Star Trek

[andersonh1]

Edit: Strange New Worlds has a teaser for season four. It looks like they're going to do an episode where the cast is portrayed... by muppets. I don't know why they seem to think these types of gimmick episodes are a good idea. This isn't the sort of show Star Trek is.

I saw a comment on the puppet episode. "I remember when Star Trek used to be a serious sci-fi show for adults." I agree.

[Ursus mellifera]

Edit: Strange New Worlds has a teaser for season four. It looks like they're going to do an episode where the cast is portrayed... by muppets. I don't know why they seem to think these types of gimmick episodes are a good idea. This isn't the sort of show Star Trek is.

I saw a comment on the puppet episode. "I remember when Star Trek used to be a serious sci-fi show for adults." I agree.

Isn't this the kind of stuff that we had Lower Decks for? Why is this happening?

[Sparky Prime]

Edit: Strange New Worlds has a teaser for season four. It looks like they're going to do an episode where the cast is portrayed... by muppets. I don't know why they seem to think these types of gimmick episodes are a good idea. This isn't the sort of show Star Trek is.

I saw a comment on the puppet episode. "I remember when Star Trek used to be a serious sci-fi show for adults." I agree.

Isn't this the kind of stuff that we had Lower Decks for? Why is this happening?

Apparently showrunner Akiva Goldsman thinks they can just do whatever, as he told Variety: “As long as we’re in storytelling that is cogent and sure-handed, I’m not sure there is,” Goldsman said when asked if there was a genre the show couldn’t handle. “Could it do Muppets? Sure. Could it do black and white, silent, slapstick? Maybe!”

From what they teased at the comic-con panel, I guess they suggested they're going to "explain" the puppet episode as some sort of a transporter accident. Which, admittedly, the transporter has been used for some extraordinary plot devices before, but things like duplication, combination/splicing, de-aging, de-phasing, even cross dimensional or time travel... those sorts of things seems realistic for the transporter to be able to do, even if only possible under some extraordinary circumstances. But transforming the crew into puppets? Even if they explain them as being some sort of lifeform that simply resembles puppets, or however they try to justify it... I'm sorry, but no. This stretches the concept too far to me. It's obviously just for the sake of doing a silly story, not something cogent.

[Sparky Prime]

SNW - What is Starfleet?

Spoiler

This episode is presented as Beto Ortegas' documentary that he's been filming. Beto presents Starfleet as a military organization, and the Federation as a colonizer Empire. The Enterprise has been ordered to transport a Jikaru from Tychus-B to Lutani VII. For some reason, there's a bunch of classified details about this mission so information is need to know. Further complicating things, the Lutani helped the Klingons during the war, and they are currently at war with the Kasar. So the Jikaru, a giant space moth whale creature, is attacked by a Lutani scout ship, which sends out a huge pulse of radiation. Before dying, the Lutani tells the Enterprise what her people are planning is wrong. The Enterprise attempts to wrangle the creature, but are hit by another radiation pulse. They discover the control harness they were told would calm the creature is actually designed to turn the Jikaru into a weapon, and decide to talk to it instead. Spock, Uhura and Chapel take a shuttle to talk to it, but Spock and Chapel are injured when the Lutani war ship arrives. Uhura talks to the Jikaru instead, and the creature tells them it's realized it's a weapon and just wants to die now, and instructs the Enterprise to shoot at it to get it to follow them to the sun in the system. Pike tells the Lutani that the Federation will help them in other ways, but not with weaponized creatures, and they will be putting a quarantine on Tychus-B. that they wouldn't want the Federation as enemies. Uhura has come to understand Beto is angry at Starfleet whom he blames for taking his sister away from him and was injured.

This episode felt like it was focused on the wrong character, and once again, I have to ask what the writers have against writing an episode that focuses on Erica Ortegas. Instead, Beto talks to Uhura more than any other character, and while she helps him to understand his feelings for why he is attacking Starfleet with his documentary, we never see any sort of tension or resolution between him and Erica. At least they give Erica some backstory even if only tangentially. We do get to see she apparently likes to work on rebuilding motorcycles. Strangely, her workshop is her quarters. She and Beto's mom died, prompting Erica to join Starfleet, and giving yet another character a tragic backstory. Does anyone join Starfleet and have both parents alive?

Speaking of quarters... I feel like they're over using the same set. They used the set for a gym as well as weapons training range, and everyone has the same set for their quarters. With how many windows they've added to the saucer rim, I don't think there's enough to account for all these sets. Even on the Enterprise D, Data, Worf and La Forge all had quarters without windows.

Kinda feels like they're ripping off "Encounter at Farpoint" part 2 with this episode. Space creature is in trouble and Starfleet's not all bad because they figure it out and come to its rescue. Not sure why Starfleet Command classified so much of this mission though. The episode never gives any explanation for it, and it doesn't seem like the sort of mission that would need to be classified. Unless command knew that the Jikaru would be used as a weapon? Which would be a violation of the Prime Directive.... Why is Starfleet getting involved with the Lutani at all? It seems like that's why the writers went the classified route... so that they wouldn't have to explain these details.

Not sure how Uhura can just put a neural interface on and talk to the Jikaru. She mentioned she could feel it connect with her on the shuttle, I guess while it was connecting to Spock, but... Uhura is human. She shouldn't be able to talk to this creature like this.

The creature needing to be attacked in order to follow the Enterprise to the sun made no sense. If this creature wanted to just fly into the star, why did it need the Enterprise to guide it? Or attack it?

I thought the camera work in this episode was pretty interesting, being shot as flying drones and security camera footage. But some of the security camera placements seemed a little odd. Apparently every console, including on the captain's chair, have a built in camera.

[Sparky Prime]

SNW - Four-and-a-Half Vulcans

Spoiler

Enterprise is about to go on shoreleave when then Vulcan High Command requests they help out with a situation on the planet Tezaar. Hundreds of years ago, the Vulcans helped out by giving the inhabitants nuclear power technology, which is now malfunctioning. Being a pre-warp civilization that's only had contact with Vulcans, only Vulcans are allowed contact due to the Prime Directive. But, despite being pre-warp, their scanning technology is very advanced, the crew can't simply look Vulcan. So Pike, Uhura, La'an and Chapel take the Kherkovian serum previously used on Spock so that they can become fully Vulcan and (because they are now super efficient Vulcans) are able to fix the reactor within minutes of beaming down. Returning to the ship, the serum to restore them to human doesn't work. The Enterprise returns to Purmantee III for shoreleave, while Pike, Uhura, Chapel and La'an remain on the ship until Chapel can fix the serum. Only, even once the serum is ready, they all decide to remain Vulcan. Una calls in an ex of hers, a Vulcan katra expert named Doug. Pike, Uhura and Chapel are all restored, but La'an needs a little extra convincing from Spock.

What happened to this season? It feels like they turned this show into a bad parody of Star Trek. Obviously, the writers were going for yet another silly episode here, but it completely missed the target IMO.

The situation on Tezaar doesn't make any sense. Even prior to the Federation and the Prime Directive, the Vulcans had rules not to make contact with pre-warp civilizations. So why did they with Tezaar? Why would they give a pre-warp civilization technology? That runs counter to everything we saw in Enterprise. Why were Vulcans the only ones allowed to visit? They've never had a clause in the Prime Directive that said a civilization can only meet one alien species at a time. Most of the time, Starfleet crews have multiple races part of the team. Ultimately, it didn't even matter to the plot, seeing as they fixed it in literally seconds. It was just a convoluted method to turn several of the crew into Vulcans.

Thing is... they come off as caricatures of Vulcans. Well, except for La'an, who for some reason they made a Romulan. Something she and Pike even point out, but then refuse to talk about it because their knowledge of Romulans came from time travel. I could go into length about all the problems here, but Pike I'd say was the worst portrayal of the group. For some examples, he had a habit of talking too loud, or robotic, or getting right up in someone's face to talk to them, none of which are traits that Vulcans do. He implemented a 45 minute shift rotation, at which point I wondered why the crew didn't start talking about relieving him of command. He took a lirpa down to Tezaar with him for no reason... They try to hand wave their behavior with a line that the serum was based on Spock's "perceived experiences". How does a serum to alter someone's genetics also give them the "perceived experiences"? Vulcan's aren't like the Goa'uld from the Stargate franchise whose memories can be transferred genetically. Also doesn't explain why the transformation changed their hair styles and makeup.

James Kirk visits the Enterprise, yet again, saying the Farragut is still under repair nearby. As first officer, shouldn't he be overseeing the repairs? Felt totally unnecessary for him to be on the Enterprise in this episode. He introduces Scotty to scotch. As I've said before I hate this sort of prequel writing. Do we need the origin story for Scotty's drink of choice? Why can't he simply be a Scotsman who enjoys his scotch? I appreciate we get to Kirk him forming his friendships with his future crew, but while this is somewhat more natural than how the 2009 film handled it, this still feels somewhat forced.

I liked Patton Oswalt as the Vulcan named Doug. But again, I don't think the writers understood Vulcans enough to write this character. His past (current?) relationship with Una seemed forced and over the top. For his family being obsessed with humans and their culture, hence the human name, he doesn't seem to know much about humans. He tells Spock he wished he was half human like him, despite Spock saying Vulcans see it as only logical to be Vulcan, hence why the crew didn't want to be human again. Doug says as a full Vulcan he's incapable of lies, even though we know that's not true. Spock tries to teach him contractions in a post-credits scene, even though Data is the only character that had trouble with contractions...

Not sure why they needed a katra expert to help convince the crew to become human again, I would have thought reconnecting to their humanity would have been the key, not messing around with their Vulcan soul. Not sure the writers knew how to backpaddle this either, because it's handled almost entirely off screen. Pike, Uhura and Chapel all get convinced to become human again, we don't see any of it. All we see is a little bit of La'an talking with Spock, which turns into a fight, which becomes a dance, and somehow that's what convinces her to turn human again.

[Sparky Prime]

SNW - Terrarium

Spoiler

Ortegas goes on a solo mission to investigate some mysterious gravity waves (necessitating the crew minimize the mass on the shuttle for the mission) when her shuttle encounters a wormhole and she's forced to crash land on a moon orbiting a gas giant on the other side. Enterprise is up against the clock to save her, as they are meant to depart to meet up with the Constellation to deliver a vaccine. Ortegas finds her emergency rations are destroyed, but is able to build a device to get water from the atmosphere. She's forced to leave the shuttle looking for food, and encounters a shelter of another survivor... which turns out to be a Gorn. The two briefly struggle when it turns out the Gorn saves her from a local centipede-type creature, and gives her a portion of it to eat. Still not trusting the Gorn, Ortegas steals the Gorn's transmitter, but her shuttle is swallowed up after a tremor, and the Gorn once again saves her from the local creatures, but is injured as a result. But now trusting the Gorn, Ortegas helps tend to the injury and converts her tricorder into a rudimentary universal translator that can answer yes or no, which is fine because the Gorn understands English perfectly, and the two begin to bond. Uhura convinces Pike to use the Enterprise to keep the wormhole from collapsing, but they quickly find they don't have time to scan all of the planetoids. Ortegas comes up with a plan to set the atmosphere on fire using a thruster from the Gorn's escape pod, allowing Enterprise to find them. La'an immediately kills the Gorn, and a Metron freezes time to have a private conversation with Ortegas. He tells her it was an interesting experiment to put the two species together, but humans aren't ready to meet the Metron yet given La'an violent reaction to the Gorn. He tells Ortegas that she wont remember this conversation and allows the away team to leave.

Finally, an Ortegas focused episode that deals with something besides the fact she flies the ship! Unfortunately, it's a character development they only introduced earlier this season. The bones of the story is good, as it's a story we've seen done several times in Star Trek before, two stranded enemies work together to survive. But those episodes were better written...

Ortegas was set up to have PTSD following her last encounter with the Gorn at the start of this season. But yet, I never felt like she has PTSD in this episode. Understandably, she mistrusts the Gorn at first, but she gets over it way too quickly. Similarly, the Gorn in this episode is nothing like the Gorn we've seen throughout this series. They've been nothing more than monsters, like the xenomorphs from the Alien franchise so it's a little jarring to see one suddenly so relatable. Also, find it too convenient the Gorn can understand English without a translator, which they just handwave away that they learned it to understand their enemy. Not sure what happened to the idea the Gorn communicate through flashing lights they established earlier in the series.

I don't understand why they had to strip down the shuttle to only essential equipment. They explain because of the gravity waves, every ounce counted, but... why? Conveniently, it seemed like the only thing they actually took out was a co-pilot and a phaser. Actually, why send the shuttle at all? If all they were doing was dropping a probe, they could have launched it from Enterprise. They ended up doing exactly that when they launched several into the wormhole looking for Ortegas. Also not sure why the writers felt they needed to add that they had to go help deliver vaccines. The wormhole collapsing was enough of a ticking clock. Seems like they would have prioritized the vaccine mission that couldn't wait over investigating some gravity waves that could wait...

I think the episode should have established some sort of time differential between the two sides of the wormhole. It felt to me like Ortegas spent days or maybe weeks trapped, but on the Enterprise it seemed like a few hours. I'm not sure if that was intentional or not as the episode never addressed this apparent discrepancy.

It bothered me how Pike didn't even reprimand Uhura when she admitted she fudged the probability of successfully using the Enterprise to save Ortegas. He even says he already knew she fudged the numbers and that he would have done it anyway. It's become a theme that Pike allows the crew to get away with everything in this series. Sure, he had to take the chance to save Ortegas, but when it comes to putting the whole ship and crew in danger to save one person.... That really should be more of a conversation, not something easily overlooked.

How is there breathable atmosphere on the moon Ortegas crashed on? There is no atmospheric scattering shown, suggesting a lack of any atmosphere. Yet, Ortegas has no problems breathing. And then it turns out to be extremely flammable, suggesting gasses more volatile than oxygen. And on that note... Why did Ortegas think setting the atmosphere on fire was a good idea? Sure, she needed to find a way to signal Enterprise (despite she had no idea if they'd found a way to safely transvers the wormhole) Even if she thought they could survive the fire storm, wouldn't that burn up all the oxygen as well? It's implied with the blue glow that the Metron stepped in to save them but still...

Speaking of the Metron, their inclusion felt unnecessarily tacked onto the episode, especially since they just erase the whole conversation from Otegas memory anyway. And they decide to test humans and the Gorn interactions again in what, another 5 or 6 years, when "Arena" takes place? That seems like an unrealistically short time for the Metron to expect humans to change. Usually aliens in Star Trek are like: "check back in a few centuries" in these sorts of situations. The Metron also says someday they may need to reset human perception of the Gorn. I'm not sure if this is "foreshadowing" the events of "Arena", or if they mean they're just going to erase all humans memory of their encounters with the Gorn prior to that. Which would be the laziest prequel writing to just side step all the continuity problems they've created.

[Ursus mellifera]

SNW - Terrarium

Spoiler

Ortegas goes on a solo mission to investigate some mysterious gravity waves (necessitating the crew minimize the mass on the shuttle for the mission) when her shuttle encounters a wormhole and she's forced to crash land on a moon orbiting a gas giant on the other side. Enterprise is up against the clock to save her, as they are meant to depart to meet up with the Constellation to deliver a vaccine. Ortegas finds her emergency rations are destroyed, but is able to build a device to get water from the atmosphere. She's forced to leave the shuttle looking for food, and encounters a shelter of another survivor... which turns out to be a Gorn. The two briefly struggle when it turns out the Gorn saves her from a local centipede-type creature, and gives her a portion of it to eat. Still not trusting the Gorn, Ortegas steals the Gorn's transmitter, but her shuttle is swallowed up after a tremor, and the Gorn once again saves her from the local creatures, but is injured as a result. But now trusting the Gorn, Ortegas helps tend to the injury and converts her tricorder into a rudimentary universal translator that can answer yes or no, which is fine because the Gorn understands English perfectly, and the two begin to bond. Uhura convinces Pike to use the Enterprise to keep the wormhole from collapsing, but they quickly find they don't have time to scan all of the planetoids. Ortegas comes up with a plan to set the atmosphere on fire using a thruster from the Gorn's escape pod, allowing Enterprise to find them. La'an immediately kills the Gorn, and a Metron freezes time to have a private conversation with Ortegas. He tells her it was an interesting experiment to put the two species together, but humans aren't ready to meet the Metron yet given La'an violent reaction to the Gorn. He tells Ortegas that she wont remember this conversation and allows the away team to leave.

Finally, an Ortegas focused episode that deals with something besides the fact she flies the ship! Unfortunately, it's a character development they only introduced earlier this season. The bones of the story is good, as it's a story we've seen done several times in Star Trek before, two stranded enemies work together to survive. But those episodes were better written...

I admit I apparently like Enemy Mine regardless of what franchise does it. I really liked this episode.

[Sparky Prime]

I admit I apparently like Enemy Mine regardless of what franchise does it. I really liked this episode.

The Enemy Mine style Star Trek episodes I'd agree are generally among the best. Like I said, I thought the bones of this episodes story was good. I'd say it was probably the best episode of this season. I'm just saying I think they could have tightened up the script, because I don't think it was as good as previous Star Trek series take on this type of story.

[Sparky Prime]

SNW - New Life and New Civilizations

Spoiler

Dr. Korby is studying the culture of the planet Skygowan, where he discovers the possessed Nurse Gamble is being worshiped by them. Elsewhere, Enterprise discovers the Vezda that had been trapped in the sickbay transporter has escaped, having somehow recreated Gamble's body from inside the buffer and used... interdimensional ley lines to leave the ship, but don't know where he went. They loose contact with Dr. Korby's transponder, and deciding it's not a coincidence, go to Skygowan. They discover a gateway describing an event that happened to M'Benga as a child, which means only can open it, which then transports him and Gamble to the prison on Vadia IX. Gamble attacks the statue, which also effects Captain Batel. Turns out she is the statue because of inverted causality. Having combined the DNA of human, Gorn and Illyrian to save her life she speculates has unlocked genetic traits inherent to all species to fight the pure evil of the Vezda. Needing to follow M'Benga and Gamble, but unable to open the gateway, they call up Kirk so the Enterprise and Farragut can combine their phasers to power the gateway portal. This requires Kirk and Spock to mind meld to coordinate the two ships into perfect sync. Pike and Batel arrive at Vadia IX and face off against Gamble, but first, Pike and Batel experience the rest of their lives together. Gamble destroys the statue, releasing the Vezda, but Batel effortlessly dissolves Gamble's body and she merges with the Vezda, recreating the statue. Korby gives Chapel some data on planets he uncovered as he departs Enterprise, which is enough for a 5 year mission.

I get the impression the writers weren't sure if they were getting another season when they wrote this episode. This felt like it was written to be a rushed series finale rather than a season finale.

The episode starts out with Batel beaming onto the Enterprise, as they celebrate her first week as the new Director of Starfleet JAG. And I just have to mention this because it bugs me they don't show another ship, or planet, or anything near the Enterprise. It's sitting in empty space. Where did Batel beam to the Enterprise from?

I like that Scotty shows up to the crew dinner in his dress uniform, a callback to when they did the same thing to Uhura in season 1's "Children of the Comet". At the dinner, Pelia references having traveled with a time trav... traveling Doctor, which seems to be a reference to Dr. Who. The Tardis did show up in an earlier episode this season, parked on a nacelle when the Enterprise was captured in "The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail". I assume this was just meant as a silly Easter egg, but there was some talk of a Star Trek/Dr. Who crossover at comic-con as I recall, although nothing seemed to come of it. Frankly, I'm not a fan of the idea. Dr. Who is more fantasy than Star Trek is... Well is supposed to be.

I wasn't a fan of how "Through the Lens of Time" earlier this season suggested evil existed, as if evil is a tangible thing. I was hoping, since they really hadn't explored the Vezda in that episode, that it was a lack of information and understanding. Unfortunately, this episode continued with this idea that the Vezda are evil incarnate that apparently existed before everything else, and it doesn't work for me. Batel becomes the Beholder, champion of good against evil because apparently all life is genetically programmed to fight evil. So... why would combining human, Gorn and Illyrian DNA give her super powers? And turns her into a statue, because... destiny? I don't know, none of this made any sense. Their attempts to explain any of it was extremely thin and not based in any actual science.

Speaking of... It bothered me that they said Gamble used ley lines to leave the Enterprise. Ley lines are essentially a belief that invisible lines of mystical/spiritual energies connect various natural landmarks around the globe. It's not a concept based in science at all.

Once again, we see Pike and Kirk talking face to face. I find it so strange they went out of their way to adhere to canon in terms of Kirk saying he only met Pike once in TOS, only to subsequently completely ignore it. Also odd they called Kirk directly to ask the Farragut for help, rather than its Captain.

I thought it was interesting how Kirk and Spock mind-melded in order to get the two ships to be perfectly in-sync, although I didn't buy their reasoning for why the computer couldn't do it. I guess this explains why they were such close friends throughout Star Trek, although I feel this is a contrived way to develop it. It also breaks things, because now Kirk should know everything Spock knows... Yet in the future, Kirk doesn't know about Sybok?

The power of the ships phasers is half that of the output of the Sun's energy? That's... impossible. The Sun produces around 3.86 x 10²⁶ watts per second. An episode of TNG ("True Q") established the warp core, at the time, was generating about 12.75 billion gigawatts. There's no figure I can find for the phasers specifically, but if the warp core doesn't even produce anywhere close to half the Sun's output... I have to wonder where the writers got this idea from. At any rate, I'm pretty sure that much power concentrated into the back of the portal would destroy it, regardless of their synchronization. Would have been nice if they built a device or something to direct the energy into the portal rather than literally just shooting the thing.

The fight between Batel and Gamble was extremely anti-climatic. Every shot Gamble took to the statue hurts her, but then he destroys the thing outright and it didn't effect her at all, and she just destroys him like it was nothing. I did kinda like the "Inner Light" moment Batel shares with Pike, but it jumped into it and skipped forward in time so quick that I don't think it landed as well as it could.

At the end of the episode Uhura says "Hailing frequencies open Captain"... It just struck me as really odd and random. Despite the bridge crew having a casual conversation, they were in a professional setting on the bridge with everyone at their stations, so I expected that statement to be taken literally, so for a second I was confused as to what she was talking about.

The data Korby gave Chapel about planets to explore was unnecessary, and La'an saying it's enough for a 5 year mission was cringe worthy. We don't need an origin story explaining why the Enterprise is on a 5 year mission of exploration in TOS. The galaxy is a BIG place, and the 5 year mission format is just the standard time frame Starfleet uses in the 23rd century. Heck, the reason why the Enterprise wasn't involved in the Federation-Klingon War in Discovery was because they were ordered to stay on their 5 year mission of exploration.

What happened in the writers room this season? I know the strikes caused delays during production... but they said they'd locked in the stories of these episodes prior to the writers strike. Too many of the episodes this season were based around some sort of gimmick, and frankly, just were not well written. I'm actually surprised by the quality of the writing in this season because of how bad it was overall.