This episode was so much fun. Completely silly. Totally entertaining. Loved nearly every minute.

The first song, “Status Report,” was probably the best song: catchiest tune, lyrics that made us want to sing along. We’ve replayed those opening scenes so many times we know it by heart now. Loved the astounded expression on Spock’s face as he tried to puzzle out why he was singing, then the “oh shit” look on Pike’s face after he sang for the first time (“It’s happening again!”). Pike jumping out of his chair and backing away from Ortegas as she sang her bit. The bridge crew playing their hands across the keyboards of their stations as if they were pipe organs. Pike’s final, exasperated question, “But why are we singing!”

The next song from Una Chin-Riley and James T. Kirk, a short, lighthearted sendup of Gilbert & Sullivan, silly and fun. Still loving this.

The third song, a very serious solo from the very serious La’an Noonien-Singh, was too long; everybody else got two or three minutes for mostly lively, lighthearted fun, but she got to sing for four and a half minutes about her emotional introversion. I felt it should’ve been no more than, say, two.

The weirdest thing to happen in the whole episode was the total lack of musical interaction between La’an and James Kirk. La’an and the horniest starship captain ever to roam the galaxy get not one but three scenes alone together, and in the final scene La’an tells Kirk she’s attracted to him, but in dialogue. What the hell. Christine Chapel and Spock each get a song to mark their breakup, but somehow, in a musical episode, La’an and Jim talk about their feelings. Just talk. There isn’t even dramatic background music. Bizarre-o-tron!

And I feel like they missed a golden opportunity to make Carol Kane’s character relevant. Kane plays Pelia, an alien who has lived thousands of years on Earth, pretending to be a human. She could have been the one to explain to everyone what was going on. After all, she lived through the era when musicals were hugely popular. Instead she mumbled some technobabble about how the subspace continuum was being unzipped. Opportunity missed.