Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 2x03 "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow"
::: spoiler Logline La’An travels back in time to twenty-first-century Earth to prevent an attack which will alter humanity’s future history—and bring her face to face with her own contentious legacy. :::
Nice character episode with a simple premise and a good amount of Pelia!
I’ve always thought Trek is at its worst or riskiest when doing time travel stuff, but the tone and focus of this episode being on La’an and her relationship to her heritage really centered the episode. In a way it was a subtle, but strong, IMO, character driven plot point to have her struggle with finding for once a real intimate connection with someone destined to be lost and “forgotten”.
Having Kahn appear as a child was low-key wonderful.
What’s up with the watch? Is there more to Pelia than meets the eye? Seems she’s conveniently forced herself and her myriad belongings onto the ship for this particular time period while also (and I forget what Trek’s take on time travel is here) knowing about that watching coming on board at this point … ?
Anyone else feeling a certain lack of Pike in the first 3 episodes? Not against it, it just seems somewhat conspicuous given that I imagine the character is half of the reason the show exists.
Paul Wesley's performance certainly isn't Shatnerian (nor should it be), but I thought he was charming in his own right. May he play an endless procession of alternate Kirks.
The writers showed remarkable restraint in not bringing in Spiner to play Adam Soong.
One thing I did not care for was the official conflation of the Department of Temporal Investigations and Voyager's time cops. I prefer those being separate entities, with DTI being a fairly boring Federation department that interrogates time travel adventures. A minor thing, and that ship sailed in the fandom long ago, so I will let it go.
I like the premise of the episode, but it’s just… such Marvel writing, especially the whole car stuff with Kirk. I pretty much expected him or La’an to go “he’s right behind me, isn’t he?” at some point in the episode
Felt like it probably worked a bit less like a time travel mystery, but worked very well as a La'an character piece. She got to experience what it was like to live without the burden of her heritage, but realised that for the greater good, the bad things had to happen.
The plot contrivances were a bit on the nose, the convenience with which they located people and facilities in particular, but again, it didn't bother me one bit. The emotional scene of La'an in her quarters, at the end, after her call with Kirk... great stuff!
I expected a Guinan-esque moment where she would hand the watch back to Pelia and they would just smirk and nod. I felt like Pelia was given her "the look" when she returned to the bridge at the end, so that may have been it. But then the "cliffhanger ending" where the camera focused on the watch? Who knows, Boimler may need to come back and fix this mess!
But also... no matter which timeline we're in: Where did Chief Kyle go??? Was he too mean?
There are no gymnastics necessary since he's not "our" Kirk. He's an alternate timeline Kirk. The only time we see the "real" Kirk (Lt. Kirk) is at the end of this episode where La'an space-Facetimes him.
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