this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2026
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It's a little odd - I agree that it's the key line of the episode, but I don't think it's necessarily meant to be universally true (though it does reflect Pike's beliefs, or at least his avoidance of dealing with his own stuff [Edit: This is almost universally true of our captains over the years]), and I don't think it's really the point of the episode.
What I took away from it is a meditation on reality and perception - in a way, maybe the key line was actually what Pike said about the details fading, but the memories remaining. I think anyone who has experienced enough loss in their lives would find that pretty impactful.
I was enjoing the soap opera silliness up until that point, but I ended up really respecting the statements they were making through Pike's journey. It takes on an added dimension when you consider where he ends up, living out the rest of his days in a Talosian illusion. I wonder if Juliet will be there...
What the heck, I might as well make this my top-level comment and include some other scattered thoughts:
Soap operas deserve more respect than they generally get - those people work.
On that note, it was great to see Marlena herself, Deidre Hall, as the counselor. It's hard to imagine a better choice.
I'm glad Spock slept through this one - he's hallucinated more than enough this season. And Ethan Peck crushed it as Evil Twin Sybok.
One thing I do think has been missing this season is connective tissue for the character arcs. I suppose it's been there for La'An, but she's mostly been treading water. It was nice to see her dealing with the fallout of a breakout she initiated, but it still seems fragmented. The same can be said for pretty much everybody else.
I agree that Pike's retrospective of his alternate life was a good idea to explore - its the kind of thing that older trek series would quickly shuffle on after that week's episode (like O'briens stint in virtual jail). Pike has done a lot of thinking about coming to terms with his vision of his own future, so thinking about his alternate future was a necessary next step.
I just wish it had been given a better story in which to bubble about. If it's a serious character point, let it be told in a serious story. Let us see his job as a captain of a discovery-science-diplomacy ship lead him down that path of self reflection. Adding a comedic glamour filter on top of everything, in my opinion, cheapens the end result. It bugs me that so far we had erica/scotty needing to be drunk to learn to get along, spock needing to be dreaming / nightmaring, and now pike and co. stuck in a Q game in order to grow as people.
I actually had no idea who Deidre Hall was, though from the visual language I got the impression she was meant to be "someone important". I assumed they had picked a random actress and were making a meta-joke about guest actors on TV shows. I was half expecting her to vanish at the very end.
As one who'd seen lots of Days of Our Lives when I was a kid (parents, you know), I found this episode to be utterly hilarious in playing up the tropes. The "I'm your daughter" thing was a story straight out of Days. Getting Diedre Hall in was amazing. The transition over to Pike's unprocessed grief was really good, and I'm glad they addressed it, as well as reveal more of what La'an's got going ok in her.
As much as I was amused by this ep, I can totally see how it would fall flat for someone who has not watched soaps, and I'm not sure it was actually a good ep.
For those who have never seen it, she's been on "Days of Our Lives" for 50(!) years.