Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season One Episode 10: A Quality of Mercy

Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season One
Episode 10: A Quality of Mercy

A Quality of Mercy

An interesting what-if alternate timeline episode, in this episode what if...Pike never left the Enterprise and was still captain during the events of TOS Balance of Terror instead of Kirk?  Because of this much of the episode plays as a beat-for-beat, word-for-word recreation of Balance of Terror, with Ortegas in Lt. Stiles place (even given Stiles lines).  Interesting to build a little backstory for Commander Hanson at Outpost 4, also connecting him and his son to Pike's fate.  Nide touch to have Hanson wearing the outpost badge first seen on the same character in Balance of Terror (and also later seen in Arena).  And that brings me to Kirk.  James Kirk.  Here we see for the first time Paul Wesley as James T. Kirk, captain of the Farragut in this timeline instead of the Enterprise.  

RANT INCOMING

We also see future Admiral Pike in a bad attempt at a TOS movies "monster maroon" uniform.  Why???  The red jacket movies uniform was such a great design.  It was perfect.  The costume designers on SNW took perfection and ruined it.  The shiny patterning down one arm is gaudy and distracting, the extra long strap looks sloppy, and overall the uniform just doesn't look good. 

RANT OVER

Overall a decent episode, and a fine season finale.  I personally am not the fondest of using an unrelated TOS episode to help Pike work out his foreknowledge-of-his future-fate issues.  That said, now that he's dealt with those issues, and realized that he cannot change his fate, hopefully the series can continue without dwelling on Pikes' sad fate.  I did like the slightly more TOS uniforms in the future (2265) sequences.  Another little nit: from the alternate future, Pike knows what Romulans look like, something that TOS establishes no one knew until the encounter in Balance of Terror.  The ending with Una being arrested by Starfleet for being genetically engineered is an interesting place to leave off as a cliffhanger, as this sets up up for episode 2 of season 2.