Q&A

 **** (4 stars out of 5)

Flashback, as evidenced by starting with hazy formlessness like we're all just waking up after a long weekend. It’s probably 2254, pre-The Cage, and we've doubled down- this is the Enterprise uniform now. Oh, Discovery crew called it the "new uniform" 4 years from now? How do you define "new" anyway? New like New Ensign Spock, full of shouting and smiles like Spock was in 'The Cage'.

His new boss, whose NAME is Number One, demands he ask questions until it gets annoying. Where did Spock beam over from? Why all the close-ups? Why are the internal works of Enterprise cavernous and twisted? You know this isn’t a TARDIS, right? Why is the turbolift inside Willy Wonka’s Night Factory? Oh, never mind, now it's broken down. What's Upjohn? Not much, what's up wi' ye? Engineer Upjohn's no help until she fixes the busted cyfrifiadur. Looks like Spock and Number One are stuck until they have a genuine conversation or some sex.

Why is the sky black? Which of us loves Pike most? Can we agree that our breathless, desperate insistence that we are each the smartest in the room is true but not getting us anywhere, sex wise?

Ensign Spock proposes (as devil’s advocate?) that the Prime Directive is unethical, illogical, and morally indefensible. And that the universe is a simulation. He stops short of looking directly at the camera. I mean, he's a smart guy.

How does one achieve command? "Keep your freaky to yourself even if it’s painful." says Number One, whose name is Number One. She is hiding her singing talent, as Spock must hide his Vulcan glee. Which is Vulcan for sex.

It took 3 years to get back here, but this is maybe a glucose matrix taste of the upcoming series that a lot of Trekkies pinned their hopes on, including me.

One

** (2 stars out of 5)

A catcher's mitt-shaped nebula too high to get over, too low to get under, and full of nourishing soup (sorry, I meant sub-nucleonic radiation) is either going to take a year to avoid, or a month to cross... while frying every living thing aboard until it stops living. Except the Doctor and Seven of Nine, though it's anyone's guess why Seven (80% human, remember) is immune to burns that killed some people inside of a minute. No matter how much you wish she was, she's not Mr. Data.

Could they not see this deadly monstrosity coming with their fancy new astrometrics lab? Well, either way it amounts to everyone except Seven and the Doctor going into stasis. For the new humans, this will be a major mental challenge.

Speaking of mentally challenged, the stasis pods can be opened from inside. This seems like an overall good feature, but in this case if someone wakes up groggy and wanders around looking for a glass of milk THEY WILL BURN TO DEATH. Isn't that worth putting on, oh, I don't know... A BETTER LOCK? And just how is stasis a state from which you can spontaneously awaken? And if you have all those stasis pods, why aren't you using them to stay young? You could've been shaving tedious decades off your 75 year journey just by sleeping in shifts, right? Anyway, if this seems like nonsense that's probably because it is.

Seven of Nine begins a routine of daily activation, drinking her breakfast, roaming empty halls, and catching Tom Paris stumbling around in footy pyjamas. Also, barely tolerating fake interactions with holo-sims designed by the Doctor to help her be more sociable. Twilight Sparkle needs to learn that Friendship is Magic... just in case someone ever puts her in charge of 150 LIVES. Instead of, say, setting an alarm clock.

After ten days, the neural gel packs start to crap out, and so does the Doc's mobile emitter. Now Seven is alone. It's Silent Running but with Tits McGee instead of Bruce Dern. Worryingly, Seven begins to dream disturbing dreams while she's awake.

Speaking of dreamy, a bedroom-voiced space pirate wanders by looking to keep Seven company with a creepy game of hide-and-seek. Will all work and no play make Seven something something?

"One" answers the burning question: why figure out how to integrate Seven of Nine when you can just put everyone else in the trash?