“Hegemony”
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2, Episode 10 – Debuted Thursday, August 10, 2023
Written by Henry Alonso Myers
Directed by Maja Vrvilo
The season comes to close with a taut finale full of thrills and chills, and a few fun surprises too.
I miss the singing…
WARNING: Spoilers below!
RECAP
“Sometimes a monster is just a monster.”
The USS Cayuga is assisting Parnassus Beta, a colony just outside Federation space designed like the old midwest USA. Nurse Chapel hitched a ride on her way to her new fellowship, so after doling out some vaccinations, she beams back up to the ship, right before the small town tranquility is disrupted by a crashing shuttle—followed by a big scary alien ship breaking through the atmosphere. Cut to the Enterprise receiving an emergency transmission from Batel requesting help with a warning: “…under attack by the Gorn.” Pike sets a course, but Admiral April reminds him this isn’t a Federation colony. He is concerned about starting a war, not to mention Pike’s personal connection to Batel. Reaching the colony, the bridge crew arrives to find the Cayuga destroyed. Making things worse, a Gorn interference field is preventing any scans, communications, or transporting, so they have no idea if there are any survivors on the ship or surface. Oh, and a Gorn hunter ship shows up, timed with a new message from Starfleet, forwarding a map from the Gorn with a demarcation line cutting the system in half. Parnassus Beta (and the Cayuga) are on the Gorn side of the line, and April orders Pike to stay on the other side of the line. Well, that sucks.
Pike gathers his team to let them know he is going to cross the line anyway, and everyone volunteers to join him. He picks Ortegas to pilot a way in, La’an for obvious reasons, plus Sam Kirk (who wants to make up for the last time he wimped out when faced with the Gorn) and Dr. M’Benga, who is ready to do some harm. And it appears Starfleet has been busy since their last encounter with the Gorn, as Pike reveals he has a special “Gorn Protocol Box” with new phasers and nitrogen grenades, and a tricorder upgrade that can detect the lizards. The plan is to make a shuttle look like debris from the Cayuga so they can just drift right past the Gorn and burn into the atmosphere, which has Ortegas excited and everyone else terrified. Once on the surface, they spot a huge Gorn beacon causing the interference, and the quaint colony town is deserted after what looks like a short, brutal battle. Soon enough, a Gorn youngling shows up, and phew, the new phasers work just fine. But when dozens of the little cold-blooded creatures are detected, the team retreats to hide in the barbershop. Even in a desperate firefight, Pike’s hair must be maintained.
Spock looks forward to a future where everyone will just forget about the Gorn.
“Sometimes hope is a choice.”
On the Enterprise, Spock struggles to find signs of life on the Cayuga, revealing to a sympathetic Una that things didn’t end well with Chapel. Making things worse, two more Gorn hunter ships show up. Uhura has a crazy idea to fool the Gorn that Pelia loves, so they sell Number One on a plan to crash the Cayuga’s saucer into the source of the interference field on the planet and make it look like it happened naturally. This is going to require complex computations and someone to place rockets on the Cayuga, and Spock declares he is the only one who can do it. The science officer says he has not given in to grief yet—which is good, because it turns out Christine is alive on the Cayuga. After buying herself an hour of life support, she sees the Enterprise through the window—and a spacesuited Spock flies by too, but he doesn’t notice her and lands on the saucer to start his work. She grabs her own spacesuit: If the Vulcan won’t come to her, she will have to go to the Vulcan.
In the barbershop, La’an wonders why the Gorn younglings are not fighting each other for dominance as she has observed in the past, making Pike wonder if there is more to learn and maybe they can find some way to reach them. After the lizard pack moves on, Sam detects a human signal and tracks it to a building full of signs of gory fighting, only to find a Starfleet device instead of a human and the whole team locked behind a forcefield. A young Starfleet officer pops out, surprised to find them in his “Gorn trap,” and introduces himself as Lt. Jg. Montgomery Scott, “at your service.” OMG, it’s Scotty! He was on the USS Stardiver, attacked by the Gorn in another system, and managed to crash-land that shuttle seen earlier. He is the sole survivor because he jury-rigged a Gorn transponder. Scott takes them to a diner where the few remaining colonists are holed up, and Pike is relieved to find Batel there. The captains confer on a plan and learn from Scotty that the Gorn swarmed into the system the Stardiver was studying after the star erupted in a series of coronal mass ejections, and since we know the Gorn use light to communicate, it could be they have some instinctual reaction to solar activity. Fascinating, but not really helpful now, so probably something to file away for season 3.
Does this diner serve whiskey?
“I came all this way to find you”
Pike decides to go find Scotty’s transponder to use on his shuttle, figuring they can save at least some people, with Batel and the young engineer joining him. At the ruined shuttle, they encounter a little Gorny who gets face-to-face with Batel, then leaves. Marie doesn’t want to talk about it, but Pike presses her, and she admits she has been infected with Gorn eggs, set to mature in a day. Her plan is to take Pike’s shuttle and fly it into the beacon, sacrificing herself Hemmer-style, since she’s not going to make it anyway. Chris is so not cool with this plan.
On the Cayuga, Christine hears the sound of someone working a computer, but her Spock hope is dashed when she spots a huge adult Gorn in a spacesuit, frustrated by the computer’s constant “command code invalid” responses. Spock is actually on the bridge, where he places the last rocket, and the saucer starts moving. The big Gorn shows up and throws Spock across the bridge with a snap of its powerful tail, and when Christine arrives she gets tail-thwacked too. Spock flies across for a zero-G tackle only to get strangled by that tail, Christine uses Spock’s phaser to distract the Gorn enough for Spock to shove a piece of the bridge into its helmet, and it’s lights out for the lizard. Spock and Chapel escape the crashing Cayuga and hold hands in space… aww.
Once the Cayuga saucer crashes into the beacon, things begin working again. Spock and Chapel are beamed aboard the Enterprise, followed by Pike, Batel, and Scotty. Batel is put right into a stasis field by Chapel, who’s told by the Cayuga’s captain to take her out if she has to. Pelia, who knows Scotty well, is tasked to work with him on his Gorn transponder. Pike arrives on the bridge, and things escalate quickly with the arrival of a fourth Gorn ship, a big destroyer class, plus there are more on the way. The real bad news: Before the Enterprise could get to them, the Gorn transported La’an, M’Benga, Ortegas, and the rest of the survivors away to an unknown fate. The Gorn ships attack and the Enterprise starts taking heavy damage as Starfleet radios in orders to withdraw. Pike is faced with an impossible choice as his bridge crew awaits his order. And we, too, will have to wait because fade to black and “TO BE CONTINUED…” Cliffhanger! See you in 2025?
Does this outfit make me look more intimidating?
ANALYSIS
Great Scott!
Just like a good finale should, this one was packed with action, tension, and emotion. The galactic stakes were high but also very personal, especially for Pike and Spock, concerned over the fates of Batel and Chapel. Their character arcs this season earned the extra jeopardy and informed their actions through the episode, with Anson Mount and Ethan Peck delivering impactful performances. Exciting visual effects and impressive set redressing for the destroyed Cayuga also helped lift the level of threat. While a number of the plot beats were somewhat predictable, good pacing kept things moving all the way to the cliffhanger, allowing the episode to stand on its own, even with a number of frustrating questions remaining.
Most of the characters had their moments to shine, like Ortegas finally getting to go on an away mission and showing just how crazy she is behind the wheel, but Melissa Navia’s best scene was the quiet moment with Babs Olusanmokun as M’Benga as the two comforted each other by talking about Christine, who they thought was probably dead. And the show has finally got a handle on how to use Rebecca Romijn’s Number One, who is very much in charge when Pike is away. Jess Bush also continues to be a highlight as she switches from action to emotion, with a subtle but powerful performance in her brief scene with Spock after being rescued and her acceptance of the dire situation with Batel.
The introduction of the legendary character of engineer Montgomery Scott was a delight, with Scottish actor Martin Quinn showing a believable younger version of the beloved character. Strange New Worlds doesn’t like to tech its way out of a crisis, but his jury-rigged Gorn transponder provided a key character moment with Batel and Pike having different views on how to use it, primarily over her attempt to sacrifice herself. It also felt right that Pelia was the first to call him “Scotty,” assessing him as her best student with some of her worst grades. Bringing him onto the show makes sense, but hopefully, it won’t come at the cost of losing Pelia so soon, as Carol Kane has been a fantastic addition to the season and we have barely gotten to know Pelia.
Getting infected with Gorn babies and sacrificing yourself is so season 1, Marie.
Gorn to be wild
The genre swing for this week had a horror bent, which is how the show has handled episodes related to the Gorn before. A number of monster genre tropes were used, and it even got meta with the mention of zombie movies. The gore and ick factor was high, yet the episode never really delivered on any true frights, mostly hinting at the off-screen carnage of the attack on the colony. That being said, the fight scene with the adult Gorn on the Cayuga bridge was still quite exciting. This was the first time a full-sized Gorn has been seen on the series, and it was a whole lot scarier than just a guy in a rubber suit, although tradition was honored as this new adult-gorn was done with practical effects, including a guy in an elaborate suit. If the Gorn are going to be the big bad of this series, then it is time to move past the Alien-inspired younglings and start dealing with the real Gorn, the ones flying all those big scary ships and dropping high-tech beacons. Although how smart can these lizards be? They drew a demarcation line through the middle of a solar system. Don’t they know planets rotate around stars?
So far in this series, the Gorn have been depicted as mindless monsters, and even in this episode, everyone (even the doctor) is lining up for a chance to kill them. This is not very Star Trek, but there are some hints that maybe there is something new about the Gorn going on and there might be a chance to make a connection. Hopefully, this spark of “hope” Pike talks about comes to fruition in season 3 as he finds a way to resolve this crisis. This idea of finding a new way with the Gorn could also hint at Kirk’s mercy in “Arena.” And speaking of that classic TOS episode, we are well past making Kirk’s ignorance of the Gorn make any sense in terms of canon, something acknowledged by the showrunners in a TrekMovie interview from earlier in the season. Regarding that cliffhanger, the episode did a good job of building up a “Best of Both Worlds, Part 1” dilemma with the ship under threat and the Gorn holding members of his crew and more hostages, however, there was something a bit unsettling about how Pike seemed so indecisive at that climactic moment.
Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.
Final thoughts
A solid finale does a great job of wrapping up a season full of emotion and, of course, big swings. A cliffhanger is a classic for episodic Trek, however, it is all the more painful as it is likely going to be well over a year before we get resolution on this one due to the strikes.
I’m going to make the Gorn respect the mustache.
Bits
- Starts with Captain Batel’s log, Stardate 2344.2.
- Pike notes he is happy not to be “bursting into song every 10 minutes,” referencing the previous (musical) episode “Subspace Rhapsody.”
- When Pike’s call with Batel is cut off, he is seen holding the Opelian mariner’s keystone she gave him in “Among the Lotus Eaters.”
- Batel mentioning how Hemmer dealt with being infected by the Gorn referenced his sacrifice in the season 1 episode “All Those Who Wander.”
- Pelia telling Una she would have given her an A+ is a callback to “Lost in Translation,” when it was revealed she gave her a C grade in Starship Maintenance 307.
- The title of the Gorn government as the “Gorn Hegemony” was first established in canon in the Enterprise episode “Bound,” but was previously used in (non-canon) books and games.
- The USS Stardiver had a “Hubble K7C Stellar Assessment Array,” named for astronomer Edwin Hubble, like the Hubble Space Telescope.
- Parnassus Beta was filmed on a backlot in Pickering, Ontario, originally built for the Amazon TV series Reacher.
So you are saying it would take a miracle to get the kitchen working again?
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 Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Stitcher and is part of the TrekMovie Podcast Network.
Season 2 episodes drop weekly on Thursdays on Paramount+ in the U.S, the U.K., Australia, Latin America, Brazil, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Season 2 is also available on SkyShowtime elsewhere in Europe. The second season will also be available to stream on Paramount+ in South Korea, with premiere dates to be announced.
Keep up with news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.
An incredible punchline to the season-long setup of Pike being a big ol’ wimp who can’t make a command decision, especially when lives are on the line. Now that the Star Trek franchise is a comedy brand, they’re going to find a lot of new and silly ways to poke fun at the serious and boring nature of the storytelling that came before it. Pike as the new Homer Simpson is a brilliant move.
Um…..
What are you talking about?
Pike hasn’t made a decision the entire season, and has either lied or pouted or begged to get out of situations. Anson Mount’s charm hides a lot including the really wimpy, boring, and dumb characterization Pike got this year. He never knows what to do, never has any ideas on his own, and usually comes off as a “nice” guy who failed upwards. I’m sure this is a combination of Mount personally prioritizing raising a child over being on a TV show (thus limiting his availability) and the tendency for showrunners to use their lead character as a proxy for themselves (in interviews, Akiva and Henry always seem like they need people to feed them ideas), but it really didn’t serve the character.
Whenever actors and writers get back to giving interviews, they’ll probably respond to this critique (I’m not the only person to notice that when he’s not simply absent from the action he’s irrelevant to the outcomes) with some calibrated PR speak of, like, “Look at Pike embracing our modern sensibilities and use his privilege to empower others.” In practice, it just makes the captain character weak and ineffectual. The last shot of the episode is the look of a man who’s just wet himself. Far from heroic, but a hilarious joke of “look at this Ken doll who’s in over his head!”
Girl power Trek got no use for this man .
To be fair it’s not really Mount. It’s the words he’s given to say and the things he’s given to do. It was pretty obvious in the back half of the season he was awfully overwhelmed. He often looked like he was losing control and didn’t know what to do about it. I mentioned it in one of the previous episode reviews. I think it was the cartoon crossover. Much of the season he’s looked like a lost man out of his depth. Seems like #1 should be in charge here.
Absolutely. They had the right tone on Discovery. Need to get back to that.
Clarification – they had the right tone for the Pike character, on that show. It’s a big reason that so many of us wanted SNW.. we had a Captain that we thought was worthy.
Not watched this episode yet but have commented before on how I felt character tone for Pike was slightly changed compared to Discovery and not just due to in-story experiences.
100% agree. They want him to be everyone’s buddy. That’s not his job, he’s the captain and should conduct himself as one more than he does.
That’s complete nonsense.
It usually is.
Totally agree… Pike is just so spineless and boring. I tend to think Mount is doing the best with what he’s given, but it’s really changed my view of the character.
I can’t argue that Pike has felt less in “in command” this season. Beyond saving Una, he’s been charming as ever but not quite the decisive leader we are used to seeing headlining our shows.
That may be a deliberate ploy to try a show with a flatter team structure in its characters, or a leader who isn’t as traditional, maybe even one designed to be flawed without pretending he’s not, but sometimes it can be frustrating. No denying it’s different, and if Mount wasn’t so watchable it would be an even tougher sell.
People forget these actors are real people. He became a new Dad right before they began shooting season 2. He is an outstanding Captain. One of my favorites already.
This has nothing to do with Mount. This is Pike we’re talking about. Mount is an actor, not a starship captain.
Ignore him, he’s a grump with no taste.
So, a criticism of the episode nets a personal attack? If I turn around and personally attack, I’ll get banned (second person always gets the punishment), so maybe that’s why people feel entitled to firing off zingers in response to a comment not directed at them — they know they’re protected. I have not made a criticism of the show relating to canon consistency and in this case, not talking about “the state of Trek” or whatever. I am commenting directly on the arc *of this season,* Being a fan doesn’t mean “NEVER CRITICIZE.” I’m pointing out a series of choices made by the people who produce this show that undercuts the punch they sought for this episode’s end. I am saying that this cliffhanger pays off a season of Pike having no answer to a crisis in the biggest crisis yet.
[And, yeah sure, then there’s my commentary about how this season is, on the whole, focused more on telling jokes. The entire season IS really funny, though, from M’Benga hulking out, to Khan falling in love with Kirk to “Charades” to the crossover, the musical, M’Benga getting away with murder for the second year in a row, and now the dumb look on Pike’s face at the end of this one.]
My agreement meter on your comment was hit or miss but that doesn’t mean people who write their opinions should get reamed for them. And there are some regulars who do that. Please don’t let them discourage you. Write your takes no matter who agrees. Some of us like hearing other people’s opinions.
This is the only place I post about Star Trek (up to date, solid writing, and the way it looks), so until it stops being an outlet it will continue to be — I guess regrettably, for some, — my outlet for thoughts on Star Trek.
Sorry, but you frequently “ream” anyone disagrees with your opinions or gatekeeping.
Sorry but that’s patently false. I’ve never done that.
Ok, whatever you say.
Not only do I say it but I say it because it is fact.
What posts have you been reading? I mostly see posts piling on ML because they disagree with him.
The longer the essay the weirder the take
Brevity is the soul of troll.
The issue is that you have no new opinions. You don’t want actual discussion. You want to trash talk.
You have the same “criticism” week after week after week, just like ML31wonderbread. Normal people stop watching a show they hate.
At that point it’s not discussion, it’s trolling. You’re hate-watching and your comments should be ignored.
That’s my advice to anyone who doesn’t see through what you’re doing, that’s all. I’m trying to make this comment section a more pleasant place.
Seems to me you’re trying to make it into a place only safe for fawning sycophants, RDL. The creatives need their feet held to the fire over their non-performance.
They’re not reading any of this shit so you’re not holding their to the fire. It’s just moaning.
I’m more worried that they don’t read at all; there’s very little to support the notion that these people are smart enough to be doing this job.
And every once in awhile a website or mag will seize on a well-reasoned post as a basis for a higher-profile take on a show’s failings, so weighing in CAN make a difference, whether you perceive it simply as moaning or not. I so loved how Sci-Fi Universe magazine offered an honest critique on early DS9, and the fact the DS9 folk pretty much cut off their access as a result is still probably the worst thing I can remember Behr and company doing. Very talented, but obviously thin-skinned to the point of being Kevin Smith or a caught-red-handed-politican, and they should have known better, and recognized the criticisms as being made in love and honesty, not rancor or trendy pile-oners.
Tough to have “a new opinion” about a season-long motif/style. I’m sorry you don’t watch good TV to have something to compare this silliness to because no one should feel like they have to log in and defend it. I liked a lot of season one, even though I was a whiny piss baby about them redoing “Balance of Terror” (their version sucked, but the ep wasn’t too bad). I liked their body swap jokey joke show. I liked the pre-turn Captain Angel. I was excited for season two. It wound up feeling like one big goof.
This argument of “people who don’t like the show shouldn’t watch it” is idiotic. Just because people post negative opinions doesn’t mean they don’t like the show. Maybe they do like it so they’re disappointed when something stupid happens and so they need to talk about it? Or maybe they like Star Trek so they’ll still watch the show. In any case it’s not for you to decide when people should comment or what they should say. The only time you can do that is when someone is being disrespectful, insulting or bullying. Or again, when they’re doing what you’re doing now, which is judging the validity of someone’s opinion.
Tell you what, I’ll read all of T Mudd’s posts and make sure to ignore yours.
Get a life dude.
Working on it.
He left his balls in the kitchen where he belongs
PIke’s indecision was the biggest issue of the episode for me, hands down. One of Starfleet’s best should not stuggle with making a difficult decision. It’s so annoying.
What indecision? It was like two seconds at the end of an episode, and for all well know the next will start with him barking orders.
I guess you missed where he stood blankly at the view screen, frozen and Una is asking him “Captain.. your orders?”
Stared for a few seconds. Maybe his mind was working overtime.
Pretty sure Boimler is the new Homer Simpson.
Boimler is Frank Grimes!
Well at least he wasn’t in the kitchen cooking this episode. It’s going to be a long while before he can offer the Gorn a meal as a diplomacy tactic.
I remember when Trek fans were hesitant about gay men and nonbinary characters. Now they’re upset about “man cooking food”.
How far we’ve come in just a few short years.
Ha. Hesitant is an understatement (lots of comments here back then about shoving things down fans’ throats) but yeah, the other big gripe here lately seems to be Pike having any feelings at all.
OMG,
Let me clear up a few things for you.
A. I have never been ‘hesitant’ at gay people or binary characters. I never cared before or now.
B. It has nothing to do with Pike being a ‘man’ who likes to cook. For starters, my dad was a cook and worked in restaurants all his life. And Sisko cooked. Riker cooked. It’s one of the parts of their personality I always liked. And guess what, I also like that Pike cooks. But what I don’t like is when it’s done in nearly every episode. It was fun and inventive to see him do it in season one. Now it just feels like overkill. Every episode they manage to find a way to have the guy behind the counter cutting up vegetables. Even in TOS he was dressing down Mariner and Boimler in his kitchen and not the ready room. I get it was a ‘comedic’ episode, but c’mon!
So if you want to still disagree with me, fine, disagree on that. Trying to accuse me of being some alpha male who has an issue with a guy cooking is asinine.
AtomicHorror: Well geesh, I guess I kind of jumped to a ridiculous and silly conclusion based on a two line post.
Tiger2: You certainly did.
AtomicHorror: That’s why after I read it. I came back here to humbly apologize and say it was wrong to accuse you of being something you’re not. Can you ever forgive me kind sir?
Tiger2: Um, I don’t know.
AtomicHorror: Pllleeeeeeaaaase man, I can’t sleep at night. I can’t concentrated at work and my kids are asking me what’s wrong. I need this man, I NEED THIS!!!!
Tiger2: Yeah, OK, fine, you’re forgiven.
AtomicHorror: Thank you! THANK YOU!!! You have given me absolution. Can we be friends now?
Tiger2: Don’t push it bro.
AtomicHorror: Yeah, OK.
I’m with you on this one, all the way.
Pike and Una feel like more like parents on a schoolyard than actual Commanding Officers on a Starship – the Flagship of the UFP. That has become crystal clear by now.
No officer on board shows any respect, everyone can leave a table whenever they feel like without the need of being excused (on that Klingon Butcher episode) – and no intervention by the Captain or his Number One.
It feels wrong – it doesn’t feel like good storytelling either. It just goes from Point A to B to C – without any second thoiught.
Too bad – the first season showed much more promise – even if it was nothing but a reboot.
Latest criticism: people leave the dinner table without being excused.
“Pike and Una feel like more like parents on a schoolyard than actual Commanding Officers on a Starship – the Flagship of the UFP.”
Wow it’s utterly amazing how you picked up on that because that’s exactly how Rebecca Romijn described her and Mount’s characters in an interview right before the season started. See below:
“In the roundtable interview Screen Rant joined, Rebecca Romijn joked that Pike and Number One are the “mom and dad” of the Enterprise. The Captain and First Officer do have their hands full overseeing their crew, many of whom are young Starfleet Officers just beginning to realize their potential.”
For the record I don’t have a HUGE problem with this. But this is actually what bothered me about the Kelvin movies because Kirk and Spock who were in charge felt very much like the kids themselves as everyone else on that ship. Here it’s nice to see at the leads are seen as the mature and experienced officers at least.
But yes, I agree it would be nice if the entire crew came off as every bit and mature as their commanding officers like you got in TOS. TNG. DS9, etc.
But maybe they think this is kind of tone they need to take to attract a younger audience today. That certainly felt the case with the Kelvin movies.
It would work better if they did this and exercised some tough love on their kids every once in awhile.
It’s the writing! And I agree. This is the 2nd season finale where Pike is incompetent. Not being able to make a decision is a bad cliff hanger for season 2. It’s not dramatic, but flat. It would have been better to say, “let’s go after our people”…. To be continued, rather than “order’s captain?”… to be continued.
Terrible when the first season finale was all about how Pike would have been incompetent facing off against the Romulans and that Kirk needed to be captain.
I really liked the actor playing Scotty. However he looks 10 years too young, which the actor is. Scotty was supposed to be 37 in 2259. This guy looks about 28.
I understand the actor is Scottish so the accent is on point. The performance is a nice mix between Jimmy Doohan and Simon Pegg. You can actually see this interpretation being the Scotty we know and love.
I’m impressed and see the actor really growing into the part. I have indeed liked most of the TOS casting in Strange New Worlds. I can see there being a reboot or “reimagining” of TOS at some point. We have nearly all the major characters in place now. 🖖👏👏
it’s kind of like the color-blind TAS director. Does somebody in casting have number transposition disorder or something? Kirk is too old, Scotty too young….
I was fine with the actor. But honestly Scotty appearing was just another facepalm moment. I know, I know. I should be expecting McCoy to waltz in when they finally get around to next season too. But jeez… It’s like the people running these shows have zero faith in their ability to create engaging new characters. That said, they actually do have a real problem there.
And then to have him be yet another (eyeroll) Pellia student. And she called him Scotty. His teacher? Were they close? That just felt weird.
I guess I’m confused but I think I read several posts where you said you expected to see Scotty on the ship before anyone else, so you can’t be too surprised.
And btw, I predicted Scotty would show up in the second season finale just like I predicted Kirk would show up in the first season finale and that was way before Wesley was announced to play Kirk. So I’m calling it now and I expect to see either Sulu or McCoy in the third season finale lol. I’m a bit torn which one will show up. McCoy is more likely but I feel it could be Sulu next time.
What you are remembering is that at the start of all this I said I felt that if any legacy character was to show up Scotty made the most sense. That wasn’t me expecting to see Scotty. At least, not until Kirk kept knocking on the door like a neighbor in a bad sitcom.
OK but you still can’t be surprised. Like I said I predicted the guy was showing up long ago. SNW is filled with fan service like all these shows and second only to Picard with legacy characters popping in. And once baby Khan showed up this season all bets were off. ;)
Yes, I know I shouldn’t be but I’m always disappointed when they do it.
He didn’t say he was surprised; he said it was a facepalm moment. And facepalm moments are becoming par for the course on SNW.
Personally, I didn’t find it particularly cringeworthy, but I also found it unnecessary.
Yes but for ML31, nearly every episode is a facepalm moment lol.
Well, tbh, ML’s facepalms are earned at this point. So far, there are only a few episodes that actually have no in-universe touch point to other parts of the franchise. It should be a lot more. They are running this show as if they’re afraid to let it stand on its own without the crutch of the franchise. Sadly, this will not change.
Unfortunately that’s how most prequels work most of the time; especially this show that is obviously made to be mostly a TOS prequel than an all out Pike show. I understand your frustration but as I keep saying none of this should be a surprise especially considering what we gotten on all these shows.
I would argue it’s less how prequels work and in this case is more about how Secret Hideout works. They have seen the positive reaction to any reference to Trek past. Characters or otherwise. They COULD make SNW with minimal TOS connections. But they have opted not to. And we know why. In their early shows the only ones that got moderate or above praise were the ones that linked directly to past Trek. Everything that came after that has been loaded with past Trek connections. Picard S2 & 3, LDX and Prodigy all have HUGE connections to past Treks. They may be incompetent when it comes to writing compelling Trek but they certainly do see when they get positive reactions to their material. The error they have made is it seems they have concluded that Trek will not succeed unless it links to the old stuff. That is patently false. The problem was they created bad Trek to begin with and shoehorning in past Trek characters and references is an obvious attempt to distract many fans with “shiny objects” to keep viewers from noticing how bad their actual product is.
like most, if not all of your comments.
I’m hoping we see Dr. Phil Boyce too at some stage even though he is from Pike past at this point.
Could always be Doctor Mark Piper
It’s frankly shocking two seasons in and he hasn’t even been referenced once. But how many times do they throw in Khan’s name. Sigh
Hyperbole is great when you don’t have an original thought that makes sense. Dr. Boyce was a prototype for McCoy. He was not that important. Seriously?
I didn’t say he was ‘important’, I just said it’s surprising he hasn’t mentioned him since in the Cage they were considered good friends and I think fans are curious if he retired or transferred to another ship.
I didn’t realize that was being hyperbolic. I’ll be sure to settle down in the future.
I’ve always wondered how we are so sure what Scottish people sound like in the 23rd century? By the 24th century we had a French captain with a British accent.
That is something to consider as the world continues to shrink and mix. Regarding Picard I just chalked that up to a British actor deciding not to throw on a French accent.
I would have rather them ddeveloped some of the characters from “The Cage.” I would have loved to learn more about Dr. Boyce and his relationship with Pike.Yoeman Colt could have been promoted by SNW time and maybe have been the con officer, isntread of “Mitchell.” LT Tyler could have been used too.
Sham the writers decieded to create a Kahn ancester on a ship full of people who had no idea really who Kahn was in “Space Seed.”
We are on the same page. Instead of running to TOS for characters they should have run to THE CAGE for them. There were people on that ship who had names and lines who they very easily could have used and fleshed out. Also it has been two seasons and there have been no stories reliant on La’an’s ancestry. So why do it?
Apart from the one where she’s forced to go back and save Khan’s life, knowing what all of that means, whilst her relationship with that version of Kirk is largely down to his not knowing her past?
Also her relationship with Una, and the fact that she mentions at least once that she herself still has some genetic enhancements left over from the Khan era.
Neither of those situations seemed reliant on her lineage to make the stories work.
Exploring La’an ancestry on SNW seems like a bad idea because Kirk and SPoke needed to look up Kahn to figure out who he was in Space Seed.
Bringing a “Kahn” character into the show, seeming to generate interest during the LONG time between when the was announced and aired, was a bad idea.
I’m not a fan because not only has far too much emphasis been placed on Khan since Enterprise ended adding a character of that lineage just doesn’t present any material to mine for the character. It was so long ago no one would really care anymore. Also whoever had the name after the EW’s it seemed likely would have changed it going forward anyway.
Her name is actually Mitchell. You don’t need to put it in quotes.
Thank you, “rich.”
I see no need to introduce yet another TOS character.
That said, yes, at least they got the casting of this one right.
Every since the old “if it’s Scottish, it must be crap!” skit, somehow Hollywood equates being Scottish with being zany. I was worried they were going to do that yet again, as they did with Pegg and even Doohan himself in the movies. (In TOS, Scotty was probably the most deadly serious character.) Happily, they avoided this cliche, probably by casting an actual Scottish actor who looked the part.
Like I see no need for anymore of your comments. Agreed.
Can you please stop attacking others because you don’t like their opinion. If you don’t like what River says, then keep scrolling…or make an argument why you disagree with him. All you’re doing here is coming off belligerent. And it’s not allowed.
Personally, I think my comments are cogent, witty, and brilliantly argued. :) For those who (fancy that!) might deign to disagree, there’s always the down-arrow button on your keyboard?
And there is always the delete button on yours.
A—–e
Wow. Coward. I am being admonished by the wheel of fortune for having an opinion. Can I buy a vowel.
You’re very very annoying.
You can always use the down arrow on your keyboard.
Um, you should be giving yourself that advice instead of attacking people for having an opinion chief.
Yeah what’s wrong with these people… Go ahead and make your trash comments, it’s our fault for reading them. And did I see you call someone coward up there, from behind the anonymous safety of your keyboard, great warrior? I’m sure mommy is proud of you.
Ok this episode was all over the place with it’s pacing and for a season final it didn’t wow me as most Trek season finals/cliffhanger endings did.
I always wanted to learn more about the Gorn but i wish the writers/showrunners weren’t so intent on making them the Xenomorphs of the Trek universe lol. Can we please get the Gorn in a much less horror setting and more closer to TOS style.
So we got a new Scotty and he seems to be ok and I’m happy they got an actual Scottish actor to play him. But i was hoping they would of cast Iain De Caestecker as Scotty. Though no actor portraying any of the TOS characters will ever be as good as the original actors.
Scotty’s appearance imo was just adding more for the original series and not allowing Strange New Worlds to stand on it’s own.
I’m not a huge fan of Chapel being the only survivor on the Cayuga. Its ok for the main cast to be lucky but this was a bit much.
it’s going to be a long wait to season 3. I hope the studios give in to the writers and actors and they get all all/most of what they want so everyone can get back to work and we can get it sooner rather than later. I just hope the writing in S3 improves because again S2 compared to S1 was a big disappointment.
100% re: the Gorn. It’s like they didn’t even watch or LEARN THE LESSON of Arena. Kirk starts the battle with the Gorn commander stating his natural human revulsion and dismissal of reptilian creatures, but over the course of the episode comes to see him as an intelligent create worthy of respect and empathy.
But nah – Akiva wants to bend his canon and make a horror show, so instead of at least making a new race takes a dump all over a great race and episode and steals a concept from a better movie to boot. Lazy lazy lazy. Such a waste of potential. This writing staff may be good for another season of The Expanse but they aren’t writing good Star Trek
I would go on about them even using the Gorn but this is essentially a rebooted Gorn. No one should expect anything about them to line up with TOS. I mean, they haven’t but this season made it official. That said even though we now know them to not be the Prime Gorn I’m still a it miffed they are being used to begin with. I don’t know if it’s because the Gorn were a personal favorite or that it took them 13 episodes to tell us what is really going on here. Either way I’d still rather they’d of used something else.
So why even write a prequel? Go off and create your own damn franchise; you could even call “The Orvil.”
Sokath. His eyes uncovered.
That is a question to ask the people running SNW. One would think if you make a prequel the intent is to at least respect the show you are prequeling. But if you don’t want to limited to the show you are a prequel to then you just make it an alternate timeline, or reboot. As they finally admitted it was in episode 2.3. The only irritant about that was waiting 13 episodes before finally admitting it.
(Also, sorry, that was a generic “you” directed towards the writers, not meant to be specifically targeted at ML31.)
Ah. Thank you for the clarification. I took that as a question for me. But still wasn’t offended or bent out of shape by it.
Arena hasn’t happened yet.
lol.
You simply cannot compare The Expanse to Trek.
The Expanse is orders of magnitude better written than any of the current Trek output and is definitely harder sci-fi.
There wasn’t a musical on the Expanse? Surprising.
I wonder on that season 3 if this strike isn’t settled soon. And just ‘giving in’ to everything actors and writers want is not an actual solution. We’re probably already looking at a two year delay to 2025, if season three even comes at all. And how much viability will it have if there is a two year or longer delay? Will anyone still care by then?
I was kinda wondering about that. At this point it doesn’t look like this will be settled anytime soon. It’s possible the existing contracts and economics of everything will change and we may never get a conclusion. And by then, will there be a large number who still care?
I’m not familiar at all with how acting contracts are structured. If they have a physical ending date, that could be a problem if it passes and they have to renegotiate, and you could face difficulties getting people back. I hope that’s not the case.
I’m thinking contracts with production companies more than anything here.
I believe the strike doesn’t impact the actor’s term on the show as they are for x number of seasons rather than years. From what I’ve read the networks feel they are good on content for the rest of 2023 but then things get dicey. I’ve also read that October looks to be the deadline for network shows to be able to produce 13 episode seasons. To me, the thing that bears watching is the increasing price of streaming services coinciding with streamers running out of content. Clearly, not all of them will survive. The networks can at least run sports, game shows and reality fare.
Regarding the question whether “anyone will still care” after a two-year break: COVID also disrupted production and caused longer breaks for many shows. For example, the second season of Picard was released 2 years after the first. And people did come back to watch it.
Yeah this is honestly par for the course in a lot of streaming and cable shows today. Mandalorian had a 2 and a half year break between seasons 2 and 3. Most Netflix shows like Stranger Things had 1+ year breaks between seasons. The show is only four seasons old and yet it’s been around since 2016. It’s already been over a year since season 4 debut last summer and season 5 wasn’t suppose to come out until 2024. Now it probably won’t come out until 2025 as well.
I think the “anyone will still care” thing is more like will they care there is a break in production, even a long one? Obviously when it comes back folks will tune back in. But I’m thinking if this goes on for two+ years a lot of people aren’t going to miss not getting new shows.
You’re completely wrong there. Giving in to the actor’s and writer’s demands is an actual solution to the strikes.
I hope that in season 3 they start to explore the civilized side of the Gorn. They are a spacefaring species with more advanced technology than the Federation in some respects, so there must be some culture there to produce that.
Discovery even said in season 3 the Gorn were working on creating a replacement for warp drive powered ships. Sure that’s the 32nd Century but still.
We would have learned so much about the Gorn……..if they had been in the musical episode.
Singing and dancing space lizards! That sounds like something worth watching! Good call.
Now I picture a Gorn with a cane and a top hat tap dancing his way through the Enterprise corridors.
Remember that scene from SPACEBALLS?
Now I do lol.
lol I was just about to say but didn’t remember it was in Spaceballs.
Mean green mutha from outer space … It’s either gonna be the Gorn or Yoda with kidneystones.
They are going very slowly with the Gorn. We got to see an adult for the first time. And they talk of having a form of communication with them.
I am, also not a fan of the unique survivor on the Cayuga. They should have put her in an escape pod. I feel she was there for the Gorn fight but really. Spock could have that fight alone, while they beam her up from the pod and some other survivors in other pods.
Loved that Scotty.
Agree about this episode. Not nearly as well plotted, written or produced as virtually all the preceding ones. The Gorn made no sense to me. A very large, brutal, being with non-opposable thumbs, that doesn’t seem to be motivated by anything other than rage and hunger. One with gigantic teeth and a clumsy build. How the hell did they develop the science and the ability to build starships? How do they see forward (The Ready Room interview with the prop-makers offer an explanation that feels more like a way to explain what was real just a cool demonic look)? A real mess and the Pike indecision at the end seemed totally out of character to me. Sure Scotty….
WOW!!!!! Fantastic way to end the season, but boy what a long wait we’re gonna have to Part II! Loved everything about this episode, especially Scotty showing up! I say once again that ten episodes is just NOT ENOUGH! I really wish Paramount would give us 15 episodes of SNW in the fall, 15 of LOWER DECKS in the winter/spring and make a couple LEGACY-era movies every year. I’m surprised no one has suggested doing that instead of a series. You could have a Worf/Raffi movie, a 7 of 9/Enterprise G movie, revisit DS9 and cover the expensive of rebuilding the promenade, etc., etc. Definitely will be in withdrawal for a while over SNW and will miss the long wait for these characters and the stories they’re telling. Just imagine if this era had started with THIS show!! I have a couple questions to anyone who might know:
1) Is “Mitchell” supposed to be a time-changed version of Gary Mitchell only now they’re an Asian woman the way Kyle was changed? And where did Kyle go anyway?
2) I’ve seen several posts here saying that the Kahn episode established that this is an alternate reality. So does that mean that PICARD is too since he saw the new version of the Enterprise outside of Starfleet in hologram form? If so, I’d love to see some ENTERPRISE cast members show up at the end of SNW’s run to finish the temporal war and maybe have the last shot be of the Enterprise looking like it did in the sixties because the timeline was reset. That way you’d have your cake and eat it too because you’d have told the origin story with the updated sets and effects, but wind up where WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE starts. Just a thought and I’d still like to see them film new versions of the original series episodes with the new cast that they’re gradually assembling on SNW.
REALLY digging everything about this show!!! :) :) :)
Technically only SNW has officially been shown on screen to be an alternate. But it’s possible that LDX is a part of the SNW reality to unless that portal they used shifted people between realities as well as time. Also, I think it reasonable to conclude that Star Trek Discovery when in their original setting was also a part of SNW’s alternate. SNW lines up far far better with it than they ever have with TOS. So even though there is no “smoking gun” as it were like there was for SNW I think it’s a strong conclusion Star Trek Discovery is as well. Regarding Picard… I haven’t seen anything to suggest it is a part of the new timeline but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was.
“Technically only SNW has officially been shown on screen to be an alternate.”
This is false. (Please hear that in a Dwight Schrute/Harry Mudd voice.) We’ve been told by those who actually get to decide these things that SNW is officially the OG/Canon/TOS/Prime Universe. Whether you like it or not (and we ALL know that you don’t), the people in charge (Paramount/Secret Hideout) are the only ones who have the power to make that decision. (“But I don’t like them and they’re dumb!” We know you think so and your complaint has been noted.) Until they announce otherwise (and they’re not going to), you’re just simply wrong. For whatever unimaginable reason, they didn’t consult you and chose to prioritize good storytelling over adhering strictly to a canon that already had its fair share of inconsistencies. (As much as I try, when I go back and watch “The Trouble with Tribbles,” I can never find Dax or Sisko in that episode and yet… I oddly still enjoy it. It’s so weird.) Unfortunately for you, it seems to be working pretty well too with all the rave reviews and top ten streaming ratings and all. So, for you (the powerless anonymous poster on a fan site) to continue week after week going on and on about it being an alternate timeline really comes across like a child putting his fingers in his ears and shouting “la la la… I can’t hear you” when they don’t want to acknowledge the thing they don’t want to hear from the people who are actually in charge. I know this because I have five kids.. So, I’ll tell you what I’d tell them:
“I’m so sorry you didn’t get your way. If you were in charge, I’m sure it would all be so much better. But, sadly for us all, you are not.
Now, go to your room and think about what you’ve done.”
It’s amazing how wrong a person can be.
The comment is 100% true. I know you are one of those who refuse to believe their eyes but just because you wish it was prime doesn’t mean it is. I wish it were prime to. In fact, I WANT it to be prime. (so again you are wrong) Their intent in the beginning may have been for it to be prime but the fact is much of it didn’t line up. Those people in charge that you love and feel can do no wrong seem to have noticed. As a result they actually produced, shot and streamed an episode that flat out said what they were living in was in fact, not what was supposed to happen. No matter what you think or want no matter how many times you scream and cry it isn’t so. It’s on screen. The words were spoken. It happened.
If it makes you feel better about your little show by continuing with the false belief it lines up perfectly with TOS then by all means continue to do that. Obviously you cannot enjoy it if weren’t. But there is no need to bash others who pay attention to the plots of the episodes and understand exactly what they are telling and showing us.
SNW is the Prime timeline. In the Khan episode they mentioned that “Time Was Pushing Back.” On Disco Burnham’s mother said that Time Travel altered technology. The Temporal Cold Wars impacted the timeline not to mention the Red Angel stuff. The list goes on and on.
You can make a plausible argument that Star Trek Enterprise did the same thing. TOS did not always line up with TOS.
They said that time was pushing back. It is prime. it is a realigned prime universe that takes place 100 years before Picard.
Again, why do you watch something that makes you this upset. Go watch Oriville or Babylon 5 or rewatch the inconsistency, sexism, racism, and, misogyny played out in the original series. Have at it. Mudd’s Women was human trafficking but nobody wants to talk about that. Klingons in Black face. The Omega Glory was trash. Khan with a spray tan.
The people who criticize SNW are intellectually dishonest. You guys act like TOS was perfect. It was deeply probelmatic. There are things about it I love but stop acting like it was perfect. It was flawed. SNW is awesome and it is the Prime Universe. Reimagination is a beautiful thing. I like a universe where a Black woman is not a prop but a problem solver with a brain. Love it. I love Mr. Spock exploring the complexity of human emotion. Love it. SNW forever.
Do you think that “Mitchell” is a time-changed Gary Mitchell then? If she is then at some point she and Kirk will become friends and that would be interesting to watch. I’d like to see the time-changed version of Kyle pop up again and maybe given a bit of backstory. Ten episodes is just NOT enough! I really wish they’d give it at least a fifteen episode run…
Except that the EW’s taking place in the 90’s is a major time point that cannot be moved without creating an alternate time line. The character even said it was supposed to happen in 1992. Yet it wasn’t fixed. That makes this an alternate as sure as Nero’s appearance did.
When people say TOS doesn’t line up with TOS the only examples are from early in the show when it was still gestating. So that argument has never really been solid.
Why does someone pointing out what is on screen make you so upset? Why is it that anyone who says something you don’t like is “intellectually dishonest”? No one claimed TOS was perfect. It had its share of bad episodes. The argument is mainly that TOS was better written and better plotted than SNW. And that before they showed themselves to be an alternate/reboot it didn’t respect their source material. You yourself just implied the show is a “reimagining”. Nothing wrong with that. The KU did the same thing. But it does contradict your contention that this is the prime timeline.z
And calm down. Saying something one doesn’t like to hear isn’t always a personal attack.
If the showrunners or the studio publicly announce that SNW is, in fact, a reboot, then it’s a reboot, but if they don’t then it isn’t. That’s the way it works, they own the intellectual property, they decide. You, like any audience member, are entitled to your own interpretation, but nevertheless, unless officially confirmed by Paramount, it’s not an established fact. With the JJ films they came right out and said “This is a reboot.,” For SNW they haven’t. Maybe they will, but they haven’t yet.
So if they make and stream an episode that outright explains their show is set in an alternate reality (or reboot) that isn’t good enough for you?
Even when it was obviously a reboot in the first season I reacted as if it wasn’t because there was nothing official, apart from a ton of misaligned canon, to say it was. But then episode 2.3 flat out explained why they are not aligning with TOS. So as I said earlier, it’s like when you go out on a date and you say “let’s meet up again!” and the other person says, “Sure, we should.” Then you call and call and text and text and you get nothing back. The person never told you there was no interest but the actions showed there was no interest. In this case, the episode itself showed it’s an alternate. There is technically no need for anyone in the production to tell us it is at this point. Their actions showed it.
TOS was better written ?! What??? You can be serious right now. There is no way you actually believe that.
Well… Yeah. Actual sci-fi writers were involved who… You know… Knew how to write good sci-fi stories. Like Harlan Ellison, Richard Matheson, Theodore Sturgeon…
Are you thinking the fact it’s nearly 60 years old that automatically makes it bad?
There’s something to be said for leveling criticism via a modern outlook at TOS but that should be balanced with a critical eye taking into account the context and the time that the show was made in.
And I think a lot of your criticism, at least in relation to the racial and sexual critiques you outlined, should acknowledge the nature of tv and movie making at the time TOS was made, while also acknowledging the types of stories TOS was working to tell, in relation to these issues.
Nothing is perfect but a lot of what you’re leveling at TOS could also be leveled at TNG and also DS9 and VOY.
And calling Nichelle Nichols a prop is poor form and ignores the huge role she played in the show, by just being on the show, for the time.
I don’t think anyone is calling TOS perfect. I think the primary issue that many long time Trek viewers have with SNW is that A) the showrunners and writers are telling viewers that this show takes place in the prime timeline while B) also ignoring key points in the historical canon and attempting to wallpaper over that with the somewhat flimsy excuse of “time is pushing back”. These choices and excuses read as lazy writing and an unwillingness to do the necessary research to learn what has come before. But if they want to say that this is the prime timeline and this is what’s going on to why things are different in it, cool, do that, but make it internally consistent and follow some rules, even if those rules are only known in the writer’s room. Right now it all feels very hastily slapped together, varies depending on the episode and the only rules seem to be, “wouldn’t it be cool if?” with no additional thought given to previous Trek and how the current story affects what has come before.
And if the SNW writers want to do something different, I don’t think anyone has an issue with that, provided the context is accurate to what has come before. And if the creatives feel that they can’t tell the stories they want to tell within the boundaries of the established prime canon, then don’t; create a new alternate timeline and pick and choose what parts of established canon you want to use and discard the rest. But don’t go off and do your own thing and ignore what was established previously simply because you want to, and then turn around and say its the prime timeline. That’s trying to eat your cake and have it too. And it comes off as bare minimum stewardship of the franchise, an entitled sense of what is now and new is more important than what came before, and is insulting to viewers, new and old.
Wow. Huge thumbs up to that post. Good work.
Why are you writing these long angry essays? Are you housebound? Have you no friends or life? Do you ever consider not watching this show that you hate?
Wow. Obviously the writer hasn’t a clue of the irony of the comment. Some people just don’t seem to be able to see the obvious.
Also, it’s surprising how many people have no idea what it’s like to be a fan.
That is a disgusting personal attack. Way out of bounds.
This was the perfect takedown of those gatekeeping fans that somehow still get away with this kind of rubbish! Agree with everything here!
Are you professionally rude and obnoxious or is it just a hobby?
Sadly, unlike kids who don’t want to do their chores, we, the viewing public, actually have a vote. $15 of them per month, in the case of Paramount+, actually.
Why do you make shit up?
Do you need to make an effort to be obnoxious or is it a gift?
If you’ve got an issue I’m happy to discuss. What exactly do you think was “made up”?
She’s just got the same surname.
I didn’t see that these posts had continued further down! That’s a cool nod to that original character either way then. ;) I think it would be interesting if they did a flashback episode to When April first took command of the Enterprise and show what that mission was like. There was a decent book written years ago called Final Frontier and it told a pretty cool story that involved the Romulans and Kirk’s father. I’d love to see Gina Torres play April’s wife, Sarah April, who was a medical officer. Both actors are really good and it would be cool to see that. Maybe even do it as one of the movies for P+ they’re going to make! :) :)
Oh God, I never thought of this. Please don’t give these atrocious writers any ideas!
You mean atrocious like your comments. You need to go watch something else.
Ok buddy, you need to tone it down. This is the third post I see from you about this. Whatever unsatisfied frustration you have with Temarc, this isn’t the place for your pathetic little attacks. Go to the gym or something.
“Carol Kane has been a fantastic addition to the season”
I mean… has she really? She had one episode in which she had a reason to be there. Otherwise, she’s largely a non-character.
I have enjoyed her presence very much. She was featured substantially in more than just Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, albeit it in relatively small pieces.
Hard agree. I’ll venture to say that the show runners think so too, and introducing Scotty this early is most definitely how Pelia gets written out. At this rate, McCoy, Sulu, and Chekov will be in season 3 and James Kirk just takes over one day.
Well, it’s hard to imagine Carol Kane wanting a long-term commitment in any event.
She just did two seasons of HUNTERS in a supporting role, appearing in just about every show, sometimes in featured roles.
I really love Pelia, but it’s been obvious she’s just a place holder for Scotty. And his episode now confirmed it.
*sigh* I hate to say it but I was thinking the same thing from the start and really REALLY wanted to be wrong.
Agree x three!
I jumped to that conclusion too when they killed off Hemmer for no good reason. I did get a smile when Scotty finally showed up. As soon as he spoke, I knew it was him.
God I wish they would just make Sam Kirk a main character instead. I’m sick of the TOS characters already showing up.
Where in the episode did they confirm this?
Absolutely agreed! Personally, I think she’s playing the role so sitcom eccentric it’s hard to take her seriously in the midst of a season I’m struggling to take seriously. A solid episode, but the bar has been set kinda low this season, TBH. And I’m not ragging on “Subspace Rhapsody” in specific — there have been several silly episodes this season that really left me wondering what has become of what I used to think was one of the best Treks around.
I’ve enjoyed her because Carol Kane brings her usual quirkiness to the character and she’s just fun to watch. I wonder if she was messing with the deflector because they can use it as a weapon somehow against the Gorn kind of like they did in TBOBW? :O
I don’t know what to say about Season Two, except I’m done. The optimistic Star Trek is gone. The sci-fi Star Trek is gone. I have to accept that Trek is gone, and remember I have hundreds of episodes of great sci-fi with an optimistic view to remember and watch over and over again.
Too bad.
SNW is a great snow that I’ve rewatched several times already. The show won’t miss you. See ya!
I guess you never watched Best of Both Worlds…or seasons 1-7 of DS9.
Of course, I have, and they were true Star Trek. I could go on and on with the differences, but just one of the best examples is… In the Best of Both Worlds – Pt1, can you imagine the ending with the camera moving in towards Riker if he showed complete indecisiveness? Riker was stern and knew exactly what he had to do. Compare that to Pike… who had a look of a deer in headlights. Just not what is needed, expected, or desired.
See THIS is gatekeeping. It’s not “true” Star Trek and we’re not “true” fans if we like it. Lol.
If it’s not trek and you hate it, if it’s “trash tv” then don’t watch it. It’ll make you a happier person!
Me? Love this show. Better than TNG in my opinion and I freaking love TNG.
I think it obvious that the cliffhanger would have been better if he made a decision either way before the “To be Continued” card. Imagine if he turned and said “We aren’t leaving anyone behind.” Then fade out. Or said, “Ortegas, set a course for Starbase 6” then fade out. Either way works great.
“Of course, I have, and they were true Star Trek.”
This statement is very ironic to me. Not with BOBW, but with DS9. Because take my word on this, 20+ years ago there were many in the fanbase who complained DS9 was far from ‘true’ Star Trek. In fact what’s more funny is that people complained about it the same way you are complaining about SNW now that it wasn’t optimistic enough either. People said the show went entirely against Roddenberry values or ‘vision’. It was literally called the black sheep of the family for years. It was too dark, too focused on war and on and on. And I can tell you without a doubt if SNW debut in 1995 instead of Voyager and you had to ask which show was the ‘true’ Star Trek show between DS9 and SNW, it wouldn’t remotely be a contest lol.
But now here you are saying DS9 is the ‘true’ Star Trek show, but it’s SNW that is the impostor in this scenario. I guess it’s true and time does heal all wounds. In a decade from now people will be arguing how the Kelvin movies and Discovery are true Trek shows that fully honors the Great Bird of the Galaxy philosophy. You may laugh now, but…
And for the record, I think they are all true Star Trek because they have Star Trek in the title. And DS9 is my favorite show. And I’m not an apologist for this show either (although I have been accused of being one). I have been critical of this show and the issues I had with the finale up and down this board and other places even though I still really enjoyed it. If you don’t like the show, think it’s total dog shit, that’s fine of course; I have no issues with that at all. But sometimes there is a bit too much hyperbole from fans. Next thing you know, they will start calling it the black sheep of the franchise. ;)
Agreed! It’s trash TV.
I’m glad you’re done. It’s better to give up then piss and moan.
It is too melodramatic like a soap opera. We don’t need to see massive amounts of romance in star trek.
Riker and Troi. Worf and Troi. Picard and Crusher.
Kira and Odo. Kira and Shakaar. Kira and Bareil. Miles and Keiko. Jadzia and Worf. Sisko and Jennifer. Sisko and Kasidy Yates. Ezri and Worf. Ezri and Julian.
Shall I continue or is my point made?
lol “Kira and”
And there was romance almost weekly in TOS.
Speak for yourself, please. So far, it’s all been tied into character development.
They jumped the Xenomorph with Batel
Meaning?
meaning the Gorn in SNW are basically poor rip-offs of the Xenomorphs from the Alien franchise. They said as much in S1 that they wanted them to be scary like that and now **implanting eggs in a human** – good lord.
That was already in season 1 too. Why do you think Hemmer died
I immediately thought Alien 3 in that scene.
The old 3-4 months wait between the season end cliffhangers and their resolutions seem like nothing compared to the wait for the rest of this story. I know season 2 was filming… when we were watching season 1? I think. So it’s not like poor planning on the show runners behalf (although if the ones above them hadn’t been so stingy, we wouldn’t have to wait so long).
They were actually suppose to start filming in June before the writer and actor strikes happened. So we probably would’ve got the next season in the summer like this season.
Ah so it would have been a similar situation – filming season three when season two was airing.
Pretty much. And according to Goldsman they been ready to shoot season 3 for months but just been waiting for Paramount give them a start date. Who knows if they started when he wanted them to they could’ve even been finished before the strikes even started but we’ll never know.
Oh really? Damn… if only. It would’ve been nice for it to been in the bag already. Fingers crossed all this gets resolved sooner rather than later.
I enjoyed this episode. The pacing was good and they handled the Gorn well… They were portrayed as something more than blood-thirsty monsters. They actually communicated with Starfleet with that picture showing their borders. Like in Arena, they probably thought that the humans on the colony were invaders and although they shouldn’t have had to kill everyone, they’re Gorn not human and perhaps in their way of thinking that’s the only way you can deal with invaders…
This being said, I didn’t appreciate the Enterprise’s navigator (Mitchel?) with her whiny “But the Gorn still have our people!” or something to that effect. The ship is being fired on, there’s a Red Alert, her job doesn’t include passing a comment of the sort. The captain is well aware of the situation. I just found this very unprofessional and something I would expect on the Discovery, not the Enterprise. But this is a minor complaint…
Next thing however is not minor. At the very end, the ship is being pummeled by 4 Gorn ships, they’ve received orders to leave the area immediately and the Gorn have the Cayuga crew and colony survivors in custody with no immediate hope to rescue them. Kirk would already have given the order to leave orbit at maximum warp but Pike? Pike has a panicked, overwhelmed look on his face, he’s hesitating wasting precious seconds that they don’t have, clearly doesn’t know what to do and is letting his personal feelings impede his ability to command… All this in front of his crew. How is this man deserving to be a starship captain?
And you start wondering why he remained captain for the next 20 years? Oh wait.
I’m not a fan of the Kelvin movies, but the Pike in those movies seems a much better and grittier leader than SNW Pike. I don’t really care it’s just a show, but I am disappointed… This was definitely a WTF moment. I guess we’ll know what happens in 18 months or so…
I can’t disagree with you too much about this Pike but that’s how he’s always been IMO. But he did seem to have at least a little more grit on Discovery. I think this is how Pike wants to play him, everyone’s favorite dad basically. Sometimes it works well, other times not so much.
Sorry I meant this is how Mount wants to play him.
Yes I got it don’t worry. You know what they say, a person in authority shouldn’t befriend subordinates. Some agree, some don’t. Usually I don’t, though there are exceptions. It depends on the individual’s personality. This Pike is mellow and approachable. That’s fine, but in no way excuses hesitation in the face of a life and death situation that demands immediate action. He can be a friendly Boy Scout all he wants, but when the situation calls for it he has to step up. He failed miserably.
I dunno if her outburst was that out of line. Other officers have blurted out obvious things like that before for the sake of setting the stakes for the audience. This wasn’t exactly Owo picking the exact wrong moment to be defiant in a crisis and then wasting time explaining herself afterwards.
And this cliffhanger is not unlike Azati Prime’s. T’Pol’s emotional handicap was worse than Pike’s, but she was nearly as helpless as he allowed himself to look here.
T’Pol was impaired by her exposure to Trellium-D. What’s Pike’s excuse?
Also Pike had a true decision to make. T’Pol didn”t really have one. She knew her situation was hopeless. The look on her face told the story Despair. Pike’s look displayed indecision. Fading out after he made a decision either way would have helped eliminate that and still maintained an effective cliffhanger.
What a badly written pile of Shit . If the people who wrote this are on strike for more money ,they should be glad they got anything for this .
So many stupid things . Apparently the red shirt at the start of the episode is named HELM ?
New Scotty’s {yes he is Scottish} His voice sounds like an over done parody .
Scotty is from another ship in another star system ,and just happened to go where the gorn were off to ? really ? Why was this the story point ?. Why not have him be a survey ship from the Cayuga that was scanning a moon in the system ?
At red alert and the communications officer leaves her station to save the day yet again ?
We need the nurse to rush to sickbay because there are no other doctors?
We end with a Captain that can not make a decision were there no strong females to tell him what to do like always ?
The Scotty thing is a bit weird. I don’t know why they couldn’t just make him part of the Cayuga? It would’ve been funny and a surprise to learn he was Batel’s chief engineer this whole time. They could’ve even threw in subtle hints whenever we saw her. But yeah.
OK… I know the next season is a million miles away at the moment… Assuming it gets made what are the odds of McCoy or Sulu showing up next season? I’d say even money at least.
I have five boxes of fruit snacks on McCoy. And have all season. (Sorry that’s my personal betting metaphor thing. Who needs money when fruit snacks.) And now after episode 8, he’s gotta be right around the corner.
Of course money buys fruit snacks so hmm. Maybe money has some use.
I think I actually wrote to you in a post saying exactly that lol. It will be one of them I’m guessing. At this rate the entire crew will have shown up by season 4. Don’t be too shocked if you see a young Chekhov as part of a Starfleet youth initiative program and he shows up on the Enterprise for a semester as a high school participant.
People might think I’m joking but remember they put a 17 year old Chekhov in the Kelvin movies by calling him a kid prodigy. And while I like Chekhov, he didn’t exactly come off like some whiz kid either on TOS.
Chekov said he was 22 in WHO MOURNS FOR ADONIS. Koenig was like 30 or so at the time I think. But none of that matters here.
So he’s definitely still just a teenager right now…but seriously I still expect them to squeeze him in somehow, just not as shoehorned in like the Kelvin movies.
Well, the fact that he wasn’t on season one of TOS might be the one grace that saves us from that particular squeeze.
It also might have helped bring the Cayuga crew into the story. Minus Batel they totally disappeared. Not unexpected but it would have been nice to have seen them more throughout the season. I think the emotional payoff as an audience member would have been much higher.
Yeah that was just odd. Scotty could’ve been one of those voices from that ship. But it is funny how she keeps showing up multiple times this season but we never see her ship or anyone in her crew. It’s the exact same thing with Kirk and the Farragut. The guy also keeps showing up but we have never been on his ship or met anyone in his crew either.
It’s clearly a money issue. They obviously can’t afford to show off these other ships and want to limit the amount of actors possible because I don’t think we heard anyone else on the planet speak outside of the SNW regulars, Batel and Scotty.
They didn’t even want to make a 23rd century colony. They just used an existing 20th century street!
I do think it’s ironic for a show that is titled STRANGE NEW WORLDS that it ends its season on a pedestrian colony that resembles 20th century small town America. And it was only done to save money because none of it factored into the story at all. I thought maybe we would get some dialogue why it was important to have a planet represent that era, but nothing.
Looking at Picard season 3 and SNW season 2, it’s been made very clear they are working on smaller budgets. The only truly new planet we went to in SNW was the first episode. It at least looked a bit exotic looking. They went to one in TOS but it was literally just sand and the portal lol. The Picard budget was obviously strained by bringing back the TNG cast. I don’t know what it was with SNW but it spent way more time on the ship this season.
And it’s really disappointing we never get to see another ship’s bridge anymore unless it looks exactly like the hero’s ship bridge. For some reason that seems to be a no-no on the live action shows today although we saw quite a few them on TNG, DS9 and (occasionally) Voyager.
I can see them saying it is their way of paying homage to TOS who quite often found themselves on “Earth-type” planets with “parallel development”. Which was just a way to use existing sets in their their shows. In MIRI they even used the street used for Mayberry from The Andy Griffith Show. LOL
Yeah, but it still doesn’t ring true because in this scenario we’re to believe these are people from Earth who decided, for strange reason to dress up their new home from a time 300 years ago. Again, it’s FINE if you can at least come up with a reason. That’s why I liked New Eden on Discovery. It’s one of the episodes they actually did a great job on because they knew they had to save money but created not just a cool reason why they also went to a town on a planet that looked like 20th century Earth but gave it both an interesting back story and tied it in to Pike’s background (btw, I guess the whole religion thing has been dropped ;)).
Here, it’s literally just ‘hey, they decided to build a town on a foreign planet that looks like small town Wisconsin…cool huh?’ It’s so lazy. We understand you have to save money, but spend a LITTLE time to justify it like Discovery did with theirs.
But to be fair that was still a bigger explanation than we got in MIRI lol. That episode seriously gives me the creeps today.
If people from our current time were establishing colonies on another planet in the style of Colonial Williamsburg, that would be the equivalent. Really makes no sense, except from a production budget standpoint, which I totally understand.
Wild. It’s like when the Borg captured Picard and let the Enterprise just follow and try over and over again to stop them…let the crew beam on and off of the Cube as they please, destroy things on the Cube, never putting up their shields, and why do those Borg move so damn slow! Just stop, take 20 min and destroy the Enterprise already!
Emasculated males are the hottest thing in entertainment now, haven’t you heard? This writer’s strike can go on forever as far as I’m concerned. Overall, this season was lame to mediocre. The writers of SNW have no idea what they want it to be. Kind of glad the season is over.
There is a lot of creative decisions in SNW that I don’t like and I think they have missed the point on episodes like Arena.
I mean La’an using the surname Noonien Singh is like a character being called Jenny Hitler.
However, despite my gripes it’s better than DSC, which clearly had no clear direction and is a show by committee and no set theme.
Totally agreed about DSC. I stopped watching it years ago.
I disagree with this argument, because all male Sikhs are supposed to carry the surname (or more precisely, Khalsa name) “Singh” and females “Kaur.” It serves to crystallize Sikh identity as a whole. There are 30 million Sikhs now; the practice is so common that there’s no way even a despotic leader would put an end to it.
“Noonien,” OTOH, is a different question.
I agree. The show does come across as schizophrenic. Not because they’ve tried to do comedic, horror and other themed episodes. But in that they don’t seem to know what they want to do with the show itself or the characters. If feels like there is no focus. And I’m with you. As I said, I side with labor on these things at least 90% of the time but this is one of the cases where because I also believe in merit that it feels like most of the writers just haven’t earned it lately.
A pretty good episode overall. Good pacing, good tension. The bad? why is Pike mired by indecision? Capable starship commanders should not freeze up because it involves people they care about. See Riker in BoBW… “Fire”. The Gorn distraction is just so pervasive, it makes it impossible to just ignore. And of course, they couldn’t resist dropping in ANOTHER classic character and a terrible reveal. Also.. a colony made to look like a midwestern town? UGGGH… so much for the aforementioned Strange New Worlds this season. So many head scratching things that pull me out of what is arguably the best episode of the season.
at least the background was red….
I’m not really bothered by his indecision. He’s still human and he clearly doesn’t want to leave the crew behind. I thought it was fine personally.
I agree. This isn’t real life, the pause is to accentuate the weight of the decision – stay and risk a larger war and perhaps get the crew killed or leave the away party and colonists behind. Essentially, this is a tv show and theatrics are part of that.
Yeah it’s called drama. They obviously wanted it to land on a cliffhanger and not knowing what decision Pike will ultimately make. That’s the point. But yes I know for some people they want a harder military tone like in real life. But it’s not real life either, it’s a TV show. Some things you have to accept and make concessions for.
They could show him as conflicted without indecision. They could show him as a leader, processing what has happened without making him freeze up. This is not a trait you want in a leader in combat. This is not the behavior of one of Starfleet’s best. Not what he needs to convey to his crew. Leadership 101.
Remind me to never panic around you people.
But you’re not a trained, mature and experienced starship captain. You’re allowed to panic, Pike isn’t.
Good grief, it was like a second or two. He’s facing the viewer and his crew can’t see him.
Come on man, they can see his hesitation. Not a second or two, 10-15 seconds. Even Una is trying to wake him up like, Captain? What are your orders?? His ship is getting pummeled and we know what happened to the identical Cayuga, he can’t help the prisoners, there’s only one thing to do and it’s getting the hell out of there, as per orders. Hesitating for a second or two would be normal, 15 seconds with a deer in the headlights look is not. He’s a Starfleet captain for crying out loud…
Her statement was key. This felt like more than just a beat and the look on his face was one of ‘what do I do?” It was the antithesis of what a Captain is supposed to do in that situation.
Not as a captain of ship. The last thing you want to do is convey panic, no matter what you’re feeling inside. The Kobayahsi Maru is all about that.
I recall Scotty ordering to take the Enterprise out of orbit to chase down what turned out to be a phony distress call leaving the Captain & Spock on their own. I’m sure he didn’t want to leave them but he did his duty even with Uhura reminding him they can’t just leave them. And Sulu just said “yes sir” and followed his order without any unprofessional comment about the decision.
All of you discussing Scotty has neglected to mention that he’s HOT
I’m sure we may get a ‘Hot Scotty’ reference by Mariner at some point. ;)
Yes but if Boimler makes it instead that’d be even better
LOL!
This finale didn’t quite feel like a full meal, and I know that’s partly because it’s a two-parter. But that’s not what I mean, it didn’t have enough substance, it didn’t even have a proper setup. Things just happen, most of it off screen. This isn’t the first episode this season that shortcut its way through the story by telling rather than showing. It feels very unsatisfying. So for me this finale is more frustrating than anything. Some nice moments here and there, Scotty’s intro was fun and he seems to be right for the part. The battle on the bridge with the Gorn was probably the highlight of the episode however.
I hope that the writer and actor strikes end soon so that we don’t have to wait five years for the conclusion to this story (or worse case scenario, never get the conclusion).
Season 2 started shooting in February, 2022 and didn’t debut until almost 16 months later. With the strike ongoing, production beginning in February, 2024 seems unlikely so, yeah, we’re probably at least two years off.
Scotty has ten fingers! That just TOTALLY screws up canon for me.
{Sarcasm!}
😂
lol – maybe Season 3
WELL PLAYED!
That’s a good one!
But remember, in this alternate reality Scotty has all his fingers! ;)
Lol alternate reality.
I get it, but that’s a pretty deep dive into the weeds for a few people.
Yeah, I did chuckle a bit. I appreciate dry humor.
Yeah I didn’t get it lol. Was James Doohan missing a finger?
Edit: I just Google…wow you learn something new everyday.
Aye he was missing a finger, from combat iirc
Specifically, from the Normandy landings in WWII. Most of the remaining vets from that era will brush off the hero label, but they are.
Nice…
Solid episode, and the best season of streaming Trek. Sucks that it’ll take two years (or more) for season three to drop.
I still like S1 more but I agree it was excellent, start to finish.
That raises a question: how long of a delay would can SNW take? I can certainly make a case that any gap of much more than two years would take require rethinking, given so much time passing.
Well it was basically a two year gap between both Discovery and Picard seasons thanks to the pandemic. With Picard, it was a little over two years between seasons 1 and 2. So this is not a new thing unfortunately, especially with extenuating circumstances.
Season three is ready to roll, so it has that in its favor. Lots can go wrong, though. Management seems perfectly (and stupidly) content to starve out SAG and WGA If this strike rolls into 2024, season 3 in 2025 gets iffy.
Management is also (stupidly) openly talking about cancelling these production contracts. That likely takes everything back to square one.
P+ ceases operation. Someone, somewhere will pick up the IP, but I’d imagine everything would be evaluated moving forward.
I’d think that 24 months is the most you’d want to have a gap in content. Some other bright shiny object will come along, and folks will forget about SNW. Lower Decks will likely be filling the content gap untill things sort out. Yeah, some heads will be exploding over that prospect.
I haven’t heard a lot of what you say but if true, especially canceling production contracts, that would be GREAT news if it includes the Secret Hideout contract. But at the moment I will only believe that when if it actually happens.
At the end of a season, I think about story less than I want to be satisfied in a FWIW kind of way. However, I’m not sure I got a lot out of this episode.
These characters feel like they are in High School – instead of among the best at what they do. Una and Spock talking about Chapel rankled me, that convo was completely besides solving the problem at that point, and time was running out.
Indeed, Pike risking war and crew to save Batel should never have happened. This is a captain who knew he almost trashed the Enterprise near a black hole simply to escape the Gorn. Why trust these Gorn not to fire past the demarcation line?
And… of course they could not know about the strike when they wrote this scene, but wow, Pike looks… lost. Is this a fake out on us? Is this supposed to be character building in Season 3?
Out of this whole season, is there any bubble gum I would chew again, or is the flavor gone?
And the “special weapons” — how come the whole Enterprise crew wasn’t aware of that? And the ship itself? Cheap writing.
I know I have this compulsion to rewatch TOS every time there’s a Gorn, but I feel like Scotty’s backstory also doesn’t match with how he acts in Arena. I guess Arena is just out of cannon now.
I’m trying to wrap my head around this take.
If characters act like they’ve been reminded of their trauma it’s a problem for a lot of people on this site. But if they don’t it’s also one? Also he could very easily react in a way that’s entirely different from what people expect. For all we know he copes with a bottle of scotch. Or he went to actual therapy.
Spock and Chapel’s relationship – breaking up or whatnot – should not be considered “trauma” level from what we have seen. So I would expect him to be able to work through that in the subtext without actually talking about it.
These aren’t just scientists – they have military protocols and training clicking in once Pike gave the order to find out what happened to the Cayuga. And I wouldn’t blame Pike for scotch on the bridge. That might make the decisions a little easier. Could be his brand!
There is also the warp in and warp out possibilities that they can perform while the ship is still able. I don’t know why that wasn’t up for discussion. At this point, no Federation starship has survived a Gorn attack.
I wasn’t talking about Spock and Chapel at all sorry. I was talking about Scotty.
Ah, now we know how Scotty gets to keep his job!
“I guess Arena is just out of cannon now.”
People tried to make excuses in the first season how the Gorn episodes didn’t contradict Arena although I thought all those excuses were ridiculous. But this episode makes it clear Arena is a non-factor now. The Gorn is such a threat that Starfleet is making special weapons for them and this is the SECOND Federation colony the Gorn has now attacked in SNW. How could anyone be so clueless of who and how the Gorn operates when another colony is attacked in Arena in just a few years time??
They are on Starfleet’s radar as much as the Borg were after BOBW. They even know where is Gorn space (although for the Gorn that changes quite frequently ;)).
Hell, the Borg were on Starfleet’s radar after Q sent the D to the other side of the galaxy to meet them!
I mean, if that plus the character changes as well as the outright saying so in ep 2.3 doesn’t get someone to believe this is indeed an alternate KU style universe then nothing will convince them.
I just don’t know how people can excuse it at this point? The first episode of the season already made it clear that Arena was being over written. You can’t utter the words ‘Gorn war’ and then a few years later act like someone like Kirk wouldn’t have a clue who this species was. When the Klingons first showed up in TOS, it was made clear they had already had a long and ugly history with them by engaging in conflicts in the past and the Klingons intruding in Federation space.
I would love for anyone to explain how the Gorn situation isn’t the exact same thing at this point? And I don’t think the Klingons were ever accused of destroying a Federation ship and several Federation colonies (of course Discovery has retcon all that too with the war, I’m simply discussing TOS). And we just finished season 2.
This is about all we got on the history of the Klingons and the UFP in this quick exchange in ERRAND OF MERCY:
KIRK: We have legitimate grievances against the Klingons. They’ve invaded our territory, killed our citizens. They’re openly aggressive. They’ve boasted that they’ll take over half the galaxy.
KOR: Why not? We’re the stronger! You’ve tried to hem us in, cut off vital supplies, strangle our trade! You’ve been asking for war!
KIRK: You’re the ones who issued the ultimatum to withdraw from the disputed areas!
KOR: They are not disputed! They’re clearly ours.
This tells a pretty good story in just a few lines what the political situation is. It’s really good writing actually. The only thing missing is a reference to a past war. Which is why I doubt there was one in the lore.
The SNW situation with the Gorn would seem to be even a step up from this.
However, the point is those who still think the show is prime I don’t think will ever change their minds about it at this point.
I think there’s a line someplace in TOS about a battle of donatu 5 from 23 years before that was inconclusive … unless I’m thinking of another species.
The Gorn thing seems emblematic of the nutso decisionmaking going on with this show. I think I’m actually glad there won’t be any new live-action trek for me to watch for a couple of years …. shoot, I’m rewatcing THE WIRE right now, so basically no TREK is going to look even okay next to that, except for a very few TOS and DS9 eps.
I memory serves, the line was from THE TROUBLE WITH TRIBBLES. But I don’t recall them saying who was involved.
I’m not all that concerned about the length of the strikes myself. If it goes on for years I probably won’t be all that bothered by the lack of stuff. I find myself watch less TV today than at any point in my life that I can remember.
Funny, I’m currently rewatching Deadwood, and was thinking the same thing. And The Wire is awesome, enjoy.
Between DEADWOOD and CARNIVALE, HBO was getting my money there for a couple years. My wife and I have semi-decided CARNIVALE is a prequel to TWIN PEAKS — one leading up to the Bomb, and the other dealing with otherwordly affects arising from same.
Deadwood was probably the best show ever to be cancelled.
It’s pretty funny but if you replaced Kor with a Gorn saying those lines instead, none of it would sound misleading to anything we saw on SNW so far.
That exchange could literally be with Pike after this episode.
LOL… You took the next step I didn’t consider. I brought it up for similarity but damn… I think you are correct! It’s more alike than I thought.
Re: the Gorn: Spock mind-melds with everyone and says “forget.” It’s worked before…
Well he certainly did a great job on that lol.
There was a lot wrong with the plotting of the episode. Not much made a lick of sense. Just honoring a made up “demarcation line” was asinine. Who the hell are they to suddenly show up and draw a line in the sand? And then Star Fleet just accepts it? No word of reinforcements arriving? No one even asked about it? It was just badly thought out from the get go. Perhaps if April told Pike, “Do not engage. Honor the line until the 8 Star Ships we just dispatched get there.”
And no, ARENA is still canon. It’s SNW that is it’s own timeline.
By the way, another blatant rip-off of another series with the Gorn. Forgetting about canon issues, this is the Magog from Andromedia to a tee. And the suspense about Batell is a direct rip-off of The Walking Dead (bit and has a day left) to the point they even talk about the Walking Dead.
I don’t think this show stripping other IP for parts/scenes and cobbling them together into some Frankenstein show has rankled its ardent fans. The familiarity seems to be a feature rather than a bug. Somehow, Strange New has managed to rise above all criticism to the point that it’s actually a bad look for a critic to say, “Hey, isn’t that just a ripoff of–.” Alan Sepinwall, one of the most respected TV critics of the 21st century, just posted an article saying the show’s as brilliant as “Atlanta”!
I’m a fan of both but SNW as brilliant as “Atlanta”? That would place it in the same league as “Breaking Bad”, “Succession”, “Mad Men” or “The Wire” and I think that would be a bit of a stretch.
Bit of a stretch? More like Reed Richards on his best day couldn’t bridge between them.
And poor Reed does have his limits, ya’ know.
It has been over 50 years since I read one of those comics, but does he have problems with cold weather? I’m thinking like George on Seinfeld with cold water shrinkage.
This was great, better than I thought it would be. It was tense, action packed and cinematic. It wasn’t perfect but a strong season ending episode. Yes the best part was seeing Scotty which I predicted here awhile ago he would be in the finale, but I completely forgot I made that prediction until he showed up lol.
But I loved how the crew came together to (kind of) save the colonists and Batel’s crew. Speaking of Batel, people kept predicting this episode was going to be her swan song but glad she manage to live another day…at least one more day!
I really loved the zero g scene with Christine and Spock battling the Gorn. It felt a bit similar to the zero g scene with the Borg at the deflector dish in First Contact. Too bad Spock didn’t have a cool line at the end like Worf did but no one’s perfect.
The ending was great though because for a minute you thought everyone was going to be out of danger and the Enterprise would warp away only to realize the Gorn has the other crew members and they are going full attack mode on the Enterprise with a shell shocked Pike.
To be continued…
But I know all the canon issues will naturally be discussed. At this point it is what it is. But as for the story itself, overall not bad although I still prefer last season’s finale, but this was certainly solid. I guess it’ll be a long while until that is resolved unfortunately. But now we’re jumping back to the 24th century with our lower deckers on the Cerritos soon, so something to look forward to.
Thanks Tiger2. Just read the first two sentences of your post, that is all I needed. Looking forward to the finale.
Dude, I now make my opening sentences for you lol. I know you read the opening sentences so I try not to spoil anything in the beginning (unless I’m just that excited ;)).
Can’t wait to read your review and hope you enjoy it too!
Haha too funny, I was hoping for a great “edge of your seat” finale and in most ways, that is what we got!
I agree that it would have been great to hear Spock deliver a Worf-like (or James Bond) catch phrase when he smashed the Gorn’s faceplate and depressurized his suit. I too liked Scotty being introduced to SNW. Welcome to the Trek family Martin Quinn! Also glad to see Batel not being killed off – as you said at least for another episode.
The last thing I will repeat from my review below is my comment regarding the Gorn and canon. IMHO, the writers could have EASILY introduced a new alien species as SNW’s villain, but they took the easy road and went with a legacy villain like the Gorn. Lazy, LAZY writing – not worthy of the SNW! If it was in Discovery, I would have just accepted it, but SNW? Not angry, just disappointed haha!
Glad you enjoyed DeanH!
As I said there is a lot I really liked about it, but there are definitely flaws. For me, this finale kind of felt the same I had with the Picard S3 finale and that is it stuck to landing and gave us some great character moments (Picard also had so many great lines) but there are things that could’ve been improved upon or just not done at all.
I think me and you agree the Gorn angle just creates more problems and was a mistake to use. I will say I liked how they were used here more than in their last appearance which was just too gory for me and why I was a bit surprised I liked this one because they didn’t do any of that in this one.
But it just makes no sense in terms of canon. In Arena the point being made was that it was kind of a ‘misunderstanding’ and that the Gorn were overly aggressive but they really believed their space was being encroached upon. But this episode just makes clear the Gorn will just take what it wants and decides their ‘space’ is whatever they deem it as. In other words, there was no ‘misunderstanding’ in Arena, they just decided to move their line of territory by a few light years and then attacked any planet that had people on it. How else can you read it seeing what they been doing on this show?
I just don’t get why couldn’t they use a new species or even one we know less about like the Naussicans or even the Breen. They seem like two groups who would pull dick moves like this too and it doesn’t break canon.
But I do try to not judge the episodes on canon stuff and just follow the story they are telling. In that sense, it was good, had a lot of good set ups and I really do like the new Scotty. But in terms of canon it just makes things more divisive IMO.
Well this took a little longer than usual to show up!
Anyway, when it started and we got those shots of children playing in a park like it was part of some sort of PSA but with Uhura’s log over it I legitimately thought something was wrong with the stream. I even stopped it and reset it. Then to say they made the town look like a “midwestern town” (obviously said that for the Americans in the audience) I was thinking it was an obvious cost cutting move. Which honestly is awfully disappointing for a streaming show that consists only of 10 episodes. If they are going to go the cheap route then they should make more episodes! So unfortunately it started out rather disappointing.
Anyhow, this was a typical less than stellar episode. Even though technically no one is safe I never really felt like anyone was in any serious jeopardy. And the entire concept just never made sense. An advisory is free to just slaughter an entire ship and cocoon an entire colony but Star Fleet’s response is “Nope. They just put up some arbitrary line of death so we will just retreat and let them do to us whatever they hell they want.”? Are you effing kidding me? The entire setup just made zero sense. But I’ve come to expect that from this group. Also weren’t they monitoring that species at the end of ep 2.1? Don’t they have any kind of intelligence to rely on? Once again, the problems they created still remain. This is a known aggressive species that has attacked your ships and killed your people. You know this and are even watching them. Yet you allow THIS to happen?
And then there was Spock placing a thruster INSIDE the bridge! What the hell? Shouldn’t those things be on the outside? Yes, they needed him to find Chapel but can’t they come up with an alternative? Even I could come up with something better. And again the way they are treating that relationship is still coming across as awfully shallow.
At any rate, there are other silly things but I think the point has been made. We knew this was going to be a cliffhanger and it’s looking like it will be quite a while before we get a resolution.
The Best of Both Worlds it’s not.
Great points. As for budget savings, it’s a lame excuse considering what they spend on the effects. I have to think it’s just bad allocation. I think they could have come up with a better way of explaining it, at least. Have to agree with your overall take.. I enjoyed the episode so long as I just ignore the logic. That was easier to do with a musical, which was just so ridiculous in concept, that it worked. When they’re back to being serious, not so much.
Great cliffhanger. With “Best Of Both Worlds” parts 1 and 2, we trekkers had to endure 4 long months to get a conclusion. This review said it best at the end, with the writers and actors strike, could it be more than a year? That’s a LONG time. Still supporting both unions but the selfish part of me hopes it gets resolved real soon.
It was three months between TBBW, but it felt like forever! (June 18, 1990-Sept 24, 2990)
It is likely to be two years before we see the net season of SNW. The Unions are nowhere near close to It stinks for fans for sure, but a lot of the actors, not the “big money” people, but the actors that just get by, are getting screwed by a lot of what is going on with streaming and AI.
I am adding my voice to the requests for an ignore feature.
If people use it on me, idc, good for them. That’s absolutely fine with me, I annoy myself too sometimes. It’s fair, it’s totally fair. But I’m requesting it because I need to ignore a few commenters before I get into trouble by trying to argue with them.
Hmm…I must have been watching a different Star Trek. I’m still convinced the writers need to go back to college and get a refund on their degrees.
In a lot of cases I don’t think you are wrong. Especially those employed by SH.
Don’t blame the teachers, blame the students.
That’s what Principal Skinner says.
…and they’re striking for More money. For this. It boggles the mind.
They’re striking for more money because of what has been done before, and what has been decades of highway robbery as ‘payment’ for things of quality. And for putting in their dues working on lesser shows, or working for people who don’t know quality if it bites them (pun intended given this ep’s ‘teeth.’)
I’m largely pro-union, because the money is always concentrated far too heavily at the top.
That’s not to say there aren’t corrupt vile types in the union — look at the Oregon fire dept stuff right now where the very people cheating the system just got elected into control and immediately voted to toss out the guy who had the guts to order an investigation — toss him out without advance notice in violation of the terms of his deal, but hey, live a little, steal a lot right? And the reason “for cause”? The slimeball instigator of the ousting, not even a fireman but just a support person for them who wasn’t entitled to fireman benefits but has been making buck off them and is now the friggin’ TREASURER, when asked what the cause was, says he isn’t very good at public speaking and can we get into that later on.
Here’s where Pike inspires Kirk on how to get out of a future scenario by signalling Enterprises surrender in the hopes of buying time
What truly sucks is that Trekdom is going to eat itself alive arguing/debating this one (and the season as a whole) until the strike ends.
To coin a phrase, “It’s gonna be a long road, getting from there to here…”
Yeeeaaaaahhhh. This is really really gonna suck.
I won’t know what I think about this episode until I see the end of the story … probably sometime in 2025. But I do know what I think of this season: WOW!!!
I didn’t love every episode equally, but overall, this was a stunning season! The trial episode, the time-travel episode, the crossover episode, the musical episode — there was so much goodness in a season only ten episodes long.
I do wish they weren’t using Spock for comic relief, and I miss Captain Pike while Anson Mount has a reduced role because of his paternity leave. But this cast is so strong that even with Mount mostly missing, Chong, Bush, Olusanmokun, Gooding, and the others carried the season most ably.
The only bad thing about Strange New Worlds is that its seasons are so short! I hope the studios decide to pay the writers and actors what they’re worth soon, so they can all get back to making great Star Trek.
Once again I agree with you on just about every observation, This was indeed a stunning season!
Sad it’ll be so long until Season 3!
I really wish they had written Pike better – more incisive, secure, commanding – for the time Mount was available. I don’t think the character was served well at all this season. Weak, limp, a joke. A shame.
I agree. A reduced role makes sense, but they didn’t need to reduce the character, and it felt as if they had.
This is one of those moments when having all non-legacy characters would have been useful. We knew that Chapel was going to make it (but hey, screw anybody else who might have been in a pocket of life support, crash that saucer before investigating further.). And we know that in part 2, at bare minimum Sam and M’Benga will be rescued. Hell, Pike knows the whole landing party gets out of this for a fact thanks to A Quality of Mercy.
Very odd bookends for a season; It opens with Spock decisively disobeying a direct order and risking a war to save people, and closes with Pike freezing in his moment to do the same. If the cliffhanger has to be on what Pike’s decision is, fine. But don’t spend an eternity in that moment. Let him look like he knows what he’s going to say, just cut before he gives the order.
I got a milf flashback to ST ID with the ending, as Pike in front of viewscreen looking lost is very much how Pine as failed Kirk looks right before Peter Weller is going to blow up the Enterprise. Not saying that is a good thing or bad, but just another callback, owing to staging as much as anything else.
I didn’t think about that but I do see the similarity. The difference though is at that moment I really did feel sympathy for Kirk who was seeing the price of a failure for the first time. When Pike did it, because he had been coming across as overwhelmed for weeks now I didn’t feel any sympathy for him at all.
That was supposed to read ‘mild flashback’ not ‘milf flashback,’ in case there was any confusion.
Yes there was indeed confusion. Was going to write a rather inappropriate post to ask clarification, but since I’m a decent guy I just let it go.
I really enjoyed season 1 of SNW. With regard to the S2 finale.
Chapel conveniently survives the attack aboard The USS Cayuga and seems to be the only survivor on the ship. She then restores life-support for an hour and magically finds and wears an environmental space suit. She then travels all the way up to the bridge to save Spock. NOT impressed with the finale and season 2 as a whole.
Yeah the Chapel being the lone survivor really bothered me. I didn’t bring it up in my review but that was so bizarre. Really the ONLY one lol. I’m guessing some of this was done due to budget, they oddly took away a bit of the suspense and drama when we see no one else but our heroes in danger or directly involved in the story. Everyone else was just there like the diner scenes or killed off screen.
I didn’t mind her being resourceful because frankly we seen that all season with her, but yeah some of it was still a bit of a stretch, especially getting to the bridge from sickbay when the ship was sliced in pieces.
Now that Scotty is here, make the man prefer other men. Give me my cake and let me eat it too.
Before anyone starts, I know I won’t get that. If anything I’m expecting them to do the heteronormative thing and pair him off with Uhura because something something TFF said so.
To be fair, we seen Scotty with quite a few girls on TOS. He even had a serious girlfriend for that one episode no one ever talked about again lol. They can make him bisexual but you know how well that will go down with certain people. Look at Sulu being gay in the Kelvin movies and that was another universe.
I know. It’s wistful thinking on my part. I was just left sitting here like wow the LGBT community really got nothing the entire season.
On the flip side though, he could be closeted and in denial so 🤷 it could be worked out but I know it won’t be. I just wish they didn’t have to leave him stuck in something so… 60s…
I was thinking but what happened to Captain Angel this season? I thought she was coming back with Sybok. Sadly I guess they will show up next season.
I was glad to see the back of her/them. One of my least favourite episodes of s1 and an utterly appalling performance in hammy, moustache curling overdrive. I never want to see the character again—or Sybok, for that matter. That one is best left confused to TFF.
Honestly I really like Captain Angel. I just thought she was fun and it was kind of nice she’s not trying to take down the galaxy like all the one villains we got in the movies but was trying to rescue her boyfriend basically.
But yes I know she’s a bit divisive and some people thought the actor was over acting, etc. So I understand where you’re coming from, I just preferred someone like her then say Adam Soong or Control where it just your typical wants to see the world burn Star Trek villain.
We got Discovery for that, to be fair. Scotty never “pinged” for me, and, as noted, more than had an eye for the ladies in TOS— it almost got him killed more than once.
Oh yeah just two characters compared to the whole rest of the characters who are all defaulted to straight. Unless they’re women, then a few of them are bi/pan but it’s mostly as a joke or it doesn’t last! It’s so extremely fair to the LGBT community. It’s all so… Heteronormative.
And yeah of course he did when it was the 60s and gay people weren’t really allowed on TV. We can in fact have bi Scotty now. It would be nice but I don’t expect it.
Scotty is so into machinery he is practically chromosexual. Having him into guys as well as chicks plus engines (and tech manual fetishes) makes him sexually omnivorous. Save that for when Brannon Braga gets introduced as a regular character, maybe.
????
It’s like wow! We have: Paul Stamets and Hugh Culber who people on this website don’t even remember unless it’s to come tell me that I shouldn’t be asking for more representation because I have them! Very convenient memory there!
Raffi: a character that everyone has an unpopular opinion about how they hate to the point where it’s actually not unpopular at all!
Seven: I can’t tell you how many takes I’ve seen about how she’d be better off not in a relationship at all or with a man because I guess it’s the fault of the characters that the writers effed that relationship up.
Mariner: essentially the same deal as Seven!
Jennifer Sh’reyan: see the part about Raffi because it’s the same with her too!
Captain Angel: wow another hated character, I’m not happy about this one being a villain either but here the consensus is that nobody wants this one back.
Of course I’m tired and I want more and better representation. What we’ve gotten so far has been forgettable or outright hated! But I guess how dare I want to take away from the gobs and gobs of heterosexual characters!
I really liked Angel. At first for one reason, they were like edgy and had presence. Then yes I hated them, but I hated them because they were supposed to be annoying and the actor played it so well. That to me was a good example of representation, like Stamets and Culber.
I certainly respect your take on this, but I’m a straight white male, getting up there in age too, so we see things from a different point of view maybe.
I liked Angel too, and there isn’t a whole lot I liked about SNW s1 outside of the kid-gets-sacrificed one and parts of the Gorn show (not the Gorn part.)
Hetero male here too, aged as well, so I supposed take that into account with respect to POV. Then again, I’m also the guy who ended a potential writing partnership when discussing the issues of sexuality in the future with the other writer. His way too quick&easy reply: genocide all the gays out of existence so we don’t have to deal with any of that. I’d known this guy 20 years, since jr high, but this came so out of left field it just clobbered me. Later found out he had gotten deep into Scientology. Go figure.
Thank god you got out of that partnership. The guy is missing a few cylinders and doesn’t look like he had that many to start with. He probably would have tried to drag you in to that money-sucking cult eventually too.
I think he did try, because for 15 years, I kept getting Scientology mailings, even long after moving to SoCal and then to the pacific nw.
I liked this episode; not the greatest thing I’ve ever saw but nowhere near the worst. The whole ‘independent colony invaded by aggressive alien’ plot isn’t treading any new ground (Starship Troopers and Old Man’s War, come to mind), but I found it enjoyable. The new Scotty actor was good, even if he does seem a bit young.
I am forced to wonder though, why are the Gorn being used here? With all the changes they made (look, first contact timeline, ships, even breeding process) why not create a new species? The cliffhanger could have been more intense with them not knowing who attacked the colony and kidnapped everyone.
Hm… So Season 2 is over.
I was really happy with Season 1 and pumped for Season 2…
Is it just me or did Season 2 mostly suck ( compared to Season 1 ) ?
Of the 10 episodes i enjoyed 1 ( the time travel one, even though it was still quite lackluster ) and the finale at least had some tension… The rest was just endless exposition, character development but no actual “sci fi” stories…
Also why the hell do we need Kirk shoved into almost every episode and now scotty ? I can’t remember but how many episodes did NOT have a TOS character in them ?
I still enjoyed season 2 overall but yeah it was definitely a big step down for me. Put it this way, in season one I loved 8 out of the 10 episodes which is crazy high. I rated those episodes an 8 or above. I was even called an apologist for this show on another board lol.
For this season, I can say I only loved half of those and 4 out of 10 episodes I would rate an 8 or above including the finale (I gave season one finale a 9). I didn’t hate the others, they were decent, just not amazing. There was only one episode I disliked this season which was episode 4 (and I was OK with the musical but didn’t love it either).
I hear ya’. Season 2 felt like the gang had been away for 9 months and then came across as the weaker half of a single 20 episode season.
One of the pitfalls of a prequel is the risk of not moving a story forward or really contributing to the francise’s backstory. Love them or hate them, the Star Wars prequels mapped out so much for writers to explore in both live action and animation, seamlessly (nearly) leading into the first three films.
For Star Trek, there were threads dropped in TOS and TNG of events which occurred and could have been expanded upon as opposed to revisiting what fans had already been exposed to or elements had been relatively well established (Scotty’s brilliance was on full display in “Relics” and impressing the heck of Geordi but then diminished with M’Benga having utilized the same technique several decades before Scotty).
So, yeah, this season was a bit hit and miss for me after Season 1 (which I thoroughly enjoyed), with tonal shifts that didn’t quite work and characters who seemed a bit removed from those established in season 1.
We’ll have a LONG time to mull over this season with the likelihood of a season 3 before 2025 seeming highly unlikely.
Liked the episode but found it a little too predictable and I’m good if we never have another homage to Alien again. The Gorn-Batel stare down was a little too on the Alien nose. Is Starfleet still rebuilding the fleet after the Klingon War? Seems non-Federation colonists or not they were awfully quick to avoid war with the Gorn. I was dead set against meeting anymore TOS characters on SNW but they really nailed Scotty. Still, whenever the show returns no Sulu, McCoy or Chekhov and if possible enough with Kirk. I want to spend time with this Enterprise and this crew. Would have been nice to hear the Enterprise crew express concern for everyone and not just Batel and Chapel. I give this episode a B- but the season gets an A. SNW is the best Trek show since DS9. I hope the writers and actors get a fair deal and everyone can get to work on season 3 sooner than later.
…and we thought the 4 month wait between “Best of Both Worlds” parts 1 & 2 was long – 4 months – it will be at least A YEAR before this is resolved.
My personal cliffhanger wait-time memory is ENT’s Shockwave Parts 1 and 2. And yeah, I looked that one up earlier. About 4 months as well. To quote Patrick Stewart’s ad libbed line from PIC S3 “Those were the days”
LOL I was going to quote Picard too…you beat me to it.
And with classic Trek, cliffhangers just became mostly a thing on all the shows after BOBW. The only seasons I can recall that didn’t have one was the first and fourth season of Voyager and the first three seasons of DS9 (although the third season was suppose to have one too, but Paramount ruled against it for some reason). Every other season had them IIRC.
While I wouldn’t mind to see more, I’m glad they don’t do that many with the new shows because of how long the gap is between seasons.
Discovery and Picard have had season-long arcs that got resolved (more or less satisfyingly) by each season finale. I don’t think it would have made sense to postpone the resolution to the first episode of the next season unless they had actually planned their arcs to last for multiple seasons. But people have often accused those shows of not even having enough story to stretch out the arc to fill one season so multiple seasons seem doubtful.
Since SNW episodes are more stand-alone they can do two parters, which opens the door to ending a season on a cliffhanger. Heck, season 1 of SNW kind of did this with arresting Una at the end of the finale, although they waited until episode 2 to resolve that cliffhanger.
Trust me, after nearly every season of Picard and Discovery, the last thing I wanted was a cliffhanger lol. No I just wanted those to end. But season 2 of Discovery was basically a cliffhanger, just without the ‘to be continued’ tacked on.
I think the Discovery S2 and SNW S1 cliffhangers were more bearable though, as soft cliffhangers/teasers for what comes next. Thinking about it, Lower Decks S2 into S3 has been the closest we’ve had to the Hegemony one in this more recent era of Trek.
Great minds!
For some reason I’d got it into my head they were all cliffhangers, but yeah, doing a proper DS9 watch through last year, it surprised me that some final episodes just… conclude. Interesting that some Voyager seasons don’t have them either.
Yeah, it didn’t seem to be a mandate by the studio or anything, it was obvious the producers liked doing it. But they didn’t always force it on a story either. With DS9, as it got more serialized, it just made sense to do it more often.
You make a very good point. Cliffhangers were invented for entertainment forms with a regular and reliable schedule – broadcast television series and movie serials. They don’t work as well on streaming series that can go years between seasons, even without strikes that could last for years.
Unless it gets solved in the next week or so it will be a lot longer than a year… That’s about the standard wait under normal circumstances.
I was thinking, whenever they do come to film the second part, it might be quite a challenge for continuity in terms of how the actors look. I’m imagining Pike’s hair being double the height now.
Not just his coif height. If he ages as much between seasons as he has to date — the shots of his first Discovery appearances make him look almost a decade younger — what is supposed to be moments after this season’s concluding shot will be hard to pull off.
Wow. The last show of the season is the first good show of the season. That makes sense for the Kurtzman era.
It’s always funny, in a pathetic way, when whiny boys complain that the world isn’t respecting men. How would they know?
?
Are you referring to people who whine that Pike is not the “Alpha Male” (by their definition) captain that they want?
He’s not being portrayed as a leader, more as an arbiter. Batel is given far more agency.
??????
Maybe they know because they’re not whiny boys? Maybe it’s your own personal issues that make you see them as whiny boys? Maybe you need to talk to someone instead of posting your delusions?
Maybe someone who complains about strong female characters in Trek needs to wake up and look at the calendar and then remember that DS9 had Kira Nerys. (You didn’t but someone else in this comment section has)
I don’t know who that someone is, I haven’t read the post, but yes they are definitely out of line to think that. The best characters in Trek have been strong female characters; Uhura, 7 of 9, Janeway, Dax, Kira (one of my favorite of all), Troy, Dr. Crusher, T’Pol, the new Chapel, Una, Ortegas (not well developed so far but she has potential)…
My post was just pushback on calling people whiny boys because they think men are disrespected… I don’t take lightly to bullying and rudeness and I thought the comment was incendiary. I wasn’t addressing the issue of men being disrespected or not. And regardless of whether they are or aren’t, strong female characters have their place. This is a non issue.
As far as Pike is concerned, I don’t think he’s being disrespected (by the writers). I suppose we’ll see in S3 what his behaviour is about, but as a Starfleet captain it was definitely inappropriate.
Okay, thoughts time! I’m going to try to divide between reviewing the episode itself one one hand, and the show and season more generally on the other. There will be overlap.
So, I kind of enjoyed the episode, but I don’t know if I liked it. Random colonists getting in the way, settling in a place they ought not to is pretty standard stuff. Nothing wrong with that. Well enough acted, directed, and shot. The problem I have is what elements were predictable, and which ones weren’t. Batel having the Gorn eggs, Chapel being alive, all the beats were like clockwork. Of course, we know that the characters who go on to show up later must survive, but, like, you don’t have to take the easiest road. The unexpected (in terms of what my expectations are) element to me was the ready bloodthirstiness of the crew. I ought not to be surprised, but it seemed un-Trek-ly to me.
Still, wrong vibes aside, there were some good elements to the episode that are worth noting. I loved the scoring for it. The orchestration over Batel’s log in the cold open felt like peak TNG era Trek music to me, and I was enjoying the motifs that played throughout. I really like the design of the Gorn vessels and tech – the giant ship plowing through the clouds was suitably ominous and gorgeous. The decision to end not just on a “oh, what comes next?” situation like Season 1 (and all of Disco IIRC) but an honest to goodness “To Be Continued…” was fun. It felt like when I was a kid watching TNG and I would get hyped for the coming season. Of course, I’ll be 40 by the time SNW S3 comes out, so I have to go to bed earlier, but the hype will be there.
Now, the season as a whole is kind of hit-and-miss for me, but I think that may be coloured by me not really liking 2 of the final 3 episodes. I get the “big swings,” and I don’t mind that, though I feel that there’s less of a flow to the season than S1. In some ways it’s more akin to “classic” Trek where tone vacillates wildly within a season. With 10 episodes it’s harder to pull off, and I kind of feel like the transitions could have been smoothed out. Maybe some different episode ordering in there.
The other thing that doesn’t work for me is the Gorn treatment. Keep them menacing in the shadows, hissing and clicking from their spaceships. Seeing them in person always feels like a let-down to me. They’re a Xenomorph-Zerg knockoff, and that just doesn’t feel like it works to me.
Overall, I really like SNW, but while Season 1 felt like it was telling the story of Pike’s Enterprise, Season 2 gave me much more of a “setting up everything for TOS” feeling. All the Kirk. Adding Scotty in. Ironically it feels more like a prequel, but rather than cataloguing other adventures, it’s “this is how this established thing came to pass.” Kirk getting command of the Enterprise is going to be like Solo’s Kessel Run – a moment of note from the past that would have worked better if we never saw it. Before anyone comments on how none of that applies because “this is an alternate universe,” just please don’t – I’m not playing that game. So far as I’m concerned, this is Prime, and has to be treated as such.
I get that the season was largely written and shot before any of Season 1 had aired, so they didn’t know what was going to resonate. I hope that for Season 3 they kind of fuse the “big swings” of Season 2 with the tone and overall pace of Season 1. I think the Trek ship is starting to right itself, and I think that they can make Season 3 another strong one.
Cautiously optimistic, and still looking forward to the future! Now please give Una and Ortegas something to do!
Great season finale! Great cliffhanger! They need more episodes like this.
Can you imagine Captain Pike answering all this with another musical number in Season 3 premiere?
The new actor playing Scotty looks closer to James Doohan.
I’d describe this 2nd season as an experimental season that’s all over the place.
A lot I loved in this season. I liked the episode, agree on the indecision at the end, that stood out as bad to me. My only real complaint though? To be continued…sure trek did this before when we had 2 or 3 month gaps, not years. I won’t remember the details of this when the next episode comes. I don’t think shows like this should end seasons on cliff hangers, the gaps are way too big, even without a strike.
A very satisfying S2 finale! The one thing I noticed right away was that Pike was back to his “take command” self. At times this season, he has appeared a little too soft for my liking (for lack of a better term). Small things, Pike did what he should – scan for life signs and not assume all hands were lost when they discovered the wreckage of the Cayuga. I of course also liked his definitive decision to cross the Gorn borderline and send a landing party down to the planet.
A few other points, I was worried that every story was going to be left hanging until the S3 premiere, but the writers did a good job wrapping up some of the plot points, while leaving others for the cliffhanger – to be continued. I also really liked Mr. Scott’s entry into SNW, a very pleasant surprise and great casting introducing Martin Quinn to the Trek family.
Okay, I have to say that overall this year, the writers room has done an excellent job with SNW. IMHO at least 7 or 8 of the 10 episodes were very good to excellent. That said, I really don’t understand why they pigeon-holed themselves down the Gorn “rabbit hole” back in S1 and doubled down on it in the S2 finale. They could have easily introduced a new villain alien species and avoided any backlash from the lovers of canon. By using a TOS and Enterprise legacy alien species like the Gorn, that was just lazy writing, IMO not worthy of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Oh well, for me just a minor criticism.
Sadly, that is probably the last episode of SNW we will see for at least 14 plus months. Hey, the writers and actors have some major legit issues they have to resolve with the studios. It is just too bad that we won’t see what happens with the landing party, the colonist survivors, Captain Batel and the Enterprise until sometime in 2025. LLAP everyone!
Really glad you liked it and agree with all your points, especially good to see Pike defy orders to save lives. Of course people are giving him grief for being so indecisive at the end but I’m personally fine with it. And yes we fully agree on the Gorn but I’ve already given my thoughts in the other post.
It wasn’t a perfect episode but a very satisfying one in the end. I suspect it will probably be more than 14 months though before we see season 3. I’m thinking 18 months minimum.
Super-serve is not a word. I guess targeting sounds too sinister for these MBAs?
It’s one way to make it sound like you’re doing something whilst you have nobody making any content to sell.
“Game over, man. Game over! What the f*** are we gonna do? What are we gonna do?!”
=sigh=
I too wasn’t a big fan of Pike’s seeming indecision at the very end, but I’m guessing (hoping?) it was purely done for dramatic purposes, and come season 3 we’ll see Pike immediately take control of the situation.
Beyond that, I honestly don’t know what to think of the Gorn at this point… I’m very comfortable with allowing some flexibility when it comes to canon, but it’s pretty hard to reconcile not only SNW’s depiction of the Gorn, but also just the fact that the Federation knows so much about them. I’ve enjoyed SNW immensely (even if season 2 didn’t quite reach the same heights as season), so I’m still willing to give it the benefit of the doubt – that there is some plan for the Gorn, and there will be some level of reconciliation with how the Gorn were depicted, and introduced, in TOS.
Alas, it’s going to be quite some time until we know anything! With that being said, I’m in full support of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, and if we don’t get new SNW (or any Trek after DISCO’s final season) for a while, so be it. The writers and actors deserve a just and fair contract far more than we “deserve” more Trek.
It didn’t really need to show Pike as indecisive to end on tension. Either ordering the Enterprise to stay or leave and cutting would have left things similarly unresolved. Indeed if they were looking to channel Riker’s order in The Best of Both Worlds, Pike ordering the Enterprise to depart and apparently leave the others behind would have fit well (and we’d all know that wouldn’t be the end of it, but we’d have to wait until the story resumed to find out how).
Hey… That was my input earlier. No matter what order he gave fading out AFTER that order would have worked much much better. Either way leaves the situation far from unresolved and either way open up their own can of speculation.
I’ve suspected for a while now that TM has to post mostly positive reviews to keep up its access to the Trek powers that he (and Akiva Goldsman absolutely is kind of man who needs the validation of these type of sites). This review really concerns it.
This was yet another misfire for me. When “To be continued…” appeared on the screen my thought was “was that it?!”. Nothing happened for the whole run time besides one clumsy fight in zero gravity that had all of the tension of a wet fart. For the rest of the time, ir was a lot of people standing about and talking. To switch things up, sometimes they sat. Scotty’s introduction felt like a complete non-event, most of the characters were underused, the cliffhanger had zero tension, and for an episode involving the Gorn we saw next to nothing of them for most of the bloated run time. As an episode, it was dull. As a finale, it fell completely flat.
I respectfully disagree with your second paragraph. That is all.
As is your right!
This is simply not true. As someone given access to screeners, there is never a mandate —direct or implied— to give positive reviews.
Paramount has never once suggested that bad reviews will get an outlet stripped of access, and has never taken away screeners from critical responses.
In fact, my outlet gave Picard Seasons 1 and 2 — and even the S3 finale surprisingly — negative reviews.
Is it so hard to believe that people actually like this episode and this show??
Your opinion is not the world.
No it’s not hard to believe it all. I never said it was. The fact that you thought that says a lot more about you than it does about me. And for the record, I *like* the show, I just don’t *love* it.
And you might tone down the snark as well. Is it so hard for you to accept that there are people who don’t enjoy the show as much as the others?
From the journalistic perspective, I’ve dealt with Paramount off and on since 1991, and while there have been times when they have been wonderfully cooperative, they have been petty and or dismissive a lot more of the time, regardless of the outlet.
If you look at how they treated Preston Neal Jones’ RETURN TO TOMORROW project, it is clear that even decades later, they were still freaking over perceived negatives about their mishandling of TMP, refusing to allow for any images to be used in the book unless they got to do an edit on the content.
And to show that was not an exception, I know from closer experience that they exercised similar veto powers over a couple of stories in FILMFAX that covered the phase II through TWOK era. I helped the writer with some questions for Joe Jennings, and wondered why it was taking years for the story to appear. Paramount at first withheld all images until they got to read the finished manuscripts … then they simply refused to deliver any images at all.
We’re not discussing a talking-trash piece here either (the stories are in issue 107.) Instead, the writer wound up using images owned by the mag, which had acquired FANTASTIC FILMS along with their pile of old images, plus a pic or two he took himself of the Fluor building that had been intended for use as Starfleet HQ in an earlier incarnation of IN THY IMAGE.
I’d have to disagree, somewhat – Pike was having his Kobyashi Maru moment there: the survivors and most of his bridge crew were taken by the Gorn, his ship is getting the s**t kicked out of it by superior forces, and he’s left with two choices, both bad.
As a series finale, yeah, this is a horrible place to leave it. But that isn’t their fault, forces beyond the production teams ability to control dictated that outcome.
I hadn’t considered that angle! Thank you for giving me something to chew on! :)
Access to screeners are provided and specific parameters must be followed but, love or hate what you see, you’ll only be cut off if you violate the NDA or some other act. When the reviews are brutal it’s never fun but you take your lumps.
you think Akiva Goldman is monitoring this website for reviews? Hahaha
Thought it was a great episode. I guess the TOS “canon” purists are having a cow right now trying to figure out how “Arena” fits into this as if the writers have not already provided a great explanation for the “changes” in the the show but I digress.
“Why don’t they create original characters?” Why not expand on established characters that had zero development outside of non-canon novels and comic books?
We should appreciate the gift of SNW and thats it. You whined about the Kelvinverse which went out of its way to create an alternate reality to preserve “canon”.
Star Trek has never done of good job of preserving “canon”. Every show has adjusted canon. Time to ge over it.
Great episode. Looking forward to season 3 where I expect them to make more decisions that make people unhappy.
People really do need to get over the Gorn as the cheesy guy in a rubber suit. It looked awful in 1966 and it looked awful in CGI in Enterprise. As much as I didn’t particularly this episode (I found a bit low key and dull), I hope that the producers keep forging their own lane and don’t give in to the gatekeepers who insist this is an alternate timeline.
As a Gorn ‘purist’ (to use the intended pejorative) – my issues are all about the *story* not the aesthetics. The Enterprise in SNW is lovely. I can fit my head around aesthetic changes from 1966 vs 202x.
To assume that’s the gripe is insulting and disingenuous IMO.
They’ve reduced the Gorn to a cheesy Xenomorph knock-off instead of understanding the point of Arena. Kirk was initially disgusted by the Gorn and was ready to *treat* him like a mindless monster, but he had to tell himself no this is as intelligent a being as I am and found empathy and mercy, despite appearances.
Cut to SNW: eww gross a lizard. Shoot them before they use us as incubators. Pew pew pew bullet bullet gun. Aren’t we edgy and exciting?!
The difference is – if they were actually writing a Star Trek tv episode, the Batel egg thing would be the frame for discussion about life, choice, medicine, etc…some social topic relevant to the current day while still having some action and adventure. Alas….
People who say they don’t get the point of arena make me laugh.
It’s pretty clear that they absolutely do. You’re just missing it. Kudos. I’m sure it makes you feel good to think you’re a better and more knowledgeable fan than they are, though.
Whatever you need, pally.
The fact you find somebody’s opinion insulting because you don’t agree with it… I think it might be time for you to log and go get some fresh air. It’s opinion… you have the right not to agree with it, but to find it insulting? Yeah, it’s a bit much.
And let’s not pretend that every episode of TOS and TNG era Trek was a thoughtful exploration of humanity. What was the message of Spock’s Brain? What was the message of Sun Rosa? How about the social message of Move Along Home? What did Threshhold say about the human condition?
And let’s not also pretend we haven’t had that sort of exploration in SNW. Spock frequently explores humanity in the series, La’an, M’Benga, and Chapel are all grappling with PTSD, Pike went on an existential adventure throughout Season 1, and Una is walking allegory for trans rights!
A fu**ing cliffhanger and now what, maybe 2 years before we know how it ends? It worked when you have a summer break to wait, but now we have to wait probably till 2025 is so stupid. The episode was excellent, but if you need two episodes to resolve the story just dump the musical nonsense or made an extra one.
In their defence, when this was filmed- no strike was planned. It’s just very unfortunate timing
Still the best case would had been a summer 2024 release for season 3 … 1 year cliffhanger is still a 1 year cliffhanger, totally unacceptable anyway.
I mean, the producers didn’t plan to have a 2-year gap. Season 3 was supposed to be filming right now to be released next year.
It’s not like they ran out of time or out of episodes like you say. The musical episode had nothing to do with making this a cliffhanger. They could have resolved the story within 1 episode. I mean, we thought all survivors had been beamed on board Enterprise and they were ready to leave before they dropped the reveal that people on the surface had actually been taken by the Gorn. This was obviously a conscious decision to extend the plot and to use it to create anticipation for the next season. It’s bad luck that season 3 will now be delayed.
Actually the beaming process was all green and different. It was obvious they weren’t beamed off by a Federation vessel.
I noticed that the beaming effect looked slightly different but I didn’t think any of it until the reveal that the crew was missing.
Well I’m colour blind, so it went way over my head.
This was an underwhelming episode for me. The Gorn have been overused but underdeveloped. We’ve learned nothing about their society or culture.
The same can’t be said about most races that have appeared multiple times.
The writers turned the Gorn into the mindless “Monster of the Week,’ who somehow have warp technology.
SNW has been great, and the acting has been great, but the overuse of the Gorn has been a weakness.
The cliffhanger is a bush league move by the writers for a series with just ten episodes a season, less than half of what we got with TOS, TNG, VOY, and DS9. Making it worse is that it’s generally a year between seasons, not just the summer like in the past. AND, to make it worse now, it’s likely to be two years with the way the writer and actor strike is going.
I agree. In order to have an antagonist for me to care about, they need to invest time in actually making them interesting in some way. The Gorn, so far, are just too basic. They’re xenomorph-like monsters. That’s it. At least with the Borg, which were also a single-minded species, they had a unique visual design and way of speaking — with a catchphrase! You can’t get that with growling.
When you review the development of each species that appeared multiple times throughout Trek, you see that each was developed deeply. Consider how much we know about Bajoran, Klingon, Cardassian, and Ferengi societies. To a bit of a lesser extent, we know about the Changelings, the Jem’Hadar, the Vorta, etc.
The Breen are one of the few that have been kept mysterious – and to be honest, that gets old quickly.
Right, the Breen are a good example of mystery, and a garbled language, only getting you so far. Eventually, if you want to build up a great antagonist species, they HAVE TO TALK to our heroes. This becomes apparent when we look back on all the memorable humanoid baddies in Star Trek, they’ve had one thing in common. They had lines, and often good ones.
I mean, just imagine replacing Marc Alaimo’s magnificent voice with growling.
since Pike knows his future, why haven’t we seen him be brash and reckless, knowing that his fate, ie he won’t die for sure up until his accident with the cadets. i feel like thats a plot point that should come up with him in later seasons.
spoke’s arc didn’t really have a resolution which was disappointing. in season 1 we had a resolution to pike’s arc with him coming to terms with knowing his future, i know that this is a cliffhanger, but i thought they could at least conclude spoke’s arc by the end of season 2
overall i liked the episode. the music was great had some cues that was very reminiscent of TOS and TNG
It was an obvious mistake having Pike know his fate. He could make all kinds of reckless decisions knowing he was going to make it. The one and only one way this knowledge could work is for the character to simply not believe a word of it. If he considered it 100% hogwash he would still behave the way Pike would behave.
As we saw in A Quality of Mercy, Pike CAN change his future.Being brash and reckless could very much so get him killed prematurely.
I’m guessing that was ep 1.10? Good call. That means all that talk earlier about how his fate is set in stone and cannot change was all hogwash.
I did like this episode far better than last weeks one. It built up a pretty good finale but was it worthy of one like TNG, not really but still did a good job. I don’t like the idea of trek borrowing from other movies like Alien or Roddenberry’s other show Andromeda. Still overall pretty good. While I know we have to wait a year I fear it wont be until 2025 until we see a resolution.