10 Best Star Trek Episodes That Revisited Other Episodes

Season one of Strange New Worlds ended off with an amazing callback to the Original Series episode Balance Of Terror. After being convinced to change his horrific future, Captain Pike was visited by himself from the future who used a time crystal to show him what this decision would cause.

In Pike's vision of the future, we got to see what Balance Of Terror would've been like if Pike escaped his fate and Kirk had never been made Captain of the Enterprise. It started with the same wedding scene between Lieutenants Angela Martine and Robert Tomlinson, but in this timeline Robert died, whereas Angela died originally. The first encounter with the Romulans also went extremely similarly. The bridge crew were all shocked to learn that the Vulcans and Romulans shared a common ancestor, and were confused why Spock didn't warn them. The gorgeously remastered Romulan Bird-of-Prey also attacked the Enterprise with the same powerful plasma weapon. These, along with many other similarities between the two episodes, makes A Quality Of Mercy the most expertly crafted homage to TOS in a long time.

Because of Pike's actions in this alternate future, one of the Romulans ended up calling for reinforcements. Kirk (now captain of the Farragut) used robotic drone ships to bluff them, but the engagement ended with a declaration of war and Spock becoming horribly injured and unable to lead reunification between the Vulcans and Romulans. With that, Strange New Worlds explained to us why Pike's future was set in stone, all while shouting out The Original Series beautifully.