Regrettably, I can’t say the word, but I think he certainly is a word that rhymes with punt. That’s enough about Captain Snogs-A-Lot, we’ve got Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers’ season finale in “The Quality of Mercy.” This episode was directed by Chris Fisher who’s best known for several things. A touch of Eureka, some Warehouse 13, The Magicians, and the 2021 bastardization of The Stand, all either as director and/or producer, before moving on to Strange New Worlds. This is a strange creative team for the finale.

It is also an odd episode overall for me. To cut off any presumption of foreknowledge on my final thoughts, I don’t know the score I am giving Pike’s time-travel adventure and I don’t know the final thoughts either. I knew going into “The Elysian Kingdom” what my thoughts were because it was an episode that I could practically play out in my head. Be it a symptom of apathy or complete disinterest overall, Captain Snogs-A-Lot and the Romulan War excites me about as much as a visit to Ms. Mona’s Best Little Whorehouse in Texas excites a gay man.

While it is technically one story, I think it is worth breaking it down into two. While bringing supplies to an outpost in the neutral zone between Fed space and pointy-eared Klingon space, Pike meets the Outpost 4 commander and his kid, Maat Al-Salah is one of the kids that causes Delta radiation. To stop the kid from being there that day, Pike starts dictating a letter before the ghost of non-Delta radiation future comes along to put the kibosh on that and points out the Klingons wanted to kill him instead for trying to change events. It turns out Time Lords aren’t sexy Scottish people with two hearts, they are hairy people with ridges on their foreheads.

Scrooge McDuck-ing his way 6 months past his accident via a time crystal, we get the story of Pike seeing what happens if he doesn’t go on to being in that episode with the Talosians. No, not the pilot, the one 13 years later. Anyway, returning to Outpost 4 with mostly the same crew, Uhura is in comms, Spock bores the tears out of me, Ortegas really isn’t nice this episode, oh and La’an has her own ship and Una is a criminal. Worst of all, (set sarcasm to bored) Outpost 4 has been attacked and who could it be? In the Neutral zone, it can only be the Kardies!

I get that we’re talking about history in the Star Trek universe, and thus have to stick to some things. However, I wish we could move on from the Romulan war, Kirk, Spock, Harry Mudd, the Gorn until recently, Khan, and if I never hear about Section 31 again, I’ll be happy. Bashing my face against a wall weeks ago though, I didn’t hate “A Quality of Mercy.”

I don’t faun over it, but that’s what we’re going to talk about for a while, so let’s get to the point. The episode is mostly to see how Pike would handle a situation that makes Kirk space Jesus for all the women to strip off for and do like David Bowie: have a magic dance with a bulge.

This is not a bad episode but it is a slow burn. It’s a political mind game. I say it is one story but it should be broken into two as the B plot is the civil unrest on the ships once we’re at that interesting halfway point. We know the Romulans are strong-minded people who will happily do the illogical thing if it seems like it will be a grand gesture of force. This is why I say pointy-eared Klingons, we have that moment with Spock doing his Spock (The least electrifying man in entertainment) impression as it is meant to be a surprise that the Romulans look Romulan.

Then again, after what Discovery did to the beautiful Ferengi and hairy Klingons, maybe it is surprising they aren’t doing an Al Jolson impression. I’ll try and suppress the apathy for a moment, as that moment after Captain Snogs-A-Lot shouts down Pike and as Ortegas needs to be put in place, the proceeding tactical piece of… well, peace, is very much the Star Trek I love. After a flashy skirmish and heavy damage to Kirk and La’an’s Farragut, the two-hour ceasefire for engineers to fix the ships is the adult thing I’ve been on about before in these reviews.

One little side-track rant before I go back to the truce. Almost as much as I hate Shakespeare (I noticed the title) I want to strangle the people that hire English, Canadian, or American actors when they want a Scottish accent. It isn’t the one you are thinking of, not yet (I’ve been spoiled on that). However, there is an engineer who has a very put-upon Scottish accent because it is (according to the credits) English actor Matthew Wolf.

I’m not angry at Wolf, I quite like him in things I’ve watched/played. It is the idea that it is still fine to do awful imitations of accents because “it is fine, who cares?” What probably sent me over the edge on this rant is an editorial from last month saying that awful faux-Scottish accents are fine because “everybody loves it.”

Come up to me imitating Mike Myers, James Doohan, or Simon Pegg for that matter and you’ll be looking up at me through 6-feet of dirt for the pleasure. I enjoy Shrek and I like the Cornetto Trilogy (Doohan did nothing else) but they can all climb in a bin for all I care when they start with the accents. There are great Scottish actors (of all genders) with genuine accents. Do what season 2 does and hire one of them if you want that accent. Otherwise, get the shovel and start digging.

Back to the point, even with the extended runtime, the peaceful mind game on what each ship does during those 2 hours is a bit short. Ultimately the point of the episode is about Pike and Kirk having an interaction and highlighting the disparate perspectives the two captains have. The point is not to honestly have a Star Trek diplomacy moment.

Like the lightbulb above my head, I think that illuminates the point that sort of loses me here, the only character that retains knowledge of this and grows is Pike because it is Pike’s story. Nonetheless, I don’t like the smug Kirk who learns nothing, the Romulans and their Klingon ways learn nothing, and Ortegas at her most aggressive thus far learns nothing.

A little bit like the ending to Across the Spider-Verse, we’re thrust into the conclusions without much ceremony. The two hours come to a close, we find out the #2 on the Bird of Prey called the fleet while Kirk got an automated fleet of his own. It is an attempted gamble to finish off a season with a big battle scene between the Enterprise manned by Pike, a shuttle by Kirk, and a fleet of Romulans. The battle ends before we’re given too much to rub the inside of our pockets, and Pike uses the Time crystal to head back to his own time, the Prime universe.

I’d say the “emotional” scene with Spock dead on the table is meant to make us feel something, to feel that the savior of the universe has died as a result of Pike’s actions. The same actions he doesn’t actually take unless we somehow make this the show set in the alternate timeline and make Pike the villain. Spock is still Jesus Christ Superstar, you can put the black veil and remembrance pins away. I’ve said this from the start, I understand The Original Series but I couldn’t care even if a little green man burst out of Spock’s chest, shot Kirk, and backhanded that faux-Scottish engineer.

I don’t have nostalgia for something 30 years before I was born. It was something that had already aged by the time I could watch it, more so when I understood it. I’m grossly overestimating for a purpose, but I’d argue 90% of Star Trek fans that are alive and don’t shout “Woke!” when Black people get to say a thing or have an independent thought, don’t care either. If you were born in the mid to late 60s or beyond, chances are your affinity is for TNG and DS9. Spock be with you if you love Voyager, and seek psychiatric help if you think Enterprise’s theme was ok.

Anyway, we’re back where we were 40-50 minutes before, but now Pike is deleting the letter and no one else has learned anything. The finale doesn’t end on “Now forget about that 40 minutes so we can move on,” though. Una was arrested. I mentioned it a little bit earlier and there isn’t much to say right now either. It was a tacked-on 2-minute piece at the end to tease some of next season’s story. I wouldn’t say we’re done with Pike’s story, but we’re parking it in favor of attacking the brass for sticking to a law that ignores everything Una has done.

That is actually a good question. What has she done? You need to go back to “The Serene Squall” where she helps Pike start a mutiny, and “Spock Amok” where someone thought comedy was suddenly what we wanted. “Memento Mori” is where she spent half the episode in the corner or on a bed, and “Ghosts of Illyria” is where she was central to the A plot. If I’m honest, and I always try to be, Ortegas has seemingly done more directly than Una in the last few episodes. Hell, I’d even say Spock has been more useful.

I’ve gone on quite a few tangents and rants today because while I do think Goldsman and Alonso Myers’ “A Quality of Mercy” is good (at least proficient), I don’t see a point beyond reiterating someone’s love of Spock and the rotund one in a yellow jumper. Though the aim is to highlight Pike’s ability to accept what is happening, it is on the backdrop of once again grandfathering nostalgia for something that needs to do a lot of work to get you interested. The Romulans declaring war, Spock dying, and Kirk sacrificing himself in a timeline that doesn’t happen are little more than filling out time and exciting those who love Spock.

Goldsman, Alonso Myers, and Fisher do all they need to create a reasonably nice series of pictures simulating motion and sound waves vibrating to give us sound. That said, I don’t think beyond the fact it was a decent episode of television works when that episode of television could have been any show, my question is what particularly makes it Star Trek? Between Uhura saying “The Romulans are calling” and the fleet warping in, it is about 10 minutes and that was a very Star Trek 10 minutes. The other 50 were almost a generic time travel/sci-fi battle episode.

Ultimately, I like “A Quality of Mercy” despite all my gripes. However, it isn’t for the writing or the heavy references back to something we already know and are getting that expanded upon. I think Mount fantastically plays the man out of time, especially the man out of time we’ve come to love over Discovery’s second season and Strange New Worlds’ first. Fisher’s close-up shots of our integral characters with that blurred background wonderfully tell us as viewers that they conflicted with themselves. I enjoy “A Quality of Mercy” in spite of its love of the original series.

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SNW "A Quality of Mercy"

7.5

Score

7.5/10

Pros

• Mount and the cast acting their Nacelles off.
• Fisher's beautiful close-ups.
• Those 10-ish minutes that are very Star Trek.

Cons

• A brick to Kirk's teeth would do the world a good.
• Why should I care about Spock dying in an alt-timeline?
• I see another pointy-eared race too soon, I'm getting the shotgun.