Written by: Onitra Johnson

Directed by: Sydney Freeland

Sounds like they're going to a world that's both strange and new. I expect everyone will love it.

And they're still on a trek through the stars? Seems to do what it says on the tin.

Just to let anybody who's waiting know that I'm going to be late with the next couple of episode annotations because I'm off taking a professional course. I'm avoiding watching the episodes until I have the time, so have fun storming the castle amongst yourselves!

Okay, I guess it's time for some actual thoughts. It was all right.

I'm not really big on Jungian psychology, but writers love it, since it's so steeped in metaphor. It's been many, many years since I studied it, so I'm just going to defer to Wikipedia.

In analytical psychology, the shadow (also known as ego-dystonic complex, repressed id, shadow aspect, or shadow archetype) is an unconscious aspect of the personality that does not correspond with the ego ideal, leading the ego to resist and project the shadow, creating conflict with it.

In analytical psychology, the struggle for the superego is to retain awareness of the shadow, but not to become it or be controlled by it. "Non-identification demands considerable moral effort [which] prevents a descent into that darkness"; and though "the conscious mind is liable to be submerged at any moment in the unconscious...understanding acts like a life-saver. It integrates the unconscious." This reincorporates the shadow into the personality, producing a stronger, wider consciousness than before. "Assimilation of the shadow gives a man body, so to speak," thereby providing a launchpad for further individuation.

So sure, this is all fine and good. Taking stuff like this and making it literal has a long tradition in sci-fi generally, and Star Trek specifically. I'm glad they addressed La'An's inner conflict without confirming her fears of her genetic heritage controlling her destiny. I hope they're finally putting the subplot to bed - it's hard to see where else they could go with it.

Seeing Hemmer in the previouslys primed me to expect to see Caster show up, but nope.

They had some fun with Carol Kane's "Princess Bride" connection - too much fun, perhaps, but whatever.

It's a little disappointing that Ortegas in particular didn't clock the imposter Pike and Spock immediately - the others I can forgive due to the ongoing crisis, but it would have been nice to see Erica had simply decided to go along with it for a while.

Find yourself someone who looks at you the way Melissa Navia looks at Rebecca Romijn.

The nitpicky in me is wondering "wouldn't the light on La'an's shoulders light up the two companions in front of her?"
I appreciated the animatronic werewolf costume though I imagine some of it was hidden CGI.
The costumes, sets, and SFX were commendably well done.
I generally kind of liked this episode.

I don't know, it wasn't technically a strange new world.

Seeing Hemmer in the previouslys primed me to expect to see Caster show up, but nope.

Oh It's true! I forgot about it and it was one of the funniest moments

Another of these silly episodes, at least this one was good.
There's not much I can say, I'm sure the kiss in the werewolf cottage is gonna cause some discussion about sexual orientations on some of the characters.

I don't have much to say on this one. It was alright. Nice to see La'an make some forward progress in her own issues. When I saw the flat planet going through space I thought for a brief moment we were going to get a Discworld parody/crossover. I didn't mind this diversion so much, given that it was grounded in some kind of reality, and continued the story we had already started much earlier in the series. I do think everyone should have caught imposter pike much earlier on.

Why did this fantasy planet exist? Maybe I missed it, but I thought this had something to do with M'Benga's daughter, and she's off hanging out with a space nebula or something.

Did they just write Pelia off the show?

I don't like how they had a magical/physical solution to La'an's mental/metaphysical problem. Feels hammy to do that. I mean, I wouldn't mind if it was solved through introspection and realization, but having a personality swap, then drinking magic potion to fix the problem...I don't know man... I don't like solving emotional distress through magic. It cheapens emotional growth.

This was an ok episode. I guess...

I wouldn’t mind if it was solved through introspection and realization

I think that's what happened, at the end of the day. Princess Thalia is fictional, but she's representative of personality traits La'An has suppressed since she was a child.

I don't remember a cogent explanation for the planet, either - it didn't bug me, but it is an omission for sure.

Just got around to it...that was an episode, I guess. I think this season has officially drained me. I watch it, I just shrug.

This one should have taken a lesson from "Shore Leave" where the story was written heavy on fantasy and wound up being rewritten while being shot to try and pull it back. SNW thinks it's great to lean harder into it, and you get whatever that was.

I am pissed that we're entering the final stretch of the series, and only now getting Runa as a regular cast member. We've been robbed.

Ethan Peck and Anson Mount are hilarious in this episode, the costuming really was fabulous, and it was nice to get a little more Pelia than usual. The resolution to La'an's arc was kind of a let down, though. This episode in itself worked fine, but I was expecting circumstances to really tempt her to lean into her darkness at some point in the season. The closest we got was her situation on the Griffen, and she never dipped below "grumpy" since. I felt like the build up promised a little more.

I feel like calling it an "arc" is being generous to it.

I remember reading somewhere someone who got to pre-screen the first 6 episodes saying the La'An story would upset people (implying because it was poor). And I just feel like it was a lot of nothing that I can't find a reason to have any emotional reaction to it at all.

So thats there Billups homeplanet came from

If Caster had been there, it probably would have become an Uhura episode.

Yeah, now that you mention it, it would have made a lot more sense if Hysperia and Elysian were the same place.

its at least my headcannon xD

As a person who didn't like a good chunk of the gimmick episodes this season, I actually really liked this one. More so because it was hilarious.

Pike and Spock's doppelgangers were comedy gold. And Paul Wesley'a Prince Dashing was just an impersonaion of young William Shatner.