WHY WE LIKE IT: Paul Wesley's Shatner impression.
WHY WE DON'T: OMG, this show is OBSESSED with Spock romances!
REVIEW: If the fans are split on this episode, it's because some see "The Last Frontier" show within the show (and its corresponding holographic "makers") as a fun tribute, while others see it as an insulting takedown. And yes, Paul Wesley doing a broad Shatner impression is at once funny and steps over the line (though I didn't see anyone specifically angered by Anson Mount's drunken take on Roddenberry). I get it, they're basically biting the hand that feeds them by (unfairly) trashing TOS, playing into what the "not we's" think the show was like, on a show that wouldn't exist without it. It's not the character parodies so much as just how terrible the writing and acting are on it. If Star Trek had actually been anything like this, it wouldn't have gotten past the pilot stage, but A Space Adventure Hour seems to say TOS really was like this, with Joni Gloss/Celia Rose Gooding's beautiful speech about the power of the show at odds with what we see of it, and a possible implant to get some forgiveness for the vicious spoof. That's if you take any of this seriously, which I don't think you're really meant to.
Well, I'll tell you why it works and why it doesn't, from a storytelling - rather than emotional - point of view. Though first reactions seemed oblivious to this (at least, those I was exposed to), The Last Frontier is bad because SNW is attacking generative A.I. here. The set looks like something you see in those A.I. remixes (what if TNG had TOS production values? etc.) and Hollywood's writers just had a union battle over A.I. scripting TV and movies. This ties in with the prototypical holodeck eating too much power and almost causing the ship to be destroyed, and how it's "algorithmically" tapping into La'an. It's not exactly subtle, but the allegory sort of gets lots in the murder mystery plot line. The reason it DOESN'T work is that those scenes are largely indulgent. Aside from the outtake La'an reviews, there is NO REASON the scenes from the teaser and end credits should have been generated (no matter how much I might enjoy hearing Frakes' voice as the director in the background). They have no point of view!
The episode manages a holodeck malfunction story before there were holodecks (see Secondary Watching) by explaining WHY this kind of "rec deck" technology wouldn't be fit on ships for decades yet. It also finds a fun reason for the cast to be involved even though they're technically studying a dangerous neutron star while La'an and Scotty put the holodeck through its paces. Prefiguring both Dixon Hill and Sherlock Holmes in TNG, La'an asks for a mystery and plays her childhood heroine Carmen Sandi--I mean, Amelia Moon, trying to figure out who murdered the producer who dared cancel Trek, sometimes with the help of Spock who, on second watch, is very much a Badgey figure, a "virtual assistant" available to her should she need him, and how she solves the mystery after the computer starts moving the goal posts. And because the computer keeps changing the mystery's solution, it's not really something the audience can figure out.
So Kirk plays Shatner (not flatteringly), Pike is Roddenberry, and I don't know if M'Benga and Uhura are necessarily based on real people. Una is essentially Lucille Ball. Ortegas is DeForest Kelley (Lee for Dee, western stylings, and the Doctor on the show). Chapel (amusingly) is Majel Barrett, and gets to use Jess Bush's native Australian accent. And not immediately apparent, but the new bartender, Kelzing, plays the cheap alien on the show. They're having fun, but it's fluff. Up top, I have to once more mention the Pelia/Scotty situation. Carol Kane is noticeably absent even though the ship has engineering problems, and the justification is that Scotty hasn't learned to ask for help yet (so he has a little arc here). Still. We also seem to be spending a lot of time in the engineering lab as opposed to Main Engineering this season. It's not like they needed to dismantle a virtual set, right? I do like that when he wants help, he goes to Uhura, and the look she gives him shows the glimmer of what might become their romantic connection in Star Trek V.
The other subplot brewing is one I can't really co-sign: La'an and Spock as a couple. Who asked for this? The Spock/Chapel 'ship was likely if not entirely mandated by TOS, but it SNW seems unable to get away from an emotional, romantic Spock, and this is the second original-cast character to get into bed with Khan's descendant. It's a rebound and won't last (although it's apparently months later in the next episode and still going on), but geez, hasn't this well run dry yet? I'm not saying they don't have chemistry or that they're dancing scenes aren't romantic ("And did you also... want?"), but La'an deserves better.
SECONDARY WATCHING: Though everyone acts like the holodeck is brand new in Encounter at Farpoint, its original introduction was in The Animated Series' The Practical Joker, and there again, it seems to have been installed too early (they almost freeze in a blizzard). There is, of course, no mention by Spock of the technology's testing on the Enterprise.
LESSON: A.I. SUCKKKKKKKKSSSSSSSSSS.
REWATCHABILITY - Medium: I'm landing in the middle of fan love and furor. It's amusing, there's a great speech in it, but it's also clunky on a storytelling basis and it's easy to misinterpret its intentions.
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