Ad Astra Per Aspera

Star Trek is definitely more than just a sci-fi show. It is dreaming of a better society, a better system. Looking for places to improve. It questions norms, argues. It asks what can be done and how can be done. It tries to give answers. It experiments with ideas, extrapolates thoughts, tries to see how they will work in practice.

For example; identifies money as the cause of some problems. Then removes money and creates a world where money is not needed or money's functionality is provided by other means.

"Ad Astra Per Aspera" is one of those episodes that is less sci-fi but more psychological, sociological and philosophical. It has brought about an unexpected flood of emotions and thoughts.

Excellent text and excellent acting as well. The Star Trek in the recent years have been sort of okay, but I had kinda forgotten that I loved Star Trek. Today, I remembered.

I'll for sure be more aware of 'opportunities to be my better self' and try to seize them. :)

Wonderfully written and acted very emotional episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. I don't think I will ever see the Una character in the same way, a great background story. I guess the people who love Star Trek will now remember Starfleet code 8514 forever. Don't mind the naysayers, this is one of the best Star Trek episodes I have ever seen.

While Starfleet isn't perfect, it'd be wonderful if we can achieve something similar for humanity's future in real life. That's why I always enjoyed watching the Star Trek series. It brings out the best of humanity and shows us we can do better.

Let's hope the future episodes will continue at this level!

'Ad Astra Per Aspera' is Star Trek holding a mirror to our society (social criticism), a direct reflection of who we are, and a prescription for who we can be (for the better). That mirror has been part of Star Trek from the beginning and this episode does a great job of giving us a close up look, showing every blemish. Court room episodes have been used many times in Star Trek to make a point, and I believe 'Ad Astra Per Aspera' will stand beside 'The Measure of a Man', and 'The Drumhead' as one of the best.

To those who don't want to look in that mirror, I remind them that Gene Roddenberry once said, "Star Trek was an attempt to say that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate, but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms."

I think Roddenberry would be very proud of this episode.

Pike's first introduction to Star Trek was in the famous courtroom episode Menagerie so it's appropriate that SNW should do a standout courtroom episode of its own.

This was really written in the style of a lawyer show, with a lawyer depicted as being smart and eloquent in defending her client, even if she has misgivings about said client.

The details of the case seem plausible as an example of future jurisprudence. I was a bit skeptical that the Vulcan admiral would really be allowed to ask the defendant a question to implicate someone else (Pike). Shouldn't that be done in an independent investigation outside the courtroom? But that was the only questionable detail.

I also appreciated that Uhura actually refused to go along with an illegal command. Imagine that, crew members behaving professionally! But mainly this episode stood out for depicting how this crew has jelled as a team, as friends, and as a family,

However, I don't think the theme of "genetic modifications are perfectly okay" is going to stand up too long. Even in DS9's time, long after SNW, it was still a taboo. So I figure there's another shoe that's going to drop, maybe not till next season.

Up to this episode I was not a great fan of that franchise, though I like Pike very much, he is just the person I would have appreciated much more as the Captain of the Enterprise in TOS than Kirk, 40 years ago, when I was young.

However, this is for me the first grown-up episode, and it isn't an accident that "The Orville" had a similar intriguing episode about gender identity in its 3rd season (completing a story arc that begun in season one with a failed trial).

Here, everything is laid out in a very easy setting and, since court cases are a big part of everyday's life in the U. S., it is made with the uttermost diligence in pacing and dialogue. Not a minute was wasted as a filler or surplus backstory.

Very impressive, I must say, and the only point that I have against it, is what someone here wrote in a review. Technically, the right approach for defence would be that the violated law itself is not only against Federation's principles and "bad", but indeed unconstitutional, and therefore void.

8 Stars for a very good and mature episode.

As an afterword to all fellow reviewers who are complaining about wokeness - please change your mind or stop watching Star Trek before you can manage to progress into a sentiment that agrees with what Star Trek stands for. If anything, diversity is one of the core agreements in this universe, and Roddenberry himself introduced it with the famous Uhura kiss half a century before.