Ceti Alpha VI has exploded. Ceti Alpha V has months to live. Khan and the Elboreans have a plan.

I love that this show has found a way to do a traditional Star Trek cave episode. The plan to survive, and perhaps escape, Ceti Alpha V  is central to the episode as Khan and his people embrace the fighting chance they’ve got with the same relentless focus they’ve embraced everything else. But with just a few episodes to go, the human price has to start being paid and here it’s paid in the most heartbreaking way, as Madot loses the first child the genetically enhanced humans have been able to conceive. It’s an excavation accident, both a tragic necessity due to the planetary disaster and a horrifically reassuring, mundane way to die. They can have children. They can survive as a people. But the world around them has other ideas.

That clash between Khan’s people’s innate mindset and the reality of their situation cuts both ways as Maury Sterling’s Ivan does the unthinkable once again. Ivan has been the steel fist inside Khan’s velvet glove more than once already and the show has done an excellent job of exploring the challenges faced by someone literally bred and conditioned to kill being forced to compromise. Ivan brutally murders an Elborean and that leads to a clash between Elborean leader Delmonda (Olli Hasskivi) and Khan and a truth that upends the show. The Elboreans are salvaging their ship. They want to get Khan and his people off world.

This folds back into a fascinating dissection of what it means to lead. Khan rules, a massive force of personality holding his people together when nothing else does. Delmonda leads, acknowledging their skills can help save everyone, not just themselves. One is a closed fist; one is an open hand. Neither are entirely right and that sudden grey area is uncertain footing for a soldier like Khan.

And, it seems, for Starfleet. In the flashforward sequence we learn Ensign Tuvok doesn’t quite have the same view as Captain Sulu and that Doctor Lear has a very interesting source for her information. Different paths to the right choice, being forged by wildly different people in two very different times.

Verdict: Perhaps a more muted episode than previous ones, but one dealing with massive issues with subtlety and intelligence. Another episode of a very strong show. 8/10

Alasdair Stuart