WHY WE LIKE IT: Wesley's grand plan (and final line).
WHY WE DON'T: One rescue seems too easy (but in retrospect...).
REVIEW: Asencia is a real spoiler, you know? It's not just that she's using Wesley's temporal knowledge to build a war fleet, but her younger, uncorrupted self shows up on the kids' disavowable Solum mission to tell them Gwyn's dad is in danger, forcing the group to split up... And that's gonna make all the difference. Perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself, but so is Wesley...
A secret mission, using the kids' lack of Starfleet status to get around the Prime Directive, is a good reason to get them out of uniform and back to their original designs. Fun to see them again before the end. Rok's little cloaking shield provides the means to walk around on Solum, but also a few comedy moments. Her pet Bribble, however, is once again surplus to requirements (unless you like poop jokes). The best part, character-wise, is that Dal tells Gwyn he'll back her play. Though he normally sees himself as the "captain", he respects her leadership here. Even when she makes a mistake (but does she?). Wesley's plan required the kids not to split up, but splitting up was the previous episode's lesson! It seemed the right thing to do, complete all missions. He backs her play again at the end, creating a tense cliffhanger as both key players are saved, but the kids are left on Solum, in Asencia's hands.
Of the two missions, Dal's team rescuing Gwyn's dad is almost too simple. They do get caught at the end, so we can't call it "too easy", but that's how it feels. Not enough incident. Gwyn's team going after Wesley is much better. Some fun with Murf squeezing through a tiny hole, Zero puppeteering an unconscious guard, and of course, Wesley explaining his plan. He came back in time from exposing his plan to the kids to get captured ON PURPOSE, even at the risk of letting Asencia use him to wage war on the Federation. Wha--?! Yes, it's a grand timey-wimey scheme to manipulate the villain into creating a wormhole for the Protostar to close the loop... and it all falls apart because the heroes have agency, and we understand that him saying he doesn't know what's going to happen is the cliffhanger to end all cliffhangers. It's good stuff.
LESSON: Don't second-guess a good plan.
REWATCHABILITY - Medium-High: Sometimes feels like the episodes are too short to make each piece sing, but the important parts certainly do.
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