The show is both in love with and unable to escape its place in the Star Trek timeline. As a series following the captain of the Enterprise,Strange New Worlds is going to be replaced by the captain of the ENTERPRISE. The finale balanced the two threads and created something magical.
This debut season of Strange New Worlds owes a lot to the past of the original Trek, so it's no surprise that this episode is the most fannish of all. The plotline that has sat on the fringes of the show since its premiere episode is the idea that Captain Pike is still struggling to accept his knowledge of the fate he will inevitably have.
It puts Strange New Worlds toe-to-toe with the best episode of Star Trek of all time, "Balance of Terror."
There are few hours of television in Star Trek. The gold standard is to measure everything the original series could do. A tight, thrilling starship game of cat and mouse, the threat of explosive war between the Federation and a long-simmering, forever-unseen enemy, "Balance" isn't just a pitch- perfect introduction for one of Trek's most fascinating species in the Rom The act of conflict with his Romulan foil is just one example of his skills and capacities as a captain. It is a bold move for Strange New Worlds to even consider attempting its own version, even for a show that has proved time and time again that it is able to do just about anything. It decided there was only one way to do its own balance of terror, and that was to take Captain pike's time-traveled fate and use it to do its own version of Star Trek's best hour.
After heading to the neutral zone, which was a conflict-free area between the Federation and the Romulan Star Empire, there was a chance meeting with the son of one of the commanders. Not to possibly change his own fate, one that he has by and large already accepted for himself, but to save the life of an innocent child is what Pike does. He was visited by a version of himself we know can't exist, dressed in the officer's uniform of The Wrath of Khan, a pike from a world where our own goes through with this radical act of defiance. Future-Pike is there with a message from the monks of Boreth, and one of their Time Crystals, to give us a glimpse of what will be, should he follow through.
The quality of mercy is firing on all cylinders at this point in time. There is a tension beyond the metatext of directly tackling an icon of Star Trek as well as a version of the future where nothing's quite right to him: La'an and Number One are gone. The woman we left in last week's episode isn't quite as confident as she was. In the little things that have changed, no Sulu and Chekov at the conn of course, but still Ortegas and Mitchell, their seats swapped in a way that is just different enough to bother us. We knowBalance of Terror by heart, but in throwing in all these little elements, and playing with our familiarity that has grown with Strange New Worlds' versions of these characters, there's a distinct sense of unease to the proceedings.
As it begins to deliver its simple "what if?" question, what if we had a version of "Balance" where our hero is Christopher pike, and not Jim Kirk? To even do that in the first place, you need a Jim Kirk, don't you?
After receiving word that a Federation vessel is heading to the Neutral Zone to help the Enterprise deal with the reported attacks from a mystery Romulan Warbird, we are shocked to be confronted with the future. This is the risk-taker, the gung-ho charming leader we knew from Star Trek, just not where. He is, as his brother Sam explains to Pike, a great captain, but kind of a jerk, the bright young thing confident enough himself to also know that he is never one to believe in those no-WIN scenarios.
It puts placing these two icons together into a place of parallels, rather than competition, as the path of "Balance of Terror" takes it's course. The episode is fannish and never gives into the pleasure of turning the existence of Pike and Kirk into a competition, but an avenue for us to learn something about both men. Kirk and Pike are both good captains and better people, but they are different, and the way "A Quality of Mercy" highlights those differences leaves us with a full picture of both of them as characters.
The melancholy is brought about by the fact that we as an audience are trained to suspect that this is a lesson in destiny for the captain from Boreth's monks to learn if he avoids his fate. As "Balance" and its version of "Mercy" slowly tip into Pike's favor, his willingness to always take a second to think over a decision, for better or worse, leads to a push towards potential peace between the enterprise and the warbird. When the Romulan ship cripples the Farragut and leaves the Enterprise badly damaged, the latter is proven correct. It seems like a nobler way out of things than Kirk took in the original episode, but his indecisiveness opens up the possibility for Romulan duplicity from within, when one of the Warbird Commander's subordinates contacts. Things immediately go bad, and instead of balance ending as we know it, it thrusts the Federation and Enterprise into a war with the Romulans.
The man that ties James Kirk and Christopher Pike together is Spock, but he is not the main character in the movie. In this new version of events, Spock is mortally wounded in the escape from the Romulan fleet that arrives to back up its Warbird and left in a way not unlike the one we know our pike will one day find himself in. He is told of Spock's importance, not just to the galaxy, as the future unifier of his separated peoples, when he leaves the timelines to return to his own. It is a perfect example of what we should expect from a narrative that is fated to be a chosen one. It isn't about realizing that his own path is already decided for him and accepting that, but realizing that his attempts to change it could irrevocably alter the lives of the people he loves most. Over the course of this debut season of Strange New Worlds, the sort of person that we have come to know him to be, could never want that.
Just as he tried to save a life by warning someone that they were going to die, he now wants to save Spocks. It is here that the journey of the show so far ends, even though Strange New Worlds ends on a little tease for what will happen after Number One is arrested. In addressing the biggest elephant in the room, it provides a wonderful climax to the season. Even though he is different to the man we know will one day replace him, he is still a good man and there are still many places to push his character.
If Strange New Worlds wants to keep showing us how well it can hang next to some of Star Trek's finest television, we're more than happy for it to only keep going bolder from here.
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