This episode does a good job of resolving the cliffhanger from Season 2, which isn't always the case for a cliffhanger resolution, I've often felt cliffhangers have great setups but unsatisfying resolutions (Descent Part II comes to mind).

I'm glad that both Batel and Ortegas survived the episode, but I'm also glad that if it were not from previews of upcoming episodes showing them, it was not obvious that they'd survive at all. The entire episode kept their fates unclear. Ortegas in particular, after she is slashed and then starts bleeding out on the steering column of the Gorn fighter.

I did like the idea of "feeding" the gorn babies to make them not so eager to become a chest-burster, giving Batel time to recover.

The idea of the Gorn species going through cycles based on the presence of certain stellar phenomena is, interesting. I'm not sure the idea of wedging the Enterprise between two impossibly close stars (seriously, those stars are way too close to each other, how could they not collapse into each other under their own gravity) works for me. Worse is the idea that while being wedged between the two stars, with specially reinforced shields, they could somehow use transporter codes to beam the colonists off of the gorn ship.

I did like the idea of shields resonance frequency cancelling each other out and using that to tag the gorn ship with a torpedo.

It was nice to see Mitchell in a more prominant role in this episode than previous episodes, I hope we'll continue to see more of her.

The idea of putting the entire Gorn species into a long hibernation is a good way to take the Gorn out of the equation until Arena.

Overall, I feel like this is a very good episode, but it doesn't rise to the point of being great. I rate it Lieutenant Commander, just like part 1.

HD3 Episode Rank: Lieutenant Commander (B+ Tier)