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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - Hype Train To the Stars
- Thread starter WisteriaHysteria
- Start date
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- Tags
- star trek
Measure of a Man is a pretty decent episode, elevated by Patrick Stewart doing Patrick Stewart things. SNW has a lot of pretty good actors, but nobody on the show is quite p-stew-tier. One thing I did like about this episode that I think it gets right and does better than Measure of a Man, is that as opposed to that episode - where Picard is advocating on the behalf of Data - SNW lets Una advocate for herself. Which I think is much more effective in general.
Yeah. I thought the actress playing Una’s attorney did a fantastic job, too. I really appreciated the way the episode very specifically said, “No, Captain White Dude, you are not going to charge in and save your female friend. That wouldn’t help.”
Man, this show is special
Okay I ended up liking that one a lot for the La’an / Kirk romance, but that scene outside of Khan’s room, man, where the Romulette infodumps everything then dies… not the strongest part of the ep.
Much like M’Benga’s Fight Juice™, that whole time travel story was pretty dumb, but I largely loved it, because the character work was very enjoyable and the actors sold it.
Much like M’Benga’s Fight Juice™, that whole time travel story was pretty dumb, but I largely loved it, because the character work was very enjoyable and the actors sold it.
three episodes in to the season and we’ve had a Cold War political thriller, a court room episode and now a time travel episode.
This is The Trek I Want
This is The Trek I Want
I almost really liked that one. I feel like the episode would have benefited from spending more time with the emotional consequences for La’an of having to ensure that a genocidal war took place so that her timeline could be preserved. It sort of felt like the episode was treating saving baby Hitler Khan as a matter of La’an coming to terms with her own ancestry, when really the stakes were a hell of a lot higher than that. Maybe they could have made some more time for that by just having La’an break out of her loneliness by becoming friends with Kirk, rather than having her fall for him. Seriously, TV executives, this isn’t When Harry Met Sally: a relationship between a woman and a man can be meaningful and important without being romantic. And anyway, La’an deserves better than to be another notch on the bedpost of Kirk the Lothario.
I'm more than fine with it. Considering Number One's single most defining characteristic in The Cage was that she loved Pike, and so far the show has shown the two as nothing more than staunchly platonic friends, they've already pulled their punches in the romance department significantly. A little romance here and there is great. And I think it works pretty well here too. La'an is such a guarded individual that she barely allows anyone into her life. So her letting this version of Kirk in, and in a romantic way, was a pretty big move for her personally, only for it to all end up in tragedy once more. I thought the final scene was pretty affecting.
Also, I have to hard disagree with the critique/notion of "Kirk the Lothario" - in TOS Kirk is a relatively guarded/isolated individual who definitely is influenced by love on multiple occasions, but would never be irresponsible or selfish. I actually really, really, really appreciate Paul Wesley's depiction of him in this episode. It's an alternate-universe take on the character so it's not an exact 1-to-1. But his characterization is actually way more informed by the Kirk we see in TOS than in the Kelvin-Timeline movies, or even in the TOS movies. Kirk in TOS is a calculated, stoic, scholarly master strategist. He was described as a "stack of books with legs" during his time at the Academy. I thought they did a decent job of incorporating that into this portrayal. Also, Kirk being the one to die in a tragic romance was a nice little inflection of what TOS would have normally done.
Strange New Worlds is certainly leaps and bounds ahead of TOS in terms of the agency and interiority its female characters show, and even ahead of a lot of contemporary TV. I certainly don’t want to minimize that. Still, I think the episode would have worked as well or better if it had shown La’an processing her feelings at the end by talking through them with her established friend Una rather than cold-calling her timeline’s Kirk. It could have deepened an ongoing relationship on the show rather than bringing in a character we might see once or twice a season. If Paramount really wants the show to have more romance, they should step up and give Ortegas a girlfriend—Star Trek needs more LGBTQ stories.
I’m not saying that your take on the character is wrong, but speaking only for myself, I just don’t see this in Kirk. For example, I recently rewatched the TOS episode “Balance of Terror” after last season’s finale referenced it, and I was really struck by the way that episode brought in Yeoman Rand during tense moments to … just sort of hang on Kirk and look vulnerable, without even saying anything. When she came to him for reassurance, he sort of patted her shoulder in a Frank Sinatra, "don't cry, baby" kind of way, but I didn't get any sense that either Kirk as a character or the show in general thought of her as a person equal to him. No doubt a lot of that is just the default gender politics of the early '60s, but it's hard for me to separate Kirk from that 1960s way of looking at women.
I love the episode a lot thanks to all the Canadiana. Is this the first time a Canadian city featured prominently in an episode of Star Trek?
Kinda wish they tied the temporal story into the end of Picard season 2 and instead of random future lady waiting for La'an it was Wesley or Kore. Maybe even a cameo appearance of, a probably much older, Adam Soong when they were at the facility. Ah well.
Kinda wish they tied the temporal story into the end of Picard season 2 and instead of random future lady waiting for La'an it was Wesley or Kore. Maybe even a cameo appearance of, a probably much older, Adam Soong when they were at the facility. Ah well.
I feel like there are different operations working at different scales here. Not that it couldn't have been re-written around your proposed cameo, but I got the feeling the operatives here were just a straightforward (future) Federation special unit tasked with time shenanigans, as opposed to your other folks who are working at a much higher level and from a much farther remove.
It took me a little while to get where they were going with it, but once it got going, I definitely liked it. Christina Chong does great stuff, Paul Wesley feels like he's finding his groove with a TOS style Kirk with a modernized feel, and Carol Kane is just awesome. She was able to take a line that in retrospect was pretty heavy-handed foreshadowing and play it off so naturally you forget about it until it came up later. I think they found a good balance of exploring Kirk's character (at least, a Kirk) while still giving La'an the heavy lifting. It was a good Star Trek romp all around.
As for including watchers... I dunno, I think time cops works better here for the dramatic arc. La'an starts the episode unable to process and talk about her biggest fear, but she gets to work through it by meeting alt-Kirk and Khan... only to get new trauma that she desperately wants to talk about but is forbidden from discussing because of the time cops. Oh, the irony! Also, I'm not sure if I expect (due to the realities of TV production) or even always want that level of interconnectedness every time. Sometimes it's fun, other times it makes the world feel smaller. It's a fine balance. Maybe too much MCU has diminished that desire lately. I think in this case I prefer keeping to these character moments rather than it being overshadowed by a lot of interconnected stuff. As it is, we got temporal war references, so that's a thing.
However, there's some clunkiness by not even acknowledging it. This was brought up by one of the video reviews (Trek culture) I watch, but it's obvious that the different shows aren't exactly communicating with each other. (Their previous example was multiple Trek shows using automated ships or fleets as their big finale moment at the same time)
The Romulan agent says they've been waiting 30 years since the original timeline date of 1992. I don't expect 30 to mean exactly 30, but even give or take a few years, this is probably happening before the events of Picard season 2 (which is 2024). Tallinn the Watcher was around (and is a Romulan!). Adam Soong hasn't pulled the Khan folder out of the drawer yet. TBH maybe I personally don't mind ignoring some parts of Picard S2, but it is apparent that the production teams aren't really on the same page. I mean, even Picard S3 ignored most of its own history.
As for including watchers... I dunno, I think time cops works better here for the dramatic arc. La'an starts the episode unable to process and talk about her biggest fear, but she gets to work through it by meeting alt-Kirk and Khan... only to get new trauma that she desperately wants to talk about but is forbidden from discussing because of the time cops. Oh, the irony! Also, I'm not sure if I expect (due to the realities of TV production) or even always want that level of interconnectedness every time. Sometimes it's fun, other times it makes the world feel smaller. It's a fine balance. Maybe too much MCU has diminished that desire lately. I think in this case I prefer keeping to these character moments rather than it being overshadowed by a lot of interconnected stuff. As it is, we got temporal war references, so that's a thing.
However, there's some clunkiness by not even acknowledging it. This was brought up by one of the video reviews (Trek culture) I watch, but it's obvious that the different shows aren't exactly communicating with each other. (Their previous example was multiple Trek shows using automated ships or fleets as their big finale moment at the same time)
The Romulan agent says they've been waiting 30 years since the original timeline date of 1992. I don't expect 30 to mean exactly 30, but even give or take a few years, this is probably happening before the events of Picard season 2 (which is 2024). Tallinn the Watcher was around (and is a Romulan!). Adam Soong hasn't pulled the Khan folder out of the drawer yet. TBH maybe I personally don't mind ignoring some parts of Picard S2, but it is apparent that the production teams aren't really on the same page. I mean, even Picard S3 ignored most of its own history.
jpfriction
(He, Him)
Timey wimey star trek is the good shit, this episode ruled.
That might have been a good character moment for the two of them, but I still liked how this turned out. The thematic rhyming of her being incapable of opening up to others at the beginning of the episode, with her being able and willing but disallowed from doing so is pretty juicy stuff. That's the kind of dramatic tragedy that TOS thrived on. And she sold tf out of that ugly cry scene - which felt affecting, emotional, and cathartic in a way I don't know if a mere pep-talk with Una would have.
TOS's gender politics are pretty shit, and Kirk says some pretty shitty stuff throughout the series, but this wasn't even close to being bad. If you want a doozy from the TOS era, watch the series finale - Turnabout Intruder. (Which I maintain is the worst episode of Star Trek. At the very least, right up there with Code of Honor.) But even though Kirk says backwards stuff that wouldn't have been all that foreign or strange in the 60s, I still maintain he's pretty respectful of female characters in the show in regards to respecting women's autonomy and boundaries. The only time we see him really throw himself at a female character in an inappropriate way in the entire series, it's when he's held captive and is desperately trying to find any amount of leverage he can in order to break free.
Discovery and SNW are both primarily filmed in Toronto. Most of the location shoots both shows have done have been either in Toronto or on the outskirts. They usually do a good job of disguising it, in the same way the Berman-Era Trek shows would disguise using modern architecture of LA. S01E01 of SNW is another episode that does location shooting that I'm told by a native is very obviously Toronto if you're very familiar with the city.
The Executive Producers/Showrunners of all the shows have gone on record saying they all hold regular meetings with each other to discuss what they're doing so as to not violate canon, or interrupt one another's plans, or use a fancy toy that another show is going to use. I'm sure sometimes they do the same things by mistake, but that specific instance you cite feels to me like an intentional cohesive theme rather than oops we're total hacks.
I don't know if the average joe realizes - especially in a places like where most of us live which is far far away from any active wars - how revolutionary, transformative, and dangerous the introduction the combo of drones and AI to the industry of war is. We're living through the equivalent of WWI right now where airplanes were first introduced in warfare. They were clunky, ineffective, flimsy, and people hadn't really figured out how to use them yet. In WWI, people used planes made of wood and tarp to drop hand-grenades and other largely ineffective activities in small numbers. A few decades later, gigantic fleets of planes made of steel were razing entire nations to the ground in the most horrific acts of violence ever perpetrated in the history of our species. The ways drones are being employed in Ukraine and other warzones right now should send shivers up people's spines. A decade or two from now, we have the potential of seeing massive fleets of miniature, AI controlled, kill-bots that are impossible to stop and will commit targeted mass genocide like something out of a scifi movie like Gundam F91. Maybe I'm giving Star Trek too much credit here, but I'm pretty sure they're using the Star Trek setting to attempt to hammer home through parable the dangers we as a species are walking into.
There was a line in this episode about how the cops in Toronto were discriminating against Americans for being Americans. And I thought that was a telling line. Because that's not happening now. But in SNW/PIC's version of Earth where the "Second American Civil War" breaks out, the implication to me is that there were probably a lot of American refugees fleeing the States. This is also an episode made in 2022-2023 with a fictional, gigantic bridge that just got built in Toronto (presumably crossing Lake Ontario) that is not even on the radar in present day. There is no specific mentioning of any dates - which feels like an intentional choice given literally every Star Trek time travel episode/film to contemporary times lays out exact dates. To me, this is all meant to imply near-future, but far enough ahead in the future for current plausible deniability. Like, some time in the 2030s.
Oh I know, in fact Toronto is often used as a stand-in for New York which is why I was tickled by Kirk's initial assumption that they're in New York. But I think this might be the first time a Canadian city as a location was actually used in the narrative itself in a Star Trek episode which is rad.
Yeah, that was a great moment. I especially loved La’an’s response of basically “Uh, there’s a huge sign that says ‘Toronto’ right over there, my dude.”
I loved this episode (and not just because I was a sucker for all the Canada stuff, although a bridge across a great lake is a fantastically stupid idea), but I for one would have absolutely hated if it had been tied to Picard continuity, as I am still doing my best to memory hole that entire show and I want it to stay well away from this uniformly excellent show. I already resent the ties to Discovery enough as it is.
Anyway, we went from courtroom Star Trek to time travel Star Trek, which are two of my favourite things, so these last couple of eps have been an embarrassment of riches for me. I can't wait for whatever is coming next.
Anyway, we went from courtroom Star Trek to time travel Star Trek, which are two of my favourite things, so these last couple of eps have been an embarrassment of riches for me. I can't wait for whatever is coming next.
Felt very similarly about the continuity stuff. For a number of reasons, Picard's storyline in 2024 dramatically fell apart, and I'm hoping they just sort of forget about it rather than strain to try to connect a strong story to something nobody was happy with. I'm sure you could retroactively try retcon something in there but man, like, having Adam Soong show up or like Wil Wheaton reappear as the "time guy" would be dire.
I loved this ep for the romance, I'm glad that was the focus. The story basically just does the bare minimum needed to get the two of them into an adventure, and thankfully they don't waste too much time on the particulars. Having the dark alt timeline actually worked great, since it made Kirk not aware of Khan and got us that great "Sam's alive?" line read from Paul Wesley. I love that that's the thing that turns him around on "my future vs yours", it felt true to this version of the character. That's really what makes this entire thing sing - the writing feels true to the characters.
It didn't even necessarily need to have time travel story at all, but it added to the fun to have them spend a few days in Toronto, because why not. The weakest parts of the ep are when they decide to try to make the baby hitler story a thing in the eleventh hour, since it's something that really would require the whole ep to explore properly. Honestly, that infodump by the evil Rom lady pretty regrettably inserts a gigantic clusterfuck into canon, where apparently all major disasters of the 21st century are actually the work of time-travelling romulans trying to set back humanity. Reminds me when X-Files tried to resurrect the franchise in 2016, deciding it was a good idea to say that 9/11 and vaccinations were the work of evil government/alien cabals. That kind of thing is a loooooot less fun in the modern era, where we wrestle with disinformation and conspiracy theories every day. It's not as fun an idea as the writer's probably think it is.
Anyways, so far, S2 has been fantastic. Looking forward to the next one.
There's a very telling line when the activist/citizen-journalist in this episode confronts the cops and accuses them of discriminating against/persecuting our heroes for being Americans. That, plus the giant bridge that does not exist, implies this is a decent many years into our future - enough time for Canada to build giant stupid bridges, and enough time for the Second American Civil War to create enough refugees that Canadians begin regularly persecuting them. If Adam Soong restarted the Khan Project and created a new Khan soon after the events of Picard S2, then S2E03 of SNW taking place about a decade into our future lines up perfectly with all of that.
Also keep an eye out for a vintage bottle of Château Picard in this week's episode.
All Star Trek is canon, even the stuff you hate. Sorry, them's the breaks.
The Klingon Augment Virus is about as ignored as smooth-Klingons post-TOS, that's not evidence of it being non-canon.
My head canon is that the Augment Virus is why Disco Klingons look so weird (they were trying to reverse the effects and over-corrected) and why T'Kuvma and his followers were so angry and terrified about Humans attempting to assimilate/replace Klingons.
My head canon is that the Augment Virus is why Disco Klingons look so weird (they were trying to reverse the effects and over-corrected) and why T'Kuvma and his followers were so angry and terrified about Humans attempting to assimilate/replace Klingons.
Yes, you're right, these easily-ignored fan-wank background details are extremely canon.
Pretty good episode, but this is one of those where you really have to not think too hard about the details. The bronze age civilization created an alloy that could block the radiation but the Enterprise wasn't able to do so by default? Ok. The people on the planet obviously kept their ability to read, as seen by their tattoos/totems, but on the Enterprise Spock and Ortegas lost their ability to read their pads? Ok.
But really my biggest gripe about the episode is that Ortegas still hasn't gotten a proper character-focused episode and it looks as if this one was trying to be that, but it was still mostly about Pike. Come on, give Ortegas a proper episode.
But really my biggest gripe about the episode is that Ortegas still hasn't gotten a proper character-focused episode and it looks as if this one was trying to be that, but it was still mostly about Pike. Come on, give Ortegas a proper episode.
