Written by Kirsten Beyer & Davy Perez
Directed by Eduardo Sanchez
Logline
Returning to a planet that dredges up tragic memories, Captain Pike and his landing party find themselves forgetting everything, including their own identities as he confronts a ghost from his past.
Reed Birney’s acting is great. His soft voice is very touching.
– Be in the moment with me.
– We look out for each other. Every night we have our forgetting.
– You are guided by your emotions. They are your truth. I find them convincing. The totem teaches that we live in each moment, embrace them.
Wow, these SNW writers really bring it each week, don’t they? Not to say every episode is perfect but I’ve found every single one to be very entertaining and exactly what I want out of Star Trek in 2023. The combination of standalone stories mixed with underlying character development and arcs is perfect.
As for this week, the idea of encountering a planet that could make you forget everything was weirdly creepy, if not a bit implausible. Even if this wasn’t her showcase episode, I grinned at Ortega’s “I AM THE PILOT!” moment. Also enjoyed the away team being out of sorts on the planet which I thought was well done and not an action overdose like the season opener.
Memory loss is one of the scariest things in the known universe. This is a horror episode to me.
Annotations up at https://startrek.website/post/282663.
This was a very TOS episode yet in terms of feel.
The dialogue could easily have come from the mouths of the TOS cast, and the situation on the planet reminiscent of officers violating the Prime Directive like in TOS: “The Omega Glory” or “Bread and Circuses”. Even Mount’s delivery when on the planet was Shatner-esque.
I can readily imagine Kirk, McCoy and a random redshirt or Chekov on the planet in Pike, M’Benga and La’An’s place, and Sulu pulling it together like Ortegas.
I agree that it has a genuine TOS feel.
Especially as it gets back to the mid 20th century thought experiments around how the mind functions, but informed my more current understanding of memory, cognitive function and emotion.
I wasn’t quite sure the balance of the scenes was what it could have been, but it was good to see all of the main cast having their moments. I was nonetheless frustrated that Number One was quickly sidelined once again.
Also I was uncomfortable with how far Pike was willing to go in his aggression in order to get information from Zack. I believe we’re supposed to feel that, but it did feel that it was pushed just that moment longer to drive home the point that Pike’s deep ethics are what keeps him in check, not his emotions. It also tracks with his anger and how he even used it to break the thrall of the Talosians in The Cage.
But overall, I liked it. It’s a deeper and more challenging episode than it may seem on the surface, first watch. I suspect it will be one that stands up over a longer horizon.
