Pike mentions that he would be excited to set foot on Archer’s Enterprise. In “These Are the Voyages…” we learn that he is the one who wrote the parameters for a popular holo-simulation where the user plays the role of the NX-01’s chef.

I don’t recall the program’s author being mentioned, much less it being attributed to Pike. 🤔

I deeply appreciated seeing some on-screen Enterprise love, because I feel like Enterprise gets a bum wrap.

I haven’t gotten around to Lower Decks, but this episode was simply brilliant even for me. Just sublime all around.

Controversial opinion, but I was disappointed to see such a shitty show so high on the list.

E: when I checked the show at the top of the list was Seinfeld. I see it’s LA Law now, my feelings against which are much less extreme. 😝

All in all I’d say each of the listed changes were for the best.

I think it’s because it’s so different from any of the other Star Trek themes, even from the rest of the Berman era. It’s bright, bouncy, optimistic, and bombastic. DS9 and Voyager were both more sweeping and majestic, and the movie themes each skewed more melodic.

The franchise hasn’t really captured the same energy in a theme since, either.

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“Why make Chakotay a lt. commander rather than a full commander?”

Even after all these years, I’m not convinced that they did.

I’ll note upfront that I know his provisional rank insignia was that of Lt. Commander, and I know that it’s common practice to refer to a Lt. Commander as simply “commander”. Data, Worf, and Tuvok were regularly referred to as simply “Commander”. I fully understand this. But the thing is that these other officers were introduced, or introduced themselves, in formal situations by their full rank on more than one occasion. When the plot called for their personnel files to appear on screen, their full ranks were displayed with their name as “Lt. Commander”.

Chakotay was never, not even once, referred to out loud or in text as “Lieutenant Commander”.

From a Doylist perspective, I’m of the mind that the writers intended for Chakotay to be a full Commander, the same rank as Riker or early-DS9 Sisko, but the costume department goofed and it was simply never corrected — because on the screens of the era, it didn’t really matter because who’s gonna look that closely at the guy’s neck?

A possible Watsonian explanation is that while he was granted the rank of Lt. Commander provisionally (the rank he held prior to his resignation from Starfleet as well as the rank held by Janeway’s original XO), he was also given the rank of Acting Commander… as a courtesy, maybe? Or maybe Starfleet regulations prevented Janeway from granting any provisional ranks higher than Lt. Commander because that’s the rank her XO held. Compare this situation to Wesley Crusher, who was granted the rank of Acting Ensign but never wore a rank insignia because Starfleet never gave him one. So Janeway could formally grant Chakotay the rank (and the accompanying rank insignia) of Lieutenant Commander in the field, then found a loophole somewhere in the regulations that allowed him to introduce himself formally as Commander.

Something I’ve become increasingly concerned about with SNW is how giving Spock a series’ worth of screen time and development before his time in TOS might put him “ahead” of where he’s supposed to be in his pursuit to understand his humanity.

I hope that the goal is to make him more appreciative of his Vulcan heritage over the course of SNW to explain why he’s so all-in on it by the time TOS starts.

I couldn’t agree more. It feels like lazy storytelling, and I actually appreciated this episode for not resorting to that kind of fakery. It’s setup was strong enough to be its own thing. I respect that a lot.

It may not be the best episode or even my favourite, but I adore it as a finale for the show and basically think of it as my favourite finale of any show

I get misty just thinking about the last scene.

“Five card stud, nothing wild… and the sky’s the limit.”

No one’s shown any love for my favourite ship design yet, so I’m gonna speak up about my love for the Intrepid class. Voyager just looked so sleek and graceful compared to other ships of the era — the comparatively lumbering Galaxy glass, the oddly square shaped Defiant class, or the cold and sterile Sovereign class.