Review

This is a strong offering. Everything in the episode was quite endearing except for Tendi's dog plot, which was more weird than funny. One quite distracting detail about that is it further compounds Star Trek's incredibly complicated relationship with genetic engineering, which has long been established to be banned in the Federation and yet we see it used from time to time anyway such as when Voyager's doctor used it to correct a birth defect in B'Elanna's baby though it was strangely not allowed to be used to cure Archer's father of a terminal illness. Tendi uses this banned or perhaps not quite so banned technology to create a brand new life form which aside from the problems of questionable legality based on past canon also raises moral questions as well that the episode doesn't deal with in at all a mature way. It seems at the very least morally questionable for Tendi to just cavalierly create a brand new sentient(!) life form using a nominally banned technology like some mad scientist creating some kind of Frankenstein monster and then just dump it on some random hospital planet because she clearly didn't know what she was doing. This is serious stuff that the episode treats entirely unseriously.

That said just about everything else about the episode was terrific. The main plot exploring Mariner's clear competence but total unwillingness to accept promotions by contrasting her with a former classmate who's the same age who made it to the rank of captain puts Mariner's personal problems into much greater focus. It was both touching and an important piece of character development to have it said out loud that many people expected Mariner would be a captain by now as well as her admission that she still has some stuff to figure out and she's not entirely sure who she wants to be; that she's still finding herself. This was nicely done; indeed there are many people in the world who are still finding themselves even decades after finishing school. Not everyone has a perfect career trajectory with unbroken upward mobility. Many if not most people zigzag all over the place throughout their lives with various ups and downs with their careers, personal lives, and subjective well-being.

Many smaller details were delightful as well. For instance, Captain Ramsey wasn't just a vehicle to deepen Mariner's character, but a charming character in her own right, as was her Vulcan sidekick Durga. The copious references to TNG: Chain of Command were nicely done too and one of the best details of the episode was the introduction of a new character of the same species as Arex from TAS, the tripod alien. The Division 14 Medical Specialist was beautifully animated in a way that there wasn't budget for on TAS. The writing and voice acting for his character were excellent as well, ultimately leading him to be a standout character nearly as strong as Ramsey. All things considered, this is one of the strongest episodes of the series so far. If the writers had avoided the unfortunate Tendi missteps, this could've been the strongest episode so far.