Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Ghosts of Illyria
May 19, 2022 5:24 AM - Season 1, Episode 3 - Subscribe

A mysterious disease sheds some light on a couple of the crew.

Memory Alpha wants to go into the light:

- The episode uses a couple of themes from TOS episodes: a mysterious contagion affecting crew members' behavior ("The Naked Time") and problems with the transporter stranding crew on a planet's surface during deadly conditions ("The Enemy Within"). The Federation's (and Starfleet's) prohibitions against genetic engineering, and against genetically-engineered people serving in Starfleet, were also established in DS9's "Doctor Bashir, I Presume".

- Illyrians were first shown in ENT's "Damage", looking very different.

Poster's Log:

Some interesting things done with what at first seems like (as noted above) just a mash-up of two different TOS episode premises. The idea that genetically altering members of a species to fit a particular ecosystem, rather than the opposite via terraforming, makes a lot of sense; for one thing, it would take a lot less time. (And terraforming--especially if you're trying to take shortcuts--has some disadvantages, as witness Project Genesis.) This episode picks at the prohibition and suggests that maybe it's not all that rational; there's some interesting interactions between Una and La'an on that point.

Also some unexpected last-act stuff with M'Benga. So far, the show seems determined to spread the character development around the ensemble early and often, and that's a good thing.
posted by Halloween Jack (49 comments total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
I didn't love this one, though it still gave me warm fuzzy Trek vibes, so that was nice.

I think the revelation about Una was so completely out of left field (prior friendship with La'an notwithstanding) that it felt more like melodrama than an interesting dramatic twist. I do like that a character that existed so long ago in the franchise has been given some depth and backstory, but her trying to quit over it felt completely unearned. We're not attached enough to Una yet to really care that she's resigning. And the lore that the Federation doesn't like genetically enhanced people coupled with La'an being on the ship feels like something that should have been seeded (space seeded?) in this series and paid off later.

M'Benga's story about his daughter and the transporter pattern buffer should have been an episode all by itself. THAT is a great premise. It is an interesting wrinkle in the character, though. Love that his mission to explore strange new worlds will be overshadowed by his search for a cure for his daughter. (Transporter pattern buffers keeping people alive for decades is how they brought Scotty back in TNG. So it's nice this show is pulling inspiration from all the shows.)

Overall, though, the main story was a bit simplistic and the allusions to lockdown and contagions was a bit too much - because it didn't really comment on lockdowns or contagions. It just used them as a trope. Oh well. I still had fun.
posted by crossoverman at 5:44 AM on May 19, 2022 [5 favorites]


I liked that there were more moving parts in this story than were immediately apparent -- it's nice that different people were being weird and shifty for different reasons. I also liked that the solution to the problem was non-obvious -- worse writers would have handwaved some kind of vague MacGuffin solution out of information found on the planet. Overall the technobabble was completely ridiculous, and the Magic Transporter is definitely back 1, but it was ridiculous in a way that made sense and also didn't seem completely arbitrary. Someone has magic alien immunity, but it works too quickly and mysteriously to be helpful to other people, but it can affect another person and their resulting immunity is compatible enough to be useful? Cool, I can buy that. Someone won't power down / allow maintenance on a subsystem because they're secretly storing something important in a volatile buffer? Cool, I can buy that too. This is good Star Trek-grade SF detail, and I have missed it so much.
  1. Why aren't we keeping all patients with incurable diseases in a permanent memory bank, officially, in a safer place? Why aren't we keeping people without incurable diseases in long-term energy-based storage, for a variety of other reasons? This could probably be fixed with some dialogue about how unreliable and dangerous it is and possible complex legal issues about the identity of someone who might be undergoing slow data corruption, and given that it looks like this is an ongoing plot point which has only just been introduced I'm hoping they're leaving a more detailed exploration for later.

posted by confluency at 5:53 AM on May 19, 2022 [9 favorites]


Holy shit, what a bunch of undisciplined, unprofessional, regulation transgressing fuck-ups. Starting with at the top: Pike should never have put his away team in such obvious peril over such a low-stakes mission. And all the way down to the crew’s pathetic implementation of lockdown protocols. No wonder the Federation tolerated Kirk’s bullshit; he was a huge improvement over his predecessor.

Also: Holy shit, I’ve missed real Star Trek so much.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 6:02 AM on May 19, 2022 [20 favorites]


This show is quickly becoming my favorite Trek since TNG. I love it so much.

Also anyone else picking up transgender allegory vibes with the Una subplot? Just me?
posted by SansPoint at 8:37 AM on May 19, 2022 [3 favorites]


Why aren't we keeping all patients with incurable diseases in a permanent memory bank, officially, in a safer place? Why aren't we keeping people without incurable diseases in long-term energy-based storage, for a variety of other reasons? This could probably be fixed with some dialogue about how unreliable and dangerous it is and possible complex legal issues about the identity of someone who might be undergoing slow data corruption, and given that it looks like this is an ongoing plot point which has only just been introduced I'm hoping they're leaving a more detailed exploration for later.

A few decades from this episode, Montgomery Scott will put himself and another crewmember in pattern-buffer stasis; although Scotty survives long enough to be rescued by the Enterprise-D, the other crewmember's pattern degrades too much to be reassembled, due to the failure of a phase inducer. (TNG's "Relics" [FanFare discussion]) Whether or not that would be something that could have been avoided had someone been around to monitor and repair the system, who knows. M'Benga doesn't want her to be in the pattern buffer for too long, maybe because some pattern degradation over the long term is inevitable (Scott's pattern had degraded by less than 0.003%, the other crewmember's by 53%). Cryonics is also an option, but that doesn't get mentioned.

Also anyone else picking up transgender allegory vibes with the Una subplot?

I think that they're a bit stronger with DS9's "Doctor Bashir, I Presume" [FanFare discussion], but how closely it tracks isn't for me to say.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:51 PM on May 19, 2022 [4 favorites]


Captain’s Log: we have arrived at Ontario Place.
posted by sixswitch at 4:03 PM on May 19, 2022 [17 favorites]


Captain’s Log: we have arrived at Ontario Place.

Yeah, if you’re a Gen-X kid from southern Ontario, it is odd to see Pike and Spock sheltering where you used to visit in 1974.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:37 PM on May 19, 2022 [5 favorites]


Barkley's transporter monster episode establishes that people are conscious when in the buffer which adds a level of horror to Scotty being in their for 75years and also makes keeping people in there as a form of cryostasis seem a tad cruel.
posted by M Edward at 5:58 PM on May 19, 2022 [5 favorites]


I knew she was gonna pull an "In the Pale Moonlight" as soon as she said "Computer" B)

I appreciate that this show didn't draw out these character reveals across the whole season.

The story scene with the daughter had a tinge of the same melancholy as DS9: "The Visitor" imo.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 6:06 PM on May 19, 2022 [8 favorites]


Like, I like the leather look for outerwear.

Bold forecasting that humans still like leather, maybe even so much so as for natural wood, etc.

Given it's Trek, my question is, would it be synthleather that just looks like leather (and perhaps with even better performance) or "synthleather" that's synthesized like food and stuff and is real leather but was never attached to a nervous system? Would the real thing be abhorrent or just weird in an edgy media personality way?

conscious when in the buffer

Was a retcon that created a whole bunch of other problems. The consequences of practical transportation was never fully developed ("here you are on second, and then there you are") in the first place. It's impractical anyway by the stupid amount of information (in bits and bytes) that would be involved.

If you could create something from energy, you could create as many copies of the original as you have the energy.

The Starfleet "Genetic engineering baaad" has been around from the beginning, but it's a very nuanced discussion that the current show spectacularly fails to do justice.
posted by porpoise at 8:16 PM on May 19, 2022 [1 favorite]


Given it's Trek, my question is, would it be synthleather that just looks like leather (and perhaps with even better performance) or "synthleather" that's synthesized like food and stuff and is real leather but was never attached to a nervous system? Would the real thing be abhorrent or just weird in an edgy media personality way?

My guess is that both exist, but that Starfleet uniform jackets and boots are probably faux leather (Vulcans tend to be vegetarians), and that replicated leather and other animal products is an option in other settings; Keiko O'Brien was grossed out by the idea of Miles' mom handling and cooking real meat, not by eating meat itself. (Conversely, Ben Sisko was washing real shellfish in the alley behind his dad's restaurant.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:58 PM on May 19, 2022 [4 favorites]


It does feel like real Star Trek... albeit executed somewhat awkwardly.

Some story beats in each episode feel rushed (like the resolution of the disease here, which happened offscreen). Others seem placed weirdly (the M'Benga reveal in the last act). And some you can see coming from a mile away (the energy beings are the Illyrian colonists).

It would be nice if they had one of the old hands from TNG as script editor, smoothing out the rough spots. Did you guys lose Ron Moore's number?

Still, the show's heart is in the right place. I can accept that it's still getting its space legs. If CBS keeps it around for a while, it could get really good.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 11:19 PM on May 19, 2022 [3 favorites]


Oh, yeah, I dug those away-mission jackets too!

I also thought the cubicle-hotel-style bunkroom for junior personnel was interesting. I don't recall ever seeing anything like that on a Starfleet ship previously. But it makes sense, I guess.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 11:21 PM on May 19, 2022 [3 favorites]


OK, something that bothered me: If La'an is a descendant of Khan, doesn't that mean she carries genetic augmentations? If so, why are hers OK, and Number One's are not?

Is it because La'an was born with them, and Una got them after birth, or what?

Exactly what augmentations do each of them have, anyway?

It was sloppy that the writers didn't address these questions. I wonder if they've even worked out the answers.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 11:25 PM on May 19, 2022


I also thought the cubicle-hotel-style bunkroom for junior personnel was interesting. I don't recall ever seeing anything like that on a Starfleet ship previously.

That's where the low-ranking main characters of Lower Decks sleep.
posted by The Tensor at 12:01 AM on May 20, 2022 [16 favorites]


If La'an is a descendant of Khan, doesn't that mean she carries genetic augmentations? If so, why are hers OK, and Number One's are not?

I also want to know this. I'm assuming that while these augmentations are inherited, they are diluted by generations of interbreeding with unaugmented humans. La'an may not actually have any augmentations herself despite having a notorious augment ancestor. Or she may have fewer of them, or they may not all be expressed. She may have all the stigma with few (or none) of the actual benefits. It wasn't clear to me how much of the technobabbly immunity solution hinged on La'an's specific physiology.
posted by confluency at 12:22 AM on May 20, 2022 [7 favorites]


conscious when in the buffer

I'm not 100% convinced of this. Yes, it SEEMS that way to Reg in "Realm of Fear", and Bones' mid-beaming conversation in TWOK might SEEM uninterrupted to all the members of that away team, who presumably entered the pattern buffer at the same exact moment. But continuity of consciousness is subjective: at least a couple of times, I've briefly lost consciousness while fully believing I hadn't, and that was with no kind of pattern buffer involved (nor drugs, btw; alcohol, maybe).

It strikes me as unreasonable to believe that Scotty was conscious for 75 years, since he didn't emerge a babbling madman. If I have a problem with the daughter thing here, it's that "Relics" established the buffer-suspension trick as a Scotty original (IIRC).

Is it because La'an was born with them, and Una got them after birth, or what? Exactly what augmentations do each of them have, anyway? It was sloppy that the writers didn't address these questions. I wonder if they've even worked out the answers.

I think it's safe to assume they have, and will explore this further. I mean, you don't name a main cast character after Khan just for the purposes of this one episode. At least I really hope not.

She may have all the stigma with few (or none) of the actual benefits. It wasn't clear to me how much of the technobabbly immunity solution hinged on La'an's specific physiology.

Agreed, and the part where I tilted my head the most was the suggestion that Una's genes somehow triggered La'''''''''an's genes from across the room. Wouldn't it be interesting, though, if the events of this episode CAUSE La'an to get more Augmenty and Khanny?...
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 4:49 AM on May 20, 2022 [5 favorites]


I don’t know. I like the show okay, but all these backstories seem (1) a bit much and (2) wildly implausible.

We’re three episodes in and we’ve got a captain who glimpsed his future and believes he will die horribly not many years from now, a first officer who lied about her heritage to illegally join Starfleet, a chief medical officer who keeps his daughter in the sickbay’s transporter pattern buffer, a security officer who is descended from an infamous warlord and also has some horrifying story about escaping from the Gorns….It’s a lot.

How the heck does Una fake who she is so convincingly that Starfleet doesn’t catch on? She’s never ever ever had a medical exam? It’s not required? How does M’Benga disappear his kid without anyone realizing? She wasn’t in school? There’s no other family? No one at all thinks to ask “hey, I haven’t seen your kid for a while—she okay?”

Having a fully fleshed out character is good, but these extreme backstories seem like they are trying to take a shortcut to character development, and—for me, at least—most of it isn’t landing. We’ve got more tragic backstories and dark secrets already than in ten years of TOS and TNG combined. The writers keep telling us why we should care about these characters instead of putting them in a story that makes us care. I hope that changes.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 5:00 AM on May 20, 2022 [18 favorites]


But continuity of consciousness is subjective: at least a couple of times, I've briefly lost consciousness while fully believing I hadn't

I have never been in a transporter but I did once walk into a hanging rig to which six hundred pounds of stage lighting was attached, contacting it at forehead level. Subjectively, I was walking along a catwalk above the stage and then instantly I was sitting on my ass on the catwalk: no sensation of impact or falling down; just like I’d been recording something on a VCR and pushed the pause button for a second or two.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:39 AM on May 20, 2022 [3 favorites]


Having a fully fleshed out character is good, but these extreme backstories seem like they are trying to take a shortcut to character development, and—for me, at least—most of it isn’t landing. We’ve got more tragic backstories and dark secrets already than in ten years of TOS and TNG combined. The writers keep telling us why we should care about these characters instead of putting them in a story that makes us care. I hope that changes.

I think there's a lot of pressure from the fanbase to have everything all at once, and this is the result. We forget that the things we know about Kirk and his crew took DECADES to develop, most of which never appeared in the diegesis of the original series at all. TNG, DS9 and VOY had more seasons and did more development, but some of the characters, especially on TNG, were still only partially developed by the end of their respective runs. Tragic backstories can be dumped into exposition, offer more room for later drama than waiting to see what happens, and don't get in the way of the adventure of the week.
posted by briank at 7:18 AM on May 20, 2022 [1 favorite]


Apparently Illyria doing genetic modification's from a D. C. Fontana story, and Una being Illyrian is from a Star Trek book, so that stuff isn't completely from left field. I'm not sure I bought the Una->La'an immunity transfer, but there's sorta precedent with the TNG episode Unnatural Selection where the augment's immune systems attacked people around them.
posted by Spike Glee at 7:46 AM on May 20, 2022 [4 favorites]


Did you guys lose Ron Moore's number?

He's pretty busy with his massively successful current show, I expect.

Some bumps these first few episodes (I definitely agree that, while the supporting cast development is very welcome, it's a firehose pace), but the show is still so much more fully-realized and consistent at its start than most Trek typically is. I appreciated the recognizably Trek formula this episode: mystery on an away mission; unknown being/entity/virus/particle/foreign object made it through the transporter filters; away team members trapped on surface in dire straits; clock ticking for everyone. It's a familiar but tasty recipe.
posted by LooseFilter at 7:54 AM on May 20, 2022 [2 favorites]


How the heck does Una fake who she is so convincingly that Starfleet doesn’t catch on? She’s never ever ever had a medical exam? It’s not required? How does M’Benga disappear his kid without anyone realizing? She wasn’t in school? There’s no other family? No one at all thinks to ask “hey, I haven’t seen your kid for a while—she okay?”

I didn't want to load down my previous posts with even more complaints, but... yeah, those questions were nagging at me too. These are things that could have been fixed with a few lines of dialogue.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 9:53 AM on May 20, 2022


Una was probably able to hide who she was either through a combination of the same stuff that the crew used in the first episode to pretend that they were Kileys, or because her genetic modifications were thorough enough for her to pass as human.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:26 PM on May 20, 2022 [1 favorite]


Did you guys lose Ron Moore's number?

Doubt Ron Moore would want to have anything to with modern Trek. He has apparently only seen one episode of any of the new Treks and that's it.

SNW is ok so far and it definitely follows the old Trek tendency to be absolutely absurd from time to time as much of this episode was. I appreciate the vision but the speechifying is Kirk level and beyond, particularly in the first 2 episodes. Gave up on Discovery. Gave up on Picard after the penultimate episode of season 2. Love Lower Decks. Have no interest in the other animated Trek.

I expect SNW will eventually tank like Discovery and Picard. Hope I'm wrong but the show runners have been consistent in their mediocrity with the exception of Lower Decks. Hope SNW is also an exception.
posted by juiceCake at 3:30 PM on May 20, 2022 [2 favorites]


If I have a problem with the daughter thing here, it's that "Relics" established the buffer-suspension trick as a Scotty original (IIRC).

Well, they did make the attempt to distinguish it from that with M'Benga saying he needed to rematerialize his daughter regularly; Scotty's trick to set it up to maintain the integrity for 75 years was perhaps the real miracle working.
posted by Pryde at 4:56 PM on May 20, 2022 [8 favorites]


I did once walk into a hanging rig to which six hundred pounds of stage lighting was attached, contacting it at forehead level.

I have experienced vasovagal reflux twice (made famous by the George W. Bush "choking on a pretzel" story, IIRC) and both times it was just me eating something followed by me lying on the floor in a perfectly uninterrupted flow of consciousness: no precursors, no blip, just I'm eating something standing up and hey I'm flat on my back on the floor, the second time with my wife justifiably freaking the hell out.
posted by Shepherd at 6:39 PM on May 20, 2022 [2 favorites]


I liked this episode. I enjoy the character development, I kind of like the sleeping pod thing, if you have roommates who work different shifts, being able to close them out, physically, is good. I liked the "ghosts" of Illyria, good concept. I like how they project Spock's calm, rather than emotional disassociation. I like how they have made his character manifest.
posted by Oyéah at 9:14 PM on May 20, 2022 [2 favorites]


The plot in this episode is held together with chewing gum and baling wire, but it's still head and shoulders above almost any Discovery episode.

The beauty of the episodic structure is that you can have a less than perfectly crafted story, and not have to suffer through it for an entire season.
posted by fairmettle at 9:32 PM on May 20, 2022 [14 favorites]


Doubt Ron Moore would want to have anything to with modern Trek. He has apparently only seen one episode of any of the new Treks and that's it.

He also had an infamous falling-out with former friend Brannon Braga after working on Voyager for a relatively short time. This interview is rather long (and lacking in paragraph breaks, unfortunately), but is a good critique of a lot of that show's problems, as well as what Moore wanted to do, but couldn't, and to some extent got to do on Battlestar Galactica instead.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:01 PM on May 20, 2022 [3 favorites]


Yeah, if you’re a Gen-X kid from southern Ontario, it is odd to see Pike and Spock sheltering where you used to visit in 1974

sigh, remembering the glory of running screaming through a punching bag forest, getting knocked silly by the swinging blue bags, climbing a vinyl hill and sliding back down once there were too many kids at the top and you all fell off. It was probably really dangerous, but my god it was so fun. Going to ontario place was the best.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 2:58 AM on May 22, 2022 [3 favorites]


I was trying to work in a punching-bag-forest reference but I honestly didn’t think anyone would understand what I meant!
posted by sixswitch at 8:06 AM on May 22, 2022 [1 favorite]


I didn't love this episode. The main story felt pretty silly to me; that's one downside of following the TOS episodic formula, sometimes you're gonna get some weaker stories. As fairmettle says at least we're not stuck with the barely disguised Covid pandemic for a whole season. I did like learning more about La'an. And Una, even if her backstory has also taken an unlikely turn.

Mostly came to post this: Meet Bruce Horak, Star Trek's first blind actor, playing Hemmer on Strange New Worlds. Also Calgary's Bruce Horak becomes first legally blind actor to star in a Star Trek series with Strange New Worlds. Local Canadian boy makes good!
posted by Nelson at 2:52 PM on May 22, 2022 [4 favorites]


If only it weren't a one-off planet, Ontario Place could become the new Vasquez Rocks.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:51 PM on May 22, 2022 [4 favorites]


He also had an infamous falling-out with former friend Brannon Braga after working on Voyager for a relatively short time. This interview is rather long (and lacking in paragraph breaks, unfortunately), but is a good critique of a lot of that show's problems, as well as what Moore wanted to do, but couldn't, and to some extent got to do on Battlestar Galactica instead.

Thanks so much for that link, Halloween Jack. Turns out Moore disliked exactly the things in Voyager that I disliked. As he says, the problems all stemmed from the fact that the show was afraid to live up to its own premise.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 6:57 PM on May 22, 2022 [5 favorites]


One of the things that I always sort of wanted to dig up during any episode where suspended animation would be a solution is that I'm pretty sure there were pre-warp human slowships that TNG encountered with crew and passengers deep in suspended animation. So, it's OK as a way to huck yourself off to the next star over, but it's not a solution for long term medical care? I mean OK sure they only usually managed to revive a hot blonde and a cranky Southerner and a businessman out of the ship's hundreds of passengers, but there are technological advances, right? And I'm pretty sure Dr. Crusher mentioned putting people into medical stasis while they work out the problem, when their failure to cure them isn't necessary for plot purposes. But, OK, maybe that's a 24th century thing they haven't figured out in the 23rd century?

I mean I know, I know, the plot dictates what the plot dictates. Relics was an emergency situation for Mr. Scott, he did the only thing he could.
posted by Kyol at 9:31 AM on May 23, 2022


Thanks so much for that link, Halloween Jack. Turns out Moore disliked exactly the things in Voyager that I disliked. As he says, the problems all stemmed from the fact that the show was afraid to live up to its own premise.

Voyager was under a tremendous amount of studio pressure to be the new flagship Trek show since it was one of the launch shows for UPN. In hindsight, how could it not fail to live up to its premise?

Contrast it with DS9, which basically flew under the radar unmolested by suits.
posted by rhymedirective at 10:08 AM on May 23, 2022 [5 favorites]




It's a little wild that all these people are on the flagship of the Federation, but then again the bridge crew of the flagship during the Next Generation era consisted of a captain whose brain was literally rewired by the greatest antagonist the Federation has ever met, one of two known androids, the only Klingon in Starfleet (who is also, despite being an orphan raised by humans on Earth, a key player in the politics of the Federation's largest and most belligerant neighbor), a ship's counselor and first officer who are deeply telepathically bonded, and a child who seems to be the next step of human evolution.

The only reasonable explanation is that Starfleet's HR department has been disbanded because they can't call it "Human Resources" anymore and "Sentient Resources" sounds way too creepy even for the future.
posted by thecaddy at 11:13 AM on May 23, 2022 [15 favorites]


One of the things that I always sort of wanted to dig up during any episode where suspended animation would be a solution is that I'm pretty sure there were pre-warp human slowships that TNG encountered with crew and passengers deep in suspended animation.

It's literally what happened to Khan - he was in suspended animation. It's why, though I do like this episode, some of the connecting tissue isn't entirely thought through. I know Khan hasn't been found yet. But suspended animation is a thing in this universe and has been for a couple of hundred years at this point. Strange that Khan is name-checked in this episode discussion of genetic engineering but a whole other parallel is missed. (I'm not sure how you connect all the dots in this episode. This could be explored further later.)
posted by crossoverman at 6:11 PM on May 23, 2022 [1 favorite]


wow I am really digging this new show you guys

like sometimes it’s a bit goofy and Come On but also it’s not like nineties Trek wasn’t, and the balance feels about right. The serial elements being placed atop an episodic structure are pretty much what I’ve wanted out of Discovery for a minimum of two seasons now, and I am extremely here for it.

I enjoyed the foil to In the Pale Moonlight, not only with the same “delete log” move, but with the opposite emotional state: Sisko had acted unethically but could learn to live with it, as opposed to acting in the crew’s best interest but feeling a sense of guilt and disgust with the situation.

I really like this show! And not even in a Picard/Discovery “this was SO COMPETENT” sort of lowered-bar kind of way!
posted by DoctorFedora at 4:12 AM on May 24, 2022 [7 favorites]


Again, absolutely loving this - but having just finished The Expanse, the 'we've got Drummer at home' quality of La'an is KILLING me.
posted by Space Kitty at 1:43 PM on May 24, 2022 [10 favorites]


I'm enjoying this very much, after noping out of Picard after "the song" and Disco 3 eps into this season.
I did struggle with the ending to this one though, so help me out. Una got irradiated and her immune system went into overdrive which allowed Nurse Chapel to cure the infection, right? So why doesn't Una go into the warp core for another immune boost and have nurse Chapel cure the good doctor's daughter? I agree that storyline could use its own episode, but that ending seemed set up to give us the payoff.
posted by OHenryPacey at 9:32 PM on June 2, 2022


This one felt really messy. There were a bunch of petty annoyances -- they "take shelter" in a room with a giant window? Illyrians don't have bathrooms or basements? Una does not phaser La'an immediately but goes for hand to hand combat? -- as well as the other creaky bits pointed out above. And at least M'Benga and Una's backstories were more slightly tragic secrets than all out tragedy like Uhura and La'an.

But still, I like these people and I'm enjoying hanging out with them.
posted by tavella at 11:48 PM on June 21, 2022 [1 favorite]


but I did once walk into a hanging rig to which six hundred pounds of stage lighting was attached, contacting it at forehead level.

Ricochet Biscuit, were you, at that very moment, saying, "I know this theater like the back of my hand"?

I think I'm just going to assume you were.
posted by Naberius at 7:09 AM on July 14, 2022 [2 favorites]


Spock’s line “I am arming myself with knowledge” — love the spirit of this show! Staying earnest in ridiculous setup (crew gets addicted to light? sounds like a parody).
posted by brendano at 9:12 PM on July 14, 2022 [3 favorites]


She may have all the stigma with few (or none) of the actual benefits.

This is probably overly indicative of the diaspora group I came from, but I kept wondering, if her family got so much shit from their last name, why don't they change their last name?

But I still liked the episode! There's a lot of familiar, predictable stuff about this Trek, so it's nice that they "yes and" every predictable plot point, so the show never feels too obvious.
posted by grandiloquiet at 8:29 AM on July 15, 2022 [1 favorite]


This episode was chock-full of non-science: the colonists turning into sparklers because ions binded to their "presence"? "Chimeric antibodies" forming by near proximity to a cured person? I'm fine with that kind of technobabble, but seriously, the virus spreads with light? That's beyond technobabble- that's risible. You could EASILY say that viral enzymes that release endorphins are activated sub-dermally by light, or even better, that the virus binds with vitamin D and that's why the infected people craved light. I mean, TRY A LITTLE HARDER. There were so many places that a brief telephone call to a scientist would have fixed it.

I know they can't go back to the pathetic plasterboard sets of TOS Enterprise, but I really miss the shabbiness and random pipes and ladders of the old hallways, which seemed realistic to me (I work in a building from 1953 with random pipes and ladders and [until recently] asbestos fiberboard). And I would cry for a few of the old sound effects.

However, here's where I liked this new show: when Una tries to resign, she takes off her badge. Captain Pike refuses the resignation, picks up the badge, and HANDS IT TO HER. Yes! he did not try to pin it to her breast himself, the way Kirk would have.
posted by acrasis at 7:06 PM on April 10, 2023 [5 favorites]


The only reasonable explanation is that Starfleet's HR department has been disbanded because they can't call it "Human Resources" anymore

It's no flagship, but you're going to love the very very bad HR choices that led to the captain, xo, and navigator of Star Trek: Orville (which I just started).
posted by zippy at 1:05 PM on June 21, 2023


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