisiting it, but this is nuTrek's chance to integrate it into the larger narrative and use it to explain why the Eugenics Wars didn't happen in the 1990s, but nevertheless happened later, probably combined with World War III. Nitpickers have been griping about these retcons for a while now, but I've been saying for YEARS that whatever discrepancies were introduced in the prequel shows (INCLUDING Enterprise) were caused by Temporal Cold War shenanigans. In no way is this air-tight, but it'll do as a magic wand. The writers taking a passing swipe at the Sam/George Kirk bug from the original series itself. Trek has never been as cohesive as we think it is, especially in the way it deals with time travel, so I think we're being told to just go with the flow. I'm happy to.
So it seems the Romulans got involved in the Time Wars at some point and given how their empire lies in ruins by the time of Star Trek: Picard, we can understand how at least SOME Romulan elements might want to undo Federation history. We learn the Star Empire had contemporary agents on Earth in the mid-21st Century trying to slow down our progress, just as a neighborly thing to do, but the TIME agent we meet, Sera, was sent back to escalate these "timid" terrorist actions. Pinning down the exact year is difficult, and some audience members might be confused at Sera saying the Eugenics Wars should have happened in 1992, AND that she's been stuck on Earth for 30 years, but no, this isn't 2022. That's hardly MID-Century. This has to be after Picard Season 2, right? The cars look contemporary, but the giant bridge, genetic scanners, profiling of Americans (darkly amusing), etc. place this later. Regardless, it's pretty fun that the episode takes place in slushy Toronto where the show is filmed, and that of course Kirk mistakes it for New York. I think a shot of the CN Tower should have been inserted when La'an tells him "duh", it would have been a better punchline than having to notice the Eaton Center or whatever they were expecting. Bit of a surprise that La'an would know all about Canada's biggest city (poutine jokes and all), but I'll eagerly accept it.
The mission: To find out what makes the timeline deviate and set history on the right path, and a couple MacGuffins later, prevent the Romulan agent from killing Khan as a child (her plan B). Along the way, they get help from a Rain Robinson (Future's End) type, who we accept at the kind of character who shows up in these kinds of stories, and from Enterprise's future engineer Pelia, alive in this time, but not yet an engineer. She's cleverly embedded in the show in the opener as one of several problems La'an has to deal with in a montage so that La'an can eventually realize she could get help from this mad antiquities collector in Vermont. That's the characters' mission, but the SHOW's mission is a little more perverse: Having Kirk kiss Khan's granddaughter (several times removed, obviously).
But seriously, folks, these two are a great pairing. Nice banter. Kirk is an attractive man, and La'an notices (the ep is more female gaze than male gaze, happily), and there's something about him that makes her relax, even beyond the fact he's never heard her family name - as Khan never rose up in his timeline). He has a sense of humor and fun, which La'an rarely allows herself, but is also extremely smart, scoring currency by playing outdoor chess (this is the guy who in another world regularly beat a Vulcan at the 3D version). He's the full package. But he's conflicted too, which is perfectly in line with his TOS portrayal. This younger Kirk, actually FROM Space, having been born aboard the USS Iowa (Destiny likes a laugh) as Earth is a wasteland in his time, doesn't initially see why he should erase his United Earth timeline in favor of La'an's Starfleet paradigm, but there are several moments where La'an makes a dent. One is Sam still being alive in her version, another has him pause at the idea of being an explorer rather than a Solar System defender, and a more subtle moment at Pelia's has him just react pensively at Pelia's when La'an says she's trying to protect "something beautiful". And though La'an wants to find a way to bring him back to her timeline, we know there has to be a sacrifice. The City on the Edge of Forever taught us that protecting history exacts a toll, especially if you're anomalous. I applaud the writers for not quoting Kirk's ultimate death in Generations or anything from Edge here.
Once Sera is defeated, a lone La'an dares walk into Khan's room. He's a little boy. Harmless. Normal. We're meant to think of the previous episode where La'an is told genetics alone do not chart your destiny, it's what you do with that potential. A dodgy message in an episode where Destiny forces certain configurations (despite everything, there's an identical Enterprise with Kirk, Uhura and Ortegas aboard), but one that makes this adventure a cathartic one for La'an. Her return to the proper timeline, and subsequent call to Lt. Kirk to see him alive and in good spirits, but obviously unaware of their shared history. So we end on a powerful emotional outburst of mixed relief, fatigue, liberation, and crushing loneliness. How can we NOT like La'an more after this episode? Between this and The Broken Circle, she's rising to the top of my favorite characters in the series.
SECONDARY WATCHING: Honestly, I'm not going to watch Temporal Cold War episodes of Enterprise until they decide to finally reveal who the shadowy figure was.
LESSON: Genetics isn't destiny, except when it literally is.
REWATCHABILITY - Medium-High: I don't think I needed the retcons explained, but whether I knew it or not, I DID need spotlights on La'an and young Kirk.
Comments
It was a lot of fun to see so many familiar sites, including my standard afternoon walk along Harbourfront, and setting office buildings past (the CBC Building) and present (in the background of Queen’s Quay.)