Doing my rewatch now, and you’re correct. So it serves as an indicator that he’s changed as he’s grown up (and it’s not actually related to Anisha breaking out of prison, since he didn’t learn of that until months later), and also that she doesn’t expect him to have changed.

I think we’d have to know a lot more to draw that conclusion - and not for nothing, but from what I can remember, she announced herself on social media - CBS didn’t really say anything IIRC.

My memory is hazy, but I think there was an, “I stopped trying after _____ happened” line. For the life of me I can’t think of what it was, and it’s possible that I hallucinated it.

Why did they bother introducing the Athena’s bridge crew if they’re not going to use them?

Alex Kurtzman has said on a couple of occasions that this series is less expensive to produce that you might imagine, and I do think there have been a handful of moments throughout the season that seemed like cost-cutting measures. This was definitely one of them.

But… are we sure he’s a genius if he never thought to try that moon’s name as an encryption cypher?

It whizzed by pretty fast, but they did say it’s something he used to try pretty often, and eventually gave up on, and started concentrating on more complicated, “adult” searches. I kind of like that.

“Oh hey, is that planet in the Federation now? You know the one, what’s it called?”

It did stand out, especially when the planet in question is friggin’ Vulcan Ni’Var. I assume that’s some exposition for the newbies that will become relevant in the finale, but it was definitely odd.

Caleb wanting to rejoin his mum over staying with his friends felt like a real betrayal. And his teardown of Darem and Genesis even more so. That was brutal.

I’m definitely more attached to these kids than I expected. And Tatiana Maslany is talented enough that her sudden-but-inevitable betral next week is going to be a real gut punch.

All in all, I agree that it’s a pretty good table-setting episode.

Yep.

May the rest of the galaxy have your healthy perspective.

I think they’ve managed to strike a balance with the new shows so far - each one of them feels unique enough that I don’t necessarily feel any fatigue.

Well, it’s not closed closed, as far as we know. But filming on SFA is done, and there’s nothing active until we hear something about a renewal.

SNW filmed at a different Toronto-area studio that CBS owns directly, but obviously there’s no current Trek production there, either.

Oh neat, the cookbook! We did an AMA with Chelsea Monroe-Cassel back in the Reddit days. She seemed cool.

I vaguely remember owning Best Destiny when I was a kid - that sucker was first published in 1992.

I found The Enterprise War tough to get in to, but once I did, I enjoyed it.

I supported Section 31 until I saw it.

Hey, nothing wrong with optimism.

Hell, I still think that story could have been decent, had it been a 10-episode series as originally intended.

But yeah, I think SFA has turned out a very strong first season, so far.

As long as Star Trek remains popular enough, I think it might be advantageous to not be considered one of the “crown jewels” - flying under the radar has its advantages.

I really despise having to read the tea leaves about this stuff, but in the absence of solid information here we are.

An interesting anecdote that I’ve noticed is that two podcasts (Star Trek Academy, which I recommended a few days ago, and Larry Nemecek over on his YouTube channel) have said that SFA has led to a large increase in their audience. What does it mean? Who knows!

Ah, the tail end of a season, when the publicity stills are even less informative than usual.

As the year comes to an end, Caleb must choose between the life he thought he wanted and the life he’s built for himself at Starfleet Academy. Meanwhile, Nahla breaks protocol in one final gambit to keep a promise to Caleb.

Sounds like the rumours I saw that Tatiana Maslany would be back this week are likely true.

I won’t pretend to be an expert, and I do hope that someone out there will get an actual therapist to guest on a podcast or soemthing to talk about the episode, but I do know that therapeutic confrontation is a real thing.

I’m not really familiar with her past stuff - I think “Absentia” is probably the best-known?

What interests me is that she got that sole “created by” credit, and yet isn’t a showrunner. That seems…very unusual.

But, the way we designed the transformation of Sam, we called it sort of colloquially in the writers room, “Sam 1.0” and “Sam 2.0.” Sam 1.0 was just a couple months old and was a baby in so many different ways. And the contrast that you start to see in episodes 9 and episode 10, but in a big way in season 2, is that Sam 2.0, while she does carry the memories of Sam 1.0, she really is a totally different person. She feels things that Sam 1.0 never felt.

I’m very curious to see how this plays out.

it is weird that they did not introduce a trained psychiatrist/counselor

Ake did say the cadets had been attending counselling sessions, and that they weren’t working (actually, I think she said that they “weren’t enough”).

Maybe they could have included a scene or a montage of those ineffective settings - IIRC, the most comparable “classic” episodes, “Family” and “It’s Only A Paper Moon” showed them, however briefly.

It’s wild to think that this SFA season finished filming a year ago, and was written even earlier than that.

True, I did forget the Must Reply To Everything in the Hot Feed rule.