[Strange New Worlds news and review starts at 17:51]
Tony and Laurie start with a chat about Alex Kurtzman and Tig Notaro’s discussion of Star Trek philosophy on Tig’s Don’t Ask Tig podcast. Then they spend a little time on Star Trek: Picard, covering the news that the different Star Trek showrunners fought over putting Wesley Crusher in their shows, Terry Matalas’ hints about ships and returning cast members in season 3, Patrick Stewart’s assurance that it’ll be more than just a TNG reunion, and Jeri Ryan and Michelle Hurd’s comments on their characters’ relationship and what it was like working with the Next Generation crew.
After a quick roundup of the rest of the interviews from the Strange New Worlds premiere in NYC, Tony and Laurie review episode 2, “Children of the Comet,” which they were both quite happy with, minus a few quibbles. They wrap up with a look at a virtual set recreation of “The Cage” from The Roddenberry Archive and an unexpected endorsement of the pod from Prodigy showrunner Aaron Waltke.
Links:
Alex Kurtzman Talks Star Trek Philosophy And How It Can Be A Roadmap To A Better Future
Star Trek Producers Fought Over Which New Shows Get To Bring Back Wesley Crusher
The Traveler in an oddly textured outfit
Star Trek: Picard’ Showrunner Drops Clues About Season 3 Featured Ship And More
Patrick Stewart Says ‘Star Trek: Picard’ Season 3 TNG Reunion Isn’t A Walk Down Memory Lane
Jeri Ryan And Michelle Hurd Talk Twists And Turns With TNG Cast In ‘Star Trek: Picard’ Season 3
Interview: Ethan Peck On Feeling The Pressure To Get Spock Right On ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’
Interview: Bruce Horak On How Hemmer Is The “Outsider” On ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’
Interview: Celia Rose Gooding On Choosing Her Own Look For Uhura In ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’
Trekbits:
Tony: The Roddenberry Archive Recreates Sets From First ‘Star Trek’ Pilot “The Cage”
Laurie: ‘Prodigy’ showrunner Aaron Waltke listens to the podcast!
Let us know what you think of the episode in the comments, and should you be so inclined, please review us on Apple.
Subscribe to our podcasts
The All Access Star Trek podcast has joined the long-running Shuttle Pod as part of the TrekMovie.com Podcast Network. If you already subscribe to The Shuttle Pod, your subscription will now include both shows from the TrekMovie Network. If you prefer, you can sign up for only the Shuttle Pod or All Access Star Trek using the links below.
| TrekMovie.com Podcast Network of Shows | ||
|---|---|---|
| TrekMovie.com Podcast Network | All TrekMovie.com podcasts | Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Stitcher |
| The Shuttle Pod Podcast | The original TrekMovie.com podcast | Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Stitcher |
| All Access Star Trek Podcast | All about the Star Trek Universe | Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Stitcher |
Keep up with everything to do with the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.
Thanks, as always, for your insightful (polemics-free) conversation! Just a quick comment about the fate / free will theme. Pike has said several times that he has looked into the future (via the “Time Crystal”!) to his his own death. Well, this is incorrect, isn’t it? Una says maybe the future can be misinterpreted and this would seem to be true of Pike. The latest point in Pike’s life that we’ve seen goes all the way back to “The Cage” pilot in which the Talosians take his consciousness into their mind-world as the companion of Vina. So to be precise, we don’t know when Pike eventually dies. Perhaps this is an open thread to be somehow developed at some point? Thanks, again!
Hi! He does clarify at one point to say it’s the end of his life as he knows it, which it most certainly is. He says he’s seen his future, and we do know it’s going to happen that way… but you’re right, his death is not the part we know about, or the part he knows about. And he doesn’t know he’ll go back to Talos in the end.
That last part is kind of the beauty of it. We know he’ll get to spend the rest of his life with Vina but he doesn’t. I particularly enjoy the references to his future being what he makes of it given that the Talosians are going to end up creating his future based, in part, on his fantasy (56 year old spoiler alert) :)
I just think this episode was marvelous. It was near perfect for me (do you know how long it’s been since I’ve been able to say that?). I only had 2 things that raised my eyebrows:
I think Ethan is absolutely amazing as Spock and the sets are just so insanely beautiful.
I am a little confused by the chain of command as well. I assume this will become clearer as we go on, but if Number One is Number One, she’d better take command soon or start bossing people around! And when there’s a landing party, it should be clearer who’s in charge. (Was it La’an or Spock?)
And don’t get me started on the ranks and stripes on the costumes. Let’s hope this all becomes clearer
I assumed La’an was in charge because she’s a LTC and Security Chief. Spock is just a LT.
Same… but I think it would be better if they made it clearer. Again, one of those things that a viewer fresh to Star Trek probably wouldn’t care about!
Laurie, something you spoke about at the end of the podcast, I think cannot be overstated.
Thank you for pointing out how non-Star Trek nerds might view this new series without prior knowledge of the Star Trek universe. This series is the first one in a long time (I would argue since at least TNG) that could really bring new, never before, adult fans to the Star Trek world. My partner of 23 years (I point this out as there has been a LOT of exposure by me watching every version of Star Trek multiple times over) I goaded into watching the first episode. He actually enjoyed it a lot, when Uhura said “cool” to Pike’s speech, he literally said “cool” at the exact same time. I had to replay the scene to show him what had just happened. He actually asked last night to watch the second episode with me (I was stunned).
I predict SNW will really ramp up the Star Trek “Renaissance” period we have been enjoying. So much so, I think it will have seven-ish seasons (there was a reason the writers wrote Pikes death a decade away). I think it will lead to different movie versions (albeit probably streaming released) of several different Star Trek iterations, non-Kelvin related. What a long way we have come since DISCO premiered and the drought after Enterprise!
And it’s great that fans and non-fans can both enjoy it! Now can you get my teenagers to watch?
Laurie, you made me laugh out loud. My nieces are 14 and 16, they make me realize what we put my parents through. You truly have my best wishes of luck with your kids & watching SNW.
Until my nieces hit this age I forgot the our teenage answer to every question was “fine”…..try telling them, they will feel “fine” after watching!
I will say I’m always surprised (and not so surprised) at how many young 20something fans were brought into the fold through Discovery. There are a lot of them who haven’t ever watched Trek but latched on to it because of the way it deals with diversity and human emotion and issues that they deal with. Then, again, I was surprised with Mission Chicago how many kids are watching Prodigy with parents and loving it and yeah with the overwhelmingly positive press tour that SNW got it’s been put on a lot of people’s radar who don’t know the franchise at all. Kudos to Alex because the idea he had with various shows speaking to various audiences is working and from his interview with Tig, he seems to get what Trek is about when you strip it down. It’s wild and awesome that I’m living through a new Trek resurgence! …now if only we could get Annie Leibovitz to do a Trek photoshoot :P
I agree. Discovery brought in a lot of new fans, and (along with the Kelvin movies) started a whole resurgence. Even for those who don’t like the new shows, there are benefits, like more conventions, more products, more showings of the older movies on the big screen, etc.
Can’t Pike just get that baffle plate checked out on the training vessel? Just sayin’.
(Or will him getting that checked out/replaced cause the accident?) Hmm.
>;>}
Can’t win that one!
Thanks again for the podcast. Your reviews and enthusiasm for this new iteration of Star Trek is certainly wetting my appetite in advance of being able to see this show for myself, hopefully, towards the end of June when it lands in territories “across the pond”.
As much as I enjoy listening to you both, I wonder if it might be time for a team up with the Shuttle Pod crew to discuss this series together, round table style. Schedules permitting and if this sounds sensible, perhaps it would be good to do just after the S1 finale, picking out your top three episodes and discussing what worked and what didn’t (although so far it doesn’t sound like there are many things in this category). Just a suggestion of course and I appreciate you are all very busy people. Best wishes and thanks again.
We are always looking to team up with the Shuttle Pod crew, or to get at least one or two of them to join us. Juggling schedules is always tricky but it’ll happen whenever we can all make it work! (We’re also in three different time zones.)
Gotcha and thanks.
I’m not generally a ship nerd but one thing I was really impressed with is how the ship was actually shown performing maneuvers that were kind of only hinted at before. For example, when they said evasive maneuvers, you actually saw the enterprise trying to avoid the shots coming from the shepherd’s ship. Not sure if this is due to the AR wall or not, but I’m just impressed by the detail. It makes you feel more immersed in the action. My guess is this is even truer on a large screen in a theatre. Anyway, just came to mind when you were talking about the ship battles.
Lovely to be back enjoying a lazy Saturday morning with the All Access Podcast.
(I took a hiatus on watching Discovery and Picard when end of the galaxy/timeline scenarios were more than I was up for after February 24th.)
I’ve been surprised by the number of people commenting that La’an was on and leading the landing party. So, I’m going to share why it seemed so obviously the right thing to me.
First, this was a security as well as a science question. So, a senior security officer needed to be there to balance the three science officers, and to keep them from excessive risk taking. Adding Number One would have made for a party of four scientists.
This is thankfully not TOS where security in red shirts exist only to die. The fact that it was a science specialist that got himself injured was credible and a fantastic inversion of the trope.
Second, she’s the second officer! She’s the rank of Data or Tuvok. Would many have blinked or questioned either of them leading an away mission, or even Word once he was Lieutenant Commander in the later seasons of TNG?
Third, it makes sense for Spock as chief science officer to be the leading the science mission of the landing party but not in overall command. He’s not the Spock of TOS yet.
The ranks are unclear as many have complained, but it doesn’t seem that Spock has passed the senior officer command level test or program that would bump him to Lieutenant Commander. In a high stakes scenario, at least one command rank officer needed to be in the landing party.
I think La’an leading the landing party makes total sense! But (unless we missed it), they didn’t really state who was in charge, which was always super clear in previous Trek series, I think. We weren’t questioning her leading it, we were questioning the lack of clarity around it.
Odd. It seemed obvious to me (perhaps because of her rank and implied second officer rank) that she was in charge overall, but Spock had lead on the science side.
The back and forth between them suggested deference to their respective roles.
It seems likely that as the show goes on it won’t have to be stated, but we’re used to thinking of Spock in a more senior role than he is because he was a Commander and First Officer in TOS.
If it had been Worf with Dr Crusher and other science specialists, we would have interpreted it that way.
Great podcast! Like the guy said, you’re like an NPR Trek show, in a good way!
I agree with both of y’all on most every opinion you have.except I’ll have to disagree with Tony a bit: he said something like since it’s in space there’s only so many stories you can do. I think the exact opposite: because it’s in space there exists more stories than any other genre.
But I do agree that one nitpick I have is the way the Enterprise “flew” bugged me a lot. You wouldn’t a Star Destroyer fly like that, neither should the Enterprise.
Other than that, amazing episode. It makes me wonder: what took them so long?
Hi,
First, I want to say that this episode honors Nichelle Nichols. Celia Rose Gooding was absolutely wonderful. I was very moved with her portrayal as Uhura. The writers got it right. I did not like how the writers portrayed her in the Kelvin-verse. Celia was everything I had imagined about Uhura; highly intelligent, cultured, and complex.
Second, I liked Tony’s remark about Pike’s “awww shucks” charm. I love the name for it.
Third, I agree with Laurie about the ranks. I re-watched the episode and Spock was thrown a phaser and he said thanks Lt. It was La’an who threw the phaser. I assumed she was a LTC. So, it was a little ambiguous who was in charge of the landing party. I still say La’an because she is security chief but they do need to clear that up in the future. I hope we don’t get another Disco rank issue where we still don’t know who is the chief of what.
Fourth, one of your quibbles was Spock laughing at the end. I loved it. My interpretation was he was finding the humor in the hoops they had to jump through just to save the planet, not necessarily things going bad on the shuttle. As an educator, who is in a high stress job, I’ve learned that lesson well. Sometimes, if you don’t laugh, you cry.
Fifth, I had no problem with the Enterprise’s maneuverability. I have two points. One, I never saw it as a aircraft carrier. I remember reading that Voyager was the same size as the original Enterprise. Voyager was a long range tactical ship that can do barrel rolls and go through nebulas and the Badlands. Why not the Enterprise? It is a what I would call a medium sized ship who could outfox and outmaneuver larger ships. My second point is that Captain Kruge in ST III described it as a ‘Federation battle cruiser.” Cruisers are built for high speed and maneuverability so they can operate independently of the fleet. So, I had no problem with the flying of the ship. In TOS, the Enterprise carried out fast maneuvers in combat like in the episode Elaan of Troyius. They just did not have the budget to show it.
Sixth, Ethan Peck, you have nothing to worry about, you are killing it. You are Spock.
Finally, I am glad Laurie that you mentioned the shuttlecraft cockpit. It had the same design as TOS but updated in an original-esque way. They even had that weird orb scope thingy. It definitely made me do the happy dance.
This show is amazing. It doesn’t have to re-invent the wheel, just tell a great story.
Enjoyed the podcast. Great Analysis and thank you for letting me post my thoughts.
What’s going to happen in PICARD season three reminds me of what happened to the cast of ENTERPRISE on the final episode of that series. Instead of seeing the ENTERPRISE crew for one final adventure, we got a TNG episode. And here we go again. The final season of PICARD, and instead of seeing most of the characters of PICARD I grew to like, we’re gonna see TNG characters AGAIN! It’s deja vu. I feel disappointed. PICARD only had three seasons and the TREK producers discard them for TNG characters. Didn’t they learn anything from the ENTERPRISE debacle? I liked TNG, but never loved the characters so this doesn’t work for me. TREK is destroying itself with all this fan service and looking backwards and not forward.
Star Trek Strange finally a trek that resembles the typical movies of the series 🖖