Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

[DrNewGod]

I'm in the I-don't-care-what-anybody-says-it's-an-alternate-u camp, and I'm okay with what we're getting. This one was a bit over the top, but had some fun to it. Don't know about the rest of you, but I've been Spock-in-the-loo at a family gathering or thirty.

[ChrisIII]

So apart from the Lower Decks episode there's going to be something involving Klingons.

Possibly episode 8, "Under the cloak of war".

Wonder if that title is literal and involves a cloaking device. Would be kind of interesting if it explains why the Klingons stopped using them in TOS, only to start again in the movies (left over from TSFS's earlier drafts having the BOP being a stolen Romulan one)

For a while it was 'fanon' that the Klingons did get the tech from the Romulans in exchange for loaning them D7 cruiser tech (as we see in Enterprise Incident) but now it seems they had it earlier.


Ds9 mentions that Kor used cloaking technology but it wasn't very good and the encounter (especially since it was an open battle between Klingons and Federation ships) could easily have taken place during the Discovery conflict, especially since Kor was using an older ship class (D5s, seen on Enterprise).

[ChrisIII]

Poor Jim. Manages to get a difficult lecture about his father, an awkward first meeting with Uhura, and a busted nose within moments in both universes.

[CaptCleghorn]

Just saw Lost in Translation, season 2 episode 6.

The A plot was an Uhura story. Granted a very basic Trek plot which most Trekkies (Trekkers) will understand almost immediately but the characters need to discover. And the gold shirt elephant in the room, James Tiberus Kirk. Spoiler alert, spoilers:

Kirk and Uhura do eventually kiss.

end of spoilers

And now, I shall ramble on about fitting this into canon. SNW is a 21st century show with current storytelling techniques and visual effects. It's meant to fit in between an early 1960s pilot and a mid 1960s TV show, each with their current effects and a more limited budget. There is no flawless way to fit this in like a jigsaw puzzle piece. Obviously SNW is meant to fit into the period between The Cage and Where No Man Has Gone Before. The heavy focus on Pike's accident in Menagerie showed this. But back to Kirk.

In TOS, Jim Kirk had a love affair with the Enterprise. Was it due to it being his first command or is he developing that fixation during the SNW timeframe? Personally, I wasn't overly thrilled with Kirk's role(s) in this show, but damn, there were warm fuzzies when characters met for the first time. Still, this is (or IMO, SHOULD be) far more of its own show rather than a TOS prequel. I mean, sure, a Pelia/Scotty meeting, the intro of McCoy, or a comparison of Ortegas and Sulu would all tickle my fanboy bones (pun intended as it is logical). Pelia, Ortegas, and Una all deserve their own stories and shouldn't be seen as seat warmers for the TOS crew.

And even with a bigger focus on SNW's independence questions arise. The development of Spapel. The fact that both Spock and Kirk now know Khan's descendant was the previous head of security. Maybe that could have been an off screen development much like Khan noticing Chekov. But Spapel will need a lot of work to fit into TOS.

I really like this show. It has for me a nice balance between prequel and its own thing, but the questions do arise.

Looking forward to next week's crossover. Wait, didn't we kinda just have a crossover?

[Powerboy]

Dang! I thought the Lower Decks crossover was this week and started out thinking Uhura hearing things was going to lead to that.

Great seeing first meetings of some of these characters. I must identify more with Sam Kirk because I was "fascinated" (pun intended) with the idea that, when these "higher" life forms enter three-dimensional space, they tap matter and energy from "our" reality to form bodies- or maybe I read more into it than was there.

Would this episode be the first encounter with a non-corporeal life form if we count retcons? I guess it would be the Thalasians from "Charlie X" in real continuity?

It's funny because I think we got more background on Uhura in this episode than we got in the entire original series. I don't think it was intentional on the writer's part but there was a scene where I kind of took Uhura to be saying: Yes! I am real! I have a background! I have events in my life! I'm a real person! That sort of happened in one or two scenes with Uhura in TOS but the supporting cast was never allowed to shine like this.

My one annoyance was that I spent the whole episode hoping there would be an in-story reason for the narrator. Maybe it was part of the "hallucinations" or the aliens perceive everything in three-dimensional space as a fictional story. But, no. It was just a fourth wall breaking technique to add some humor to the story. But, for me, outside of comedy, breaking the fourth wall does nothing but make the story feel less real.

[Powerboy]

Poor Jim. Manages to get a difficult lecture about his father, an awkward first meeting with Uhura, and a busted nose within moments in both universes.

LOL. I like this take on Kirk. I can see him doing a Starlog: "Must remember to not remember that I met La'an and knew exactly who Khan was. When I meet Khan, must remember to struggle to vaguely know who he was. Also, upon meeting a gorn in person in this fight, must remember to pretend I have never heard of them before."

But at least this isn't like the Star Wars prequels where there was far more to criticize than the continuity. SNW hammers the social issues just as TOS did and is 50+ years more advanced in its storytelling, with characters that are far more fleshed out, especially the supporting cast.

[ChrisIII]

The pan out at the end with the door closing seemed a bit of an odd choice.

I might be reaching a bit here but could be a partial nod to EVENT HORIZON? Although far darker, that film also involved horrific hallucinations, including a bad accident and somebody who is driven insane by them blown out into space, although here it was obviously meant as something a bit more 'friendly'.


Kind of interesting thing about zombie Hemmer, the director of this episode did a few "Walking Dead" episodes in addition to other Treks.

[CaptCleghorn]

The pan out at the end with the door closing seemed a bit of an odd choice.

I might be reaching a bit here but could be a partial nod to EVENT HORIZON? Although far darker, that film also involved horrific hallucinations, including a bad accident and somebody who is driven insane by them blown out into space, although here it was obviously meant as something a bit more 'friendly'.


Kind of interesting thing about zombie Hemmer, the director of this episode did a few "Walking Dead" episodes in addition to other Treks.

I took the finish to acknowledge the MAJOR event that just occurred and took the time to back away slowly so as to emphasize its importance without filling it with details.

[ChrisIII]

Any opinions on the "fleet captain" thing?

Wonder if this will mean they won't meet again until Pike gives him the keys.

[Anthony W]

Finally, a good episode. Was the band playing at Club Delta™ made up of crew members? They kind of have to be right? It's going to be quite the blow to morale when that club closes.

[Grunty]

So apart from the Lower Decks episode there's going to be something involving Klingons.

Possibly episode 8, "Under the cloak of war".

Wonder if that title is literal and involves a cloaking device. Would be kind of interesting if it explains why the Klingons stopped using them in TOS, only to start again in the movies (left over from TSFS's earlier drafts having the BOP being a stolen Romulan one)

For a while it was 'fanon' that the Klingons did get the tech from the Romulans in exchange for loaning them D7 cruiser tech (as we see in Enterprise Incident) but now it seems they had it earlier.

Ds9 mentions that Kor used cloaking technology but it wasn't very good and the encounter (especially since it was an open battle between Klingons and Federation ships) could easily have taken place during the Discovery conflict, especially since Kor was using an older ship class (D5s, seen on Enterprise).

Perhaps it's revealed the "Klingons" (sorry still can't take those designs serious) from the beginning of Discovery were supplied with cloaking devices by the Romulans to help jumpstart the Klingon/Federation war.

Which would certainly be in character for the romulans, especially after the Earth/Romulan.

So maybe the cloaking devices the Klingons have are in limited supply and now they try to reverse engineer them. Leading to the unreliable one Kor had?

[G. Boney]

My one annoyance was that I spent the whole episode hoping there would be an in-story reason for the narrator. Maybe it was part of the "hallucinations" or the aliens perceive everything in three-dimensional space as a fictional story. But, no. It was just a fourth wall breaking technique to add some humor to the story. But, for me, outside of comedy, breaking the fourth wall does nothing but make the story feel less real.

Huh? What narrator? Sounds like you watched a copy with audio descriptions for the sight impaired.

[Powerboy]

Huh? What narrator? Sounds like you watched a copy with audio descriptions for the sight impaired.

In the version you saw, there wasn't someone narrating throughout the episode? That was what streamed when I watched it on Paramount+ and it never did that before.

[G. Boney]

In the version you saw, there wasn't someone narrating throughout the episode? That was what streamed when I watched it on Paramount+ and it never did that before.

Nope.

______

[80sbaby]

Me either. Powerboy must have had on something for the hearing impaired.