So while I'm not the biggest fan of the whole Mockl'n what if everyone was gay and straight people were outcasts thing. I kinda worry we're going to tap that well too often. But to be fair it's not as if they've run out of ideas. The other episodes are interesting and creative and this episode wasn't bad.
the synopsis is basically a whodunit focusing more on a mystery (albeit very lightly in order to make room for social commentary). It is generic upgrade season and they invite a Mockl'n Engineer that is the ex-boyfriend of Bortus with a secret. He's into women not men. This is an, as you would expect, forbidden nature for men to have. Since Mockl'ns are a violent species, this is a death sentence. Inevitably over the course of.. what felt like maybe 3-4 days the Mockl'n engineer falls for the Talia and she takes on the role of "that one girl who is super accepting of everything" and reciprocates those feelings. While they stroll through the set piece of the week (old timey New York), someone kills the Engineer and masks their identity. The identity is revealed to be Clyd'n mate of Bortus. Someone who discovered is "filthy deviant secret" and killed him for it. When they finally put him away there is a plot twist. Maybe it wasn't Clyd'n and maybe our Engineer is still alive. Yes he is and they turn him in to save Clyd'n condemning him to death from a culture that doesn't understand "free love".
So the humor didn't cross the line this episode as it does so rarely. This is a very classic Trek:TNG style episode but with like two jokes but they're restrained and amusing jokes that don't go on a bender. The first where they double check that they said "no torpedoes" had me considering whether or not the engineer lied and they were going to legitimately take over the ship. The second was a tally of the crazy things that happened on the ship. It all worked.
The flaw of this episode is that the plot doesn't work. So our visiting Engineer expert has a secret and someone kills him for it. The problem is that the person in the brig would be revered by the Mockl'ns for killing the Engineer. The Mockl'ns wouldn't want justice because the Engineer's secret is a shame to the Mockl'ns. They would have killed him themselves. They DO kill him themselves. So this whole drama of the Mockl'ns trying to get justice doesn't make sense. It only peripherally makes sense in that for whatever reason the Mockl'ns never got to confirm with the prisoner that the secret was real which doesn't make sense because they would have already sent the message. And maybe the Federation would still have locked him up. I suppose that makes sense and it's not crazy to believe. It just feels like it could have been written better.
But overall a solid episode that I didn't really care for.
EDIT: On re-watching another thing I wanted to highlight is that while I like our new security chief, heck I even think they gave Alara a good goodbye and Talia has a pretty respectful welcome that both keeps the momentum of the show while acknowledging our attachment to Talia. The problem is Talia is a newcomer. Yet she knows all the hot gossip [until she doesn't because it makes for a great joke]. It's a weird gap that and the lack of characterization. She appears to be a mix of Riker and Kirk in that .. sort of slutty way. But it only feels that way because we don't really know much about her.
Review by wolfkinBlockedParent2019-02-17T15:58:56Z— updated 2022-04-15T00:11:02Z
So while I'm not the biggest fan of the whole Mockl'n what if everyone was gay and straight people were outcasts thing. I kinda worry we're going to tap that well too often. But to be fair it's not as if they've run out of ideas. The other episodes are interesting and creative and this episode wasn't bad.
the synopsis is basically a whodunit focusing more on a mystery (albeit very lightly in order to make room for social commentary). It is generic upgrade season and they invite a Mockl'n Engineer that is the ex-boyfriend of Bortus with a secret. He's into women not men. This is an, as you would expect, forbidden nature for men to have. Since Mockl'ns are a violent species, this is a death sentence. Inevitably over the course of.. what felt like maybe 3-4 days the Mockl'n engineer falls for the Talia and she takes on the role of "that one girl who is super accepting of everything" and reciprocates those feelings. While they stroll through the set piece of the week (old timey New York), someone kills the Engineer and masks their identity. The identity is revealed to be Clyd'n mate of Bortus. Someone who discovered is "filthy deviant secret" and killed him for it. When they finally put him away there is a plot twist. Maybe it wasn't Clyd'n and maybe our Engineer is still alive. Yes he is and they turn him in to save Clyd'n condemning him to death from a culture that doesn't understand "free love".
So the humor didn't cross the line this episode as it does so rarely. This is a very classic Trek:TNG style episode but with like two jokes but they're restrained and amusing jokes that don't go on a bender. The first where they double check that they said "no torpedoes" had me considering whether or not the engineer lied and they were going to legitimately take over the ship. The second was a tally of the crazy things that happened on the ship. It all worked.
The flaw of this episode is that the plot doesn't work. So our visiting Engineer expert has a secret and someone kills him for it. The problem is that the person in the brig would be revered by the Mockl'ns for killing the Engineer. The Mockl'ns wouldn't want justice because the Engineer's secret is a shame to the Mockl'ns. They would have killed him themselves. They DO kill him themselves. So this whole drama of the Mockl'ns trying to get justice doesn't make sense. It only peripherally makes sense in that for whatever reason the Mockl'ns never got to confirm with the prisoner that the secret was real which doesn't make sense because they would have already sent the message. And maybe the Federation would still have locked him up. I suppose that makes sense and it's not crazy to believe. It just feels like it could have been written better.
But overall a solid episode that I didn't really care for.
EDIT: On re-watching another thing I wanted to highlight is that while I like our new security chief, heck I even think they gave Alara a good goodbye and Talia has a pretty respectful welcome that both keeps the momentum of the show while acknowledging our attachment to Talia. The problem is Talia is a newcomer. Yet she knows all the hot gossip [until she doesn't because it makes for a great joke]. It's a weird gap that and the lack of characterization. She appears to be a mix of Riker and Kirk in that .. sort of slutty way. But it only feels that way because we don't really know much about her.