Happily maried for years I’m going to go ahead and say

I love Michelle’s portrait...the pose, the dress, the way everything pops off that blue background. It’s excellent, and I feel like it catches her energy so well. I just wish the face looked a little more recognizably like her.

People can hate on Amy Sherald (and they are), but I love both these portraits. Michelle’s especially is so different that people seem to not care for it on sight.

Meanwhile over at Jezebel the comment section is full of professional art critics shitting on the likenesses and insisting that official portraits aren’t the place for changes like this or some-such.

I know, right? Why isn’t the AV Club exclusively covering men’s achievements?

Orion green women originally appeared in the first ST pilot, “The Cage”, so it’s totally canon. And did everyone forget Quark’s on DS9?

Bringing Uhura on board the Enterprise in The Corbomite Manuever was actually a huge gamble, and CBS wasn’t exactly thrilled with the casting of Nichelle Nichols. But they went along with it anyway. That’s why TOS was such a big deal for many in the African American communities of the time. There was no one else like…

The look of the Enterprise was close enough for me to accept it. It wasn’t radically different, and it was closer than the way the Enterprise appeared in nuTrek. And honestly, I think they made the right choice. Enteprise NX-01 basically retconned Star Trek ship design, and it had blue lights on the engine nacelles.…

A couple of, less hidden, easter eggs this episode:

Come on guys! Space casinos and hookers in the face of armageddon are famous Sci-Fi tropes! See Battlestar Galactica.

*Orion

I imagine many latter day Trek writers have cursed the people behind Trials and Tribble-lations for entering into canon that 23rd century Klingons actually did look different.

Yeah, if they give that Enterprise a lady first officer, I’m quitting.

What show do you think you’ve been watching your whole pitiful life?

Refinement is the right word. There’s a lot of good stuff here, but also a lot of stuff that’s just really sloppy. Hopefully less behind-the-scenes chaos in season 2 will help with that.

Conservatives demanding representation quotas for shows is so fucking funny. “I need more straight white males!!!”

There are fair criticisms about the finale to be made - a bit rushed and anticlimactic and wraps everything up a bit too neatly. That being said, I like how they’ve left the door open for MU Georgiou and Tyler to both show up again in the future. Also, the discourse about choosing which path to end the war (with peace…

-The look between Burnham and Sarek when they realize it’s the Enterprise is never made explicit, but at this point in the timeline Spock should be on the Enterprise.

“I wondered briefly if the whole “we can make Klingons look like humans” would turn into a way to justify why Klingons on the original series are so physically different from “modern” Klingons, but maybe they’re saving that for next year.”

You forgot to mention bringing it full circle with the Clint Howard cameo.