I love a good comedy relief Klingon moment. They nailed that. It was just goofy and unexpected enough to get a good laugh and they knew just when to cut it off before it overstayed its welcome.
La'an's song was the most emotional and heartfelt, but it went on way too long.
Uhura had the best song and the best performance, I thought. Celia Rose Gooding is a goddamned treasure, and it's a treat to see them finally really putting that character to good use on a consistent basis.
Also more fuel for my running theory that Hemmer isn't truly dead. I think they're holding onto him for a surprise return in the coming confrontation with the Gorn.
That definitely was a funny surprise. Up until that point I had assumed that the Klingons would be doing their own style of music, but evidently the reality field the whole subspace network was tethered to was a very specific kind of musical that excluded Klingon opera.
I actually really like Kirk being intricately tied to the Enterprise in intimate ways in the years before getting command of it. Trek has never really dealt with how a ship passes hands to a new captain, and I enjoy that Kirk is being given the chance to form relationships with the ship and members of the crew well before anyone even considers that he might one day be its captain. Never mind that Pike is uniquely well aware that his own time is limited and he wants to make sure that his ship is in good hands, so vetting Kirk in this way by encouraging this kid of collaboration is also a reflection of his own strengths.
And just in a broader sense it's always neat to see Federation ships collaborating. I'd like to see more of it, honestly. Sure, starship crews are often isolated from one another, but they're also designed and trained to work together on missions whenever possible, and I like the excuse to explore that dynamic with Kirk.
I was a little surprised by the Carol Marcus name drop in this, and even moreso by the mention that she's pregnant. Maybe I remembered it wrong, but I thought that Kirk was in the dark about David's existence until the events of WoK. So maybe Carol later lies to him about the pregnancy or his parentage.
What is it with medical officers concealing their secret sons with famous Enterprise captains anyway?
Maybe the Skrulls have some way of blocking the radiation. It wouldn't do for their victims to melt just when they needed to do a mental download to maintain their cover.
SNW is an anomaly in that it started as a spinoff to a show that was already contentious within fandom. Unlike previous iterations that began while another show was still on the air, SNW benefited from comparison to the already existing show. Fans were hungry for something different.
I love a good comedy relief Klingon moment. They nailed that. It was just goofy and unexpected enough to get a good laugh and they knew just when to cut it off before it overstayed its welcome.