I had, by chance, seen the original within a few weeks of seeing this episode. My wife, though, had not. I was excited for the references in ways she couldn’t be, but she was able to enjoy the episode in a way I couldn’t since, for her, she got to enjoy the story as a single whole piece.

I wasn’t much of a TOS viewer, aside from marathons on holiday weekends. I had a feeling that some characters might have been a bit much intentionally (looking at Ortegas) but was really enjoyable. I think I liked not knowing much about what happened.

I watched it with my brother who had not seen The Original Series, and he really enjoyed the episode itself and thought it was well done. However, I felt like I personally enjoyed it a lot more knowing how the story was “supposed” to play out. Plus, the little nods to TOS with the lighting, acting, and dialogue were just icing on top of the cake for me.

It’s a good episode and enjoyable on its own I think. I had rewatched the relevant TOS episode (I forget the episode name) only weeks before seeing it, and so it was epic, like “holy shit they’re actually doing this”!