I found it to be one of the weakest episodes of SNW so far. I did love Pelia, and it was great seeing the Klingons again. I just found the main plot to be boring. We never really got to know anyone in this Broken Circle, so I was never too invested in what the bad guys were trying to do. It just feels weird seeing Spock so emotional at this point in his life. The scene where Chapel and M’Benga took steroids to fight the Klingons was just weird, and the Klingons just came off as wusses. Its also odd that Spock faced zero consequences for stealing a starship. Last time (next time?) he at least had a whole court martial before they let him off. Hopefully the rest of the season will be better.

I liked it overall.

So if that other "fake" federation ship was visually identified as a Crossfield class by Starfleet people (who should know these things)

What the heck was the Discovery? because i thought that was a Crossfield class?

Or because of the cover-up when Discovery traveled into the future did Starfleet reused the Crossfield name for a new ship (and maybe even used the USS Crossfield, USS Discovery, and USS Glenn to "hide" the Sporedrive ships?)

Loved the new Engineer, and the Klingons look like Klingons again thak god.

Also Spock seems to LOVE stealing the Enterprise, he does it twice (this one and one in TOS)

@Chasemarc

I've been wondering about this myself. We know the Glenn and Discovery had their designs specially modified so to properly house and operate their spore drives though, so maybe those modifications were far more expansive than was previously thought.

If not, then I'd guess this SNW Crossfield-class is instead an older vessel (since it seems it was assembled by the Klingons by parts leftover from the war, building off of a preexisting Starfleet space frame--because there was no way they built that whole thing from scratch--so it has to have been in service at least as early as the Federation-Klingon War, but probably even sooner than that) and the Discover and Glenn just newer refitted versions of the class so to serve their respective roles.

But the most likely explanation of all is that I think the show's staff originally intended to be a Discovery-type Crossfield initially, in acknowledgement that they were using a redressed Discovery set for the interior, and thus wrote and initially filmed the script with that in mind, but then later in post-production decided against it, developed a new ship design instead, and forgot they had the cast verbally call it a Crossfield-class in all the hubbub. :-P

For now, I know that MA's article on said ship is just calling it a "NCC-1279-type" vessel at least until this matter gets cleared up.

@Icecreamdif

I think Spock got let off so easy because April, despite not wanting to, knew he didn't really have a leg to stand on here because Spock had ultimately been completely right to act and, as a result, completely spared the Federation from another war with the Klingons so soon after the last one (which they nearly lost) that they were in no way prepared to fight again and even helped give a minor boost improving Federation-Klingon relations in the process. Mix that in with the fact that this means they don't have to split their attention between a war with the Klingons and the...other trouble...that also seems to be brewing, I think April knew punishing Spock not only wouldn't be popular once word got around, but also wouldn't help in the long run.

Besides, Spock's later stealing of the Enterprise was different, as that time Spock just did it so to help out an old friend, not ultimately prevent a war, and in so doing went someplace the Federation had ruled capital punishment must be served to all who go there without nearly any exception (not that I think the Federation ever delivered that punishment at any time, because it seems the violators only ever try when they have a real good excuse). So the stakes were rather different in that scenario anyway.

Otherwise, you do have a point--the episode was pretty straightforward and more political than true sci-fi...but I like it precisely for that because it acknowledged there obviously was considerable aftermath and upheavals in the geopolitical situations across the quadrant resulting from the war with the Klingons, something that really needed to be explored, because DIS--in it's less-than-infinite wisdom--decided it didn't matter once the war was over and pretty much completely ignored points such as this when it REALLY shouldn't have.

It doesn’t matter if Spock was right or wrong. Its not his decision to make. He could have just as easily been mistaken, and launched the Federation into another war. And he almost did exactly that, because he put Nurse Chapel’s life ahead of the mission, which is uncharacteristic of him. The needs of the many, and all that.

My complaint isn’t that the episode was too political. I like political episodes. This was not a political episode. It was a mindless action episode that tried to be political.

@Icecreamdif

Well, I don't know...sure seems like it does to Starfleet, because whenever somebody goes and defies orders and were ultimately proven right to do so, Starfleet always goes "all right, all right, we'll give you that one" and overlook the transgression...pretty much the whole time the franchise has existed. I'd list examples, but they're really kind of numerous.

But if you didn't like the episode, I concede you have valid reasons for doing so nonetheless. :-)

Admiral April recognizes Spock as one of Starfleet’s best, even at this stage of his tenure, as a lieutenant and science officer. Before long Spock will be considered “the best first officer in the fleet”. April is wise to not throw the book at Spock.

Even so, he could have done something. Like when Kirk got demoted back to Captain in Search For Spock.

If we are going to see an emotional side to Spock in SNW, and we are, it is logical to have these episodes early in the run, and have Peck’s Spock develop into the less emotional, more restrained Vulcan we know from TOS. We do see Spock react to the chiming flowers on Talos IV, he does raise his voice in a few early episodes (e.g., “The Corbomite Maneuver”), and we see him smile as late as “Dagger of the Mind”.