• We will learn that the episode title, “Jinaal”, is a character’s name. Trek has had several episodes where the title was simply a character’s name:
• “Charlie X”
• “Miri”
• “Bem”
• “Sarek”
• “Ensign Ro”
• “Aquiel”
• “Dax”
• “Melora”
• “Jetrel”
• “Shakaar”
• “Tuvix”
• “Alice”
• “Rajiin”
• “Su’kal”
• “Vöx”
• Tangentially, the season four VOY episode “One” does not share it’s name with the Borg drone named One; that episode was called “Drone” and was part of season five.
• We see assembled outside of Federation HQ:
• USS Discovery A - Crossfield-class refit
• Two Saturn-class starships
• A Friendship-class starship
• USS Nobel, NCC-325002 - 32nd century Constitution-class; first seen in “That Hope is You, Part 2”
• An unnamed 32nd century Constitution-class starship
• A Courage-class starship
• A Mars-class starship
• A starship of the same class as the USS Dresselhaus
• USS Locherer, NCC-325062 - Merian-class; named for J.P. Locherer, a cinematographer credited on every episode of seasons two, three, and four of DIS, who passed away in 2022.
• There is a shuttle type that I don’t believe we’ve seen before flying between ships as well.
• The Emerald Chain was the primary antagonist of DIS season three.
• ”Have you tried Vulcan meditation yet? Helped you as a kid.” Culber is reminding anyone in the audience who may have forgotten that despite being human, Burnham was raised on Vulcan, as established in the series premiere, “The Vulcan Hello”.
• When Burnham does attempt Vulcan meditation, she holds her palms together, fingers apart in the position of the Vulcan salute. Spock held his hands the same way while meditating in “Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan”.
• Tilly claims that Trill is, ”A very big planet,” citing its surface area of 500 million km²; Earth has a surface area of 510.1 million km².
• Adira says of the Bix symbiont, ”It would be unusual for one to live 800 years, but not completely unheard of.” Adira is host to the Tal symbiont, one of whose former hosts appeared to be a Starfleet captain, shown in “Forget Me Not” wearing the uniform introduced after 2382, and phased out by 2401, some 790 years before this episode.
• Rayner has taken a demotion to commander from the previous episode, where he was still a captain. At least until Admiral Vance asked him to voluntarily retire.
• Lieutenant Arav has been aboard the Discovery since the season one episode, “Context Is for Kings”, but this is the first time the character has been named.
• It’s Jett Reno! From Star Trek! Jett is played by Tig Notaro.
• Jett keeps her collar open, and the closure is bisected in half, but when we see Culber with his collar open, the closure remains a single piece.
• The uniform the Ferengi bartender wears does not have a collar at all.
• Raktajino is a Klingon coffee, first mentioned in “Dax”
• Guardian Xi was introduced in “Forget Me Not”. He has been portrayed by Andreas Apergis.
• The Caves of Mak’ala were introduced in “Equilibrium”.
• Some of the stalagmites in the cave bear a striking resemblance to the rock Kirk used as a weapon in “What Are Little Girls Made Of?”
• Hey, it’s Gray! From Star Trek! Gray is played by Ian Alexander.
• The Zhian’tara is a Trill ritual where the mind of a former Trill host is transferred into the body of another person so they may communicate directly with the current host, as seen in “Facets”.
• The favinit is a plant native to Vulcan. Tuvok showed Janeway a a hybrid he made using a favinit and an orchid in “Alliances”.
• The Vulcan purists are an isolationist faction on Ni’Var introduced in “Unification III”
• A cabrodine explosive was used to destroy Keiko O’Brien’s school aboard Deep Space 9 in “In the Hands of the Prophets”.
• Jinaal mentions the Dominion war, which puts the timeframe in which he and the other scientists decided to hide the Progenitor’s technology sometime from 2373 to 2375.
• ”Something about the curves of a 23rd century Constitution-class just gets me.” Rhys’ sentiment echoes across centuries, in “The Bounty” Jack Crusher claimed, *“I’m definitely a Constitution-class man.”
• The Dakalan bore worm was a concern for the crew of the NX-01 in “Rogue Planet”.
• Tongo is a Ferengi game introduced in “Rules of Acquisition”.
• We learn Nilsson has been reassigned to the USS Voyager J. Nilsson was introduced in season two played by Sara Mitich, who also played Airiam in season one.
• Nilsson apparently gave Christopher her pet tribble. In season one, Lorca had a tribble in his ready room, and in season four, there was an unattended tribble in the corridors of Discovery in “Kobayashi Maru”.
• ”Last time I did this, they have me chips.” Reno is presumably referring to her interrogation upon the Discovery locating Federation HQ in “Die Trying”.
• ”We literally used to be connected.” After his death, seen in “Forget Me Not”, Gray lived on as part of the Tal symbiont in Adira until his consciousness was transferred into a synth golem body in “Choose to Live”.
• ”It’s really pissed off.” “We didn’t need empathy powers to tell us that.” The coffin turning over that the episode briefly cuts to appears to be that of Deanna Troi, ship’s counselor aboard the USS Enterprise D, and the USS Titan.
• Slug-o-Cola is a Ferengi beverage, introduced in “Profit and Lace”. The bottle the bartender pours for Tilly features the 32nd century Ferengi Alliance emblem from “...But to Connect”.
• This is the first time we’ve heard the name Red’s used for the Discovery A’s piano lounge.
• The Tzenkethi have never been seen on screen, only mentioned in dialogue. First in “The Adversary” where we learn they had a conflict with the Federation that Captain Sisko fought in.
• Beta canon sources are remarkably inconsistent about the depiction of the Tzenkethi, though Robert Hewitt Wolfe, co-writer of “The Adversary”, envisioned them as ”heavily-armoured lizard things.”
• In the “Infinite Bureaucracy” from the “Strange New Worlds VII” anthology of short stories, they are described as being catlike, similar to the Kzinti.
• In the Typhon Pact novels the Tzenkethi are tall, attractive humanoids with a wide range of pigmentation, who have fluid filled sacs instead of bones.
• “Star Trek Online” shows Tzenkethi characters as being stocky, four armed salamander like beings.
• The recent IDW “Star Trek” ongoing series had the Tzenkethi very recently appear to be large, bipedal dinosaurs.
• I mention all this only to express the hope that if we actually get an on screen Tzenkethi in the upcoming episode, it does not resemble any of the previous depictions. Or the dinoaurs.
IMHO, this is pretty rad.
Hell yeah, it is.