If Starfleet disciplinary hearings are directly conducted by the UFP president, that raises even more questions, and certainly doesn’t dispel the notion of a “military government”…

Neither humanity nor the Federation are run by a military government.

While I agree with you that it’s almost certainly not the intent, we unfortunately have seen that a shocking number of uniformed Starfleet officers sit on the Federation Council.

I really do hate “Retrospect”.

But I think my answer to the question is “evolution.”

Have you ever seen a Dalek toilet?

This episode has quite a lot to like. Early 1930s New York City! Class tensions! The aftermath of World War I! The Cult of Skaro! British actors gamely doing American accents! Andrew Garfield!

It also has mutant pig people, so I suppose it’s a bit of a wash.

I actually can’t find much to say, really - it’s the first part of a two-parter, so it probably doesn’t bode well that I’d lost interest by the final act. A lot of the setup is pretty interesting, but at a certain point they’re mostly just chasing pig men through the sewers, which is…not exactly compelling.

And in general, those pig men are a baffling choice that derail the whole thing. Yeah I get it, the Daleks were doing genetic experiments. But…they also could have just enslaved regular people? Have them do a little mind control, and you’ve made your episode far less silly, and less expensive at the same time! I suppose that would make it less palatable when they all get slaughtered next week, though.

You should have seen what happened the last time it had contact with another.

After careful deliberation, you’re forgiven.

This has alwasy been a favourite of mine - high-concept nonsense at its finest.

The core of a society spending their entire lives in their cars is incredibly on-the-nose, and I love it. RTD does what he does best, creating a world of memorable characters who each seem like they have full lives and personalities, with very little screen time. They really sell the absolutely absurd concept.

I don’t think I’ve heard “The Old Rugged Cross” outside of this episode - Gospel isn’t exactly my thing - but it’s used well here, and I’m surprised to learn that it’s an American song, and not something with British roots.

The “mood dealers” are an interesting idea, but somewhat underbaked. It seems like something they could have done more with, but here they’re mainly a plot device to explain what happened to the overcity.

The idea of the Doctor bringing Martha back to New New New New New New New New New New New New New New New York is pretty solid, though I wish Martha didn’t complain about it the way that she does. The unrequited crush angle continues to underwhelm, even though it’s handled better in this episode than elsewhere. It’s helped along by the fact that we can see the Doctor fighting with himself, slowly opening himself up to her against his own better judgement.

It’s also nice to see the Face of Boe one last time - I’ve always felt that the character is diminished by the Captain Jack connection, and treat him as a separate character.

Oh, and Sally Calypso deserves her own spinoff based on her name alone.

Yeah, it was doomed to be restricted to one ship from day one, with arguably increasingly contrived excuses as time passed (down to exterminating poor Book’s entire species!).

It’s a damn shame we never got to see the JahSepp again.

Honestly, I’ll defend the ideas underpinning the spore drive all day. Mycelial networks are deeply weird IRL, and the idea of “what if there was one that grows through subspace” is an interesting extrapolation from that. “Physics as biology” is a pretty fresh and interesting idea for the franchise to explore (and I’m totally here for the argument that they didn’t explore it enough).

I’m still not quite sure what the witches were meant to be doing.

They really are just stereotypical witches doing stereotypical things, aren’t they?

The Sycorax blood magic in “The Christmas Invasion” was a much better execution of the idea - equally vague in motivation, but at least it had some flair.

I was prepared to come in with a half-assed gag about how this is one of the episodes of all time…but I disliked it even more than I remembered.

It’s not silly enough to be a romp, and it’s not scary enough to be a horror (despite seeming like a Halloween episode, this one apparently aired in April). It doesn’t really engage with the time period or Shakespeare himself in a meaningful way. It’s just blandly there, for the most part.

It’s not very kind to Martha. The Doctor dismisses her concerns about being a Black woman in Elizabethan London. She doesn’t get to do any meaningful doctoring, which would have given her some agency in the story. They didn’t even make her a theatre nerd - she seems to have about as much familiarity with Shakespeare as the average person. But hey, she got to feel sad about the Doctor being hung up on Rose. Character development.

Shakespeare himself doesn’t get much, either - I actually think his initial “rock star” introduction is pretty fun, but he’s little more than a series of gags after that. Much is made about his genius, and his grief over losing Hamnet, but neither comes through in the writing or performance.

Sprinkle in too many references to Rowling that have aged like milk, and we’ve got an episode that I have no desire to revisit again any time soon.

I don’t think I can agree with that - plenty of Lower Decks episodes seemed reverse-engineered around whatever legacy actors they were able to book, and other legacy actors were just sort of…stuffed in there.

I would agree that they always crafted meaningful stories around that stuff, but that stuff is still pretty foundational - moreso than perhaps any show besides the third season of Picard, which I would enthusiastically hold up as an example of “fan service” (I don’t love the term, but whatever, it fits) done very poorly.

I don’t recall saying I liked the idea. That has no bearing on my interest in discerning what the hell you were talking about.

That interest has reached its limit, though.

Where’s the comparison?

You seem to be taking the fact that they rejected a pitch for a show that you think is a bad idea as evidence that they don’t know what they’re doing, which is…truly dizzying.

Edit: Holy autocorrect.

That’s an awfully strong reaction to a rejected pitch…

It’s very unclear when, exactly, this pitch was made.

But heck, Jean-Luc Picard was 59 to Stewart’s 47, so I’m not sure it matters.

Are they comfortable?