Logline
A distress call from Lt. Noonien-Singh compels Spock to disobey orders and take the USS Enterprise and its crew into disputed space, risking renewed hostilities with the Klingons in a bid to aid their shipmate.
Written by Henry Alonso Myers & Akiva Goldsman
Directed by Chris Fisher
A note about episode discussions on startrek.website
Right now, the plan is to post the /c/startrek discussion when the episode drops on Thursdays. Once the global community has had some time to watch and digest what they’ve seen, the /c/daystrominstitute discussion will go live on Sundays for a more in-depth analysis. This is subject to change as we evaluate what works best for the community as a whole.
I just love this show, the feeling I get when the intro rolls is the same as when I was I was 15 watching the TNG intro on TV. The characters all feel special and unique even if I’ve seen every episode of every series.
I’ve wanted a whole show about the years when Pike commanded the enterprise since I saw The Managerie as a kid. I’m so happy we’re finally getting it and it’s so good.
- I am 100% here for the chaotic energy that Carol Kane is going to bring to this show.
- The Klingon captain had exactly the right amount of swagger and sassiness that a TOS-era Klingon captain is supposed to have. I’m glad that they’re moving on from some of the Discovery Klingon characterization while also resisting the urge to jump right to them behaving like TNG Klingons.
Hemmer was my favorite character from season one, and is very difficult to replace in my heart. But Carol Kane is one of those actors you just can’t help but love to see on screen (in any capacity). It’s going to be very hard to be upset knowing she’ll be around.
I do wish we were able to keep Hemmer around longer.
Completely agree with both points. The Klingons were altogether great - makeup and hair were perfect, and the captain at the end was the icing on the cake
Pelia is like “I have been alive for hundreds of years and I’m going to make that everyone else’s problem.”
I loved that they gave Dr. M’Benga some screentime front and center and showed that he can throw down if necessary, even if it was with the help of some super serum stuff. And while I even loved his (and Nurse Chapel’s ) elaborate fight scene and enjoyed the way they filmed it, I’m also not sure if it quite fits with Star Trek. Just not sure yet with the excessive slow motion. The camera angles however were some great artistic choice. But overall one great start to season 2.
I thought the fight scene was kinda out-of-character for a doctor and a nurse. If anyone would have an inherent respect for life and health of other beings, you’d expect it to be medical workers: beating them up is just highly unethical. Why couldn’t they have used subterfuge to achieve the same goals?
He might be doctor, but he also served in the war and from what it looks like the front lines. Same goes for the nurse.
That confused me a bit, were M’benga and Chapel not serving in the Enterprise during its last five year mission, which we were told they were not called back from to fight?
In the season one premiere, it was clear that both M’Benga and Chapel had just rotated onto the Enterprise while she was under repair.
Pike knew M’Benga and was please to see him, but didn’t expect to find him in sickbay. Chapel was introduced to Pike as a civilian on assignment.
Fair dos, that must have slipped my memory.
I thought that too - even moreso how much it took me out of the show to see them take on three klingons per person. Still a great show and decent episode, but that bit did take me out a bit
@aufsichtsrat @ValueSubtracted I think it was a needless cinematographic choice to use slow mo there. With the excessive cuts, it shows a lack of fight choreography (contrast with Jackie Chan movies, Kingsman, etc.)
I’m still waiting for M’Benga to slap Spock silly.
Yeah, I think I might agree, was perhaps just a tad bit too much on the slow mo. It will be interesting to see how the Dr will handle Spock once he inevitable breaks Chaple’s heart.
M’Benga turned out to be my favorite character from last season, and I’m glad they’ve been able to stretch his character out beyond having it centered around his daughter this season. He should have an interesting character arc from what they showed in this episode.
He definitely is one of my favorites, too.
@Fixzylicious @aufsichtsrat I think Chapel and Spock are going on a journey together too. I ❤️ Jess Bush
I’d say it fits more with the space cowboy ethos of the TOS era (although we saw no two handed punches). If they did it in the TNG era it’d feel more out of place.
I was waiting for the double handed punch! Gutted they didn’t do it.
It’s too powerful.
Especially when they’re on whatever that green shit is!
It would have been awesome to see nurse chapel do a double handed punch to a Klingon face and their head just explodes.
Regarding Nurse Chapel almost dying - this is one of the TV/movie tropes that I think is such a cheap and terrible device and I am tired of it. Discovery was full of these scenes where they make you believe a main character really almost died, only to survive after all, and having their crew mates weep for them (I am looking at you Burnham). There are much better ways to create good drama.
@triktrek Oh, boy - Can we talk about “Picard”?! Data dies in Nemesis, a great and noble sacrifice. Which is then diminished, because we brought him back for Picard! The staff didn’t think the Nemesis sacrifice was a worthy sendoff, or perhaps *they* wanted to do the sending off. So we’ll kill him again, this time with feeling! But, season three, the old gang is all getting together again. Maybe we can resurrect him one more time? (I’m aware of the supposed differences, but really. It was Data.)
And they killed off Picard! Another great and noble sacrifice! But no, not really, let’s bring him back as an android, you’ll never notice the difference! 🙄
It’s really at the point where a character’s death is robbed of all drama, because there’s always a way to resurrect them. It was a dream, they were in the Mirror universe, the mycelium network made a copy, etc.
As someone who actually enjoyed Discovery, that’s one of the things I couldn’t stand about it. And it really disappoints me that they used it here. You can’t have the stakes of every damn episode be that high, so it really bothers me that we get it in the first episode of the season. I really hope it’s not a sign of things to come.
But we know Chapel isn’t going to die in this show. She was in the follow up series that’s been canon got 60 years.
It makes even less sense on a prequel show where you know the characters are for sure around longer.
I’d normally agree with you but I don’t think they were trying to fool the audience in this case. It was more about showing Spock’s emotional reaction.
Still, there’s better ways of showing that than the almost dying trope.
spoiler
Nurse Chapel is in TOS - so there wasn’t really any risk that she was going to die here.
undefined> I’d normally agree with you but I don’t think they were trying to fool the audience in this case. It was more about showing Spock’s emotional reaction.
Yep that was my take as well.
Yeah, putting aside that not everyone has seen TOS who is watching this show, I didn’t interpret this as some kind of attempt to make the audience think Chapel was going to die. The purpose of this happening was all about what it shows about Spock and the scenes and character development that come from that.
And I think in this case it was quite effective and I wouldn’t change it to something else. Spock was holding off the order and he was really upset because he didn’t want to give the order that kills Chapel and M’Benga (though he has more attachment to Chapel). The threat to their lives is a vital part of this story they’re telling about Spock and it wouldn’t have the same effect if they changed the situation to something else. Seeing him have to give the order, then have them be possibly alive, but then having Chapel seem to be dead and Spock himself bring her back was very powerful for me and I don’t think that could be replaced with something else or a different kind of situation and have the same impact on either Spock or the audience.
Both the scene in the transporter room and in sick bay later were excellent excellent scenes for Spock and highlights of the episode for me. Ethan Peck’s acting was really strong in those scenes too — I’m so glad to have him playing Spock.
My gut feeling is that with a couple changes this episode would have hung together better-
- Have them take a shuttle instead of the Enterprise. This lowers the stakes for our command crew and simply makes more sense than half the crew (that wasn’t on leave) agreeing to steal a ship. It also means they need to figure out a different way to deal with the fake Federation ship at the end of the episode is some way other than ‘shoot it with bigger guns’
- Have Chapel and M’Benga do something within their character strengths to escape instead of magic drug that lets them hand-to-hand fight their way through a dozen or more Klingons.
That said, there were a lot of things I DID like about the episode, including the Klingon Captain at the end and the new Chief Engineer.
@StreetcornPips @startrek I like the shuttle idea. I almost stopped watching when Spock said, “steal the ship,” and then again when everyone said “Hunh. Okay!” It always kills me when a story revolves around an organization as large and powerful as the Federation allowing stuff like this (or the myriad of examples of rule breaking, insubordination, etc.) to happen.
If there’s one thing that is consistent about the Federation show-to-show and season-to-season is that they pretty much always allow officers to break literally any of the rules as long as the outcome is good. How many times has a ship been stolen for a rescue mission, orders been ignored, senior officers been bamboozled and sidelined, and it’s almost always totally forgiven because it turned out OK in the end. Hell, Janeway straight-up murdered Tuvix as he begged for his life and everyone was like “oh, um, fine?”
I used to think it was lazy writing, but now I think it’s actually just the way the Federation is characterized. The Federation being theoretically utopian and egalitarian but functionally utilitarian makes things like Section 31 make sense, the same way that TNG Klingons claim to be about honor but really they’re treacherous schemers no better than any other species.
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@Dalakaar @ValueSubtracted I’m definitely wondering what the angle is with the Klingons and their look. We even got Discovery footage in the recap
It’ll be particularly interesting to see what they do if we meet any Klingons who were also in TOS.
Will they show them as Augment Klingons, as they did in TOS? Or will they ignore it completely?
We are years away from “The Incident” that caused most of the Klingon population to lose their forehead ridges. Of course Klingons don’t discuss the issue with outsiders.
But Strange New Worlds takes place 100 years after it. It’s less than a decade before TOS.
@dan I’m holding out hope that they’ll do a recast of Kor, Kang, and/or Koloth and show them with flat foreheads, and then have L’Rell show up with the s2 Discovery look.
I would love that so much. I really want to see a scene with various kinds of Klingons.
Kor is related to Kol, from Disco S1. Not sure how closely related, but they’re both of the house of Kor. With Kol being the head of the house when he died, and Kor being the last member of the house in DS9, maybe there’s some opportunity there to connect the stories.
Maybe Kor wants vengeance for his cousin’s death, and since the Discovery is now gone, he just goes after the Federation’s flagship.
My headcanon is that Rynar, Kor’s father, is a brother of Kol-sha, the father of Kol.
I’m so happy to have SNW back. Whoever decided to put Carol Kane in the show needs to get a raise; she is absolutely spectacular. I’m very curious to see where her character goes.
I enjoy the idea of Spock being more emotional it really puts it into perspective that Vulcans have emotions they just try to keep them under lock and key and Spock being half human is having a harder time with that compared to most Vulcans is… relatable.
I did not like weird green super power drug that Chapel and M’Benga took to fight the the Klingons. It came from no where, the shot on the eyes right out of Dread made me think it was literally Slo-Mo from that movie. It really wasn’t necessary, they could have just grabbed phasers somewhere instead.
I’m not realy sure how I feel about them using the term false flag in Star Trek. The plot makes sense but still it’s a very charged term today.
Yes, what was up with the green stuff?? I thought maybe I missed something from last season and kept watching thinking I’d remember but… Nope. I was half expecting them to get time-accelerated like in TOST Wink of an Eye episode, so they could just zip past all the Klingons.
That green drug was basically Underdog’s super energy pill. An unnecessary ‘pocket frannistan’ solution to the problem of escaping the Klingons.
Yeah, the drug scene didn’t feel great to me, they literally could have just found phasers or found a cleverer way around it.
I was wondering if you could explain the issue with the term ‘false flag?’ As far as I was aware, it’s when party A carries out an action and tries to frame party B for it - which was exactly what was happening here.
I was trying to figure out how to explain it succinctly and found this link which does a way better job than I could have: https://www.adl.org/glossary/false-flag
Ah, I understand your comment better. I am still not sure it’s enough to turn it (generally) into a no-go term. Plenty of news outlets have been commenting on Russian false flags against Ukraine and that’s used more in the context of how it’s used in this episode.
For the love of Pete can we stop with all of the lame catch phrases and dumb jokes? Spock should have just uttered something simple suiting the Vulcan personality/character, like “proceed”. But no, we have to get a lame line one step above a fart joke…
I really don’t get why people are so upset about the warp catchphrase thing. I think its great that there’s a tradition through Trek lore. It reinforces to me that these are all people. People working hard to advance themselves to the point they daydream of sitting in the Captain’s chair. Every single Trek nerd can empathize with that daydream.
@arod48 @startrek For me, it breaks the suspension of disbelief. The whole “catchphrase” conversation was, for sure, a writer’s room thing that leaked into the scripts. It might be an interesting thing to reflect on for the writers and the fans, but it rings untrue when the characters spend so much time on it.
It reminds me of all those “Let’s put on a show!” situations in various movies and TV shows. The characters in those programs probably wouldn’t be inclined, but for the the entertainment community that produced the show, it’s second nature, and often allows them to entertain the audience by letting the actors show off their other talents (viz Picard lustily quoting Shakespearean sonnets to impress some Ferengi). Sure, it’s entertaining, but if you want to suspend disbelief and get into a story about highly trained people helming a starship, bristling with weapons and technology, it’s jarring.
IMHO, of course 😉
I find those episodes and movies in general annoying when it happens. Like it’s so transparent this entire thing is just a giant love letter to hollywood, filled with inside jokes that only people in the entertainment industry would really get. I guess I find it so annoying because it shows how out of touch many of these people are, which sheds a little light on why/how all of our favorite franchises are being systematically destroyed.
I think it would have been better as a comic moment towards the end of the episode, as they leave to come home… In the tense moment of stealing the ship and answering distress call it felt very forced.
Blowing up a Crossfield class in an episode with real Klingons weeks after we learned of Discovery’s cancellation feels quite loaded with subtext. Reminds me of DS9 blowing up a Galaxy class on screen within a week of TNG ending.
As someone who was once banned from the “subreddit” because I disagreed with the style choices of the STD Klingons, I finally feel vindicated.
Not sure if’s actually a Crossfield, though. It looks different even if the transponder identified it as one. It was basically a kitbash.
The Galaxy class in that DS9 episode had an entirely different bridge. Just because it had a different module installed, the frame was still Crossfield.
I must have really zoned out toward the end of Discovery because I thought it was over long ago.
Discovery has been cancelled!? I must have missed that somehow 😢, was still hoping for a season 6.
Good, I did not like Disco. Cinematography, characters, plotlines, all of it.
Well, not good because some of us did like it ;-). Oh well, on to the next one - I wonder how long SNW will last. I kind of like it so I hope it gets at least up to season 5.
Season 5 was in advanced post production when the announcement was made that it would be the final season. The announcement included information that there would be additional content added to wrap the show.
Three additional shooting days happened in Toronto just before the strike. So it doesn’t sound like an additional episode was added but rather some scenes.
Fortunately, it looks like the new show Starfleet Academy will be in the 32nd century which offers opportunities for Discovery characters to appear as guests.
I mean, it was telegraphed in S1 but there are definitely going to be some Gorn retcons this season.
I’m fine with this! But it was already tough to reconcile what we saw in S1 with later crews, “attending Gorn weddings” (much harder, imo, than the more reasonable 'they have been encountered, just in a limited capacity and with few survivors) and a full on invasion plotline - featuring Spock and Uhura no less - makes Arena tough to reconcile.
Again, that’s fine!
I like the current Klingon design, though I wish they had kept the double nostril from DIS. The redesign went too far but their attempt to physically show the Klingon’s redundant biology was appreciated.
The actual episode’s plot was…fine. A bit rushed. Felt like a Mass Effect sidequest which is fine for an ep but hopefully not the feeling of the season as a whole. Establishing the character’s war experiences and generally situating the series as post-war is probably necessary for the rest of the season. I have to wonder if they went out of their way to only show Spock and Pelia with the Klingons given other crew…probably aren’t ready to split a barrel of bloodwine.
Speaking of Pelia: a race of immortals living in secret alongside humanity and now just regular, serving members of Starfleet? Identifiable by accent even? It’s a BIG swing and probably the most interesting (though for now unexplored) idea in the episode.
On the Crossfield refit…presumably from the ‘shell’ style associated with the pre-TOS ships (as seen in DIS Binary Stars sequence) with the Enterprise’s modernized plating? Probably would have been simpler to just have a new class.
Ortegas inverted her controller settings as everyone should 🎮
Honestly Inverted Stick for Flight controls makes so much more sense on controller because that’s what you would do with an actual flight stick
Being a ship already, wouldn’t the Ent already be inverted and she’s just changed it back?
Really delighted with this episode.
No complaints. Can’t really buy into the nitpicks on this one. It seemed completely Trek, and gave many of the ensemble their moments to shine. Production design gorgeous, virtual staging more seamless, costumes excellent, vfx great.
I like how M’Benga has hoarded the green vial as part of his lingering trauma. Better, we finally see a physician giving himself the juice instead of Kirk or some other command officer. In fact, one has to wonder if McCoy carried a stash provided by M’Benga.
Spock’s unresolved feelings for Chapel are well crafted and mirror the lingering pain we see her left with in TOS. It makes those scenes with Chapel in TOS comprehensible instead of cringe-inducing.
WE ARE BACK!!! :D
I feel like I have waited so long and it was worth it, while at first I wasn’t bought entirely on the action, it really came together at the end.
I loved the entire part of Spock stealing the Enterprize for the first time of many and April’s unintentional implications for the future. SNW keeps proving it has the Trek energy, yes it might stumble some, I can understand questions about magic steroids (it’s a bit out there even for me but I am also surprised it took this long to have it, but maybe its not meant for combat actually but some medical thing?)
But it doesn’t change that the quality of this show is so high, this really manages to capture the feelings of the older series, DS9 and TNG but also with a certain high quality to it.
Loved seeing the Crossfield get another showing and how the D7 has become the mainstay. I like that we get some more traditional trek ships out there. That feel like the older ones.
Klingon blood wine drinking with Spock was amazing.
I also loved Pellia and haven’t heard of the lanthenians before but something about the half crazy old lady character is just amazing.
I laughed so much, felt so much heart warming. But then also feeling my heart ripped out with the memory to Nichelle and seeing that she has passed. I remember reading it but had kinda lost track of it.
I am so looking forward to more episodes of this <3
SNW definitely feels like it is deliberately channeling TOS energy far more than any other iteration. It is strongly adventure focused, and many situations are resolved with fisticuffs rather than diplomacy. The galaxy feels far more chaotic and less organized than it does from TNG onward. Even aesthetic stuff like the red crystal asteroid field feels more drawn from the wild sci-fi ideas of the 1960s, before the more mundane realties of space exploration made it clear that space was really just a lot of empty space with occasional patches of dirt and rocks.
Adding to green drug thing, as I don’t know how to edit here. I could see it being something created maybe by M’benga or some angry, traumatized federation soldiers during the war to get back at the Klingon’s, potentially being illegal in the federation but very localized here.
Oh, what if it’s a World War 3-era combat drug, like the stuff Q alludes to soldiers being addicted to in Encounter at Farpoint?
Fyi, to edit comments, click on the three vertical dots at the bottom – that will open a context menu that has the edit button in it: https://imgur.com/ftJ5HRO.
Thoughts and observations written as I watch- I’ll be putting this on both Reddit and Lemmy, since infinity diversity/infinity combinations:
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Wheeee, NCC-1701 in the Star Trek tag!
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Previously: Last season happened.
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Little ships flying!
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Wonder who the lawyer that Una and Pike have tried to reach is.
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Oh, hey, the Vulcan musical instrument whose name I can’t remember!
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“Fascinating.” “Isn’t that usually his line?”
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The fellowship on archeological medicine? Is that a reference to Dr. Korby?
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“We must steal the Enterprise.” Buddy, if I had a nickel every time someone had to steal the Enterprise, I’d have several nickels.
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Lt. Mitchell gunning for series regular next year with how much screen time she’s had early on this episode.
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Okay, having Carol Kane is already paying dividends.
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And, yeah, Carol Kane doesn’t need alien makeup to be an alien. She’s already an alien.
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I’m still not sure if the emphasis one the warp catch phrase is amazing or annoying, but this scene was funny.
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KLINGON UPDATE: RIDGES!
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So clearly La’An’s augmented ancestors were genetically engineered to drink a lot. Which, y’know what? Fair.
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Ah, the borderlands, where utopian rules go away and everyone becomes a Ferengi.
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Congratulations to Uhura on graduating from the Academy.
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Ah, the old “I have technology that I’m totally not making up that will blow you up” bluff!
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New transporter chief?
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Okay, so the angry borderlands people are trying to do some sort of false flag thing.
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Redundant Klingon organs, the old standby.
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Roided-up doctors can tell you what bones they broke as they break them.
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These are obviously Discovery sets.
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This action scene, while well-done, is way too long.
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A D7!
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“We’ve gotten out of worse.” “No, not really!”
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“This I’ve got to see!”
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I wonder if “Lanthanite” is a synonym for “El-Aurian”
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Pelia knowing that being on the Enterprise means adventure is further proof that those ships are goddamn weirdness magnets.
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Gorn. Yes, it stretches canon but fuck it the Gorn are awesome we’ll come up with an explanation later.
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“For Nichelle”
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Overall, while not one of the better episodes, it still was a good start to the season. It wrapped up one of the hanging threads of last year (La’An), we continued to see some of Young Spock’s struggles with his emotions before he became the more-Vulcan Spock that Nimoy was in the main TOS series, and we got our first look at Carol Kane as the nutty new engineer. Overall, I’ll call that a win!
“For Nichelle”
I cried. I also teared up a little bit when Celia briefly channeled Nichelle early on in the episode.
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