Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022) - Season 1 (1 Viewer)

[Adam Lenhardt]

I don't understand the hostility towards the doctor.

The daughter is essentially in a quarantined hospice, spending her last few weeks with her dad. I find nothing 'hellish' about it.

The fact that those few weeks may take place over many years doesn't alter that she spends several hours with her family, goes to sleep, and then spends several more hours with her family.

Yeah, I don't think it's that traumatizing to her while it's happening; after all, the totality of all of the rematerializations, even over the course of years, would probably be less than a day of real time from her perspective.

But if she continued "living" in the pattern buffer longer term, I can see the Rip VanWinkle effect when she's cured and reintegrated into society being traumatic. Suddenly all of your friends are grown, while you're still a kid. Dad who was in the prime of his life before is suddenly older and frailer.

I think that the storyline involving Ruyika could go either way - happy or sad. Every Star Trek show needs its Wesley Crusher and maybe Ruyika will be the one to fill that role.

I think the best argument against a sad ending to her story is that this is supposed to be the fun, upbeat show among Paramount+'s Trek offerings. M'Benga's daughter dying horrifically and then him grieving for a season or two afterwards feels like it would be a real bummer.

 

[Nelson Au]

Walter, thanks for pointing out the computer’s voice. I was so focused on the story that I didn’t even pick-up the computer voice! I’ll re-watch to listen for it. I wonder if they ever considered using Rebecca Romijn’s voice for the computer?

Speaking of other nods to TOS, in the sickbay, I was noticing the bio beds resemble the TOS beds in the red metallic fabric used. For SNW, they are using red leather or vinyl material.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Speaking of other nods to TOS, in the sickbay, I was noticing the bio beds resemble the TOS beds in the red metallic fabric used. For SNW, they are using red leather or vinyl material.
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The production design team on this show does a really good job of building off of striking visual cues from TOS production design so that even when the sets are parts of the Enterprise we haven't seen before, or places that have been redesigned from their TOS appearance, it all feels very TOS era.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I think the best argument against a sad ending to her story is that this is supposed to be the fun, upbeat show among Paramount+'s Trek offerings. M'Benga's daughter dying horrifically and then him grieving for a season or two afterwards feels like it would be a real bummer.

I wholeheartedly agree with this.

I also think portraying her experience as horrifying child abuse misreads both the intentions of Star Trek in general as well as that specific situation as explained in the episode. She received a terrible diagnosis that will result in her dying a horrible death, and not even sudden death but unstoppably deteriorating in agonizing pain, with a prognosis that gives her just 12 weeks before it’s all over, with no possible treatment to lessen the suffering, let alone a cure. That’s heading into the territory where even in today’s society we discuss options of euthanasia/assisted suicide because there’s no benefit to experiencing that.

I see her being put into the transporter buffer as akin to doctors inducing coma to keep patients in stasis until more can be done.

At worst, the doctor is merely delaying in the inevitable. At best, he’s giving her a chance to live. She is neither conscious while in the transporter, nor aware of time passing, nor in pain.

 

[jayembee]

On a different topic, I checked IMDB and actress Alex Kapp is credited as 'USS Enterprise Computer'. During the various interactions with Una in episode three I was struck by how similar the voice performance was to Majel Barrett's work as the voice of the various computer interfaces in TOS. A nice nod to the original series and assuming that was the 'standard' voice across Star Fleet during the TOS era, then another bit of respect for ST: TOS canon.

My wife and I were also struck by how much (though not quite perfectly) the voice sounded like Barrett's.

On the other hand, it would've also been a nice nod to TOS if Jess Bush had done double-duty as the Enterprise computer voice.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I had never seen Jess Bush before - she’s got this quality I can’t quite put my finger on that just seems to be a great fit for both the character and show. It’s like she had the textbook smarts beyond her years, but she has youthful idealism in her eyes and a sprint in her step. She seems animated by the possibilities of what could be without yet being weighted down by the reality of what is. It’s a delight to watch.

 

[Museum Pieces]

I read something somewhere that Majel Barrett had pronounced every phoneme for a recorder and that they could use her voice for LCARS any time they wanted. I wonder if it's true and if so if they slip a few phonemes in here and there to give that sense of her.

I do appreciate how sometimes Number One pronounces her lines like Majel, and how Ethan Peck occasionally sounds spot on as Nimoy's Spock.

This show continues to be a respectful, intelligent, imaginative delight, and a much needed Star Trek haven for this fan.

 

[Walter Kittel]

I do appreciate how sometimes Number One pronounces her lines like Majel, and how Ethan Peck occasionally sounds spot on as Nimoy's Spock.

Yep. Ethan Peck got to work out "Fascinating" a few times in episode three and it was as you say, "spot on".

- Walter.

 

[Walter Kittel]

S01E04 - Memento Mori

Still early, so energizing spoilers...

Spoiler

This episode's primary plot involves the USS Enterprise in combat with a numerically superior foe. While delivering supplies to a colony the away team finds it deserted and the scene of a violent attack. Subsequently the Enterprise discovers a group of survivors in orbit in a cargo vessel. While transferring the survivors of the colony aboard the Enterprise they are attacked and the ship is severely damaged. Outgunned and outnumbered the Enterprise retreats to the shelter of a gas cloud around a brown dwarf star.

This episode features a strong focus on Security Chief Singh who identifies the attackers of the colony as The Gorn based on a survivor's description and her own memories from a traumatic past. Those memories from Singh's childhood are one of the fundamental keys to surviving the encounter, permitting Pike and the crew to make vital tactical decisions.

This episode simply resonates with references to TOS that viewers will recognize. I won't bother to list them, but there are plenty to discuss.

While the focus is upon Singh, this episode by comparison isn't quite as focused on her as episode three was upon Una. We get a good sampling of most of the crew in this episode and some meaningful moments between Spock and Singh and between Cadet Uhura and Chief Engineer Hemmer (who is very effective in his limited screen time.)

For the sake of continuity I hope that we get some reference, even a brief one, to the USS Enterprise going to a star base for repairs in episode five. The ship really took a beating in this episode. To paraphrase Die Hard - "it's gonna need a paint job and a shitload of screen doors."

Another really strong episode. Very, very entertaining.

- Walter.

 

[jayembee]

Just finished watching it. Outside of the obvious TOS episode, it also called up scenes and themes from The Wrath of Khan and "Balance of Terror". For reasons that should be obvious to anyone who's watched it already, I'm curious if this episode's placement in the production queue or streaming queue was deliberate to release it just before Memorial Day.

One spoiler-tagged question:

Spoiler

It seems to me that odd that Singh was able to give a relatively vague description of the Gorn (re: their eyes) that suggested that she actually had seen one or more. And yet, it also seems clear that Starfleet has no idea of what the Gorn look like. (This was part of the call-back to "Balance of Terror" -- this felt like Starfleet not knowing what the Romulans looked like until that episode.) It would be odd that Singh would not have told anyone else what they looked like if she had really seen one. My wife thinks that she did see one, but the memory of them, other than the vague description of the eyes, was hidden behind her trauma wall.

It's been a long time since I've seen "Arena", so I don't remember, but was it established that Starfleet hadn't known what the Gorn looked like before that episode?

 

[joshEH]

One spoiler-tagged question:

Spoiler

It seems to me that odd that Singh was able to give a relatively vague description of the Gorn (re: their eyes) that suggested that she actually had seen one or more. And yet, it also seems clear that Starfleet has no idea of what the Gorn look like. (This was part of the call-back to "Balance of Terror" -- this felt like Starfleet not knowing what the Romulans looked like until that episode.) It would be odd that Singh would not have told anyone else what they looked like if she had really seen one. My wife thinks that she did see one, but the memory of them, other than the vague description of the eyes, was hidden behind her trauma wall.

It's been a long time since I've seen "Arena", so I don't remember, but was it established that Starfleet hadn't known what the Gorn looked like before that episode?

Spoiler: ENT: "Bound"

Jonathan Archer first learns about the Gorn in the fourth-season ENT episode "Bound," so by the early/mid-23rd Century (going from what La'an's onscreen backstory establishes in both "Children of the Comet" and "Memento Mori"), evidently the Gorn are starting to become a bit of a problem for colonial settlers, which ties nicely into what TOS: "Arena" established regarding the conflict over Cestus III.

And Mirror Lorca had a Gorn-skeleton in his private research-room on Discovery. It's extremely unlikely that he packed up his various trophies to bring with him when he crossed over.

In this new episode, La'an also says, "The truth is, plenty of people have seen the Gorn. They just don't live long enough to talk about it," which is additional proof that Gorn-physiology is known by the mid-23rd Century, if not widely.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

We continue rotating through the main cast, with the fourth episode centered around the Enterprise's chief of security, confronting her foundational childhood trauma.

I liked that we never saw the Gorn the entire episode. Much like the shark in Jaws for most of the movie, they're scarier unseen than they are seen. We all remember Kirk wrestling with the Gorn captain on the Vasquez Rocks, with the glitter flaking off the fake eyes. A quick Google search turned up a bad CG version from what I assume was an "Enterprise" episode? The Gorn stand out because they're one of the few humanoid alien species from TOS that are more alien than just a Fu Manchu or pointy ears and diagonal eyebrows, but I don't think they've been executed well yet. This episode did a good job of showing that sometimes less is more. It also gets around the fact that the events on Cestus III are the first official contact between the Federation and the Gorn; here they're still bogeymen and monsters under the bed.

So far, this show has done a good job of expounding on what we saw of the Gorn in "Arena": The tendency to leave a lone survivor after a massacre, the use of deception to lure in prey and place them at a strategic disadvantage, and a culture that seems brutal and savage on its face.

At the same time, we know that they're smart enough to have developed warp engines and operate with a high degree of strategic competence. And from "Arena", we know they're capable of language (even if it perhaps took the advanced Metron technology to facilitate communication) and they see their attacks as legitimate defense of their territory in the face of unauthorized foreign invasion.

There are numerous aspects of the Gorn civilization that are incompatible with the Federation and their ideals. At the same time, they don't seem to be an ongoing threat by the late 24th century, which would seem to indicate that the Federation and the Gorn Hegemony were able to reach some sort of diplomatic understanding. And the fact that Cestus III is again a Federation colony by that point would seem to imply that the Gorn are willing to engage in negotiation regarding their territorial claims. So either Kirk's mercy in "Arena" led to some sort of rapprochement with the Gorn, or there was a war between the Federation and the Gorn at some point between TOS and TNG that the Gorn lost badly enough to be willing to cede territory in order to end hostilities.

It's not the first starship story to tell essentially a submarine story, but they're a lot fewer than you'd expect given that submarine warfare -- like space warfare -- operates in three dimensions. It never hurts to remind the audience that our crew are traveling in a tin can through a vast expanse that is trying its best to kill them every moment of every day.

I really enjoyed the scenes in the med bay, with the doctors and nurses forced to resort to essentially the same kind of combat medicine seen on "M*A*S*H" without any of their fancy gadgets available to use. This in turn led to the kind of triage that is normally not necessary even with so many injuries. And the show is doing a good job of conveying the delineation of duties between the doctors and nurses of the Enterprise's medical staff, with M'Benga making the diagnoses and devising treatments while Chapel administers medications and provides the bulk of the hands-on medical care. This is a distinction that hospital shows tend to do well, but Star Trek hasn't always been the best at. Most Trek Doctors feel more like country doctors who do it all, with the nurses (if there even is a nurse) just there to hand the doctor equipment and listen as he expounds on his feelings or dilemmas.

The only subplot that didn't quite work for me was injured Hemmer and Uhura trapped together in the cargo hold trying to defuse the overheating air filter. I get what they were going for: Hemmer is a new chief engineer who needs to develop a better faculty for teamwork, and Uhura needs to impress one of the senior officers who will determine her future in Starfleet. But the through line never quite landed for me; an air filter seemed too innocuous to be a ship-ending threat, and all of Uhura's advanced reading on the device didn't really pay off in any meaningful way.

I continue to love Anson Mount as Captain Pike. Pike projects confidence and competence, but he is more transparent with his emotions than most of Starfleet captains we've seen. He doesn't shy away from the hard calls, but you really see on his face what they cost him. Kirk had too much bravado for that, and Picard kept his cards much closer to his vest. Sisko could be pretty emotional, but he is driven and motivated by different things than Pike. Sisko is also the messiah of the Bajoran faith, which makes him necessarily less humanized by the end of his story. Janeway had that Katharine Hepburn quality, a certain headstrong steeliness that didn't allow for a lot of outward vulnerability. I think part of that comes from this version of Pike being introduced on "Discovery", which is far and away the most emotionally focused of the Star Trek shows. This show retains those qualities without letting them pull undue focus from the adventure of the week.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

It's not the first starship story to tell essentially a submarine story, but they're a lot fewer than you'd expect given that submarine warfare -- like space warfare -- operates in three dimensions. It never hurts to remind the audience that our crew are traveling in a tin can through a vast expanse that is trying its best to kill them every moment of every day.

X1000 times this.

I love the bottle episodes (or ones close enough to that if not exactly fitting that description) of Trek most of all, whether they’re ones of a violent threat or a natural mystery. Those are the ones where the ship feels most like a ship, and you’re reminded that they’re on their own so far from home. It feels nautical and naval, and I love that. It’s perhaps the closest thing most of us earthbound residents will get to being aboard a starship.

 

[Walter Kittel]

The submarine parallels were pretty dominant in this episode including the 'pinging' of the approaching Gorn vessels on the tactical display, the various shakes and shudders of the ship as it was undergoing stress from both Gorn weaponry and the tidal forces of a nearby black hole, the concept of 'silent running' inside the brown dwarf's gas cloud, the three dimensional aspect of the combat, the necessity to seal bulkheads in the ship with the unfortunate crew member who is trapped, etc., etc.

While I really enjoyed the episode, I do think it compares a bit unfavorably to Balance of Terror simply because of the presence of Mark Lenard in that episode. His portrayal of the Romulan commander in that episode is one of the great guest starring appearances in TOS. Additionally his relationship with the Centurion really helps establish the 'humanity' of the character and creates a three dimensional portrait of the adversary in that episode. But maybe that is for a TOS thread.


Back to ST:SNW, I did appreciate that the Gorn were not depicted. I think that was a good decision since I am not sure they could be rendered credibly, within the budget constraints of the show.

Ortegas had a bit more to do in this episode considering the amount of maneuvering required of the ship in this episode, plus the amount of time spent on the bridge of the ship. Her character is beginning to grow on me; the ability to perform her tasks (and throw in some commentary) while under duress is starting to endear me.

Anson Mount continues to impress as Captain Pike. He did a great job of conveying a lot of emotional beats in this episode. Some of the shots of him in the captain's chair really felt iconic for the resolve he displayed in the face of adversity. He does a great job of portraying hopefulness in seemingly hopeless situations.

- Walter.

 

[Harry-N]

I don't have a problem if the ship is all cleaned up in the next episode. That's a function of episodic story telling. But yeah, if a throwaway line about refreshing at a starbase is tossed in, that would be welcome.

 

[Nelson Au]

Spoilers:

“Aye sir, dive, dive, dive.“

I enjoyed this episode Momento Mori. At first I wasn’t in on the idea of the Gorn being introduced again. During Arena, Kirk has never seen a Gorn before. So it was good they didn’t show them, just used the sounds they made. I also liked how the writers flesh out the Gorn’s hunting practices and La’an’s additional explanation for what they used the colonists for. Not very pleasant.

Overall a very good episode. I saw call backs not entirely to Arena or Balance of Terror. While the submarine aspects is in both this episode and Balance of Terror, I felt there was much more alignment to the TNG episodes Q Who and Disaster. Enterprise hides in a gaseous cloud while the enemy stalks them and two crew members are trapped in a cargo hold with a ticking bomb. This episode doesn’t show the contrast on board the Gorn ships, so there is no Commander and Centurion characters to contrast with Starfleet. The Gorn are very well described by La’an as predators doing their thing.

I like Pike’s faith in the crew and in the Enterprise. There’s that interplay too between Spock’s ultra stickler to numbers and what the book says is possible and Pike’s faith in his gut that what is possible beyond what is possible. So the ship was able to tolerate the pressure. I felt they must have studied TOS very closely. Having just watched That Which Survives, where Scotty says to push the button to eject him and Lt.. Rahda says time is up, but Spock has faith in Scotty to pull off the repairs and save the Enterprise. So Spock has grown quite a bit.

The business in Sickbay and the cargo bay had some great character stuff where we see M’Benga and Chapel going old school to save the patients and Una. And then Uhura and Hemmer gain new respect for each other. You knew they there going to eject the contents in the hold, but I didn’t see them using the air purifier explosion to trick the Gorn. That was a good one. The Enterprise for sure is going to need some time in Space Dock. I’d think to not only repair the damage, but to check the metal from all that stress it was under! And a new paint job.

I’m still trying to understand what the intent of Pike’s line is at the end of the episode. That they would be prepared for the next encounter with the Gorn. If there is no contact again until Kirk’s time, then Travers on Cestus III wasn’t prepared.

So which episode shall I watch next, Arena or Balance of Terror.

PS: I looked the title, it’s Latin for: either to conquer or to die.
That is quite appropriate.

 

[Sam Favate]

This was another winner. Anson Mount said it’s his favorite of the first season.

Design question: Do La’an and Ortegas have to look so severe? It takes you out of the show a little.

 

[jayembee]

Spoilers:

“Aye sir, dive, dive, dive.“

I enjoyed this episode Momento Mori. At first I wasn’t in on the idea of the Gorn being introduced again. During Arena, Kirk has never seen a Gorn before. So it was good they didn’t show them, just used the sounds they made. I also liked how the writers flesh out the Gorn’s hunting practices and La’an’s additional explanation for what they used the colonists for. Not very pleasant.

Overall a very good episode. I saw call backs not entirely to Arena or Balance of Terror. While the submarine aspects is in both this episode and Balance of Terror, I felt there was much more alignment to the TNG episodes Q Who and Disaster. Enterprise hides in a gaseous cloud while the enemy stalks them and two crew members are trapped in a cargo hold with a ticking bomb. This episode doesn’t show the contrast on board the Gorn ships, so there is no Commander and Centurion characters to contrast with Starfleet. The Gorn are very well described by La’an as predators doing their thing.

I had mentioned a call back to The Wrath of Khan. Hiding in the brown dwarf, which (among other things) disabled their navigation and shields, as well as the enemy's, was much the same as Kirk using the Mutara Nebula to confound Khan.

I’m still trying to understand what the intent of Pike’s line is at the end of the episode. That they would be prepared for the next encounter with the Gorn. If there is no contact again until Kirk’s time, then Travers on Cestus III wasn’t prepared.

But he doesn't know that. What he meant was essentially "We have an idea of what their tactics are, so we'll be able to counter them better the next time." This time, they were strategizing by the seat of their pants.

What I said to my wife at that moment, though, was, "We're going to kick their reptilian rectums!"

PS: I looked the title, it’s Latin for: either to conquer or to die.
That is quite appropriate.

You have the title slightly wrong. It wasn't "Momento Mori", but "Memento Mori". It means, roughly (I'm not fluent in Latin) "remember the dead". As I had said in a previous comment, it was interesting that this episode was released just before Memorial Day. I'm not sure that was a coincidence.

 

[jayembee]

Design question: Do La’an and Ortegas have to look so severe? It takes you out of the show a little.

Doesn't for me.

 

[David Weicker]

Spoiler: ENT: "Bound"

In this new episode, La'an also says, "The truth is, plenty of people have seen the Gorn. They just don't live long enough to talk about it," which is additional proof that Gorn-physiology is known by the mid-23rd Century, if not widely.

Spoiler

You seemed to have completely missed the point of her statement.

No-one still living has seen the Gorn. There are no statements or records on what the Gorn look like. Only the now dead have seen the Gorn. So their physiology is not 'known' by anyone. Never reported to anyone.


Its kind of like, if you are of a certain belief, we assume a lot of people have experienced Heaven, but until someone comes back, no one 'knows'