Season 1
Episode 6: "Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach"
- We see a bit more on what's going on with M'Benga and his daughter. Turns out she doesn't notice coming in and out of the Transporter. From her point of view it's just one long session of her Father reading a story to her. However from his point of view this is all broken up and he has trouble keeping track of how much of the story he's reading her they've covered. Further more, the Transporter is on a timer to minimize the time she spends out of the buffer so her disease doesn't progress. She gets beamed mid-sentence as she's asking him a question, and M'Benga's face makes it clear how absolutely crushed he is by the situation.
- The First Servant's fate. Adding to that that he'd struck a friendship with M'Benga's daughter. At some point M'Benga will have to tell her that her friend is effectively dead.
Episode 7: "The Serene Squall"
- Nurse Chapel denying that she has feelings for Spock, even though she looks crushed doing so.
Episode 8: "The Elysian Kingdom"
- After spending so much of the season trying to find a way to save his daughter, M'Benga is stuck with a Sadistic Choice - either leaving her with the nebula entity that can keep her alive or keep her and forcing her fate. Ultimately, he decides to leave her with the entity so she can live her life.
Episode 9: "All Those Who Wander"
- While La'an questions Oriana about the Gorn eggs inhabiting her companion, getting increasingly aggressive as she does so, M'Benga steps in and tells her to "stop interrogating my daughter." When they both realize the slip, he quietly corrects himself to say "my patient", looking deeply pained. It's clear that, although he knows he made the right choice, the pain of losing Rukiya won't be going away anytime soon.
- When Hemmer realizes that he's been infected by the Gorn, he sacrifices himself to save the crew, walking out into the cold so the larvae won't survive."Just like Andoria..."
- While Hemmer says his goodbyes to the crew, Uhura is particularly devastated, as she had grown close to him during her Engineering rotation. Later, at his funeral, she notes that she had realized why they got along so well: the way he encouraged her to find her purpose reminded her of the way her late father would do the same growing up. She's essentially living the same loss twice.
Episode 10: "A Quality of Mercy"
- Pike has always consoled himself with the knowledge of the lives he saves with his sacrifice. Now he's faced with the downside: one of the eventual cadets who will die in that accident. Pike has to face a child knowing he can't act to save him without creating a future far worse.
- With the episode being an alternate reality version of "Balance of Terror", Lt. Stiles is replaced by Ortegas, who seems to be as vehemently Anti-Romulan as Stiles himself was. That it's Ortegas as this intolerant figure hits harder than Stiles, as we've gotten to know and admire her over the course of the season. It makes a fan wonder just what the hell she suffered because of the Romulans to make her so foul-tempered.
- Pike got lucky (or so it seemed at first); turns out the Romulan commander he faces off against was tired of war and was impressed by Pike's show of mercy. Unfortunately, his Blood Knight sub-commander secretly called in the entire Romulan fleet, leading to his ship's destruction for their hubris. The commander and his crew Face Death with Dignity, but both they and the Enterprise came so close to peace.
- Seeing Chapel, who's loved Spock so long, devastated from seeing his horrible fate, and knowing every last heartbreaking detail about it. It hits harder because this is the first time we see her in this timeline, and her appearance comes immediately before we see Spock's injuries.
- Immediately before hand we learn that, once again, Martine and Tomlinson's relationship is doomed. In Pike's altered future, Martine instead of Tomlinson dies when the Enterprise is attacked by the Romulan fleet that also injured Spock. The newly widowered Tomlinson just stares at Pike crying his eyes out with a look on his face that just says "Why?"
- Future Pike informs his past self that every attempt to put off the accident that eventually cripples him has two major effects: war with the Romulans, and the death of Spock. Millions die in the war because Spock wasn't there to get them within a hair's breadth of peace. Even Pike can't hold back Manly Tears just thinking about it.
- The episode ends with Una being outed as an Illyrian and being escorted off the Enterprise by security for court martial. Pike resolves to save her, but it's a major Downer Ending.
