Recap/Review: ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Gets Chills In “All Those Who Wander”

“All Those Who Wander”

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1, Episode 9 – Debuted Thursday, June 30, 2022
Written by: Davy Perez
Directed by Christopher J. Byrne

A pivot into sci-fi horror delivers with real scares and emotional punch.

Anson Mount as Pike, Babs Olusanmokun as M’Benga, Celia Rose Gooding as Uhura, Christina Chong as La’an, and Bruce Horak as Hemmer

 

WARNING: Spoilers below!

RECAP

“If you’re watching this, chances are we didn’t survive.”

The Enterprise is headed to station K-7 on a priority one mission to deliver some power cells as Pike takes some time out to celebrate some milestones for Uhura and a couple of other characters we meet for the first time who will certainly make it through this whole episode. Uhura is looking forward to returning to Earth, and even though Pike has given her an open invitation to join the crew, she is “still searching” for a path. The celebration amongst Pike’s delicious waffles is disrupted by another priority one mission to follow up on a distress beacon from the USS Peregrine, which has crash-landed on an inhospitable planet in a “dead zone”—not an ominous bit of foreshadowing at all. Pike orders Una to continue the delivery mission as he and the kids will pile into the station wagon (his words) to pop down to LV-426–sorry, Valeo Beta 7–to check in on that crashed ship.

Pike’s shuttle party is comprised of Spock, La’an, Hemmer, Chapel, M’Benga, Uhura, and Sam Kirk, along with Lt. Duke and Cadet Chia who we just met… hmm. Hemmer is feeling at home on this barren windswept ice ball with no signs of life, but they soon find signs of death: torn-up bodies of much of the Peregrine’s crew are strewn about outside the crash. Things get even creepier as they enter the abandoned powerless ship and listen to the dead captain’s last log warning Starfleet to “stay away.” The cause of the crash was an Orion they picked up who tried to kill himself with a plasma grenade because he was infected… with Gorn eggs. Oh, and Pike’s team has now detected a couple of life signs on the ship: one human, one “unknown.” Uh oh.

Anson Mount as Pike

“Shoot anything that moves.”

Pike leads a group through corridors full of mangled bodies to sickbay, where they find an angry blue alien pointing a weapon. With the universal translator no help, Uhura surmises he must be protecting that other life sign and after a little de-escalation, they meet a scared little girl named Oriana, who calls her alien pal Buckley. They came on board along with that Orion who kicked off the ship’s deadly chain of events. La’an insists M’Benga scans the s—t out of them; she’s worked out that they’re refugees from a Gorn breeding planet. Even though the scans were negative, it doesn’t take long to realize something is off with Buckley—actually, something was in Buckley… itty bitty Gornies, four of whom burst out, killing him and Chia before skittering off. La’an and Christine find a terrified Oriana hiding in a storage bay, protected by the cold. Apparently, the Peregrine crew lured the first wave of Gorn hatchlings to the frozen planet’s surface where they died, “but now they’re back.” La’an sees her younger self in the terrified child and digs deep to give her a pep talk to get them moving.

After one hatchling is killed by the others, La’an informs us there are three left, who will mature quickly and fight for dominance. Great. It doesn’t take long for the critters to find Lt. Duke in a Jeffries tube and drag him away, shrugging off Pike’s phaser fire. All of this has Sam channeling his inner Private Hudson as he frets they will become “lizard chow” unless they get the hell off this ship. In Engineering, Hemmer and Uhura (or as she coins, “Team Hemura,” aww) busy themselves with power restoration and some more bonding as they continue their chat about her finding a purpose in life. He suggests she stop drifting, surmising she is scared to put down roots. Just as he powers up the ship, they hear some ominous skittering before they spot a noticeably bigger little Gorn… they grow up so fast, don’t they? The pint-sized monster spits caustic venom onto Hemmer, then gets run off by La’an, who shows up just in time. Or did she?

Jess Bush as Nurse Chapel and Carlos Albornoz as Buckley

“It’s time for me to go.”

Once regrouped in sickbay, the landing party determines the Gorn are invisible to sensors, scanners, and even Hemmer’s telepathy. Spock finds this “impressive,” an assessment that sends Sam on another rant, this time about Spock being a “pointy-eared computer.” Dude, it’s not the 1960s anymore, uncool. La’an warns the two remaining Gorn will fight for dominance; they may be a just few hours old, but they are smart little critters. Because they are super-fast (these aren’t your father’s Gorn), the plan is to lure them into a choke point by freezing off sections of the ship, using their own aggression and aversion to the cold against them. To push the Gorn along, Spock has to tap into his primal Vulcan rage, pitting the final two against each other. La’an confronts the remaining Alpha, taunting it by throwing down her phaser and challenging it to fight her as she runs into the shuttle bay and an awaiting container before the compartment is flash-frozen, turning the terrifying creature into a Gorncicle… which she satisfyingly shatters.

Problem solved, let’s go home… wait, something’s wrong with Hemmer. “I’m going to go outside now.” Now La’an drops her last and most devastating GornFactTM: the venom isn’t just venom, it’s how they reproduce. With no time for M’Benga and Chapel to find a cure, Hemmer calmly tells the crying crew, “My sacrifice will save the lives of those I care most about.” Uhura is hit the hardest, but he leaves her with one last piece of advice to make a home for herself and to not weep as he has had “a good life.” With that, the Aenar engineer we were just getting to know and love steps into the bracing cold, which reminds him of his home on Andoria, and falls down any icy chasm. Okay, I am crying.

Bruce Horak as Hemmer

Things wrap up back on the USS Enterprise with a memorial service for the three lost crew, and some nice thoughts from Ortegas about the “blue meanie.” Uhura reveals she saw her late father in Hemmer, but she sees how he fulfilled his life’s purpose to fix what was broken. This appears to include her own struggle for a life path, now leading her to a home on the Enterprise. But one member of the landing party remains broken: Spock has to leave the funeral to punch a dent into a corridor. Christine sees his pain as he struggles with the rage he let out and “can’t control.” A hug and some calming words settle him… for now. As for La’an, she has decided to take leave to help little Oriana find her family, but Pike lets her know she too will always have a home on the Enterprise.

Christina Chong as La’an, Babs Olusanmokun as M’Benga, Dan Jeannotte as Samuel Kirk, Melissa Navia as Ortegas, Jess Bush as Nurse Chapel, Andre Dae Kim as Chief Kyle, and Ethan Peck as Spock

ANALYSIS

In space, we actually can hear you scream

Strange New Worlds successfully takes on sci-fi horror and delivers with a fast-paced episode full of action, terror, and emotion, but still with an important spark of Star Trek optimism. Borrowing heavily (perhaps too heavily) from the Alien, Predator, and Jurassic Park franchises, director Christopher J. Byrne and writer Davy Perez delivered something that will stand with the best of this Trek sub-genre, which has always been part of the franchise since it kicked off with the monster-themed “The Man Trap” in September 1966. The episode was enhanced by standout performances, particularly from Bruce Horak, Ethan Peck, and Christina Chong, along with spot-on music to build the tension and spectacular visual effects, plus impressive puppetry to reimagine the Gorn as something truly terrifying.

Inside the horror movie atmosphere is mix of hope and heartbreak. The season arcs for a number of our characters pay off in this penultimate episode in satisfying if not melancholy ways. Not only does this build on La’an’s tragic childhood issues with the Gorn, but the episode goes a long way to tempering her anger, showing a softer side with the young Oriana. Spock also gets some attention here, with some of the most intense exploration of the ongoing struggle with his human/Vulcan balance, with dutiful Christine right there with him. And while shunting Number One off for most of an episode has become a noticeable issue for the series; making it appear they don’t know what to do with this character, in this case, it made sense to keep the focus on the other arcs.

Christina Chong as La’an

The biggest payoff comes from Uhura, who bookends the episode and was set up early in the season as drifting her way into Starfleet; it was through Hemmer’s mentorship that she can now see a way forward to make long-lasting connections on the bridge of the USS Enterprise, which we know is her true destiny. Her final lesson came at the steepest price, but goes some way to mitigate and even celebrate his sacrifice, which was well-earned with a surprising but well-played death scene. It is a shock for a major cast member to be killed off, especially for a show that’s known for its lighter tone, but the showrunners deserve credit for taking that risk, even though it’s quite sad to say goodbye to a character we were just getting to know and will deeply miss. Since it appears this was the plan all along, this is likely more than just part of Uhura’s arc, but will open up the door to introduce a new (possibly familiar) chief engineer in season two.

Bruce Horak as Hemmer and Celia Rose Gooding as Uhura

Gorn to be wild

The other arc advanced in this episode was for the Gorn, now seen as the recurring villain for season 1 and maybe longer. The showrunners have decided to take the iconic species introduced in the TOS episode “Arena” and reimagine them, laying the groundwork in “Memento Mori” and now fully realized here, where we got our first look at the new Gorn. It is clear they have made a conscious choice to bend and even break canon a bit in order to make the Gorn into cunning and terrifying space lizards. If you can get past that, then this show’s Gorn are truly formidable and believable, helped along by modern technology, including some impressive practical effects instead of just leaning on CG. And Strange New Worlds is also expanding Gorn lore as this episode reveals quite a bit about why they are so dangerous, with each adult Gorn likely the alpha of their own clutch.

So maybe there is a reason Spock kept quiet years later with the first mention of the Gorn in “Arena,” perhaps internally triggered over the loss of his logic during this encounter. And if you need some headcanon to keep you going, maybe the guy in that rubber suit on TOS is a representative of what geriatric Gorn are like.

Ethan Peck as Spock

Final thoughts

Strange New Worlds ticks off another sub-genre with success. This freshman season continues to impress on a show that has figured out a balance between serialized character stories and episodic plots set on new worlds. It’s a shame there is only one episode left.

Anson Mount as Pike

Random bits

  • This is the second Strange New Worlds writing credit for co-executive producer Davy Perez, who has had experience in this genre before after working on multiple seasons of Supernatural (and was also born on Halloween).
  • This is the fourth Star Trek credit for director Christopher J. Byrne, who has helmed three episodes of Discovery.
  • Stardate 2341.6.
  • The Enterprise has a counselor (dubbed “headshrinker by La’an) named Dr. Sanchez for “Starfleet Recovery Assistance.”
  • The Enterprise was headed to station K-7, first featured in the TOS episode “The Trouble with Tribbles”… so did Una and Ortegas pick up any tribbles while there?
  • K-7’s power cells used Vidium, a new Star Trek substance possibly related to Invidium, used in the 24th century for biological containment, seen in TNG’s “Hollow Pursuits”
  • Valeo Beta V is Class L, the second of this barely habitable type seen on the series, following Prospect VII from episode 6.
  • Pike’s command code is 246810, which M’Benga recognized he has used for a while.
  • There have been multiple ships in the US and Royal Navy with the name Peregrine, named for a type of falcon. In the 24th century, the Maquis use Peregrine-class courier ships.
  • While the USS Peregrine looked almost exactly like the Enterprise (allowing re-use of the sets), it was not another Constitution-class, but a Sombra-class ship, which is described as using the same parts, but faster and with a smaller crew.
  • M’Benga previously served on a Sombra-class ship.

Babs Olusanmokun as M’Benga

More to come

Every Friday, the TrekMovie.com All Access Star Trek Podcast covers the latest news in the Star Trek Universe and discusses the latest episode. The podcast is available on Apple PodcastsSpotifyPocket CastsStitcher and is part of the TrekMovie Podcast Network.

New episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds debut on Thursdays exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., Latin America, Australia and the Nordics. The series airs on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave in Canada. In New Zealand, it is available on TVNZ, and in India on Voot SelectStrange New Worlds will arrive via Paramount+ in select countries in Europe when the service launches later this year, starting with the UK and Ireland in June.


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There’s doing an homage and there’s straight up ripping of Alien(s). This one was over the line for me. It just seemed so derivative of a much better piece of media.

Also the “Death in the limelight” trope is such lazy writing. I get that Star Trek always did this with its Red Shirts but if you’re doing a new Version of Trek, get rid of the bad things at least, not the good things.

The thing is, I generally like Davy Perez’ writing. Every time it’s just people talking, the episode is great. He manages to get the characters to talk pretty naturally and doesn’t overdo it with the colloquialisms like a lot of the other writers. But he needs to be paired up with someone who maybe isn’t that great with people but has something to say about and can build out the world (a George Lucas Type if you will 😁)

And making the Gorn an Alien ripoff is such a lame design decision. They were much more interesting in TOS.

Hemmers Death was weird for me. On the one hand the scene was done really well, as was the service after that. But killing him after just eight episodes just doesn’t pack the emotional punch such a character Death should have. But that’s maybe the problem with doing an episodic ensemble show with just 10 Episodes a season. I’d gladly take some bottle- and filler episodes if it means we’re getting at least 20 Episodes a season. Like anyone was ever really bothered with the constant reuse of VFX Shots in other Trek shows 🤷🏻‍♂️

I also feel the music was a little more reserved this episode, which is nice. It made the stinger at the end work really well.

All in all an episode with a strong start and a strong finish and a really bland middle.

PS: anyone else thought they were for sure going to have Nichelle Nichols as Uhuras Grandma on screen at the End after the opening log? 😁

Never once occurred to me that Ms. Nichols would make an appearance here, or anywhere. She’s not well, and deserves to live her remaining days out of the public eye, if she chooses.

Jesus! Calm down. I didn’t say to drag her a gunpoint. It just seemed to me script was set up for such a scene 🤨

Physician, heal thyself! Phil never got worked up, yet you exploded at them.

HAHAHA! That is great! (I agree, that if she was will/able, that would have been nice) but the forcing her at gunpoint was pretty funny!

A picture of Nichelle on the wall of Uhura’s quarters. That’s all they would need to honor her, if they wanted to. She doesn’t have to be there in person.

Yes, that would be a classy move, absolutely.

That’s a fabulous idea!

Now that you mention it… Nichelle Nichols is the only actor from the original characters which hasn’t had a cameo yet. Or am I missing someone?

All of them. You’re missing all of them. None of the TOS cast have had cameos on SNW; half of them have been dead for years.

Did I state somewhere that I meant a cameo in SNW?

Right. Nimoy, Kelley, and Doohan were in TNG (and Nimoy in the first two reboot movies). Shatner was in Generations. (He was also in the opening scene with Doohan and Koenig, but that was pretty much a TOS scene.) Takei was in VOY’s “Flashback,” although again in technically TOS scenes. (Grace Lee Whitney was in those too. Barrett of course appeared in a lot, but never as Chapel.)

Nichols was offered a small role (talking on screen) in Flashback, but turned it down. So yeah, she’s pretty much the only one who didn’t appear in a post-TOS production, again depending on whether you count Koenig.

(Nichols and Koenig both appeared in DS9’s “Trials and Tribble-ations”- Takei was the only one who didn’t- but that was all reused footage.)

It would be nice, but Nichelle has dementia and cannot do that kind of work anymore. That said, it *did* pack an emotional punch for me. I am still upset for two reasons. Hemmer is a awesome character and the new Trek shows keep doing this. Killing new characters before they get to thrive and grow as much as they should.

The ep. held me and did work developing characters which is always the goal, but it’s not my favorite ep. I’m gonna be sore for awhile losing Hemmer.

I love a crotchety introvert.

He was far from my favourite character on the show (which isn’t bad, since I pretty much like them all). But you’re right there was plenty of potential still there and the story didn’t absolutely need that scene as good as it was (I mean, it IS the ending of the movie they were ripping off, so it kinda needed it but that’s another story 😅)

I knew Nichols wasn’t well but I didn’t know she had dementia. That’s a shame 😞

With SNW, though, the only characters they can put in actual danger are the newcomers and the redshirts. Everyone else has plot armor because they have to be around for their TOS adventures. This was something my gf and I were discussing when the last redshirt bit it and we realized there was still about half an episode left – we started taking bets on if it would be La’an or Hemmer that got sacrificed on the alter of easy angst.

Christina Chong has already talked about season 2 and working with Paul Wesley, the actor playing Jim Kirk so she seemed a safe bet. Hopefully they bring back Bruce Horak (Hemmer) as another character down the line.

Technically, since “The Cage” has already taken place, we don’t *know* if Number One survives into TOS. (Ortegas is sort of supposed to be Jose Tyler, but he’d be in the same position.) But certainly Pike, Spock, Chapel, Uhura, M’Benga, Kyle, both Kirks, T’Pring, and April (TAS in his case) have that “armor.” Of course, any of them- or at least, I figure, anyone but Pike and Spock- can depart the show peacefully.

True. Hemmer’s death lacked the emotional punch because not only has it only been 8 episodes there were entire episodes where he didn’t make an appearance.

I’m gonna respectfully disagree with the idea of stunt-recasting Nichelle. Nimoy never played anyone but Spock, Shatner no one but Kirk, Takei no one but Sulu, Doohan no one buy Scotty and Koenig no one but Chekov It would’ve taken me out of the moment, honestly, to see Nichelle as someone other than Uhura.

Why is everybody reading this as if I’ve said this is what should have happend?

Well, because what you threw out there was a comment fishing for support for the idea that this was just begging for Ms. Nichols to make an appearance. Your only defense seems to be that you didn’t know Ms. Nichols is in no shape to be wheeled out to entertain the fans. Let it go.

Shatner played Sam Kirk. And Janice Lester. And Sargon. And…
.
James Doohan voiced Gabler, Arex, April, and numerous other TOS and TAS characters.

Doohan even voiced Kyle. I think Doohan did almost every TAS male role. Nichols and Barrett split the female ones.

The entirety of the Gorn in TOS was one man in a rubber suit in an extended fight sequence with Kirk in one episode.

I really don’t see how that could be seen as more interesting than the vastly more detailed reinvention of them we’re getting now – even if not everybody likes it.

Oh come on, the best part of Arena was Guy Fleegel in Galaxy Quest asking Kirk to construct a rudimentary lathe :)

And the Gorn in TOS moved really, really slowly.

Not so the one in ENT.

It was a good episode.
Some people say early Discovery episodes was dark but this episode was even more darker than anything Discovery did.

The gorn remind me of the Xenomorphs from Alien and also they remind me of the Magog from the TV series Andromeda.
What i liked about the episode is the teamwork we see with the away team and the visuals.

The AR wall looked great in this episode but what i didn’t like is the graphic nature of the Gorn being born out of that poor Alien Buckley .

La’an was great in this episode she really does remind me of Michael Burnham as both characters are badasses.

Hemmer reminds me of Airiam from Discovery with their deaths. As i said it was a good episode but a bit graphic in parts for me.

The AR wall looked great

Glad to the announcement, that they couldn’t land close the the crashed ship and had to walk 3 or so kilometers, it didn’t feel like they were standing right in front of the AR wall…

Remind you? They’re a blatant copy.

*fades back into focus*

I liked this episode [like SNW as a whole]… but it also made me curious. WHY did the actors leave? Horak’s toon is dead and I could think of RL reasons why he might wish to leave but Ms. Chong is quite the opposite; was her feelings of her employment/character like Tasha Yar? Usually when REVIEWERS say that the writer/director was being very brave, they ignore any RL reasons why events occur as in this case. But I am very curious because even though this series episode count borders on OVA/Mini-series territory, compared to DIS or PIC… SNW actually IS Star Trek (or close enough for government work). Those actors have value…

*fades back into obscurity*

I’m pretty sure Chong’s coming back, given the photos of the cast having a night out and going axe throwing that were posted recently.

Bruce Horak also will be back on Trek (not necessarily on SNW), as he said so in an interview. He also knew from the start his character would be killed on episode 109.

He might well be someone they keep going back to as a specialist alien actor. He could also play a human pretty easily given he hasn’t done that yet.

Hemmer has one up on Airiam because even though it was not a long stint, we got to know him quite well. Airiam was just a background player with no development until her one episode which was a rather uncomfortable take on a person’s disability being seen as the one thing holding them back from happiness.

Definitely agreed about the gore. It was excessive and totally ripped off of Alien, with a hint of Predator heat vision thrown in.

The action was also confusing at times. One minute the Gorn are tiny vicious babies, the next minute they can grab the stockiest crewman and pull him to his death. I kept wondering if a parental unit was in the mix. The bit where the second Gorn almost gets Spock was a chaotic jumble too, the choreography and edits weren’t great.

But it was good character work for Uhura, La’an and Spock, and the ensemble is really doing well overall. I may not have loved the sci-fi horror angle, but next week it’s a whole new approach, which I have grown to appreciate mightily!

For Me, They are 9 for 9,Bring On the Finale!

Looking forward to the finale. Though for me it would be 5 really great episodes and 4 that i felt dragged down the season. The season as a whole so far wouldn’t be in my top 10 seasons of Trek either but still an enjoyable show.

I’m right there with you. My late-00s/early-10s self wouldn’t believe how lucky I feel as a Trekkie nowadays.

I agree! I just hope Episode 10 doesn’t end on a cliffhanger. :-)

I’m assuming that the Gorn are cold-blooded (a pretty safe assumption), and the Gorn in “Arena” was put at a significant disadvantage by the desert heat.

It would be the opposite. Reptiles prefer hot climates. They slow down in the cold.

Right, good point.

Though there’s a cap on that, right? Basically there’s a range they’re most suitable for? Given the Gorn work better in the cold in this episode, maybe they’re operable temperature range is significantly lower than Earth reptiles.

My biology is way too rusty to know if that works or not, but putting it out there.

Nah, there’s no cap on Star Trek discarding science for whatever the story requires in any particular episode. ;)

I don’t think these are the TOS Gorn. They are a completely different animal.

Yeah. The TOS Gorn was a mammal inside a suit. These SNW Gorns are reptile-like puppets, just operated by mammals. Completely different creatures. ;-)

I think these ones were supposed to be different because they were hatchlings. As they matured, they would start walking around on two legs like the ones in TOS and Ent.

Exactly!

Not unless they undergo some sort of metamorphosis for them to mature into adult Gorn. Which is possible I suppose. After all this is science fiction. That said I still find it odd.

and wearing metallic tunics…

Er, I’m afraid you’re misremembering the episode. The Gorn AVOIDED the cold in this episode.

Have you read Becky Chambers’ books? Her starship has a reptilian character, and when they need that character during her downtime, they have to put a heated blanket on her to warm her up enough to wake her. And when they talk up the pleasures of ice cream, she says, “Why would I put cold food in my head?” Nice portrayal of how reptilian humanoids would actually work!

The Metron planetoid was low gravity, low atmosphere (but comparable oxygen by %, favoring Kirk), extremely bright light, and COLD temperature… All in all, very disadvantageous to the Gorn.

So I wonder who is playing Scotty in the next episode?

Straight to the point. They don’t give him time to appear supringsingly. After Hemmer’s gone, you really expect so see Scotty in the next episode.

I’m more interested in how M’Benga goes from chief medical officer to just a random member of McCoy’s staff.

Possible it was abuse of authority in using the medical transporter for personal use. A use that almost killed everyone on board.

But Hemmer and Number One are the only people who knew about that (as far as I could tell)… and I don’t see Una betraying Joseph.

Possible it would eventually come out.

That’s what I was thinking.

Maybe went back to Vulcan to practice medicine when the Enterprise undergoes its multi year refit before Kirk takes command.

Multi-year refit, huh? Never heard about that happening during the early-to-mid-2260s before, what makes you think it was that substantial or time-consuming?

Pike’s Enterprise only has a crew of 208. Kirk’s crew has 430+. We just got a name drop of Dr Sanchez who was the other doctor briefly seen in TOS. So I’m guessing that the increase in crew size is why Mark Piper and then Leonard McCoy come on board.

Yeah, that’s really to expect. There even isn’t room for a surprising appearance.

Very curious about the cast of next week.

Idris Elba

I liked the first half of the episode well enough, but to ripoff Alien, and even Predator a little, in such an obvious way is really lazy. There wasn’t much surprising in any of it. The overweight guy who just got promoted, hmm, I wonder if he’s going to make it out alive? At least he didn’t show us a picture of his girlfriend back home, just before getting dragged away by the Geico gecko.

I was surprised by Hemmer, though, and I hate they felt the need to pull a Tasha Yar with his character. We barely got to know the guy. But again, this might have been easier for me to take had they not leaned into the whole Alien of it all. His death is nearly a shot-for-shot remake of Ripley’s death in Alien 3.

Running low on ideas already?

The fact that they used the Gorn name and used so many TOS characters (aside from the obvious need, Spock) tells me they don’t have any fresh ideas to begin with.

Literally absolutely no reason to only describe him as “overweight” to identify him. He had a name, mentioned in the article even. He had a rank. He had activities he was doing. There were myriad ways you could have chosen to describe him.

Yes, there is a good reason. Typically the overweight person in a horror movie isn’t going to make it. This is why I referred to him as that. Had there been other overweight characters this season, I wouldn’t have mentioned it. But there were none I can recall.

It’s all about the tiresome horror tropes they were using.

I’ll give them credit for giving him a name and a new rank, but that’s surface level stuff that doesn’t amount to much. I needed more than ten minutes to get to know the guy as a person to really care. An actual person instead of a cheap horror trope. As such, he was a glorified redshirt.

Yeah it was obvious the guy was food fodder for the Gorn two minutes after he was introduced. You knew exactly who was going to die in that episode since there were so many regulars on the away mission.

And agree about Hemmer. I just really really hated they killed him off so fast. I like the other new characters like Ortegas and La’An but I can take them or leave them. I was really invested in Hemmer because besides being the only other alien on the show outside of Spock, he had such an interesting personality and background.

Oh wait, I forgot Una is now an alien as well—and so did the writers it seems. ;)

Pretty happy that has been seemingly dropped. It was a really bad creative decision.

I don’t think it’s really been dropped though. They just done nothing with it or her character since episode 3. I imagine whenever they do another episode about her, it will be brought up again. But yeah it’s weird how she’s been basically put in the background most of the season.

Is Rebecca sick? I often feel she doesn’t look well in the show.

I thought she looked sick even back on DSC, are you saying she looks worse now?

She looks perfectly fine in interviews. I think it’s the makeup and lighting.

I wouldn’t go that far. They just haven’t felt the need to bring it up. And there really isn’t any need to do so. It would be really easy to let all these character arcs overwhelm the show.

I know, I was mostly joking. I just like to see or hear more development about it. I get when you only have ten episodes a season you can’t do too much. But isn’t she the second main character on the show? We are learning (and seeing) more about Chapel and La’An than we are her. It’s a bit odd.

Couldn’t agree more.

Well, I can see either one of them getting killed before the series ends. Given L’an’s tragic backstory, killing her would be to obvious, though.

It’s 2022, that fat guy could have been pregnant. You don’t know…….

No comment. ;)

Can guys now get pregnant in 2022? I must have missed that article somewhere.

Lots of shows do an homage to influences they consider important. This one didn’t work that well for me, since I’m not a horror fan, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a sign that they have no ideas.

Aw, “homage,” a nifty word no doubt invented by a French lawyer. ;)

Heh.

As one very old fan who still to this day remembers with fondness watching first run TOS I just have to say that the very last scene of this weeks episode hit me with same power as hearing the Nimoy vo the first time in the movies. What fine fine work from all on SNW. If you don’t tear up a little with that very last scene check yourself for a pulse.

Kind of disappointed by this episode. Neat ideas, but the Gorn just felt like a ripoff of the Stranger Things demodogs, even sounded similar. Hemmer’s death also felt kind of undeserved with how little we got of the character this season. Hoping episode 10 is better.

Disappointed?! Who hurt you? lol

Agreed. Disappointed as well. And killing off Hemmer was a big red flag for me. They barely showed the guy in much of the season outside of four episodes and he’s already gone. The last two episodes have been OK overall but definitely the weakest for me. Still a great show overall though.

100% agree. I’ve been really enjoying this show up until this episode. They just killed off a new, non legeacy character from an alien race that’s barely been explored. Why?! I really hope it’s not to make way for a young Scotty. I want to get to know NEW characters, not old ones. It’s starting to have concerns that all the writers want to do is explore Uhura and Spock and bring back even more of the TOS cast. No thanks!

When Star Trek: Strange New Worlds began, I pointed out that except for Enterprise no Star Trek series has completed its run with the crew it started with, and asked which of the first season crew members would be the first one to die.

Now we know the answer…

I really looks like they are getting the original crew faster on board the Enterprise as expected.
@ moderator: why is my comment awaiting for approval? It always appeared immediately, except one time when I had a typo on my adress.

Did Ent manage that? I thought the engineer got pretty much killed and put on ice, which doesn’t exactly sound like still being a member of the crew.

Yeah. Everyone who appeared in the first episode of Enterprise as a member of the crew of the NX-01 also appeared in the last episode. None of them died in between.

Hemmer was definitely a member of the crew, just like Tucker, Scotty, or Geordi.

We all know Trip’s death was fake. He almost died and the historical records the simulation was based on were altered.

Not necessarily. He died a decade or so after Terra Firma, so it’s not a big deal if he stayed dead. It would have not affected a potential fifth season.

I really liked the episode, although it was an obvious Alien/Aliens/Alien3/Alien Covenant/Predator send-up. Some of the editing or cinematography could have been better, some shots lingered awkwardly (Hemmer’s reaction to getting sprayed), others weren’t very clear (Spock trying to lure the Gorn in the corridor). Without a doubt the redesign of the Gorn into something resembling a violent creature is going to ruffle continuity feathers, but I personally find this WAY more interesting and creative. Star Trek has rarely had a truly terrifying alien species. Surely they could have done this without borrowing existing IP, but this is more fun. Now we have to see how far they take it, and if they make the redesigned Gorn an intelligent species, or just a Xenomorph knock-off. Hemmer’s death was aggravating because he was the character I was most looking forward to this season. It was a poignant end, although straight out of “Alien 3”. For me the most poignant part of this episode was Spock losing grip of his emotions, amazingly well constructed arc for him in this episode and season. Again, great alien creature work, sound design, music, VFX, etc. Great season, too short, but great.

Helluva episode.

Damn it, Hemmer…..

I should not have read the comments as the episode has now been spoiled. Was just looking to get the overall impression of the episode. Would also be helpful to have “spoilers” in the title of the article and I would have avoided it entirely. lol I’ve been waiting to renew my Crave subscription until the rest of the episodes have been posted. I had hoped people wouldn’t post major details like Hemmer dying but guess I should know better. :(

As a general rule, I never go on twitter or read the comments here until after I’ve seen the latest episode. It’s kind of fair game, IMO in a place like this. So sorry that happened.

Any article with a title that includes the words “Recap/Review” is, dollars to donuts, going to spoil things. As Heyberto said, if I don’t want to be spoiled, I avoid message boards.

I knew I shouldn’t have walked into that alligator pit, but I did so anyways, and I’m absolutely furious to find out there were alligators in it!

If you want an overall impression: read the preview. Of course not comments on a recap article.

Oh, well, they finally aired an episode I didn’t enjoy. This is too much an Alien ripoff for me and it pretty much tosses Arena out the window. Despite this one being a big miss though SNW’s track record is very very good compared to other Trek shows’ freshman seasons.

I knew this one was coming by the way from a friend who works on the set. She described it as one of the season’s best. I feel lied to. LOL

I expect on set everyone was excited by the action and horror aspects and by the emotion of losing a cast mate. But you never really know if something is working until you’re in the edit room.

The other possibility is that the material was better than you saw, and the editing failed to carry that through. I think an awful lot of shows that overcut their stuff actually wind up hurting the material rather than enhancing it or bringing out additional layers. It isn’t like most projects have got Joe Walker working on them, where seemingly boundless taste, discretion and intelligence manifests (and admittedly, Walker had a lot of time on DUNE, which isn’t possible with TV project schedules.)

Michael Hall, if you check in here, I remember that you tried very hard to get into the new DUNE and sounded bitterly disappointed — a la me when I first saw TMP theatrically — but I wouldn’t be shocked if you actually reversed course on it down the line. We rewatched DUNE again this week — actually bought it new, something I almost never do anymore — and my wife and I wound up debating several of the open-to-interpretation cuts again for some time, and, rarest of rarities, we both watched ALL of the extras on the disk. I still find the original flawed Lynch DUNE to be a lot more fun and easier on the eye, but think this film is going to get better and better with time and especially when seen in context with part 2. END DETOUR.

Back on topic … by the same token, sometimes an editor is limited by what the director did. Last night I saw an old X-FILES that I had somehow managed to miss first-run, CHIMERA. There was an interesting idea in there, it was very well cast, but the direction was surprisingly pedantic. I checked, and sure enough, it was a mediocre TNG vet, Cliff Bole, who directed the show. Bole, a guy who could almost make the Borg boring.

He just kept overemphasizing stuff with Mulder’s pointed looks at a particular character, and the editors must have felt hamstrung by it or compelled by somebody to leave these aspects in, because for a show that demonstrated considerable taste for much of its run, this ep felt pretty low-rent in execution (despite one of Scully’s best comedy monologue’s EVER … while not up there with Miguel Ferrer’s “I love you, Sheriff Truman” on TWIN PEAKS, it is definitely memorable.)

Hey Kevin,

I actually watched DUNE three times — once theatrically in IMAX, once on my pretty decent home theatre, and once on my phone, and just couldn’t see the there there, sorry. Though I’m not a huge fan of Herbert’s novel or of the Dune universe in general, I still expected to really like it based on my total admiration for Villanueve’s ARRIVAL (which, with the possible exception of 2001, I consider to be the best film about first contact with aliens ever made), and wound up hugely disappointed. I can’t help but feel that all of the interesting material that would have distinguished it from the Lynch version wound up on the cutting room floor. Maybe the damn novel is just unfilmable; I dunno. It is possible that my feelings on it will reverse someday, as they did eventually with Stanley Kubrick’s CLOCKWORK ORANGE, assuming that both I and the country are still here.

BTW, on a completely separate subject, what did you end up thinking about THE OFFER? Reviews seem to have been mixed, but the clips I’ve seen on YouTube look great.

Michael,

I only got to see the first 3 eps as screeners while doing my article for ICG.
https://www.icgmagazine.com/web/may-2022-digital-edition/

They did make the rest of them available later on, but I forgot my sign-in! I remembered it last week and got in, but the screeners had expired. I sent something to Par saying I’m still waiting on a possible second story, about OFFER’s VFX, so it’d be useful to have the screeners reactivated, and I guess it is a wait&see now.

They weren’t sure whether they were going to permit VFX stories on THE OFFER back in March and April, and they might not have changed mind (shoot, they wouldn’t even let me mention VFX in the TOP GUN article, though it kind of staggers you when you realize ‘doing it all for real’ would actually mean firing tracers at planes and also blowing up planes in proximity to other aircraft.
https://www.icgmagazine.com/web/june-july-2022-digital-edition/ ).
Come to think of it, I asked about doing a SNW VFX story in early Spring too.

Short answer: I loved the first 3 episodes, especially Matthew Goode as Evans, who should have a lock on the Emmy, unless the guy who plays Lenny Bruce on MAIZEL (who is superb) is competing. They did mess with some facts and some timeline stuff, but I was just eating it up like candy anyway. It was often smart and always fun, based on the first 3, which I watched 2x each.

Definitely makes me think I should start coughing about giving TMP a similar treeatment at the Par+ people, since I’ve always thought the kid who played Ralphie in CHRISTMAS STORY looked like Robert Wise, and by now he is maybe even going to age into that more and would be a good candidate to play him. I don’t know who would play Katzenberg, Warwick Davis is too old … Bryan Cranston would be a good Roddenberry.

Thanks for the icgmagazine link to your OFFER coverage. I’m a sucker for that kind of stuff, being a pretty decent cinematographer for films and TV in an alternate universe (as opposed to a decent amateur landscape photographer in this one). Re-creating the period-within-period look and Willis’ exquisite lighting must have been a real challenge.

I did a search for Coppola’s take on the project but was only able to come up with a terse statement he made back in March to the effect that it wouldn’t be telling the “real story” of what happened during the making of THE GODFATHER. Fifty years on, and for all success shared by just about everyone associated with the film, there’s still bitterness over the experience of making it.

I think perhaps Coppola has always had a bit of self-loathing over having to take the project to salvage his career, because it was such a step away from his ‘indie’ mindset. Sure he became a director for hire in later decades, but that was to stave off bankruptcy and foreclosure; at this early point, he maybe could have toughed it out … he still had a great rep as a writer based on his work on PATTON (and that was before GATSBY, which he also scripted, came out, so he wasn’t yet tarnished by that film’s less-than-glorious reception.)

Then again, w/o TGF, he wouldn’t have gotten to make APOCALYPSE, so I think that is a pretty good tradeoff. I absolutely love THE CONVERSATION, but wonder how much better it might have been if made as more of a cheapie than the 2mil it did cost. Also, have to wonder how it would have been different if Coppola had stayed through post on it instead of having to do TGF2. I mean, Walter Murch changed CONVERSATION drastically in post (he had to, Coppola hadn’t even shot a number of key scenes by the time they wrapped, so he worked around all that), and while I find his work to be a marvel both aesthetically and technically, I do think in this case it madd the film less a Coppola thing and more of a hybrid.

Coppola has been something of a jerk off and on; he tried to hold up CONTACT from release by citing a small association with Sagan from decades back. I think it was a project he later described as FIRST CONTACT, to drag in a modest trek reference.

I know he did a rewrite on NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN, and would love to know what he brought to that very confused party. I’ve always seen that Bond/Largo exchange where the villain asks if Bond is as gracious a loser as he is a winner and Kirk Bond says he wouldn’t know, he’s never lost as being a little too TWOK, coming 15 months after the release of ST II.

Agreed

Same here. My first dislike. I hated the direction they took the Gorn. I’m curious to hear Laurie’s thoughts on tomorrow’s podcast.

Wait… It was THIS episode that tossed Arena out the window?

Absolutely. Previous Gorn mentions stretched Arena a bit. But this jettisoned it entirely.

So “stretching” is having everyone forget about the Gorn and all their habits 10 years after they were very common knowledge?

You make a good point.

Also why kill off one of the show’s most enjoyable characters so early in the game? I’d have liked to see Hemmer stick around for the whole show.

Wow. Amazing episode. Sad to see Hemmer go but I like that characters are not always safe. Very emotional. The Gorn were great looking. The blue alien was maybe one of the best aliens ever on trek. Not just a rubber forehead. The face articulation was stunning. Spock’s story was solid and his connection with Chapel feels real and her heartbreak comes across on screen. I also thought Niche Nichols would make a video call appearance as Uhura’s grandmother like another person who commented. Maybe a set up for next week? This show really gets Trek right. I just love it.

It’s worth pointing out, to the folks who are blasting this episode as an Alien or Predator ripoff, that Alien wasn’t exactly original either: it’s basically a much better remake of a much older movie, It! The Terror From Beyond Space, with influences from other movies like Mario Bava’s Planet of the Vampires. As Alien’s creator, Dan O’Bannon, said: “I didn’t steal from anybody. I stole from everybody.”

By the same token, Predator was pretty much Alien in the jungle.

It also isn’t the first time that Star Trek has used plots from other sources, usually ones that are so iconic that they’ve become a genre unto themselves. Examples: “Balance of Terror” is essentially The Enemy Below; “The Galileo Seven” is Five Came Back; and “Starship Mine” is Die Hard.

The difference is that Alien and Predator put their own spin on that old formula, enough that it felt fresh instead of tired. I suppose the delivery of impregnation via venom is a bit new but not by much. That’s simply changing it from down the throat to on the skin.

But if only using bodies as incubators had been all they lifted from those movies. No, they felt the need to also include a Newt, La’an and Spock getting their Ripley on, and Hemmer choosing to sacrifice himself just as Ripley did. Plus, Predator vision! And clicking sounds like the Predator.

O’Bannon may have stolen from everybody, but he and Ridley Scott created something unique. That didn’t happen here.

I maintain that Alien is one of those iconic films that has essentially become its own subgenre, and its use here doesn’t bother me one bit.

Yeah, it’s iconic. All the more reason to avoid stealing so many iconic elements from it. Better to steal from something obscure and hope no one notices, in my opinion.

Well, I thoroughly enjoyed the episode; so if one of us is wrong, I’d rather be wrong my way than your way. :)

You did your way, Sinatra.

It was theft, you’re right.

Please don’t exclude Walter Hill and David Giler and Ron Shussett from credit (and/or blame) for ALIEN. I still maintain that if not for Hill’s recognizing something to develop in the original script, this would have wound up an underbudgeted schlockfest for Corman. Plus Hill’s rewrite — though not recognized as such by the WGA, much to my ongoing disgust — is what really made the film work and turned things from corny to credible. He added all that 2nd level of sell stuff with the company wanting the alien for the weapons division, too.

Oh brother…

It goes without saying everyone who worked on creating Alien was a great talent. But you said it anyway. Cool.

I, too, remember the catfight on that issue in the pages of Cinefantastique. It was one for the ages. 😊

Yes (and the origins were in written SF with AE Van Vogt.) But nevertheless, this episode was a rip off in more than just concept – whole sequences and shots, settings, lines of dialog, even the music cues from Horner were from Alien/s. Weak and thin stuff.

So it’s ok for the Orville to be a carbon copy in concept and execution of TNG with the same stories and music based on what was seen and heard in TNG and races being rip offs from trek but given a different skin with no originality in my view.

But when Star Trek or I should say new trek does homages to other sci fi greats then it’s not ok.

A rip off beat for beat is not an homage. And I don’t like The Orville either.

The issue isn’t that they went this direction… it’s whether the viewer walks away with the opinion that it’s either. rip-off of, or homage to, a particular property. I’m going with the former. They did not pull it off.

GALILEO SEVEN is, in the words of its own writer as heard by Harlan Ellison, a direct lift from THE FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX, which was a feature film release the previous year. You lift from what is fresh because everybody can remember and appreciate what you’re lifting from, presumably making the sale easier.

For years I wondered if THE CORBOMITE MANEUVER was strongly influenced by 1964’s THE BEDFORD INCIDENT, largely because of the navigator role in TCM resembling James MacArthur’s Ensign in TBI. Then in the 80s I found out that the script also originally included having a senior officer onboard to evaluate and aid Kirk in his command, which is also a lift from BEDFORD with its NATO guy, an ex-German Sub commander.

I never thought about Galileo Seven lifting from Flight of the Phoenix. But now that you mention it I absolutely see it.

I have a lot of thoughts on this episode, but since I’m recovering from a brutal round of immunotherapy yesterday, I’m going to keep it short. This was a very good dive into horror, and they pulled it off better than just about any Trek. 

We also got some great character development for Uhura and Spock. Uhura has been struggling over her future this season, and while we all know it, her path was very enjoyable and added quite a bit of depth. Her relationship with Hemmer was wonderful, although I didn’t like how it ended (more on that later). I really like how Uhura saw Engineering as getting very different systems to talk/work together, and how Hemmer, a pacifist, took her under his wing. As for Spock, his struggle always has and always will be the balance between his Vulcan and Human halves. In this episode, Sam Kirk gets mad at him for being seemingly impassive at the brutal death of a colleague. Later, in order to hunt the Gorn, Spock is told to release his anger. His human anger. Even after the battle was won, during the funeral, Spock leaves because he cannot control his human anger. It’s Chapel who offers some guidance that will shape his future. 

It was a good episode, but definitely my least favorite for two reasons. First, let me make something clear: I have absolutely no problem with how SNW is really bending canon to use the Gorn. As long as it tells a good story and doesn’t insult our intelligence, I don’t care about canon-bending. My problem here is not about canon. 
My first problem is that the Gorn are characterized purely as monsters, as vicious animals. I would’ve liked to see signs that they are the intelligent, sapient beings they are, and I would’ve liked to see attempts at diplomacy. I didn’t like that. 
My second problem is the treatment of Hemmer. This is more of a personal issue for me, so feel free to ignore. As a severely disabled man, I so rarely get any real disability representation. Seeing Geordi La Forge changed my life because he made me feel like no matter how disabled I was, I could be and do anything I wanted. My point is, it’s minor to most people, but for a sick or disabled kid, it changes lives. My hope was Hemmer — especially since he is played by a blind man — could inspire a new generation of sick and disabled kids. So seeing him dumped from the show was a kick in the gut. That really disappointed me, especially since Hemmer didn’t even get the screentime he deserved. Frankly, I feel pissed off. I love SNW, but do better. If you’re going to kill him off, bring someone else on board who can be an inspiration to sick and disabled kids. You have no idea just how big an impact it has on these kids. And treat that character better. We deserve better. 

Agreed. Very disappointed to lose Hemmer, especially as they gave him little enough to do across the season.

Indeed, Hemmer deserved better. I thought they were building him up to eventually become a kind of wise Yoda like figure we could enjoy for a few seasons. Silly me. Nah, something something Game of Thrones killed characters unexpectedly, so that’s cool now. Rubbish.

Agreed, there are other main characters they could/should have killed off, as opposed to Hemmer, who was unique and truly had value. Do we know why he’s out, though? Was it strictly a writer’s-room decision, or did the actor have other obligations elsewhere?

I’d love to know the “why” behind it too. I imagine the role was always meant to be short term. By the time the writers room knew how well received Hemmer was they were already into season 2. I really enjoyed the character and the performance. I love Scotty but with James Kirk joining we have too many TOS characters on the ship.

They planed for the character to die in episode 9 of season 1 from the start when they created the character

If that was the intent then it almost feels like casting this guy was more of a stunt than anything else.

Yes. Depressing after all the Press about his blindness.

Perhaps the shortsidedness or sightlessness of the writing staff is what really shows who is blind here?

Bruce said he knew from the start his character was to be killed in episode 9

Agreed! Absolutely a bad decision to kill Hemmer and I hated that they made out the Gorn as vicious animals and ended up killing them. It is not something that should be on SNW.

They need to make up their minds on their destruction of Gorn canon. Are they vicious animals who kill each other on sight to establish dominance or are they an actual society capable of space travel with an actual command hierarchy? Based on this show that Gorn captain couldn’t possibly have been nimble enough to kill all challengers to his position as Captain. Are they an intelligent species or just animals?

Agreed!

Maybe this is going to be a BATTLEFIELD EARTH riff, with ‘exterminate all gorn-animals!”

I’ve done a lot of volunteer and other work in the disabled community and I totally agree with you, Shran. Of all the characters to kill off, why Hemmer? It reminds me of the old writing habit of killing off the LGBTQIA characters first. Knock off the one character that was an inspiration for the disabled. Its pretty much the equivalent of what letting Nichelle Nichols leave TOS would have been to African Americans.

Honestly, the fans should express more disappointment and outrage over this… it certainly worked to bring back Culber on Discovery…. I really appreciate your perspective on Hemmer’s death. I hated it because it’s a big waste of an interesting new character and unexplored culture (not to mention the death is in service of two well established legacy characters). After reading your thoughts on how you felt represented through the character of Hemmer, now I’m even more upset. Plans always change. It’s absurd they would even write a character with the intention of killing him early. We need to get past this Game of Thrones BS. That show has ruined modern TV. Space is dangerous. We get it. That’s why Red Shirts exist 😂

First episode getting a thumbs down from me. The blatant rip-off of Alien puts a very bad taste in my mouth. Was this necessary?

Lazy wasn’t it.

La’an smashing the frozen specimen was WTF.

Why didn’t they freeze Hemmer? Sever the parts of him that have been infected?

Put him in a constant transporter beam?

Boo!

I don’t like how they used Hemmer for the growth of others.

Really not a good episode.

Also Pike’s whole reasoning to go help the Peregrine without Enterprise as backup was just lunk-headed over confidence.

He’d have got court-martialed.

Also: why are the only Gorn in the bodies of Buckley (the living crewman who for no reason cannot communicate) and not the dead ones?

And how in the world didn’t La’an see that?

And! Where are the other Gorn? Do they take their babies and go? This episode does not match the other Gorn episode.

And if La’an knows so much about Gorn biology how come the entire fleet is briefed about?

If I was on this mission and I got back from it I would have some choice words for Starfleet command!

Also let’s note that alot of 70s horror (mentioned by others In This thread) was a knowing reaction to Vietnam War combat conditions. On that, there is literally nothing in here that illuminates.

How has La’an become such a Gorn expert? For someone who saw nothing and just ran she seems to know a great deal about a “mythical” species no one knows anything about but everyone knows all about. Except a decade later when no one recalls anything about them at all…

Ha – right.

Your VietNam mention is worth reading the whole thread for. Context matters, whereas homage usually just trivializes.

Yup!

Not to mention, he just jumps out of the ship. Wouldn’t there be a more humane way to go?

Plus, now he will be breeding more Gorn! So in theory Starfleet could go right back to this planet and hunt down these Gorn and study them.

OH and SAM Kirk is on this mission.

Is someone like him NOT going to mention that to his brother? Or is he almost getting eaten alive so often that he need not mention it.

I guess he forgot.

He must get into some much more impressionable predicaments down the road, since this must’ve been so forgettable.

That was nothing more than a rip off of Alien. Very disappointing and derivative. The first mis-step this season and a bad one. And as for the other surprise? No. Not good. Shows a poor sense of overall direction and trajectory for the show. That’s worrying knowing what we do about S2 and JT Kirk. Lazy and out of ideas?

I don’t know if it’s supposed to be the same character, but there was a Dr. Sanchez on the Enterprise in the TOS episode “That Which Survives.” He did the autopsy on Wyatt.

  1. If they were skirting the Gorn before, they’ve totally jumped the canon shark now. That’s what Akiva called ‘Body English’.
  2. Hemmer. It didn’t resonate at all. We’ve barely seen this dude. Should’ve waited and gotten the audience more invested in him.
  3. Sigh… I guess we’re getting Montgomery Scott in season 2. I really would have preferred they stuck with Hemmer for awhile. He was one of the most interesting characters.

Agreed, how unoriginal and weak if they killed him off to bring Scotty, yet another legacy character, back. Hemmer was truly a compelling character. It would be a shame if they took him out just to bring Scott in.

100%.

I am really really hoping that’s not the case either Danpaine. I would roll my eyes if he was just a place holder to bring in Scotty and did it in such a way just not to be too obvious about it. We already have four main characters from TOS and a total of eight who appeared on the show at least once. We already stocked up on legacy characters at this point and we’re only 9 episodes in. My god, both Kirk and Sybok are coming next season too. How many more do we need???????????

Hemmer was an original character in every sense of the word and the guy was only in four meaningful episodes. And it look like they could’ve really did so much with him since we knew very little of the Aenar.

To be fair there is no guarantee his replacement will be Montgomery Scott.

Maybe they will bring his brother Samuel Scott instead. 😉

ROFLMFAO

I’m okay if they just don’t cast a replacement at all. Paring this ensemble cast down a bit will tighten the focus on remaining characters.

I agree, although I do like the trend toward killing or otherwise replacing regular cast members on shows. It would not be out of character for the producers to introduce Scotty in season two, since they seem to feel that commercial reasons require this show have as many legacy characters as possible.

Well it looks like I’m going to be in the minority here, but I really liked this one. Ok, so it relied pretty heavy on Aliens, etc., but I LOVE all those movies. And I think it came off very well. I’m a huge horror sci-fi fan and a huge Trek fan, so combine the two and you have a winner for me. Loved the sfx. Some of the exposition-heavy scenes in the middle killed the pacing a bit, but impressive acting work by all, once again. Hemmer was a great, original character, but I appreciate any show which has the stones to kill off a popular main one, it raises the stakes for all. Of course we know the fate of all the legacy characters (unless they really go off the rails with this reboot), but everyone else is fair game. I like that. There’s a nice tension building between Spock and Chapel as well here, too, fun to watch and genuine. Now that canon has been deemed moot, it’s much more fun to just sit back and enjoy SNW. Bring on more Gorn. Hell, while we’re at it bring on Cardassians, Vidians (the Phage) and the Borg. Make an episode that gives a shout-out to Event Horizon, too! As long as there’s a good story being told, I’m in. And this week, I think they nailed it. 8/10.

The way they are going they may as well have everyone see Romulans, too.

This episode is entertaining, so no shame in liking it. There’s a lot of derivative storytelling these days. To me what’s sad is they don’t really make it feel like their own version of that. The other issue is the Star Trek of it all… the canon issues with the Gorn and how Hemmer’s fate just did not resonate. Reminds of when Arium died in Disco. The crew was all broken up, but we weren’t. Yet she had been there in the background for so long. Anyway.. the episode is not bad. But definitely flawed.

No doubt about it being flawed, but with these showrunners, I’ll take entertaining wherever I can get it. The flaws and inconsistencies are expected by now, sadly.

This show had a low bar because of it. I think we’ve been so happy that this feels more like Trek, that many have overlooked / downplayed it’s flaws. I’m guilty of that because I am enjoying the show overall.

Being north of the border, we have to wait for a few hrs before seeing E9. That being said, from the limited posts I’ve read (trying not to spoil the episode), i have to say that the movie Alien doesnt own the storyline of parasitic reproduction, which is quite common place in nature back here on earth. I don’t know why, but seeing what wasps do to spiders and caterpillars is freaky and disturbing.
It should be an interesting episode, no singing and laughing on SNW tonight!

No, but when you join parasitic reproduction with a little girl survivor and a woman trying to overcome her trauma by going toe-to-toe with an evil alien scurrying around, well, it’s a bit much.

and the music and the dialogue and the climax

The episode seemed more action paced than normal and with the Alien like creatures (honestly, if you just cut that scene where the two Gorns are coming out of Buckley, you could fool an “Alien” amateur) creating havoc, episode was just about interesting. Wonder though where the show goes from here with the last remaining episode for the 1st season and losing two characters (Hummer who perished) and La’an (who takes an extended leave of absence). Seems like the writers have put a rather large hole in the plot (unless of course, they intend to introduce new characters or promote from within)

…was thinking perhaps this may give them more room to write Rebecca Romijn in. She’s been pretty much nothing but a doorstop thus far. If Sam Kirk’s future wasn’t already known, this would have been a good opportunity to kill him off, too. He’s been little but a wisecracking PIA in the show so far, imo. Cull the cast a bit.

Christina Chong is in the spy photos from the season two location filming so we know she’s coming back.

Maybe Kirk joins her on her mission while she’s on leave from Enterprise. That would be an easy way to have him on the show but not meet and interact with all the other characters on the Enterprise.

bruce said he knew from the start when he was casted as hemmer the character was to be killed off in episode 9 and knowing that they are bringing a lot of tos legacy characters into snw already they probably are planed to replace hemmer with Scotty either in the final episode of season 1 or first episode of season 2

What’s the canon on Scotty being on Enterprise before JTK?

EDIT – Memory Alpha suggests he wasn’t part of Pike’s crew.

If you go to Beta canon, then the same novel that established Una’s origin has Scotty joining the crew as an Ensign the same time that Spock does.

I thought Scotty came with the ship by the time Kirk assumes command. That’s based on out of date spec from old issues of TREK magazine … mostly.

I don’t think there is anything regarding Scotty immediately before becoming Chief Engineer on the Enterprise. But it stands to reason he was on the ship before the promotion. It would help explain his attachment to the ship. And why of all TOS characters he was the most logical choice to be on Pike’s Enterprise. Just not as the Chief. My head canon was Kirk promoted him when he took command but I do not think there is anything official about it.

None that I know of. But does it really matter?

Well… Seems like Hemmer wasn’t long for this show. Unfortunate as he was someone I think they could have really used. Does this open the door for Scotty?

Regarding the use of the Gorn…. These really do not look or act at all like the Gorn we know. Seems that a species that attacks itself like that would be incapable of creating a society with a command hierarchy like having a ship captain. Which the Gorn Kirk fought was. It’s also improbably this species is even spacefaring. They remind me more of the Xenomorph from Alien. So I’m now thinking this alien is just misnamed for some bizarro reason. But if that is the case why use a name no one has heard of yet? I’m hoping they come up with something plausible here to fix all this. Who am I kidding? Of course they won’t.

To riff on GR with why the TMP klings were different, they were the Southern Klingons. I guess these could be Gorn from the South, where inbreeding led to the saliva based reproduction. Or maybe that branch of the Gorn passed their own breeding laws under Gitch McGornell to speed up their metabolism.

Sure. One could do such backflips to make that work. But no amount of mental gymnastics has yet been able to explain why everyone knows about the Gorn in Pike’s day but no one does in Kirk’s.

Cuz it just don’t wash. Fans are a fountain for spewing like a business, practically Rationals ‘r’ Us at times, and I gotta figure TPTB will run roughshod over anything like canon as it suits them. Considering how much they knock Republicans (which I’d normally be cool with), they certainly seem to act like them with the highhandedness and revisionism.

Probably the weakest and most derivative episode yet. The distress signal that turns into a warning to stay away was right out of Alien; the Gorn POV was a copy of the Predator’s vision, the Gorn hatching scene was a chestburster knockoff for quadruplets, etc. Seeing those crewmembers get promoted and then end up on the landing party was also really weak telegraphing. The newly promoted crewmember who gets killed is another really tired trope. That lack of originality is disappointing but also really the least of the episode’s problems.

What really buried it for me was the absolutely glacially slow pacing and utterly invisible musical score. Ripping off classic sci-fi horror movies isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you can at least stick the presentation but there was no sense of urgency to the proceedings. The baby Gorns pretty much took each other out and the way the final one was dispatched had zero suspense or tension to it. It was just boring with no real build-up to that disappointing final confrontation and a forgettable musical score that only contributed to the feeling that this was a cheap knockoff.

The episode also had some lapses in logic. The Peregrine seemed to be a Constitution class ship yet Pike says they only have a crew of 100 which seems strange, especially given that the class is now twice as large as a TOS Constitution ship. It also wasn’t one of the 12 original Constitution class ships though that’s not a big deal for me as this show is clearly a soft reboot. Making the Gorn act like a bunch of Raptors, killing each other off until an alpha emerges seems counter-intuitive for what was presented in TOS as an intelligent, space faring species. I also found it strange that nobody bothered to try to give Hemmer a workup after he was slimed, especially after what happened with the alien.

Speaking of Hemmer, I was also sorry to see him die. He was easily my favorite original character and offing him so quickly felt like a lost opportunity to me. We’re supposedly still years away from Kirk’s adventures and I hope TPTB aren’t removing new characters like Hemmer and La’an from the board just to make room for more legacy characters. Will Scotty show up next week? Is Kirk going to get a special appointment as the new security officer? I’d much prefer the show chart its own course rather than just be a years-long setup for the inevitable TOS soft reboot.

They said the Peregrine was a different class that just happened to look just like the Constitution class, but were faster and had fewer crewmembers. Which is very TOS where all the other starships looked like the Enterprise, inside and out.

Yeah but on TOS that was done strictly for budget reasons. They don’t have the same issue here. But since it’s the same sets why not just call it a Constitution class? It’s so bizarre to say its another class but it’s the exact same ship.

glacially slow pacing

This has been a problem throughout the series, frankly. Not sure why.

“… introduce a new (possibly familiar) chief engineer in season two”

Charles Tucker the fourth !

Never have I been so emotionally wrecked by an episode that had so many flaws!

Those flaws I felt included:
* the entire Aliens rip-off, right down to the look of the Gorn gutburster
* the introduction of the newly minted Lt. Duke and outgoing Cadet Cha-Cha-Cha-Chia (sorry) just to kill them off — a bit obvious, but I guess it did serve a purpose in distracting from the chance that Hemmer wouldn’t be returning
* Spock’s growing familiarity with George Kirk. When George died on TOS, there was no inkling whatsoever from Spock that they’d served together, which has been my problem with using George Kirk all along. I’m not saying Spock should’ve wailed and gnashed his teeth, but an “I am sorry for your loss, Captain. I knew your brother.” would be what I expected now that I’ve seen Spock and George together.

Now for that gut-punch…

Oh, Hemmer, you made me ugly cry. Granted, we didn’t know him well as, say, Spock or Chapel or M’Benga, but I felt I knew him better than Discovery’s Ariam, I felt, and everyone made a huge deal out of Ariam dying. It was a noble sacrifice, how Hemmer decided to go out, right up there with Spock choosing (will be choosing?) the needs of the many over the needs of the few, or the one. When Hemmer leapt from the ship down into that chasm, I gave a cry of anguish that actually disturbed my neighbor. Seeing Spock uncork the rage and not being able to put it back… powerful stuff.

Certainly had it’s problems, but even with those problems, it was better (in my opinion, I know) than “The Elysian Kingdom,” an episode I felt no connection with whatsoever.

why change the Gorn, just make up a new creature, Star Ships can land now ?

Been saying this since they first brought up the Gorn in episode 1. They should have just made up a new alien instead of changing the existing one 99.9%.

Land? This remimds me of a great joke in the early Bantam novel THE FATE OF THE PHOENIX, when the antagonist realized his ship is out of control. “We are about to make planetfall. The operative word is ‘fall.'”

I no longer think it’s they don’t know what to do with the character of Number One. It all feels too deliberate. I tweeted about this last week. I’m convinced this has been the plan all along. It’s probably negotiated in her contract even. Rebecca and Jerry raise two girls and they’re both working parents. That, plus the fact the show is taped in Canada is probably why she only committed to a 50%-ish job. And although I’d love to see more of Una, I get it.

Ps: wow what an hour of Trek!

If stories are to be believed, all the scripts were written before production started. So she could have negotiated a reduced schedule. It’s not uncommon with well-known actors. Perhaps the most famous being My Three Sons, starring Fred MacMurray. His arrangement was that he came in for six weeks at the beginning of production (strictly nine-to-five, Monday through Friday), was off for ten weeks, then back for four weeks and then was done for the year, amounting to just over 25 percent of the shooting schedule. For which he was paid series lead money. Nice gig.

When you think of the CGI Gorn from Enterprise, you can at least imagine it sitting down piloting a starship. Same goes for the TOS Gorn. The full creature we saw in this episode – was that supposed to be a fully grown adult or an adolescent Gorn? If that was an adult then I’m struggling to picture them doing…anything, other than being mini dinosaurs that just eat and reproduce. How the heck did they engineer warpdrive without getting into constant fights?! I can’t even imagine these Gorn being able to put clothes on. Kind of funny how the Lower Decks Gorn wedding scene is that much closer to the source material.

Are they riffing on gem hadar with the alpha-ing aspect?

I didn’t think of that but yeah it’s definitely in that area.

Well, Voyager established the idea of dinosaurs developing space travel.

I guess it’s not that far out there, in regard to what can happen in-universe. These Gorn could always be specifically be Gorn soldiers too. Perhaps even engineered purely for fighting.

Really really on the fence with this episode. For starters I’m not a horror person at all but I obviously knew this was the ‘horror’ episode and was OK with that. But then as others said they just ripped off Aliens (which I never seen except for one of the prequel movies) to a ridiculous level, it just felt too much like those movies and not its own thing.

Yeah they have now totally ignored Arena at this point, which was made clear they were already doing with the first Gorn episode. I’m OK with that and they basically turned the Gorn into something much more vicious and savage. I’ve seen other people say it but how could these things ever make it into space lol. But hey, we have to believe dinosaurs eventually got their act together and evolved to make it to space in Voyager so maybe like them there are different sub-species of Gorn? I guess we’ll learn a lot more because they are clearly the big villains of this show now.

But my biggest issue is just killing off Hemmer. Just left a huge bad taste in my mouth. I guess we can say he was definitely just a recurring character lol. But it really really sucks. Hemmer was actually the most interesting new character by a mile and really wanted to learn more about the Aenar. Ironically I thought we were going to get a deep dive on this episode but clearly not. And if Scotty is introduced to replace him I’m going to roll my eyes hard. It would just be turning into TOS at this point, especially with Kirk showing up. It would just be too much too fast but we’ll see.

Overall, it was OK and the production values per usual were quite high for the second straight bottle episode. But I don’t see myself rewatching this one much at all. And why is Una taken out of the main story yet again??? And yeah really bummed over Hemmer right now. It’s a huge minus for me going forward.

I too feel the loss of Hemmer, but unlike losing Tasha Yar in a useless death in S1 of TNG, Hemmer’s loss seemed to have more meaning and as an Aenar, he fullfilled his life’s purpose by fixing the ship and a young cadet. That said, I wonder if Bruce Horak wanted out of the show like Denise Crosby wanted out of TNG? Regardless, it is too bad because he was an intriguing character!
As for the Gorn – as Q said, space is filled terrors to freeze your soul and is not for the faint of heart. Besides the Borg, the Gorn clearly fit in that category. And these Gorn move with the speed and agility of the CGI Gorn we saw in Enterprise – not the comically lumbering dinos from Arena. It will be interesting to see how the Gorn actually mature into sentient space faring intelligent adults.
Btw, I too agree that I hope they dont bring Scotty on board just yet.
Ok the finale is next week. Can’t wait to see what’s in store for the crew of the Enterprise in E10.

Can’t wait to see what’s in store for the crew of the Enterprise in E10.

This show is certainly better than Star Trek Discovery. Currently it is hovering around Picard territory. And honestly if the show were to end at any point I wouldn’t be disappointed. And I was someone who really wanted to see it after seeing Mount’s Pike on Star Trek Discovery.

Dude please tell me you like this show even with some issues? If you start hating this one I don’t think there is any hope for new Star Trek lol.

Horak said that killing Hemmer was the plan all along.

As someone already said Horak stated in the Ready Room it was the plan from day one they kill off his character. I always feel bad for actors they think they just got a multi-year gig being on a show like Star Trek only to find out 5 episodes in their character is getting killed off. But this wasn’t the case of course he knew going in it was only temporary. But you can tell his death bothered a lot of people. I think the problem is they made the character just too interesting but gave him little to do so fans wanted to see more. I thought he was just going to have more to do next season…guess not lol!

As for the Gorn, I don’t mind this version of them at all. And yes it beats a guy in a rubber suit who has the reflexes of an old man with arthritis a hundred to one. Some of it still doesn’t make sense but as I said I know we are really at the beginning learning about them. I do like how every episode so far they are slowly revealing them. We didn’t see them at all in the first episode and the second we saw as babies. I’m really curious to see how they will do their third episode.

I can’t with the bitching and wining in these comments. Why does everything have to “remind you of something” (some times 4 times in 1 comment!), or be a rip-off? Come on man, lighten up. As if any horror sci-fi flick is original…

And don’t start that ‘Hemmer was robbed’ nonsense. Since we all know certain characters are never in any real danger (since we know their future) it’s nice to see the other characters get their share, so to speak. On The Walking Dead they’re dropping like flies. It’s part of the game for real dramas.

This was an amazing hour of Trek. Period.

It’s why we call them opinions. You don’t have to agree with them, but you do have to respect them. And if you thought it was an amazing hour of Star Trek, I’m really glad you enjoyed it, but I can’t agree personally.

It will remind you of it if you’ve seen it before many times, if it’s iconic, and if the episode is clearly drawing from it. But if this new for you, cool. I’m envious.

If it’s new for anybody, it must be because they don’t pay attention to what they’ve watched or they haven’t seen enough to have an informed opinion (though that is coming from somebody who hasn’t seen any of these yet, so … context.)

You know, the Gorn aren’t human, so imposing a human trajectory towards intelligence in growth doesn’t make sense. There is nothing that says that the young Gorn have to be intelligent like adults are. Body growth may be rapid but growing and programming a brain no doubt takes longer. My point: the Gorn in their young stage are more brutal, instinctive, animal like – their brains have to grow into their intelligence. This isn’t such a strange idea. Human baby’s brains take time to develop enough to handle things like speech. And there’s nothing in the previous appearances of the Gorn that discusses their life cycle, so its fair game.

The Gorn appeared in TOS once, and it was 60’s rubber suit era; if they made a more mobile costume it would also have been more obviously a costume. And ENT ditched the slow stiff rubber suit movement well before SNW came along.

I personally think the Gorn appearance in TOS was as a ‘monster of the week/stock bad guy’ created to present a contrast that demonstrates that in the future that humans are capable of mercy even to vicious enemies that we instinctively dislike (most people are not fans of alligators and other lizards), that we have evolved past judging a book by its cover. In other words, the episode was about the humans, not the Gorn. The only other canon appearance of the Gorn were in ENT (unless you count the Gorn skeleton in the DISC Mirror Universe.. and that didn’t really give us a lot of info about them). So really, plenty of room to create stuff new with them.

There is plenty of room to create new stuff for them. Totally agree. So long as it can fit in with what little we know about them. Which admittedly is not much. Perhaps the young are more mobile and they slow as they mature. Sure. That can be a thing. Perhaps their look totally changes as they mature, too. Sure. Perhaps their society allows their young to kill each other as a means to establish future dominances. Sure. But what is known is that on TOS no one knew about them whatsoever. The time to dive into those other things is on any show that is set in a time after TOS. This episode didn’t destroy any Gorn canon that wasn’t already destroyed in previous episodes.

Did anyone actually say that they were unfamiliar with the Gorn in TOS? If I recall, they didn’t know who was responsible for the attack on Cestus III until the Metrons told them it was the Gorn. I don’t remember anyone saying one way or the other if that was first contact.

One doesn’t need to outright say “What’s a Gorn?” It is obvious by how they react and other elements. Like Kirk’s “apparently called a Gorn” line. This is interpreted as he never even heard the word before. Which I find amazingly obvious. Also the Gorn himself admitted they destroyed Cestus III. And the “space legends” line was obviously referring to the Metrons. Who tapped seemed to tap energy and had tech that was so advanced it resembled magic. As such “legends” is more fitting for them than the Gorn. All of this has been gone over before, btw.

I have to agree with this. Even the show runner on the last Ready Room admitted they broke canon with Arena.

In the Kelvin timeline, McCoy talks about a pregnant Gorn and delivering octuplets. Guess they somehow procreate differently in the prime universe..

Or Bones was just making stuff up to impress Dr. Marcus.

So… my head cannon. Octuplets from a pregnant Gorn that were taken out by C-section… it makes sense if a Gorn spit-inseminates another Gorn and you have to do an emergency C-section to get them out and save the host. His line of “And boy to those suckers bite” has new meaning. It all makes sense. Also the tails and different body shape vs Arena in TOS makes sense if they have a juvenile stage much like a tadpole has a tail and then morphs into frog. My head cannon was able to make all this consistent. So I love this new dimension to the Gorn and see nothing contrary :)

Well, while they did try to make the KU Trek link to the Prime I still see it as more of a full reboot and the link to the PU was extremely weak just to placate fans who couldn’t handle a full on reboot. In that sense they could do whatever the wanted with any character or species.

The Gorn hatching out of that alien reminded me of a couple of things. The most obvious one was the way the aliens from the “Alien” franchise broke out of a host. They also reminded me of the Magog from Andromeda which hatched from a host body in a similar way. I also found it interesting that they gave the hatchlings vision similar to Predator. I just wish they hadn’t killed Hemmer off. He was one of the show’s most interesting character, but maybe this will make room for Scotty. I still think it’s too soon, but anything’s possible with these writers.

Seems like Hemm (I can’t believe Pike called him that) being Aenar could’ve helped him survive – theoretically, he could survive extreme cold that might kill the Gorn eggs. Wouldn’t even step on La’an’s ice sculpture smash bit. But the writers really wanted to kill Hemm, so that’s where they went with it.

This is the first season of a Trek show (TOS excluded since it was great) where the writers haven’t struggled to figure out the show, just the first season of a Trek show where feature writers have struggled to figured out how to write a compelling hour of TV. Once they exhaust all the tropes and inspiration from sci fi they’ve seen and read, we might start getting some accidentally interesting and unique ones.

Well, darn. I really like(d) Hemmer. I did not mind the blatant Aliens homage/ripoff.
I think the show may have peaked with this episode. We’ll see.
Side note: One of the commercials was from Geico, with the Gecko. Then they show the alpha Gorn.

>;>}

Wow, I just watched The Ready Room and I can’t believe the Gorn were puppets!!! Incredible direction and post production. I had assumed they were all CGI. Watching the video, I couldnt help but laugh and think of puppet Balok of the First Federation.
Also really enjoyed the interview with Bruce Horak. Like many of us fans, Wil Wheaton was pretty unhappy they got rid of Hemmer.
SPOILER ALERT – Finally, I watched the sneak peek of E10. Another very serious episode folks!
Okay, I know it is a little early, but Happy Fourth and Happy Canada Day for the rest of us north of the border!

Oh wow, Wheaton’s reaction made me fear that they might play the “we didn’t actually see a body, so… Hemm might not actually be dead” as part of the ongoing Gorn saga.

OK. Upon further reflection throughout the day… I’m super kinda sorta devastated by Hemmer’s death. I just loved him. I think it’s a great dramatic choice to have him killed off. It gives the show stakes. But, OUCH. Such a great character and actor. One of my all time favorites in all of Trek history. Here’s to Hemmer and Bruce Horrack who gave him to us. :(

I’m still seething about Hemmer being killed off, even though there were indications all along that he wouldn’t be back for a second season.

There is modest good new though in that Bruce Horak will be back in Trek in some role. At the end of his Hollywood Reporter interview, he said that the powers that be had cleared him to say that.

I’m really upset with the writers killing off Hemmer. They wasted a big opportunity to actually explore the Aenar Culture through this character and give the fans something NEW. Instead, they kill him off… why? To give the episode emotional heft? Great. But what a waste of a character in the process. What a waste of potential storylines with the Aenar and Andorians for future seasons. I just don’t get it and it’s upsetting. Add to that the fact that somehow Sam Kirk is still alive to be racist to Spock and an overall buffoon of a Star Fleet officer. That’s the character that should have been killed off.

I’m seeing articles speculating the introduction of a young Scotty now that Hemmer’s gone. I might just be done with this show if that happens. I want NEW characters, NEW alien cultures, and not retreads of where Star Trek Writers have gone before. Uhura, Chapel and Spock need to be the limit of legacy characters. And find someway to bring back Hemmer and throw Sam Kirk out the nearest airlock. I wouldn’t even care that it would break cannon!

I said something similar above, Jake. “Buffoon” is a good word to describe how they’ve presented Sam Kirk. It’s a shame they brought a Kirk into the show only to make a joke out of the name. And I agree, even it it broke canon (even further, does it even matter now), kill him off.

Given what this show has done to what what TOS has established I wouldn’t be surprised if they killed off George Kirk. The character who everyone calls Sam but Kirk’s android that knows everything Kirk does said “Only you call him Sam.”

Could’ve used another season of Hemmer! He was just coming into his own on the show. Oh well. I suppose when you have so many characters on the show with canonical arcs continuing in TOS, you need some “canon-fodder” for the writers kill off. ;-)

For all that last week’s episode was, this was the complete opposite in every way.

What a MASSIVE contrast….and I LOVED IT!

I just watched this again, and it’s still bad (sometimes a re-watch changes the mind.) I can see the need for character development and even for death, but to do via such a beat for beat – scenes, dialog, music, even denouement – steal from the Aliens movies was perplexing. A homage that misfired or lazy writing, either way, it takes you out of the episode constantly, and that’s not strong story-telling. Did nobody in the writer’s room say “Hang on a minute…?” Perplexing that they wrong-footed so badly.

I liked the episode a lot- the emotional weight of this show is a testament to the great storytelling and acting by this crew and cast.

As for the ALIEN ripoff, it’s not a big deal for me. ALIEN isn’t exactly a sacred concept- it’s a part of a larger fairytale-horror tradition going back to gremlins, contagions (like zombie horror), etc. The Gorn by any other name is a representation of the pitiless danger that exists in deep space. Bad things happen to good people, despite the best efforts of talented people- Picard is often quoted on that point. This show has achieved greatness in such short order, I am fully satisfied with what they’re doing.

Yes, but the rip off included set ups, music, dialogue, set design, characters…

Too much referencing Alien. Even the girl looked like Newt. However, I bloody love this series. It is great to have Trek back and feeling and looking like Trek. All the lead characters are outstanding! I am sad to see Hemmer go.

I wouldn’t use that easy of a command code on my ATM! That sounds dumb like CASINO ROYALE where all these seasoned professional operatives keep their top-secret info in their phones instead of their heads.

Unfortunately Hemmer dying was spoiled for me by turning on Reddit in the evening before the episode came to Paramount+ Nordic (we know the delay is ONLY to get people with low impulse control like me to buy two subscriptions, but with only two episodes left and no Lower Decks around the corner I couldn’t bring myself to pay 30$ to watch the last two episodes a day “early”).

His death was still handled extremely well, he shielded Uhura from the venom, and his sacrifice at the end works really well as a character building moment for Spock, seeing “the needs of the many” done to perfection.

Spock tapping into his rage worked great as well, like he was logicking himself into performing rage and aggression initially, but it lingering later.

Uhura’s season arc comes to a close as well, perhaps setting her up to come back in season 2 as an ensign.

The Gorn are an extremely bold movie to make them so much more alien (pardon the pun) than they’d ever been seen.
I’m curious how things are going to shake out and eventually connecto to TOS. They’re more like a plague or virus in this form than their TOS depiction (how do they run a starship without killing each other? are these “Gorn” a genetic experiment run rampant?)
Starfleet has already had people “neck deep in lizards” on Cestus 3 since before Discovery (Pike’s and Leeland’s talk early in S2 of Disco).
The metaphorical aspects of these hyper-predators are tantalizing as well.

Love the series and looked forward to each episode, still do!
Feels like true trek.

I thought the episode looked great, had a good tone and style, but the plot holes and characters were way off and not acting like seasoned space explorers.

I have really liked Pike up until this episode, way out of character on this one though.
When would a seasoned captain ever think that just him and 6 or so crew members can handle a downed ship from a distress call, without knowing the reason and with comms would be down.
It could have been klingons, romulans, and they had just encountered the gorn recently. Or it could if been something unkown, which it was until they got there. Red alert brain should have been going on.

By now in his career he should be expecting the unexpected. So should all the senior officers.

This episode had all the characters acting out of character.
They know from the audio that the former captain and crew could not detect anything abnormal in body scans yet the gorn hatched in the people they brought on board. So when they find the 2 people/aliens and do a scan he says nothing bad detected they are fine. And gets defensive of the girl when La’an questions her.

Not to mention the girls hides and doesn’t tell anyone that the alien is going to hatch. They could have put him in the containment room that chapel was hiding in and observed until more information was gathered.

When in doubt contain – if they beamed or had an unknown alien/substance come aboard the Enterprise they would have quarantined first.

Just wow. When the they do hatch Chapel hides and doesn’t warn anyone.

At one point they leave Hemmer all alone to go search for the 2 life signs, when there is blood everywhere from some creature causing carnage. You don’t leave the one guy who is getting everything turned back on by himself.

Sam kirk was a scientist in TOS, this version is kind of useless and cannot handle any pressure, why would a captain bring him anywhere off ship.

Spock seemed to forget that he just went through an extended rage/emotional spell on discovery.
But now doesn’t know what to do with it.

Hemmer could have been save by the transportor hibernation idea, suspended animation, or probably a dozen other advanced starfleet medical solutions. But everyone just accepts it’s his time to go.

And the biggest issue is the gorn. They are basically xenoporphs. As said by many, they are supposed to be a intelligent reptilian space faring culture. How in the world would the creatures in this episodes be able to work together in any aspect and develop and/or use technology.

Instead of being scary and brutal by choice like a calculating reptilian roman race or something, they are just creatures of instinct. Would of been much more interesting if they were hyper intelligent khan like reptiles where it is a battle of wit and brute strength rather than just wild animals.
That fits more the gorn we saw in TOS.

If all the gorn has to do is spit on you to create hatchlings, then that kind of changes the Kirk fighting the gorn in TOS. Why didn’t that one just spit in Kirk’s face the first time they met and started fighting. Maybe they will explain away by saying that when the gorn reach a certain age the molt and become an articulate humanoid like reptile, still with no mercy but no longer do the spit thing.

Anyway, seemed like lots of potential to make a thriller episode with a clever or new spin on the genre but instead went for very familiar scifi copy cat scenes.

Killing off Hemmer was not well thought out. He was becoming to SNW what Spock is/was to TOS.
Getting to know him was great and made you want to know more about his culture, even the the cold windy planet he was from sounded interesting.

And where is Una?!
She needs to be up front and center with Pike. I think they are trying to avoid the big three like in TOS but she is supposed to be number one, not number five or six. I do understand it could be the actresses choice or availability – same with Hemmer – but if it’s just the writing, oh boy.

Still a big fan of the show, but man, missing some opportunities here in this episode to push the character balls forward to create new legacy level stories and characters.

I think it’s possible for this show to reach that level :)

Best!

I think Wikipedia has made a mistake.They are listing La’an as having RESIGNED from Starfleet at end of the last episode. I don’t think thats what happened at all.
She thanked Pike for all that he had done for her because Hemmers death taught her to say what is in her heart today, Working for Starfleet YOU NEVER KNOW WHICH DAY IS YOUR LAST!